Walter Butler

“ If specters walk, the accursed house must be alive with them—ghosts of the victims of old John Butler, wraiths dripping red from Cherry Valley—children with throats cut; women with bleeding heads and butchered bodies, stabbed through and through—and perhaps the awful specter of Lieutenant Boyd, with eyes and nails plucked out, and tongue cut off, bound to the stake and slowly roasting to death, while Walter Butler watched the agony curiously, interested and surprised to see a disemboweled man live so long! ”

“ If I can learn where this Thendara lies I will write him at once. That is all, I think."
I shook their hands, one by one.
"Have a care, sir," warned the Weasel as we parted. "This Walter Butler is a great villain, and, like all knaves, suspicious. If he once should harbor misgivings concerning you, he would never leave your trail until he had you at his mercy. We know him, Jack and I. And I say, God keep you from that man's enmity or suspicion. Good-by, Mr. Renault." ”

“ And she took up her pen.
“Sir—I suppose he is 'Sir;' or is he 'My Lord'?”
“No. His name is Sir Harry Elphinstone.”
“Sir,—The young man who bears this note is the only son of the late Colonel Walter Butler, C.B. He has no fortune, no profession, no friends, and very little ability. Can you place him in any position where he may acquire some of the three first and can dispense with the last? “Your humble servant, “Eleanor Butler.”
“Oh, Tony! ”

“ CHEADLE, WALTER BUTLER (1835–1910) , physician, born at Colne on 15 Oct. 1835, was son of James Cheadle, thirteenth wrangler at Cambridge in 1831, who was vicar of Christ Church, Come, Lancashire. His mother was Eliza, daughter of John Butler of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire. Educated at the grammar school of Bingley, Yorkshire, of which town his father became vicar in 1837, he proceeded in 1855 to Cambridge as a scholar of Gonville and Caius College. ”

“ Rumour had it that one of my Lord Dunmore's agents had slain the old man, but that, of course, is preposterous. It is hard to sift truth out of rumours. Why, the wildest statements were openly made in some taverns that young Walter Butler had murdered the old man. What reason could Walter Butler have to slay a friendly chief in Pennsylvania?"
"Go on," I said, grimly.
"Well, then, this murder was committed while the poor old man was sitting in his canoe on one of the streams near Fort Pitt. After tearing the scalp from the old man the murderer set him afloat in his canoe. ”

“ And at length it was accomplished, and I wrapped up the letters in a box of snuff, tied and sealed the packet, and called Dennis.
"Take this snuff back to Ennis, in Hanover Square," I said peevishly, "and inform him that Mr. Renault desires a better quality."
My servant took the box and hastened away. I stood an instant, listening. Walter Butler was still singing. I cast my eyes about, picked up a half-written sheet I had discarded for fault of blots, crumpled it, and reached for a candle to burn it. ”

“ BUTLER, the name of a family famous in the history of Ireland. The great house of the Butlers, alone among the families of the conquerors, rivalled the Geraldines, their neighbours, kinsfolk and mortal foes. Theobald Walter, their ancestor, was not among the first of the invaders. He was the grandson of one Hervey Walter who, in the time of Henry I., held Witheton or Weeton in Amounderness, a small fee of the honour of Lancaster, the manor of Newton in Suffolk, and certain lands in Norfolk. ”

“ Butler readily recognized him, and immediately instituted a pursuit, but he baffled his attempt to apprehend him and made his retreat into the woods. Upon this Mr. Butler engaged a party of men, with dogs and fire-arms to ferret him out if possible, but he had vigilance and art sufficient to elude their efforts to take him. ”

“ If Tony Butler took no note of time as he sat at breakfast with Sir Joseph, he was only sharing the fortune of every man who ever found himself in that companionship. From one end of Europe to the other his equal could not be found. It was not alone that he had stores of conversation for the highest capacities and the most cultivated minds, but he possessed that thorough knowledge of life so interesting to men of the world, and with it that insight into character which is so often the key to the mystery of statecraft ”

“ Admirers of the German style find little to praise in a cautious bit-by-bit method, content with the tests which have most affinity with common sense, incredulous of exhaustive theories, leaving a large margin for the unaccountable or the unexplained. But it has its merits, one of them being that, dealing very solidly and very acutely with large and real matters of experience, the interest of such writings endures as the starting-point and foundation for future work. Butler out of England is hardly known, certainly he is not much valued either as a divine or a philosopher ”

“ So Butler continually argues; and all the force of his mind comes out in this splendid confidence that he has in facts, in experience, in the validity of our faculties. He was no metaphysician. We feel this in the chapters on the Future Life, and on Necessity. He is here at his weakest. He fails to convince. He is not in his true atmosphere or element. He comes to himself, and to his full power, when he is flinging aside all the metaphysical problem which underlies life, as freely as the plain man does in practice, in daily experience, in science. ”

“ There our author has resided; there he is said to have written something or other, and the very room and spot of its composition are pointed out. It is best not to be too critical; and, on the other hand, if we believe, in general, that where a man of genius has lived he has also written, we shall seldom be far wrong. There is little doubt that here Butler, possessed of more leisure and independence than at any other period of his life, did really revise and prepare his work for press, of which the first part was published in 1663, and the second in the year following. ”

“ If one waits for fine weather in this climate, I 'd like to know when he 'd go out.”
“There, you are railing again, Tony; and you must not fall into it as a habit, as people do with profane swearing, so that they cannot utter a word without blaspheming.”
“Well, the country is beautiful; the weather is more so; the night is a summer one, and I myself am the most jolly, light-hearted young fellow from this to anywhere you like. Will that do, little mother?” and he threw his arm around her, and kissed her fondly. “They 've got a colt up there at Sir Arthur's that no one can break ”

“ Butler long took an active part in military affairs, and commanded the Prince of Wales’ Regiment from 1889 to 1898. He organized and became the first president of the Montreal Amalgamated Rifle Association and the Montreal Military Institute. In politics he is a Conservative, and in religion an Anglican, having been a member of the Diocesan and Provincial Synods over thirty years. In Free Masonry, he was Grand Master in 1894, and has been for many years Chairman of the Committee on Jurisprudence of the Grand Lodge of Quebec. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Butler averring that there was nothing that with a little practice he could n't do, and the minister sighingly protesting that the world was very full just now, and there was just barely enough for those who were in it.
“What does he incline to himself, madam?” asked the worthy man, as he saw that his speech had rather a discouraging effect.
“He'd like to follow his father's career, and be a soldier.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed out the minister; “a man must be rich enough to do without a livelihood that takes to that one. What would you say to the sea?” ”

“ He that made us made us like ither folk; and we 're no worse or better than our neighbors.”
“What about the letters, Janet? Did you tell the postmaster that they 're very irregular down here?” asked Mrs. Butler.
“I did, ma'am, and he said ye 're no warse off than others; that when the Lord sends floods, and the waters rise, human means is a' that we have; and if the boy couldna swim, the leather bag wi' the letters would hae gi'en him little help.”
“And could n't he have told ye all that without canting—”
“Tony! Tony!” broke in his mother, reprovingly. ”

“ The moral law is the human equivalent of the coherence which knits the universe into unity of purpose; and this same Wisdom, which teaches the circuits of the sun, gives to the man, into whose soul it enters, knowledge of judgement and law, by 'which to frame his life in righteousness, and to execute judgement with an upright heart. She leads him soberly in all his ways; so that his works are acceptable, and he is worthy to sit in his father's seat'.
Butler would delight in bringing the moral life of humanity into this complete accord with the conception of Natural Law. ”

“ Sir Arthur was reading the letter when she entered.
“Here's Skeff gone off to what he calls the 'front;' he says that Tony Butler has joined the insurgents, and he must get him out of their hands at any price.”
“But of course, papa, you 'll not permit it; you 'll forbid him peremptorily,” broke in Bella.
“I 'm not so sure of that, Bella; because, amongst other reasons, I 'm not so sure he 'd mind me. Our gifted friend is endowed with considerable self-will.” ”

“ Is he poor who is so rich in defenders? Is it a sign of poverty when a man can afford to dispense with all the restraints that attach to others, and say and do what he likes, with the certainty that it will all be submitted to? I call that wealth unbounded,—at least, it is the one prize that money confers; and if one can have it without the dross, I 'd say, Give me the privilege and keep the title-deeds.”
“Mr. Maitland,” said she, gravely, “Tony Butler is not in the least like what you would represent him. In my life I never knew any one so full of consideration for others.” ”

“ Metaphysic itself, when it comes again to its own, will do so by verifying, with a closer intimacy than ever, its inevitable inherence within the very heart's core of our common average experience.
And it is within this human experience of ours that Butler does all his work. It is our daily Experience that he fastens on, clings to, accepts. For him, it holds the entire secret. He has no desire to go behind it, or beyond it. It is sufficient. It justifies itself. It supplies the standard to which reality must conform. ”

“ But they seldom have fair play; as a general rule they meet with foul play, and foul play from those who live by selling them stones made into a great variety of shapes and sizes so as to form a tolerable imitation of bread.
Some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some are plucky enough to over-ride them, but in the greater number of cases, if people are saved at all they are saved so as by fire.
While Ernest was with me Ellen was looking out for a shop on the south side of the Thames near the "Elephant and Castle," which was then almost a new and a very rising neighbourhood. ”

“ You, I 'm certain, take me for a man of pleasure and the world,—a gay, butterfly sort of creature, flitting at will from flower to flower; or you believe me—and in that with more reason—a fellow full of ambition, and determined to play a high stake in life; but yet, Tony Butler, within all these there is another nature, like the holy of holies in the sanctuary. ”

“ I know it will be no easy task to persuade him that he is a man of fortune.”
“You shall have all you require, sir,—a copy of the will, a formal letter from our house, reciting details of the property, and, what will perhaps impart the speediest conviction of all, a letter of credit, in Mr. Butler's favor, for five hundred pounds for immediate use. These are the sort of proofs that no scepticism is strong enough to resist. The only thing that never jests, whose seriousness is above all levity, is money;” ”

“ Butler; and her husband, when he was alive, was Colonel Butler, militarily known as Wat Tartar. He was a terrible pipeclay; and her son Tony is the factotum at the Abbey; or rather he was, till Mark told him to shave, a poodle, or singe a pony, or paint a wheelbarrow—I forget; but I know it was something he had done once out of good-humor, and the hussar creature fancied he'd make him do it again through an indignity.”
“And he—I mean Butler—stands upon being a gentleman?”
“I should think he does; is not his birth good?”
“Certainly; the Butlers are of an old stock.” ”

“ It still seemed to him that the best thing both for him and them would be that he should sever himself from them completely, take whatever money he could recover from Pryer, and go to some place in the uttermost parts of the earth, where he should never meet anyone who had known him at school or college, and start afresh. Or perhaps he might go to the gold fields in California or Australia, of which such wonderful accounts were then heard; there he might even make his fortune, and return as an old man many years hence, unknown to everyone, and if so, he would live at Cambridge. ”