Charles James Lever

“ There were higher crimes they might attain to, and grander interests they might subserve. Never, perhaps, was the world of Europe so much in the hands of a few powerful men. Withdraw from it, say, half a dozen,—one could name them at once,—and what a change might come over the Continent! Caffarelli was no assassin; but there are men, and he was one of them, that can trifle with great crimes, just as children play with fire; who can jest with them, laugh at them, and sport with them, till, out of mere familiarity, they forget the horror they should inspire and the penalty they enforce. ”

“ To you—you alone—I will give every guarantee that a man may give of his honor and honesty. I will tell all my past, and so much as I mean for the future; and in return, I only ask for time,—nothing but time, Alice. I am not asking you for any pledge, simply that you will give me—what you would not have refused a mere acquaintance—the happiness of seeing you daily; and if—if, I say, you yourself should not deem the hand and the love I offer beneath you,—if you should be satisfied with the claims of him who would share his fortune with you,—that then—not till then—others should hear of it. ”

“ What a wealth of enjoyment does such a season offer! How imperceptibly does the lovely aspect of nature blend itself day by day with every incident of our lives, stealing its peaceful influence over our troubled hearts, blunting the pangs of our disappointments, calming down the anxieties of our ambitions! How pleasant is the companionship of our book, and doubly, trebly delightful the converse of our friend! How gratefully, too, do we imbibe the health that comes with every charm of color and sound and form and odor, repeating at every step, “How beautiful the world is, and how enjoyable!” ”

“ Will you have Sir Arthur, with his tiresome Indian stories, enhanced to himself by all the lacs of rupees that are associated with them? Will you have the gay widow, who married for pique, and inherited a great fortune by a blunder? Will you have Isabella, who is angling for a coronet, but would not refuse you if you are rich enough? Will you have that very light dragoon, who thinks 'ours' the standard for manners in Europe?—or the two elder brothers, gray-headed, pale-faced, husky-voiced civil servants, working hard to make a fortune in advance of a liver complaint? ”

“ It was no new thing for Tony to strike out his own line across country—his was a practised eye—to mark the course by which a certain point was to be reached, and to know, by something like instinct, where a ravine—where a river must lie—where the mountain-side would descend too precipitously for human footsteps—where the shelving decline would admit of a path—all these were his; and in their exercise he had that sort of pride a man feels in what he deems a gift. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do you imagine that the nobles will ever sustain the monarchy, my dear Maitland; or in what country have you ever found that the highest in class were freest of their blood? It is Giacomo, and the men like him, who defend kings to-day that they may menace them to-morrow. These fellows know well that with what is called a constitutional government and a parliament the king's life signifies next to nothing, and their own trade is worthless. ”

“ I believe when one begins to brood over one's own thoughts, one thinks the world without ought to take on the same dull cold coloring. Haven't you felt that?”
“I don't know—I may; but I'm not much given to brooding. But how comes it that you, the lightest-hearted girl that ever lived—What makes you low-spirited?”
“First of all, Tony, I have been ill; then, I have been away from home; but come, I have not come back to complain and mourn. Tell me of your friends and neighbors. How are all at the Abbey? We'll begin with the grand folk.” ”

“ What induced me ever to put foot in a land where the very natives do not know their own customs, and where all is permitted and nothing is tolerated? It is too late to ask you to come and see me through this troublesome affair; and indeed my present vacillation is whether to marry the young lady or run away bodily; for I own to you I am afraid—heartily afraid—to fight a man that might be my grandfather; and I can't bear to give the mettlesome old fellow the fun of shooting at me for nothing. And worse—a thousand times worse than all this,—Alice will have such a laugh at me! ”

“ But Miss Rebecca Graham was not the only victim of the Major's captivations; gradually the whole company of the drawing-room had gathered round the piano, some to wonder, some to laugh at, some to feel amused by, and not a few to feel angry with, that little fiery-eyed, impertinent-looking fellow, who eyed the ladies so languishingly, and stared at the men as if asking, “Who'll quarrel with me?” You might not like, but it was impossible to ignore him. There was, too, in his whole air and bearing a conscious sense of power,—a sort of bold self-reliance,—that dignifies even impudence ”

“ He had read in some book or other that it is no uncommon thing for those women whose grace and beauty win homage and devotion thus to sport with the affections of their worshippers, and that in this exercise of a cruel power they find an exquisite delight. But Alice was too proud and too high-hearted for such an ignoble pastime. But then he had read, too, that women sometimes fancy that, by encouraging a devotion they never mean to reward, they tend to elevate men's thoughts, ennobling their ambitions, and inspiring them with purer, holier hopes. ”

“ With the glitter of that ducal coronet before his eyes, he paid three hundred thousand francs I lost at the Jockey Club in Paris, and he merely said, 'Your luck in love has been somewhat costly,—don't play such high stakes again.'”
“He is très grand seigneur!” said the Italian, with a voice of intense admiration and respect.
“Yes,” said Maitland; “in every case where mere money enters, he is princely. I never met a man who thought less of his gold. The strange thing is, that it is his ambition which exhibits him so small!”
“Adagio, adagio, caro mio!” cried Caffarelli, laughing. ”

“ To this government, which in principle has all my sympathies, I have devoted all that I have of fortune, hope, or personal energy. I have, in a word, thrown my whole future into its cause. I have its confidence in return; and I am enabled not only to offer a high career and a noble sphere of action, but all that the world calls great rewards, to those whom I may select to join me in its defence.”
“Is it France?” asked Tony; and Maitland had to bite his lip to repress a smile at such a question. ”

“ This was a sore disappointment to Bella, brimful of all she had seen and heard, and burning with impatience to impart how Skeffy had been sent for by the King, and what he said to his Majesty, and how the royal plans had been modified by his sage words; and, in fact, that the fate of the Neapolitan kingdom was at that moment in the hands of that “gifted creature.”
It was such she called him; and I beg my kind reader not to think the less of her that she so magnified her idol. The happiest days of our lives are the least real, just as the evils which never befall us are the greatest. ”

“ The memories thus suddenly brought up were too much for the poor widow's composure, and she had to turn away and wipe the tears from her eyes. “Yes, sir,” said she at last, “my noble-hearted husband was made to feel through his whole life the scorn of those who would not know his wife, and it is not from such as these my poor boy is to crave assistance. As for Tony himself,” said she, with more energy of voice and manner, “he'd never forgive me if I took such a step.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Strong men,—men in all the vigor of their youth and strength,—men of honor and men of tried courage, passed and repassed, looked at, but never dreamed of provoking him. Absurd as he was in dress, ridiculous in his overweening pretension, not one ventured on the open sneer at what each in his secret heart despised for its vulgar insolence. And what a testimony to pluck was there in all this! for to what other quality in such a man's nature had the world consented to have paid homage? ”

“ He said to me, 'Tony, this is no case of love, it is the flattered vanity of a very young fellow to be distinguished not alone by the prettiest, but the most petted woman of society. You,' said he, 'are receiving all the homage paid to her at second-hand.' But more than all this, Dolly; he not merely saw that I was not in love with Alice Trafford, but he saw with whom my heart was bound up, for many and many a year.”
“Her sister, her sister Bella,” whispered Dolly. ”

“ You have been at courts, dined beside royalties, and been smiled on by serene highnesses; but Tony has not had your training; he has had none of these experiences; he has heard of great names just as he has heard of great victories. The illustrious people of the earth are no more within the reach of his estimation than are the jewels of a Mogul's turban; but it is all the more fascinating to him to sit beside one who “knows it all.” ”

“ As some unlettered guide leads the traveller to the verge of a cliff, from which the glorious landscape beneath is visible, and winding river and embowered homestead, and swelling plain and far-off mountain, are all spread out beneath for the eye to revel over, so do I place you, my valued reader, on that spot from which the future can be seen, and modestly retire that you may gaze in peace, weaving your own fancies at will, and investing the scene before you with such images and such interests as best befit it. ”

“ He was one of those men—it is not so small a category as it might seem—who fancy that the same gifts which win success socially, would be just as sure to triumph if employed in the wider sphere of the great ambitions of life. He could count the men he had passed, and easily passed, in the race of social intercourse,—men who at a dinner-table or in a drawing-room had not a tithe of his quickness, his versatility, his wit, or his geniality, and yet, plodding onwards and upwards, had attained station, eminence, and fortune ”

“ One always has an eye to the upper branches, whatever be the tree; but this messenger affair is a mere bush, which does not admit of climbing. Last of all, it would never do for you.”
“And why not do for me?” asked Tony, half fiercely.
“Simply because you could not reduce yourself to the mere level of a piece of mechanism,—a thing wound up at Downing Street, to go 'down' as it reached Vienna. To you life should present, with its changes of fortune, its variety, its adventures, and its rewards. Men like you confront dangers, but are always conquered by mere drudgery. ”

“ Stewart ambled along on his aged palfrey, the long mane and flowing tail of the beast marking him out though nigh half a mile away.
“Why didn't I think of that before?” thought Tony. “Dolly Stewart is the very one to help me. She has not been bred and brought up like Alice, but she has plenty of keen woman's wit, and she has all a sister's love for me, besides. ”

“ Ah, my poor Tony, you have a deal to learn about women and their ways! By good luck fortune has given you a friend—the one man—I declare I believe what I say—the one man in Europe that knows the whole thing; as poor Balzac used to say, 'Cher Skeffy, what a fellow you would be if you had my pen!' He was a vain creature, Balzac ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the varied company of Sir Arthur's house he had constantly found that no one submitted with a better grace to accidental hardships than he whose station had usually elevated him above the risks of their occurrence, and that in the chance roughings of a sportsman's life it was the born gentleman—Sybarite it might be at times—whose temper best sustained him in all difficulties, and whose gallant spirit bore him most triumphantly over the crosses and cares that beset him. ”

“ Hughes—he was salt assessor at Bussorabad—once remarked to me, 'Lyle,' said he, 'a man must make his choice in life, whether he prefers a brilliant start or a good finish, for he cannot have both.' Take your pleasure when young, and you must consent to work when old; but if you set out vigorously, determined to labor hard in early life, when you come to my age, Tony, you may be able to enjoy your rest”—and here he waved his hand round, as though to show the room in which they sat,—“to enjoy your rest, not without dignity.” ”

“ It is as with the schoolboy, who deems himself rich with a half-crown!
Tony would have liked much to make some inquiry about the family at the Abbey; whether any one had come to ask after or look for him; whether Mrs. Trafford had sent down any books for his mother's reading, or any fresh flowers,—the only present which the widow could be persuaded to accept; but he was afraid to touch on a theme that had so many painful memories to himself. ”

“ To be morose is not one jot a worse habit than to be agreeable; for the time will come when you are indisposed to be pleasant, and the company in which you find yourself are certain to deem the humor as an offence to themselves; but there is a worse habit than this, which is to go on talking to a man whose eyes are closing with sleep. Good-night.”
Maitland said no more than the truth when he declared how happy he found himself in that quiet unmolested existence which he led at Lyle Abbey. ”

“ My poor Tony! the fellow who has seen life as I have, who knows the thing in its most minute anatomy, comes out of the investigation infernally case-hardened; he can't help it. I love Alice. Indeed, if I had not seen Bella, I think I should have married Alice. ”

“ And as Skeffy said this, he threw forward his chest, held his head back, and looked with an air of such proud defiance that Tony lay back in a chair and laughed heartily.
“I never saw a great hulking fellow yet that was not impressed with the greatness of his stature,” said Skeffy. “Every inch after five feet six takes a foot off a man's intellectual standard. It is Skeff Darner says it, Tony, and you may believe it.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Butler saw her son in such favor at the great house,—that princely place to which the company came from remote parts of the kingdom, and to mix with which the neighboring gentry were only admitted sparingly and at rare intervals; for Sir Arthur's wealth was to society a sort of crushing power, a kind of social Nasmyth hammer, that smashed and ground down whatever came beneath it. No small distinction was it, therefore, for the widow's son to be there; not merely admitted and on sufferance, but encouraged, liked, and made much of. Sir Arthur had known Tony's father in India, long long years ago ”

“ I am certain, my dear Alice, that there is something at least in my suspicion about Bella, from what took place to-day. Hearing that I was obliged to leave to-night to catch the steamer at Ancona, he said, 'Lyle, I shall want a few minutes with you, alone, though, before you leave.' He said this because either the doctor or Caffarelli, or both, have been with us since our first meeting. 'Don't look gloomy, old fellow,' he added; 'I 'm not going to speak about my will. It is rather of life I mean to talk, and what to do with life to make it worth living for. ”

“ And now they both set to, as really only young friends ever do, to extol a loved one with that heartiness that neither knows limit nor measure. What a good fellow he was,—how much of this, without the least of that,—how unspoiled, too, in the midst of the flattery he met with! “If you just saw him as I did a few days back,” said Tony, calling up in memory Skeffy's hearty enjoyment of their humble cottage-life. ”

“ Seated between Lady Lyle and Mrs. Trafford, M'Caskey felt that he was the honored guest of the evening: Maitland's absence, so feelingly deplored by the others, gave him little regret; indeed, instinct told him that they were not men to like each other, and he was all the happier that he had the field for a while his own. It was not a very easy task to be the pleasant man of an Irish country-house, in a foreign tongue; but if any man could have success, it was M'Caskey. ”

“ It was like a return to his former self—to his gay, happy, careless nature—for Tony Butler to find himself with his friend Skeflfy. As painters lay layers of the same color on, one over the other, to deepen the effect, so does youth double itself by companionship. As for Skeflfy, never did a schoolboy exult more in a holiday; and, like a schoolboy, his spirits boiled over in all manner of small excesses, practical jokes on his fellow-passengers, and all those glorious tomfooleries, to be able to do which with zest is worth all the enjoyment that ever cynicism yielded twice told. ”

“ While she wrote, Tony strolled along, puffing his cigar or re-lighting it, for it was always going out, and dreaming away in his own misty fashion over things past, present, and future, till really the actual and the ideal became so thoroughly commingled he could not well distinguish one from the other. He thought—he knew, indeed, he ought to be very happy. All his anxieties as to a career and a livelihood ended, he felt that a very enjoyable existence might lie before him ”