Tony Butler

“And why was I told that your presence would be protection?”

“Because, sir, if it should fail to be, it is that no other man’s in Europe could be such.”

“I ‘ll not turn back, if you mean that,” said Skeff, boldly; and for the first time on the journey M’Caskey turned round and took a leisurely survey of his companion.

“You are, I hope, satisfied with my personal appearance,” said Skeff, insolently.

“Washy, washy,” said M’Caskey, dryly; “but I have met two or three of the same stamp who had pluck.”

“The freedom of your tongue, sir, inclines me very considerably to doubt yours.”

M’Caskey made a bound on his seat, and threw his cigar through the window, while he shouted to the postilion to stop.

“Why should he stop?” asked Skeff.

“Let us settle this at once; we ‘ll take each of us one of the carriage lamps and fire at the word three. One – two – three! Stop, I say.”

“No, sir; I shall hold myself at your orders, time and place fitting, but I ‘ll neither shoot nor be shot at like a brigand.”

“I have travelled with many men, but in my long and varied experience, I never saw a fellow so full of objections. You oppose everything. Now I mean to go asleep; have you anything against that, and what is it?”

“Nothing, – nothing whatever!” muttered Skeff, who for the first time heard words of comfort from his companion’s lips.

Poor Skeff! is it too much to say that, if you had ever imagined the possibility of such a fellow-traveller, you would have thought twice ere you went on this errand of friendship? Perhaps it might be unfair to allege so much; but unquestionably, if his ardor were not damped, his devotion to his friend was considerably disturbed by thoughts of himself and his own safety.

Where could this monster have come from? What land could have given him birth? What life had he led? How could a fellow of such insolent pretensions have escaped being flayed alive ere he reached the age he looked to be?

Last of all, was it in malice and out of malevolence that Filangieri had given him this man as his guide, well knowing what their companionship must end in? This last suspicion, reassuring so far, as it suggested dreams of personal importance, rallied him a little, and at last he fell asleep.

The hours of the night rolled over thus; and just as the dawn was breaking the calèche rattled into the ruinous old piazza of Nocera. Early as it was, the market-place was full of people, amongst whom were many soldiers, with or without arms, but, evidently, under no restraint of discipline, and, to all seeming, doubtful and uncertain what to do.

Aroused from his sleep by the sudden stoppage of the carriage, M’Caskey rubbed his eyes and looked out. “What is all this?” cried he. “Who are these fellows I see here in uniform? What are they?”

“Part of Cardarelli’s brigade, your Excellency,” said a café-keeper who had come to the carriage to induce the travellers to alight. “General Cardarelli has surrendered Soveria to Garibaldi, and his men have dispersed.”

“And is there no officer in command here to order these fellows into arrest?” cried M’Caskey, as he sprang out of the carriage into the midst of them. “Fall in!” shouted he, in a voice of thunder; “fall in, and be silent: the fellow who utters a word I ‘ll put a bullet through.”

If the first sight of the little fellow thus insolently issuing his orders might have inspired laughter, his fierce look, his flashing eye, his revolver in hand, and his coat blazing with orders, speedily overcame such a sentiment, and the disorderly rabble seemed actually stunned into deference before him.

“What!” cried he, “are you deserters? Is it with an enemy in front that I find you here? Is it thus that you show these civilians what stuff soldiers are made of?” There was not a degrading epithet, not a word of infamous reproach, he did not hurl at them. They were Vili! Birbanti!

Ladri! Malandrini! Codardi! They had dishonored their fathers and mothers, and wives and sweethearts. They had degraded the honor of the soldier, and the Virgin herself was ashamed of them. “Who laughs there? Let him come out to the front and laugh here!” cried he. And now, though a low murmur little indicative of mirth ran through the crowd, strange to say, the men began to slink away, at first one by one, then in groups and parties, so that in very few minutes the piazza was deserted, save by a few of the townsfolk, who stood there half terrified, half fascinated, by the daring insolence of this diminutive hero.

Though his passion seemed almost choking him, he went on with a wonderful fluency to abuse the whole nation. They were brigands for three centuries, and brigands they would be for thirty more, if Providence would not send an earthquake to swallow them up, and rid the world of such rascals. He scoffed at them, he jeered them; he told them that the few Sicilians that followed Garibaldi would make slaves of the whole kingdom, taking from the degenerate cowards of Calabria wives, daughters, home, and households; and it was only when the last straggler shuffled slowly away, and he stood alone in the square, that he would consent to re-enter the carriage and pursue his journey.

“I ‘ll know every face amongst them if I meet them again,” said he to Skeffy, “and it will be an evil day for the scoundrels when that time comes.” His wrath continued during the entire stage, and never flagged in its violence till they reached a cluster of poor cabins, around which a guard of soldiers was stationed. Here they were refused a further passage, since at Mauro, three miles further on, Melani, with a force of three thousand men and some guns, held the pass against the Garibaldians. M’Caskey was not long in explaining who he was, nor, indeed, very modest in proclaiming his personal importance; and the subaltern, with every show of deference to such greatness, detached a corporal of his guard to accompany them to the General’s quarters. The General was asleep when they reached Mauro; he had been, they said, “up all night,” but they did not add it was in the celebration of an orgie, in which the festivities were more classic than correct. M’Caskey, however, learned that at about five miles in front, Garibaldi’s advanced guard was posted, and that Garibaldi himself had ridden up and reconnoitred their position on the evening before.

“We expect to be attacked by noon,” said the officer, in a tone the very reverse of hopeful or encouraging.

“You can hold this pass against twenty thousand,” said M’Caskey.

“We shall not try,” said the other. “Why should we be the only men to get cut to pieces?”

The ineffable scorn of the little Colonel as he turned away was not lost on the other; but he made no reply to it, and retired. “We are to have an escort as far as Ravello; after that we are to take care of ourselves; and I own to you I think we shall be all the safer when we get out of the reach of his Majesty’s defenders.”

“There,” cried the Sergeant who acted as their guard, – “there, on that rock yonder, are the Reds. I’ll go no further.”

And as they looked they saw a small group of red-shirted fellows lying or lounging on a small cliff which rose abruptly over a stream crossed by a wooden bridge. Attaching his handkerchief to his walking-stick, M’Caskey stepped out boldly. Skeffy followed; they reached the bridge, and crossed it, and stood within the lines of the Garibaldians. A very young, almost boyish-looking, officer met them, heard their story, and with much courtesy told them that he would send one of his men to conduct them to head-quarters. “You will not find the General there,” said he, smiling; “he’s gone on in that direction;” and he pointed, as he spoke, towards Naples.

Skeff asked eagerly if the young officer had ever heard of Tony Butler, and described with ardor the handsome face and figure of his friend. The other believed he had seen him. There was, he knew, a giovane Irlandese who was wounded at Melazzo, and, if he was not mistaken, wounded again about four days back at Lauria. “All the wounded are at Salerno, however,” said he, carelessly, “and you are sure to find him amongst them.”

CHAPTER LVI. THE HOSPITAL AT CAVA

Had Skeff been in any mood for mirth, he might have enjoyed as rich drollery the almost inconceivable impertinence of his companion, who scrutinized everything, and freely distributed his comments around him, totally regardless that he stood in the camp of the enemy, and actually surrounded by men whose extreme obedience to discipline could scarcely be relied on.

“Uniformity is certainly not studied here,” cried M’Cas-key, as he stared at a guard about to be detached on some duty; “three fellows have gray trousers; two, blue, one a sort of canvas petticoat; and I see only one real coat in the party.”

A little further on he saw a group of about a dozen lying on the grass smoking, with their arms in disorderly fashion about, and he exclaimed, “How I ‘d like to surprise those rascals, and make a swoop down here with two or three companies of Cacciatori! Look at their muskets; there has n’t been one of them cleaned for a month.

“Here they are at a meal of some sort. Well, men won’t fight on beans and olive oil. My Irish fellows are the only devils can stand up on roots.”

These comments were all delivered in Italian, and listened to with a sort of bewildered astonishment, as though the man who spoke them must possess some especial and peculiar privilege to enable him to indulge so much candor.

“That’s not a knapsack,” said he, kicking a soldier’s pack that he saw on the grass; “that’s more like a travelling tinker’s bundle. Open it, and let’s see the inside!” cried he to the owner, who, awed by the tone of command, immediately obeyed; and M’Caskey ridiculed the shreds and patches of raiment, the tattered fragments of worn apparel, in which fragments of cheese and parcels of tobacco were rolled up. “Why, the fellows have not even risen to the dignity of pillage,” said he. “I was sure we should have found some saintly ornament or a piece of the Virgin’s petticoat among their wares.”

With all this freedom, carried to the extreme of impertinence, none molested, none ever questioned them; and as the guide had accidentally chanced upon some old friends by the way, he told M’Caskey that they had no further need of him; that the road lay straight before them, and that they would reach Cava in less than an hour.

At Cava they found the same indifference. They learned that Garibaldi had not come up, though some said he had passed on with a few followers to Naples, and others maintained that he had sent to the King of Naples to meet him at Salerno to show him the inutility of all resistance, and offer him a safe-conduct out of the kingdom. Leaving M’Caskey in the midst of these talkers, and not, perhaps, without some uncharitable wish that the gallant Colonel’s bad tongue would involve him in serious trouble, Skeffy slipped away to inquire after Tony.

Every one seemed to know that there was a brave Irlandese, – a daring fellow who had shown himself in the thick of every fight; but the discrepant accounts of his personal appearance and looks were most confusing. Tony was fair-haired, and yet most of the descriptions represented a dark man, with a bushy black beard and moustache. At all events, he was lying wounded at the convent of the Cappuccini, on a hill about a mile from the town; and Father Pantaleo – Garibaldi’s Vicar, as he was called – offered his services to show him the way. The Frate – a talkative little fellow, with a fringe of curly dark-brown hair around a polished white head – talked away, as they went, about the war, and Garibaldi, and the grand future that lay before Italy, when the tyranny of the Pope should be overthrown, and the Church made as free – and, indeed, he almost said as easy – as any jovial Christian could desire.

Skeffy, by degrees, drew him to the subject nearest his own heart at the moment, and asked about the wounded in hospital. The Frate declared that there was nothing very serious the matter with any of them. He was an optimist. Some died, some suffered amputations, some were torn by shells or grape-shot. But what did it signify? as he said. It was a great cause they were fighting for, and they all agreed it was a pleasure to shed one’s blood for Italy. “As for the life up there,” said he, pointing to the convent, “it is a vita da Santi, – the ‘life of saints themselves.’”

“Do you know my friend Tony the Irlandese?” asked Skeff, eagerly.

“If I know him! Per Bacco! I think I know him. I was with him when he had his leg taken off.”

Skeff’s heart sickened at this terrible news, and he could barely steady himself by catching the Fra’s arm. “Oh, my poor dear Tony,” cried he, as the tears ran down his face, – “my poor fellow!”

“Why did you pity him? Garibaldi gave him his own sword, and made him an officer on the day of the battle. It was up at Calanzaro, so that he ‘s nearly well now.”

Skeff poured in innumerable questions, – how the mischance occurred, and where; how he bore up under the dreadful operation; in what state he then was; if able to move about, and how? And as the Fra was one of those who never confessed himself unable to answer anything, the details he obtained were certainly of the fullest and most circumstantial.

“He’s always singing; that’s how he passes his time,” said the Frate.

“Singing! how strange! I never knew him to sing. I never heard him even hum a tune.”

“You ‘ll hear him now, then. The fellows about curse at him half the day to be silent, but he does n’t mind them, but sings away. The only quiet moment he gives them is while he’s smoking.”