Tony Butler

“Ah, yes! he loves smoking.”

“There – stop. Listen. Do you hear him? he’s at it now.” Skeff halted, and could hear the sound of a full deep voice, from a window overhead, in one of those prolonged and melancholy cadences which Irish airs abound in.

“Wherever he got such doleful music I can’t tell, but he has a dozen chants like that.”

Though Skeff could not distinguish the sounds, nor recognize the voice of his friend, the thought that it was poor Tony who was there singing in his solitude, maimed and suffering, without one near to comfort him, so overwhelmed him that he staggered towards a bench, and sat down sick and faint.

“Go up and say that a friend, a dear friend, has come from Naples to see him; and if he is not too nervous or too much agitated, tell him my name; here it is.” The friar took the card and hurried forward on his mission. In less time than Skeff thought it possible for him to have arrived, Pantaleo called out from the window, “Come along; he is quite ready to see you, though he doesn’t remember you.”

Skeff fell back upon the seat at the last words. “Not remember me! my poor Tony, – my poor, poor fellow, – how changed and shattered you must be, to have forgotten me!” With a great effort he rallied, entered the gate, and mounted the stairs, – slowly, indeed, and like one who dreaded the scene that lay before him. Pantaleo met him at the top, and, seeing his agitation, gave him his arm for support. “Don’t be nervous,” said he, “your friend is doing capitally; he is out on the terrace in an armchair, and looks as jolly as a cardinal.”

Summoning all his courage, Skeflf walked bravely forwards, passed down the long aisle, crowded with sick and wounded on either side, and passed out upon a balcony at the end, where, with his back towards him, a man sat looking out over the landscape.

“Tony, Tony!” said Skeffy, coming close. The man turned his head, and Skeff saw a massive-looking face, all covered with black hair, and a forehead marked by a sabre cut. “This is not my friend. This is not Tony!” cried he, in disappointment. “No, sir; I’m Rory Quin, the man that was with him,” said the wounded man, submissively.

“And where is he himself? Where is Tony?” cried he.

“In the little room beyond, sir. They put him there when he began to rave; but he’s better now, and quite sensible.”

“Take me to him at once; let me see him,” said Skefif, whose impatience had now mastered all prudence.

The moment after, Skefif found himself in a small chamber, with a single bed in it, beside which a Sister of Charity was seated, busily employed laying cloths wet with iced water on the sick man’s head. One glance showed that it was Tony. The eyes were closed, and the face thinner, and the lips dry; but there was a hardy manhood in the countenance, sick and suffering as he was, that told what qualities a life of hardship and peril had called into activity. The Sister motioned to Skefif to sit down, but not to speak. “He’s not sleeping,” said she, softly, “only dozing.”

“Is he in pain?” asked Skefify.

“No; I have no pain,” said Tony, faintly.

Skefif bent down to whisper some words close to his ear, when he heard a step behind. He looked up and saw it was M’Caskey, who had followed him. “I came here, sir,” said the Colonel, haughtily, “to express my astonishment at your unceremonious departure, and also to say that I shall now hold myself as free of all further engagement towards you.”

“Hush, be quiet,” said Skefif, with a gesture of caution.

“Is that your friend?” asked M’Caskey, with a smile.

Tony slowly opened his eyes at these words, looking at the speaker, turning his gaze then on Skeff, gave a weak, sickly smile, and then in a faint, scarce audible voice, said, “So he is your godfather, after all.”

Skeff’s heart grew full to bursting, and for a moment or two he could not speak.

“There – there, no more,” whispered the Sister; and she motioned them both to withdraw. Skeff arose at once, and slipped noiselessly away; but the Colonel stepped boldly along, regardless of everything and every one.

“He ‘s wandering in his mind,” said M’Caskey, in a loud, unfeeling tone.

“By all that’s holy, there’s the scoundrel I ‘m dying to get at,” screamed Rory, as the voice caught his ear. “Give me that crutch; let me have one lick at him, for the love of Mary.”

“They’re all mad here, that’s plain,” said M’Caskey, turning away with a contemptuous air. “Sir,” added he, turning towards Skeff, “I have the honor to salute you;” and with a magnificent bow he withdrew, while Rory, in a voice of wildest passion and invective, called down innumerable curses on his head, and inveighed even against the bystanders for not securing the “greatest villain in Europe.” “I shall want to send a letter to Naples,” cried out Skeff to the Colonel; “I mean to remain here;” but M’Caskey never deigned to notice his words, but walked proudly down the stairs, and went his way.

CHAPTER LVII. AT TONY’S BEDSIDE

My story draws to a close, and I have not space to tell how Skeff watched beside his friend, rarely quitting him, and showing in a hundred ways the resources of a kind and thoughtful nature. Tony had been severely wounded; a sabre-cut had severed his scalp, and he had been shot through the shoulder; but all apprehension of evil consequences was now over, and he was able to listen to Skeff’s wondrous tidings, and hear all the details of his accession to wealth and fortune. His mother – how she would rejoice at it! how happy it would make her! – not for her own sake, but for his; how it would seem to repay to her all she had suffered from the haughty estrangement of Sir Omerod, and how proud she would be at the recognition, late though it came! These were Tony’s thoughts; and very often, when Skeflf imagined him to be following the details of his property, and listening with eagerness to the description of what he owned, Tony was far away in thought at the cottage beside the Causeway, and longing ardently when he should sit at the window with his mother at his side planning out some future in which they were to be no more separated.

There was no elation at his sudden fortune, nor any of that anticipation of indulgence which Skeff himself would have felt, and which he indeed suggested. No. Tony’s whole thoughts so much centred in his dear mother, that she entered into all his projects; and there was not a picture of enjoyment wherein she was not a foreground figure.

They would keep the cottage, – that was his first resolve: his mother loved it dearly; it was associated with years long of happiness and of trials too; and trials can endear a spot when they are nobly borne, and the heart will cling fondly to that which has chastened its emotions and elevated its hopes. And then, Tony thought, they might obtain that long stretch of land that lay along the shore, with the little nook where the boats lay at anchor, and where he would have his yacht. “I suppose,” said he, “Sir Arthur Lyle would have no objection to my being so near a neighbor?”

“Of course not; but we can soon settle that point, for they are all here.”

“Here?”

“At Naples, I mean.”

“How was it that you never told me that?” he asked sharply.

Skeff fidgeted – bit his cigar – threw it away; and with more confusion than became so distinguished a diplomatist, stammered out, “I have had so much to tell you – such lots of news;” and then with an altered voice he added, “Besides, old fellow, the doctor warned me not to say anything that might agitate you; and I thought – that is, I used to think – there was something in that quarter, eh?”

Tony grew pale, but made no answer.

“I know she likes you, Tony,” said Skeff, taking his hand and pressing it. “Bella, who is engaged to me – I forget if I told you that – ”

“No, you never told me!”

“Well, Bella and I are to be married immediately, – that is, as soon as I can get back to England. I have asked for leave already; they ‘ve refused me twice. It ‘s all very fine saying to me that I ought to know that in the present difficulties of Italy no man could replace me at this Court. My answer to that is: Skeff Darner has other stuff in him as well as ambition. He has a heart just as much as a head. Nor am I to go on passing my life saving this dynasty. The Bourbons are not so much to me as my own happiness, eh?”

“I suppose not,” said Tony, dryly.

“You ‘d have done the same, would n’t you?”

“I can’t tell. I cannot even imagine myself filling any station of responsibility or importance.”

“My reply was brief: Leave for six months’ time, to recruit an over-taxed frame and over-wrought intellect; time also for them to look out what to offer me, for I ‘ll not go to Mexico, nor to Rio; neither will I take Washington, nor any of the Northern Courts. Dearest Bella must have climate, and I myself must have congenial society; and so I said, not in such terms, but in meaning, Skeff Darner is only yours at his price. Let them refuse me, – let me see them even hesitate, and I give my word of honor, I’m capable of abandoning public life altogether, and retiring into my woods at Tilney, leaving the whole thing at sizes and sevens.”

Now, though Tony neither knew what the “whole thing” meant, nor the dire consequences to which his friend’s anger might have consigned it, he muttered something that sounded like a hope that he would not leave Europe to shift for herself at such a moment.

“Let them not drive me to it, that’s all,” said he, haughtily; and he arose and walked up and down with an air of defiance. “The Lyles do not see this, – Lady Lyle especially. She wants a peerage for her daughter, but ambition is not always scrupulous.”

“I always liked her the least of them,” muttered Tony, who never could forget the sharp lesson she administered to him.

“She ‘ll make herself more agreeable to you now, Master Tony,” said Skeff, with a dry laugh.

“And why so?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“No.”

“On your word?”.

“On my word, I cannot.”

“Don’t you think Mr. Butler of something or other in Herefordshire is another guess man from Tony Butler of nowhere in particular?”