Tony Butler

Tony, I fancy, was a master of this art; he knew how to follow up any subject in thought till it began to become painful, and then to turn his attention to the sea and some far-off white sail, or to the flickering leaflet of falling snow, tossed and drifted here and there like some castaway, – a never-failing resource. He could follow with his eyes the azure circles of smoke, and wonder which would outstrip the other. To fit him for the life of a “messenger,” he had taken down “Cook’s Voyages;” but after reading a few pages, he laid down the book to think how far the voyager’s experiences could apply to the daily exigencies of a Foreign Office official, and to ask himself if he were not in reality laying down too wide and too extensive a foundation for future acquirement. “No,” thought he, “I ‘ll not try to be any better or smarter than the rest. I ‘ll just stick to the practical part, and here goes for Ollendorf.” Three or four sentences read, – he leaned back, and wondered whether he would not rather undertake an excursion on foot to Jerusalem than set out on an expedition into the French language. As if a whole life could master that bulky dictionary, and transfer its contents to his poor brain! To be sure, Alice knew it; but Alice could learn what she pleased. She learned to skate in three lessons, – and how she did it too! Who ever glided over the ice with such a grace, – so easy, so quiet, but with such a perfection of movement! Talk of dancing, – it was nothing to it. And could n’t she ride? See her three fields off, and you’d know the ground just by the stride of her horse. Such a hand she had! But who was like Alice?

Ah! there was the boundless prairie, to his thoughts, on which he might ramble forever; and on that wide swelling savannah, roaming and straying, we shall now leave him, and turn our glance elsewhere.

The morning service of the meeting-house over, Dr. Stewart proposed to walk home with Mrs. Butler. The exposition about Ahab had neither been as full or as able as he had intended, but it was not his fault, – at least, only in part his fault; the sum of which consisted in the fact that he had broken through a good rule, which up to that hour had never met with infraction, – he had opened a post-letter on the Sabbath-morn. “This comes,” said he, plaintively, “of letting the sinfu’ things of this warld mingle wi’ the holier and higher ones of the warld to come. Corruption is aye stronger than life; and now I maun tell you the whole of it.” If we do not strictly follow the good minister, and tell what he had to say in his own words, it is to spare our reader some time on a matter which may not possess the amount of interest to him it had for the person who narrated it. The matter was this: there came that morning a letter from Mrs. M’Gruder to Dr. Stewart, – a letter that almost overwhelmed him. The compensation to humility of station is generally this, that the interests of the humble man are so lowly, so unpretending, and so little obtrusive that they seldom or never provoke the attention of his more fortunate neighbors. As with the rivulet that can neither float a barque nor turn a mill-wheel none meddles, so with the course of these lowly lives few concern themselves, and they ripple along unheeded. Many and many a time had the old minister hugged this thought to his heart, – many and many a time had he felt that there were cares and troubles in this life so proud and so haughty that they disdained the thatched cabin and the humble roof-tree, but loved to push their way through crowds of courtiers up marble stairs and along gilded corridors. It was then with a perfect shock that he came to learn that even they, in all their lowliness, could claim no exemption from common calamity. The letter began by stating that the writer, before putting pen to paper, had waited till Miss Stewart should have reached her home, so that no anxieties as to her health should be added to the pain the communication might cause. After this louring commencement the epistle went on to state that the satisfaction which Dolly had at first given by her general good temper and strict attention to her duties, “compensating in a great measure for the defects in her own education and want of aptitude as a teacher,” soon ceased to be experienced, as it was found that she was subject to constant intervals of great depression, and even whole days, when she seemed scarcely equal to her duties. The cause was not very long a secret.

It was an attachment she had formed to a brother of Mr. M’Gruder’s, who, some years younger than himself, had been established in Italy as a partner, and had now come over to England on business.

It was not necessary to say that the writer had never encouraged this sentiment; on the contrary, she had more than remonstrated with her brother-in-law on the score of his attentions, and flatly declared that, if he persisted, she would do her utmost to have the partnership with his brother dissolved, and all future intercourse at an end between them. This led to scenes of a very violent nature, in which she was obliged to own her husband had the cruelty to take his brother’s side against her, and avow that Samuel was earning his own bread, and if he liked to share it with an “untochcred lassie,” it should be far from him, Robert M’Grader, that any reproach should come, – a sarcasm that Mrs. M’Grader seemed keenly to appreciate.

The agitation caused by these cares, acting on a system already excited, had brought on a fever to Dolly; and it was only on her convalescence, and while still very weak, that a young man arrived in London and called to see her, who suddenly seemed to influence all her thoughts and plans for the future. Sam, it appeared, had gone back to Italy, relying on Dolly’s promise to consult her father and give him a final reply to his offer of marriage. From the day, however, that this stranger had called, Dolly seemed to become more and more indifferent to this project, declaring that her failing health and broken spirits would render her rather a burden than a benefit, and constantly speaking of home, and wishing to be back there. “Though I wished,” continued the writer, “that this resolve had come earlier, and that Miss Stewart had returned to her father before she had thrown discord into a united family, I was not going to oppose it, even late as it occurred. It was therefore arranged that she was to go home, ostensibly to recruit and restore herself in her native air; but I, I need hardly tell you, as firmly determined she should never pass this threshold again. Matters were in this state, and Miss Stewart only waiting for a favorable day to begin her journey – an event I looked for with the more impatience as Mr. M’G. and myself could never, I knew, resume our terms of affection so long as she remained in our house, – when one night, between one and two o’clock, we were awoke by the sound of feet in the garden under our window. I heard them first, and, creeping to the casement, I saw a figure clamber over the railing and make straight for the end of the house where Miss Stewart slept, and immediately begin a sort of low moaning kind of song, evidently a signal. Miss Stewart’s window soon opened, and on this I called Mr. M’Grader. He had barely time to reach the window, when a man’s voice from below cried out, ‘Come down; are you coming?’ On this, Mr. M’Gruder rushed downstairs and into the garden. Two or three loud and angry words succeeded, and then a violent struggle, in which my husband was twice knocked down and severely injured. The man, however, made his escape, but not unrecognized; for your daughter’s voice cried out, ‘Oh, Tony, I never thought you ‘d do this,’ or, ‘Why did you do this?’ or some words to that effect.

“The terms on which, through Miss Stewart’s behavior, I have latterly lived with Mr. M’Gruder, gave me no opportunity to learn anything from him. Indeed, he never so much as spoke of an incident which confined him two days to his room and five days to the house; but, as if bent on exasperation, redoubled his kind inquiries about your daughter, who was now, as she said, too ill to leave her room.

“No other course was then open to me than to write the present letter to you and another to my brother-in-law. He, at least, I am determined, shall know something of the young lady with whom he wishes to share his fortune, though I trust that a minister of the Gospel will have no need of any promptings of mine to prevent such a casualty. My last words, on parting with your daughter, were to ask if the man I saw that night was the same who had called to see her, and her reply was, ‘Yes, the same.’ I will not disguise that she had the grace to cry as she said it.

“That she is never to return here, I need not say. Ay, more than that; no reference to me will be responded to in terms that can serve her. But this is not all. I require that you will send, and send open for my inspection, such a letter to Mr. S. M’Gruder as may finally put an end to any engagement, and declare that, from the circumstances now known to you, you could neither expect, or even desire, that he would make her his wife. Lastly, I demand – and I am in a position to enforce a demand – that you do not communicate with my husband at all in this affair; sufficient unpleasantness and distrust having been already caused by our unhappy relations with your family.”

A few moral reflections closed the epistle. They were neither very novel nor very acute, but they embodied the sense of disappointment experienced by one who little thought, in taking a teacher from the manse of a minister, she was incurring a peril as great as if she had sent over to France for the latest refinement in Parisian depravity. “Keep her at home with yourself, Dr. Stewart,” wrote she, “unless the time comes when the creature she called Tony may turn up as a respectable man, and be willing to take her.” And with a gracefully expressed hope that Dolly’s ill health might prove seasonable for self-examination and correction, she signed herself, “Your compassionate friend, Martha M’Gruder.”

“What do you say to that, Mrs. Butler? Did ever you read as much cruelty in pen and ink, I ask you? Did you ever believe that the mother of children could write to a father of his own daughter in such terms as these?”

“I don’t know what it means, doctor; it ‘s all confusion to me. Who is Tony? It’s not our Tony, surely?”

“I’m not so sure of that, Mrs. Butler. Tony was up in London and he called to see Dolly. You remember that he told in his letter to you how the puir lassie’s hair was cut short – ”

“I remember it all, Dr. Stewart; but what has all that to do with all this dreadful scene at night in the garden?” The doctor shook his head mournfully, and made no reply. “If you mean, Dr. Stewart, that it was my Tony that brought about all these disasters, I tell you I will not – I cannot believe it. It would be better to speak your mind out, sir, than to go on shaking your head. We’re not altogether so depraved that our disgrace is beyond words.”

“There ‘s nothing for anger here, my dear old friend,” said he, calmly, “though maybe there’s something for sorrow. When you have spoken to your son, and I to my daughter, we ‘ll see our way better through this thorny path. Good-bye.”

“You are not angry with me, doctor?” said she, holding out her hand, while her eyes were dimmed with tears, – “you are not angry with me?”

“That I am not,” said he, grasping her hand warmly in both his own. “We have no other treasures in this world, either of us, than this lad and this lassie, and it’s a small fault if we cling to them the more closely. I think I see Tony coming to meet you, so I’ll just turn home again.” And with another and more affectionate good-bye, they parted.

CHAPTER XXVIII. AT THE MANSE

In no small perturbation of mind was it that Mrs. Butler passed her threshold. That a word should be breathed against her Tony, was something more than she could endure; that he could have deserved it, was more than she could believe. Tony, of whom for years and years she had listened to nothing but flatteries, how clever and ready-witted he was, how bold and fearless, how kind-hearted, and how truthful, – ay, how truthful! and how is it then, asked she of herself, that he has told me nothing of all this mischance, and what share he has had in bringing misfortune upon poor Dolly?

“Is Master Tony at home, Jenny?” said she, as she entered.

“Yes; he’s reading a letter that has just come wi’ the post.”

The old lady stopped, with her hand on the handle of the door, to draw a full breath, and regain a calm look; but a merry laugh from Tony, as he sat reading his letter, did more to rally her, though her heart smote her to think how soon she might have to throw a shadow across his sunshine.

“Who’s your letter from, Tony?” said she, dryly.

“From Skeffy; he ‘ll be here to-morrow; he’s to arrive at Coleraine by six in the morning, and wants me to meet him there.”

“And what’s the other sealed note in your hand?”

“This? – this is from another man, – a fellow you’ve never heard of; at least, you don’t know him.”

“And what may be his name, Tony?” asked she, in a still colder tone.

“He’s a stranger to you, mother. Skeffy found the note at my hotel, and forwarded it, – that’s all.”

“You were n’t wont to have secrets from me, Tony,” said she, tremulously.

“Nor have I, mother; except it may be some trifling annoyance or worry that I don’t care to tease you about. If I had anything heavier on my mind, you may trust me, I ‘d very soon be out with it.”

“But I ‘m not to hear who this man is?” said she, with a strange pertinacity.

“Of course you are, if you want to hear; his name is there, on the corner of his note, – Robt M’Gruder, – and here’s the inside of it, though I don’t think you ‘ll be much the wiser when you ‘ve read it.”

“It’s for yourself to read your own letter, Tony,” said she, waving back the note. “I merely asked who was your correspondent.”

Tony broke the seal, and ran his eye hastily over the lines. “I ‘m as glad as if I got a hundred pounds!” cried he. “Listen to this, mother: —

“‘Dear Sir, – When I received your note on Monday – ’

“But wait a bit, mother; I must tell you the whole story, or you ‘ll not know why he wrote this to me. Do you remember my telling you, just at the back of a letter, that I was carried off to a dinner at Richmond?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Well, I wish I hadn’t gone, that’s all. Not that it was n’t jolly, and the fellows very pleasant and full of fun, but somehow we all of us took too much wine, or we talked too much, or perhaps both; but we began laying wagers about every imaginable thing, and I made a bet, – I ‘ll be hanged if I could tell what it was; but it was something about Dolly Stewart. I believe it was that she was handsomer than another girl. I forgot all about her hair being cut off, and her changed looks. At all events, off we set in a body, to M’Gruder’s house. It was then about two in the morning, and we all singing, or what we thought was singing, most uproariously. Yes, you may shake your head. I ‘m ashamed of it now, too, but it was some strange wine – I think it was called Marcobrunner – that completely upset me; and the first thing that really sobered me was seeing that the other fellows ran away, leaving me all alone in the garden, while a short stout man rushed out of the house with a stick to thrash me. I tried to make him hear me, for I wanted to apologize; but he wouldn’t listen, and so I gave him a shake. I didn’t strike him; but I shook him off, roughly enough perhaps, for he fell, and then I sprang over the gate, and cut off as fast as I could. When I awoke next morning, I remembered it all, and heartily ashamed I was of myself; and I thought that perhaps I ought to go out in person and beg his pardon; but I had no time for that; I wanted to get away by that day’s packet, and so I wrote him a few civil lines. I don’t remember them exactly, but they were to say that I was very sorry for it all, and I hoped he ‘d see the thing as it was, – a stupid bit of boyish excess, of which I felt much ashamed; and here’s his answer: —

“‘Dear Sir, – When I received your note on Monday morning, I was having leeches to my eye, and could n’t answer it. Yesterday both eyes were closed, and it is only to-day that I can see to scratch these lines. If I had had a little more patience on the night I first met you, it would have been better for both of us. As it is, I receive all your explanation as frankly as it is given; and you ‘ll be lucky in life if nobody bears you more ill-will than – Yours truly,

‘Robt. M’Gruder.

“‘If you come up to town again, look in on me at 27 Cannon Street, City. I do not say here, as Mrs. M’G, has not yet forgiven the black eye.’”

“Oh, Tony! my own, dear, dear, true-hearted Tony!” cried his mother, as she flung her arms around him, and hugged him to her heart “I knew my own dear boy was as loyal as his own high-hearted father.”

Tony was exceedingly puzzled to what precise part of his late behavior be owned all this enthusiastic fondness, and was curious also to know if giving black eyes to Scotchmen had been a trait of his father’s.

“And this was all of it, Tony?” asked she, eagerly.

“Don’t you think it was quite enough? I’m certain Dolly did; for she knew my voice, and cried out, ‘Oh, Tony, how could you?’ or something like that from the window. And that’s a thing, mother, has been weighing heavily on my mind ever since. Has this unlucky freak of mine anything to do with Dolly’s coming home?”

“We ‘ll find that out later on, Tony; leave that to me,” said she, hurriedly; for with all her honesty, she could not bear to throw a cloud over his present happiness, or dash with sorrow the delight he felt at his friend’s coming.

“I don’t suspect,” continued he, thoughtfully, “that I made a very successful impression on that Mrs. M’Grader the day I called on Dolly; and if she only connected me with this night’s exploit, of course it’s all up with me.”

“Her husband bears you no grudge for it at all, Tony.”

“That’s clear enough; he’s a fine fellow; but if it should turn out, mother, that poor Dolly lost her situation, – it was no great thing, to be sure; but she told me herself, it was hard enough to get as good; and if, I say, it was through me she lost it – ”

“You mustn’t give yourself the habit of coining evil, Tony. There are always enough of hard and solid troubles in life without our conjuring up shadows and spectres to frighten us. As I said before, I ‘ll have a talk with Dolly herself, and I ‘ll find out everything.”

“Do so, mother; and try and make her come often over here when I’m gone; she’ll be very lonely yonder, and you ‘ll be such good company for each other, won’t you?”

“I ‘ll do my best, for I love her dearly! She has so many ways, too, that suit an old body like myself. She’s so quiet and so gentle, and she ‘ll sit over her work at the window there, and lay it down on her knee to look out over the sea, never saying a word, but smiling a little quiet smile when our eyes meet, as though to say, ‘This is very peaceful and happy, and we have no need to tell each other about it, for we can feel it just as deeply.’”

Oh, if she ‘d only let Alice come to see her and sit with her, thought Tony; how she would love her! Alice could be all this, and would, too; and then, what a charm she can throw around her with that winning smile! Was there ever sunshine like it? And her voice – no music ever thrilled through me as that voice did. “I say, mother,” cried he, aloud, “don’t say No; don’t refuse her if she begs to come over now and then with a book or a few flowers; don’t deny her merely because she’s very rich and much courted and flattered. I pledge you my word the flattery has not spoiled her.”

“Poor Dolly! it’s the first time I ever heard that you were either rich or inn after! What ‘s the boy dreaming of, with his eyes staring in his head?”

“I ‘m thinking that I ‘ll go into Coleraine to-night, so as to be there when the mail arrives at six in the morning,” said Tony, recovering himself, though in considerable confusion. “Skeffy’s room is all ready, isn’t it?”

“To be sure it is; and very nice and comfortable it looks too;” and as she spoke, she arose and went into the little room, on which she and Jenny had expended any amount of care and trouble. “But, Tony dear,” she cried out, “what’s become of Alice Lyle’s picture? I put it over the fireplace myself, this morning.”

“And I took it down again, mother. Skeffy never knew Alice, – never saw her.”

“It was n’t for that I put it there; it was because she was a handsome lassie, and it’s always a pleasant sight to look upon. Just bring it back again; the room looks nothing without it.”

“No, no; leave it in your own room, in which it has always been,” said he, almost sternly. “And now about dinner to-morrow; I suppose we’d better make no change, but just have it at three, as we always do.”

“Your grand friend will think it’s luncheon, Tony.”

“He ‘ll learn his mistake when it comes to tea-time; but I ‘ll go and see if there ‘s not a salmon to be had at Carrig-a-Rede before I start; and if I ‘m lucky, I ‘ll bring you a brace of snipe back with me.”

“Do so, Tony; and if Mr. Gregg was to offer you a little seakale, or even some nice fresh celery – Eh, dear, he ‘s off, and no minding me! He ‘s a fine true-hearted lad,” muttered she, as she reseated herself at her work; “but I wonder what’s become of all his high spirits, and the merry ways that he used to have.”

Tony was not successful in his pursuit of provender. There was a heavy sea on the shore, and the nets had been taken up; and during his whole walk he never saw a bird He ate a hurried dinner when he came back, and, taking one more look at Skeffy’s room to see whether it looked as comfortable as he wished it, he set out for Coleraine.

Now, though his mind was very full of his coming guest, in part pleasurably, and in part with a painful consciousness of his inability to receive him handsomely, his thoughts would wander off at every moment to Dolly Stewart, and to her return home, which he felt convinced was still more or less connected with his own freak. The evening service was going on in the meeting-house as he passed, and he could hear the swell of the voices in the last hymn that preceded the final prayer, and he suddenly bethought him that he would take a turn by the Burnside and have a few minutes’ talk with Dolly before her father got back from meeting.

“She is such a true-hearted, honest girl,” said he to himself, “she ‘ll not be able to hide the fact from me; and I will ask her flatly, Is this so? was it not on my account you left the place?”

All was still and quiet at the minister’s cottage, and Tony raised the latch and walked through the little passage into the parlor unseen. The parlor, too, was empty. A large old Bible lay open on the table, and beside it a handkerchief – a white one – that he knew to be Dolly’s. As he looked at it, he bethought him of one Alice had given him once as a keepsake; he had it still. How different that fragment of gossamer with the frill of rich lace from this homely kerchief! Were they not almost emblems of their owners? and if so, did not his own fortunes rather link him with the humbler than with the higher? With one there might be companionship; with the other, what could it be but dependence?

While he was standing thus thinking, two ice-cold hands were laid over his eyes, and he cried out. “Ay, Dolly, those frozen fingers are yours;” and as he removed her hands, he threw one arm round her waist, and, pressing her closely to him, he kissed her.

“Tony, Tony!” said she, reproachfully, while her eyes swam in two heavy tears, and she turned away.

“Come here and sit beside me, Dolly. I want to ask you a question, and we have n’t much time, for the doctor will be here presently, and I am so fretted and worried thinking over it that I have nothing left but to come straight to yourself and ask it.”

“Well, what is it?” said she, calmly.

“But you will be frank with me, Dolly, – frank and honest, as you always were, – won’t you?”

“Yes, I think so,” said she, slowly.

“Ay, but you must be sure to be frank, Dolly, for it touches me very closely; and to show you that you may, I will tell you a secret, to begin with. Your father has had a letter from that Mrs. M’Gruder, where you lived.”

“From her?” said Dolly, growing so suddenly pale that she seemed about to faint; “are you sure of this?”