Tony Butler

“Is it blind you are, that you didn’t hear the ‘bus?” cried a somewhat gruff voice, with an accent that told of a land he liked well; and Tony turned and saw a stout, strongly built young fellow, dressed in a sort of bluish frieze, and with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder. He was good-looking, but of a more serious cast of features than is common with the lower-class Irish.

“I see,” said Tony, “that I owe this good turn to a countryman. You’re from Ireland?”

“Indeed, and I am, your honor, and no lie in it,” said he, reddening, as if – although there was nothing to be ashamed of by the avowal – popular prejudice lay rather in the other direction.

“I don’t know what I was thinking of,” said Tony, again; and even yet his head bad not regained its proper calm. “I forgot all about where I was, and never heard the horses till they were on me.”

“‘Tis what I remarked, sir,” said the other, as with his sleeve he brushed the dirt off Tony’s coat. “I saw you was like one in a dhream.”

“I wish I had anything worth offering you,” said Tony, reddening, while he placed the last few shillings he had in the other’s palm.

“What’s this for?” said the man, half angrily; “sure you don’t think it’s for money I did it;” and he pushed the coin back almost rudely from him.

While Tony assuaged, as well as he might, the anger of his wounded pride, they walked on together for some time, till at last the other said, “I’ll have to hurry away now, your honor; I ‘m to be at Blackwall, to catch the packet for Derry, by twelve o’clock.”

“What packet do you speak of?”

“The ‘Foyle,’ sir. She’s to sail this evening, and I have my passage paid for me, and I mustn’t lose it.”

“If I had my luggage, I ‘d go in her too. I want to cross over to Ireland.”

“And where is it, sir, – the luggage, I mean?”

“Oh, it’s only a portmanteau, and it’s at the Tavistock Hotel, Covent Garden.”

“If your honor wouldn’t mind taking charge of this,” said he, pointing to his bundle, “I ‘d be off in a jiffy, and get the trunk, and be back by the time you reached the steamer.”

“Would you really do me this service? Well, here ‘s my card; when you show this to the waiter, he ‘ll hand you the portmanteau; and there is nothing to pay.”

“All right, sir; the ‘Foyle,’ a big paddle-steamer, – you ‘ll know her red chimney the moment you see it;” and without another word he gave Tony his bundle and hurried away.

“Is not this trustfulness?” thought Tony, as he walked onward; “I suppose this little bundle contains all this poor fellow’s worldly store, and he commits it to a stranger without one moment of doubt or hesitation.” It was for the second time on that same morning that his heart was touched by a trait of kindness; and he began to feel that if such proofs of brotherhood were rife in the world, narrow fortune was not half so bad a thing as he had ever believed it.

It was a long walk he had before him, and not much time to do it in, so that he was obliged to step briskly out. As for the bundle, it is but fair to own that at first he carried it with a certain shame and awkwardness, affecting in various ways to assure the passers-by that such an occupation was new to him; but as time wore on, and he saw, as he did see, that very few noticed him, and none troubled themselves as to what was the nature of his burden, he grew more indifferent, well consoled by thinking that nothing was more unlikely than that he should be met by any one he knew.

When he got down to the river-side, boats were leaving in every direction, and one for the “Foyle,” with two passengers, offered itself at the moment. He jumped in, and soon found himself aboard a large mercantile boat, her deck covered with fragments of machinery and metal for some new factory in Belfast. “Where’s the captain?” asked Tony of a gruff-looking man in a tweed coat and a wideawake.

“I’m the captain; and what then?” said the other.

In a few words Tony explained that he had found himself short of cash, and not wishing to be detained till he could write and have an answer from home, he begged he might have a deck passage. “If it should cost more than I have money for, I will leave my trunk with your steward till I remit my debt.”

“Get those boats aboard; clear away that hawser there; look out, or you ‘ll foul that collier,” cried the skipper, his deep voice ringing above the din and crash of the escaping steam, but never so much as noticing one word of Tony’s speech.

Too proud to repeat his address, and yet doubting how it had been taken, he stood, occasionally buffeted about by the sailors as they hurried hither and thither; and now, amidst the din, a great bell rang out; and while it clattered away, some scrambled up the side of the ship, and others clambered down, while with shouts and oaths and imprecations on every side, the great mass swung round, and two slow revolutions of her paddles showed she was ready to start Almost frantic with anxiety for his missing friend, Tony mounted on a bulwark, and scanned every boat he could see.

“Back her!” screamed the skipper; “there, gently; all right Go ahead;” and now with a shouldering, surging heave, the great black monster lazily moved forward, and gained the middle of the river. Boats were now hurrying wildly to this side and to that, but none towards the “Foyle.” “What will become of me? What will he think of me?” cried Tony; and he peered down into the yellow tide, almost doubtful if he ought not to jump into it.

“Go on,” cried the skipper; and the speed increased, a long swell issuing from either paddle, and stretching away to either bank of the river. Far away in this rocking tide, tossing hopelessly and in vain, Tony saw a small boat wherein a man was standing, wildly waving his handkerchief by way of signal.

“There he is, in one minute; give him one minute, and he will be here,” cried Tony, not knowing to whom he spoke.

“You ‘ll get jammed, my good fellow, if you don’t come down from that,” said a sailor. “You’ll be caught in the davits when they swing round;” and seeing how inattentive he was to the caution, he laid a hand upon him and forced him upon deck. The ship had now turned a bend of the river, and as Tony turned aft to look for the boat, she was lost to him, and he saw her no more.

For some miles of the way, all were too much occupied to notice him. There was much to stow away and get in order, the cargo having been taken in even to the latest moment before they started. There were some carriages and horses, too, on board, neither of which met from the sailors more deferential care than they bestowed on cast-metal cranks and iron sleepers, thus occasioning little passages between those in charge and the crew, that were the reverse of amicable. It was in one of these Tony heard a voice he was long familiar with. It was Sir Arthur Lyle’s coachman, who was even more overjoyed than Tony at the recognition. He had been sent over to fetch four carriage-horses and two open carriages for his master, and his adventures and mishaps were, in his own estimation, above all human experience.

“I’ll have to borrow a five-pound note from you,” said Tony; “I have come on board without anything, – even my luggage is left behind.”

“Five-and-twenty, Mr.. Tony, if you want it. I’m as glad as fifty to see you here. You’ll be able to make these fellows mind what I say. There’s not as much as a spare tarpaulin to put over the beasts at night; and if the ship rocks, their legs will be knocked to pieces.”

If Tony had not the same opinion of his influence, he did not however hesitate to offer his services, and assisted the coachman to pad the horse-boxes, and bandage the legs with an overlaid covering of hay rope, against any accidents.

“Are you steerage or aft?” asked a surly-looking steward of Tony, as he was washing his hands after his exertions.

“There’s a question to ask of one of the best blood in Ireland,” interposed the coachman.

“The best blood in Ireland will then have to pay cabin fare,” said the steward, as he jotted down a mem. in his book; and Tony was now easy enough in mind to laugh at the fellow’s impertinence as he paid the money.

The voyage was not eventful in any way; the weather was fine, the sea not rough, and the days went by as monotonously as need be. If Tony had been given to reflection, he would have had a glorious opportunity to indulge the taste, but it was the very least of all his tendencies.

He would indeed, have liked much to review his life, and map out something of his future road; but he could do nothing of this kind without a companion. Asking him to think for himself and by himself was pretty much like asking him to play chess or backgammon with himself, where it depended on his caprice which side was to be the winner. The habit of self-depreciation had, besides, got hold of him, and he employed it as an excuse to cover his inertness. “What’s the use of my doing this, that, or t’other? I ‘ll be a stupid dog to the end of the chapter. It’s all waste of time to set me down to this or that. Other fellows could learn it, – it’s impossible for me.”

It is strange how fond men will grow of pleading in forma pauperis to their own hearts, – even men constitutionally proud and high-spirited. Tony had fallen into this unlucky habit, and got at last to think it was his safest way in life to trust very little to his judgment.

“If I had n’t been ‘mooning,’ I ‘d not have walked under the pole of the omnibus, nor chanced upon this poor fellow, whose bundle I have carried away, nor lost my own kit, which, after all, was something to me.” Worse than all these – infinitely worse – was the thought of how that poor peasant would think of him! What a cruel lesson of mistrust and suspicion have I implanted in that honest heart! “What a terrible revulsion must have come over him, when he found I had sailed away and left him!” Poor Tony’s reasoning was not acute enough to satisfy him that the man could not accuse him for what was out of his power to prevent, – the departure of the steamer; nor with Tony’s own luggage in his possession, could he arraign his honesty, or distrust his honor.

He bethought him that he would consult Waters, for whose judgment in spavins, thoroughpins, capped hocks, and navicular lameness, he had the deepest veneration. Waters, who knew horses so thoroughly, must needs not be altogether ignorant of men.

“I say, Tom,” cried he, “sit down here, and let me tell you something that’s troubling me a good deal, and perhaps you can give me some advice on it.” They sat down accordingly under the shelter of a horse-box, while Tony related circumstantially his late misadventure.

The old coachman heard him to the end without interruption. He smoked throughout the whole narrative, only now and then removing his pipe to intimate by an emphatic nod that the “court was with the counsel.” Indeed, he felt that there was something judicial in his position, and assumed a full share of importance on the strength of it.

“There ‘s the whole case now before you,” said Tony, as he finished, – “what do you say to it?”

“Well, there an’t a great deal to say to it, Mr. Tony,” said he, slowly. “If the other chap has got the best kit, by course he has got the best end of the stick; and you may have an easy conscience about that. If there’s any money or val’able in his bundle, it is just likely there will be some trace of his name, and where he lives too; so that, turn out either way, you ‘re all right.”

“So that you advise me to open his pack and see if I can find a clew to him.”

“Well, indeed, I ‘d do that much out of cur’osity. At all events, you ‘ll not get to know about him from the blue hand-kercher with the white spots.”

Tony did not quite approve the counsel; he had his scruples, even in a good cause, about this investigation, and he walked the deck till far into the night, pondering over it. He tried to solve the case by speculating on what the countryman would have done with his pack. “He ‘ll have doubtless tried to find out where I am to be met with or come at. He ‘ll have ransacked my traps, and if so, there will be the less need of my investigating his. He ‘s sure to trace me.” This reasoning satisfied him so perfectly that he lay down at last to sleep with an easy conscience and so weary a brain that he slept profoundly. As he awoke, however, he found that Waters had already decided the point of conscience which had so troubled him, and was now sitting contemplating the contents of the peasant’s bundle.

“There an’t so much as a scrap o’ writing, Mr. Tony; there an’t even a prayer-book with his name in it, – but there ‘s a track to him for all that. I have him!” and he winked with that self-satisfied knowingness which had so often delighted him in the detection of a splint or a bone-spavin.

“You have him,” repeated Tony. “Well, what of him?”

“He’s a jailer, sir, – yes, a jailer. I won’t say he ‘s the chief, – he ‘s maybe second or third, – but he ‘s one of ‘em.”

“How do you know that?”

“Here’s how I found it out;” and he drew forth a blue cloth uniform, with yellow cuffs and collar, and a yellow seam down the trousers. There were no buttons on the coat, but both on the sleeve and the collar were embroidered two keys, crosswise. “Look at them, Master Tony; look at them, and say an’t that as clear as day? It’s some new regulation, I suppose, to put them in uniform; and there’s the keys, the mark of the lock-up, to show who he is that wears them.”

Though the last man in the world to read riddles or unravel difficulties, Tony did not accept this information very willingly. In truth, he felt a repugnance to assign to the worthy country fellow a station which bears, in the appreciation of every Irishman, a certain stain. For, do as we will, reason how we may, the old estimate of the law as an oppression surges up through our thoughts, just as springs well up in an undrained soil.

“I ‘m certain you’re wrong, Waters,” said he, boldly; “he had n’t a bit the look of that about him: he was a fine, fresh-featured, determined sort of fellow, but without a trace of cunning or distrust in his face.”

“I ‘ll stand to it I ‘m right, Master Tony. What does keys mean? Answer me that. An’t they to lock up? It must be to lock up something or somebody, – you agree to that?”

Tony gave a sort of grunt, which the other took for concurrence, and continued.

“It’s clear enough he an’t the county treasurer,” said he, with a mocking laugh, – “nor he don’t keep the Queen’s private purse neither; no, sir. It’s another sort of val’ables is under his charge. It’s highwaymen and housebreakers and felony chaps.”

“Not a bit of it; he’s no more a jailer than I’m a hangman. Besides, what is to prove that this uniform is his own? Why not be a friend’s, – a relation’s? Would a fellow trained to the ways of a prison trust the first man he meets in the street, and hand him over his bundle? Is that like one whose daily life is passed among rogues and vagabonds?”

“That’s exactly how it is,” said Waters, closing one eye to look more piercingly astute. “Did you ever see anything trust another so much as a cat does a mouse? She hasn’t no dirty suspicions at all, but lets him run here and run there, only with a make-believe of her paw letting him feel that he an’t to trespass too far on her patience.”

“Pshaw!” said Tony, turning away angrily; and he muttered to himself as he walked off, “how stupid it is to take any view of life from a fellow who has never looked at it from a higher point than a hayloft!”

As the steamer rounded Fairhead, and the tall cliffs of the Causeway came into view, other thoughts soon chased away all memory of the poor country fellow. It was home was now before him, – home, that no humility can rob of its hold upon the heart; home, that appeals to the poorest of us by the selfsame sympathies the richest and greatest feel! Yes, yonder was Carrig-a-Rede, and there were the Skerries, so near and yet so far off. How slowly the great mass seemed to move, though it was about an hoar ago she seemed to cleave the water like a fish! How unfair to stop her course at Larne to land those two or three passengers, and what tiresome leave-takings they indulge in; and the luggage, too, they ‘ll never get it together! So thought Tony, his impatience mastering both reason and generosity.

“I ‘ll have to take the horses on to Derry, Master Tony,” said Waters, in an insinuating tone of voice, for he knew well what able assistance the other could lend him in any difficulty of the landing. “Sir Arthur thought that if the weather was fine we might be able to get them out on a raft and tow them into shore, but it’s too rough for that.”

“Far too rough,” said Tony, his eyes straining to catch the well-known landmarks of the coast.

“And with blood-horses too, in top condition, there’s more danger.”

“Far more.”

“So, I hope, your honor will tell the master that I did n’t ask the captain to stop, for I saw it was no use.”

“None whatever. I ‘ll tell him, – that is, if I see him,” muttered Tony, below his breath.

“Maybe, if there was too much sea ‘on’ for your honor to land – ”

“What?” interrupted Tony, eying him sternly.

“I was saying, sir, that if your honor was forced to come on to Derry – ”

“How should I be forced?”

“By the heavy surf, no less,” said Waters, peevishly, for he foresaw failure to his negotiation.

“The tide will be on the flood till eleven, and if they can’t lower a boat, I ‘ll swim it, that’s all. As to going on to Derry with you, Tom,” added he, laughing, “I’d not do it if you were to give me your four thoroughbreds for it.”

“Well, the wind ‘s freshening, anyhow,” grumbled Waters, not very sorry, perhaps, at the turn the weather was taking.

“It will be the rougher for you as you sail up the Lough,” said Tony, as he lighted his cigar.

Waters pondered a good deal over what he could not but regard as a great change in character. This young man, so gay, so easy, so careless, so ready to do anything or do nothing, – how earnest he had grown, and how resolute, and how stern too! Was this a sign that the world was going well, or the reverse, with him? Here was a knotty problem, and one which, in some form or other, has ere now puzzled wiser heads than Waters’s. For as the traveller threw off in the sunshine the cloak which he had gathered round him in the storm, prosperity will as often disclose the secrets of our hearts as that very poverty that has not wealth enough to buy a padlock for them.

“You want to land here, young man,” said the captain to Tony; “and there’s a shore-boat close alongside. Be alive, and jump in when she comes near.”

“Good-bye, Tom,” said Tony, shaking hands with him. “I ‘ll report well of the beasts, and say also how kindly you treated me.”

“You ‘ll tell Sir Arthur that the rub on the off shoulder won’t signify, sir; and that Emperor’s hock is going down every day. And please to say, sir, – for he ‘ll mind you more than me, – that there ‘s nothing will keep beasts from kicking when a ship takes to rollin’; and that when the helpers got sea-sick, and could n’t keep on deck, if it had n’t been for yourself – Oh, he’s not minding a word I’m saying,” muttered he, disconsolately; and certainly this was the truth, for Tony was now standing on a bulwark, with the end of a rope in his hand, slung whip fashion from the yard, to enable him to swing himself at an opportune moment into the boat, all the efforts of the rowers being directed to keep her from the steamer’s side.

“Now’s your time, my smart fellow,” cried the Captain, – “off with you!” And, as he spoke, Tony swung himself free with a bold spring, and, just as the boat rose on a wave, dropped neatly into her.

“Well done for a landsman!” cried the skipper; “port the helm, and keep away.”

“You ‘re forgetting the bundle, Master Tony,” cried Waters, and he flung it towards him with all his strength; but it fell short, dropped into the sea, floated for about a second or so, and then sank forever.

Tony uttered what was not exactly a blessing on his awkwardness, and, turning his back to the steamer, seized the tiller and steered for shore.