“We expect to be attacked by noon,” said the officer, in a tone the very reverse of hopeful or encouraging.
“You can hold this pass against twenty thousand,” said M’Caskey.
“We shall not try,” said the other. “Why should we be the only men to get cut to pieces?”
The ineffable scorn of the little Colonel as he turned away was not lost on the other; but he made no reply to it, and retired. “We are to have an escort as far as Ravello; after that we are to take care of ourselves; and I own to you I think we shall be all the safer when we get out of the reach of his Majesty’s defenders.”
“There,” cried the Sergeant who acted as their guard, – “there, on that rock yonder, are the Reds. I’ll go no further.”
And as they looked they saw a small group of red-shirted fellows lying or lounging on a small cliff which rose abruptly over a stream crossed by a wooden bridge. Attaching his handkerchief to his walking-stick, M’Caskey stepped out boldly. Skeffy followed; they reached the bridge, and crossed it, and stood within the lines of the Garibaldians. A very young, almost boyish-looking, officer met them, heard their story, and with much courtesy told them that he would send one of his men to conduct them to head-quarters. “You will not find the General there,” said he, smiling; “he’s gone on in that direction;” and he pointed, as he spoke, towards Naples.
Skeff asked eagerly if the young officer had ever heard of Tony Butler, and described with ardor the handsome face and figure of his friend. The other believed he had seen him. There was, he knew, a giovane Irlandese who was wounded at Melazzo, and, if he was not mistaken, wounded again about four days back at Lauria. “All the wounded are at Salerno, however,” said he, carelessly, “and you are sure to find him amongst them.”
CHAPTER LVI. THE HOSPITAL AT CAVA
Had Skeff been in any mood for mirth, he might have enjoyed as rich drollery the almost inconceivable impertinence of his companion, who scrutinized everything, and freely distributed his comments around him, totally regardless that he stood in the camp of the enemy, and actually surrounded by men whose extreme obedience to discipline could scarcely be relied on.
“Uniformity is certainly not studied here,” cried M’Cas-key, as he stared at a guard about to be detached on some duty; “three fellows have gray trousers; two, blue, one a sort of canvas petticoat; and I see only one real coat in the party.”
A little further on he saw a group of about a dozen lying on the grass smoking, with their arms in disorderly fashion about, and he exclaimed, “How I ‘d like to surprise those rascals, and make a swoop down here with two or three companies of Cacciatori! Look at their muskets; there has n’t been one of them cleaned for a month.
“Here they are at a meal of some sort. Well, men won’t fight on beans and olive oil. My Irish fellows are the only devils can stand up on roots.”
These comments were all delivered in Italian, and listened to with a sort of bewildered astonishment, as though the man who spoke them must possess some especial and peculiar privilege to enable him to indulge so much candor.
“That’s not a knapsack,” said he, kicking a soldier’s pack that he saw on the grass; “that’s more like a travelling tinker’s bundle. Open it, and let’s see the inside!” cried he to the owner, who, awed by the tone of command, immediately obeyed; and M’Caskey ridiculed the shreds and patches of raiment, the tattered fragments of worn apparel, in which fragments of cheese and parcels of tobacco were rolled up. “Why, the fellows have not even risen to the dignity of pillage,” said he. “I was sure we should have found some saintly ornament or a piece of the Virgin’s petticoat among their wares.”
With all this freedom, carried to the extreme of impertinence, none molested, none ever questioned them; and as the guide had accidentally chanced upon some old friends by the way, he told M’Caskey that they had no further need of him; that the road lay straight before them, and that they would reach Cava in less than an hour.
At Cava they found the same indifference. They learned that Garibaldi had not come up, though some said he had passed on with a few followers to Naples, and others maintained that he had sent to the King of Naples to meet him at Salerno to show him the inutility of all resistance, and offer him a safe-conduct out of the kingdom. Leaving M’Caskey in the midst of these talkers, and not, perhaps, without some uncharitable wish that the gallant Colonel’s bad tongue would involve him in serious trouble, Skeffy slipped away to inquire after Tony.
Every one seemed to know that there was a brave Irlandese, – a daring fellow who had shown himself in the thick of every fight; but the discrepant accounts of his personal appearance and looks were most confusing. Tony was fair-haired, and yet most of the descriptions represented a dark man, with a bushy black beard and moustache. At all events, he was lying wounded at the convent of the Cappuccini, on a hill about a mile from the town; and Father Pantaleo – Garibaldi’s Vicar, as he was called – offered his services to show him the way. The Frate – a talkative little fellow, with a fringe of curly dark-brown hair around a polished white head – talked away, as they went, about the war, and Garibaldi, and the grand future that lay before Italy, when the tyranny of the Pope should be overthrown, and the Church made as free – and, indeed, he almost said as easy – as any jovial Christian could desire.
Skeffy, by degrees, drew him to the subject nearest his own heart at the moment, and asked about the wounded in hospital. The Frate declared that there was nothing very serious the matter with any of them. He was an optimist. Some died, some suffered amputations, some were torn by shells or grape-shot. But what did it signify? as he said. It was a great cause they were fighting for, and they all agreed it was a pleasure to shed one’s blood for Italy. “As for the life up there,” said he, pointing to the convent, “it is a vita da Santi, – the ‘life of saints themselves.’”
“Do you know my friend Tony the Irlandese?” asked Skeff, eagerly.
“If I know him! Per Bacco! I think I know him. I was with him when he had his leg taken off.”
Skeff’s heart sickened at this terrible news, and he could barely steady himself by catching the Fra’s arm. “Oh, my poor dear Tony,” cried he, as the tears ran down his face, – “my poor fellow!”
“Why did you pity him? Garibaldi gave him his own sword, and made him an officer on the day of the battle. It was up at Calanzaro, so that he ‘s nearly well now.”
Skeff poured in innumerable questions, – how the mischance occurred, and where; how he bore up under the dreadful operation; in what state he then was; if able to move about, and how? And as the Fra was one of those who never confessed himself unable to answer anything, the details he obtained were certainly of the fullest and most circumstantial.
“He’s always singing; that’s how he passes his time,” said the Frate.
“Singing! how strange! I never knew him to sing. I never heard him even hum a tune.”
“You ‘ll hear him now, then. The fellows about curse at him half the day to be silent, but he does n’t mind them, but sings away. The only quiet moment he gives them is while he’s smoking.”
“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?”
“Ah! I forgot my change of fortune: but if I had ever remembered it, I ‘d never have thought so meanly of her.”
“That’s all rot and nonsense. There’s no meanness in a woman wanting to marry her daughter well, any more than in a man trying to get a colonelcy or a legation for his son. You were no match for Alice Trafford three months ago. Now both she and her mother will think differently of your pretensions.”
“Say what you like of the mother, but you shall not impute such motives to Alice.”
“Don’t you get red in the face and look like a tiger, young man, or I ‘ll take my leave and send that old damsel here with the ice-pail to you.”
“It was the very thing I liked in you,” muttered Tony, “that you never did impute mean motives to women.”
“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. There, you are getting turkey-cock again. Let us talk of something else. What the deuce was it I wanted to ask you? – something about that great Irish monster in the next room, the fellow that sings all day: where did you pick him up?”
Tony made no reply, but lay with his hand over his eyes, while Skeff went on rambling over the odds and ends he had picked up in the course of Rory Quin’s story, and the devoted love he bore to Tony himself. “By the way, they say that it was for you Garibaldi intended the promotion to the rank of officer, but that you managed to pass it to this fellow, who could n’t sign his name when they asked him for it.”
“If he could n’t write, he has left his mark on some of the Neapolitans!” said Tony, fiercely; “and as for the advancement, he deserved it far more than I did.”
“It was a lucky thing for that aide-de-camp of Filangieri who accompanied me here, that your friend Rory had n’t got two legs, for he wanted to brain him with his crutch. Both of you had an antipathy to him, and indeed I own to concurring in the sentiment. My godfather you called him!” said he, laughing.
“I wish he had come a little closer to my bedside, that’s all,” muttered Tony; and Skeff saw by the expression of his features that he was once more unfortunate in his attempt to hit upon an unexciting theme.
“Alice knew of your journey here, I think you said?” whispered Tony, faintly.
“Yes. I sent them a few lines to say I was setting out to find you.”
“How soon could I get to Naples? Do you think they would let me move to-morrow?”
“I have asked that question already. The doctor says in a week; and I must hasten away to-night, – there’s no saying what confusion my absence will occasion. I mean to be back here by Thursday to fetch you.”
“Good fellow! Remember, though,” added he, after a moment, “we must take Rory. I can’t leave Rory here.”
Skeff looked gravely.
“He carried me when I was wounded out of the fire at Melazzo, and I am not going to desert him now.”
“Strange situation for her Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires,” said Skeff, – “giving protection to the wounded of the rebel army.”
“Don’t talk to me of rebels. We are as legitimate as the fellows we were fighting against. It was a good stand-up fight, too, – man to man, some of it; and if it was n’t that my head reels so when I sit or stand up, I ‘d like to be at it again.”
“It is a fine bull-dog, – just a bull-dog,” said Skeff, patting him on the head, while in the compassionate pity of his voice he showed how humbly he ranked the qualities he ascribed to him. “Ah! now I remember what it was I wished to ask you (it escaped me till this moment): who is the creature that calls himself Sam M’Gruder?”
“As good a fellow as ever stepped, and a true friend of mine. What of him?”
“Don’t look as if you would tear me in pieces, and scatter the fragments to the four winds of heaven. Sir, I ‘ll not stand it, – none of your buccaneering savageries to me!”
Tony laughed, and laughed heartily at the air of offended dignity of the other; and Skeff was himself disposed at last to smile at his own anger. “That ‘s the crying sin of your nature, Tony,” said he. “It is the one defect that spoils a really fine fellow. I tell you frankly about it, because I ‘m your friend; and if you don’t curb it, you ‘ll never be anything, – never! never!”
“But what is this fault? you have forgotten to tell it.”
“Over and over again have I told it It is your stupid animal confidence in your great hulking form: your coarse reliance on your massive shoulders, – a degenerate notion that muscle means manhood. It is here, sir, – here;” and Skeff touched his forehead with the tip of his finger; “here lies the godlike attribute. And until you come to feel that, you never will have arrived at the real dignity of a great creature.”
“Well, if I be the friend of one, Skeffy, it will satisfy all my ambition,” said he, grasping his hand warmly; “and now what of M’Gruder? How did you come to know of him?”
“Officially, – officially, of course. Skeffington Darner and Sam M’Gruder might revolve in ether for centuries and their orbits never cross! but it happened this honest fellow had gone off in search of you into Sicily; and with that blessed propensity for blundering the British subject is gifted with, had managed to offend the authorities and get imprisoned. Of course he appealed to me. They all appeal to me! but at the moment unhappily for him, the King was appealing to me, and Cavour was appealing to me, and so was the Emperor; and, I may mention in confidence, so was Garibaldi! – not in person, but through a friend. I know these things must be. Whenever a fellow has a head on his shoulders in this world, the other fellows who have no heads find it out and work him. Ay, sir, work him! That ‘s why I have said over and over again the stupid dogs have the best of it. I declare to you, on my honor, Tony, there are days I ‘d rather be you than be Skeff Darner!”
Tony shook his head.
“I know it sounds absurd, but I pledge you my sacred word of honor I have felt it.”
“And M’Gruder?” asked Tony.
“M’Gruder, sir, I liberated! I said, Free him! and, like the fellow in Curran’s celebrated passage, his chains fell to the ground, and he stood forward, not a bit grateful, – far from it, – but a devilish crusty Scotchman, telling me what a complaint he ‘d lodge against me as soon as he arrived in England.”
“No, no; he ‘s not the fellow to do that.”
“If he did, sir, it would crush him! The Emperor of Russia could not prefer a complaint against Skeff Darner, and feel the better of it!”
“He ‘s a true-hearted, fine fellow,” said Tony.
“With all my heart I concede to him all the rough virtues you may desire to endow him with; but please to bear in mind, Master Tony, that a man of your station and your fortune cannot afford such intimacies as your friend Rory here and this M’Gruder creature.”
“Then I was a richer man when I had nothing, for I could afford it then,” said Tony, sturdily; “and I tell you more, Skeffy, – I mean to afford it still. There is no fellow living I love better – no, nor as well – as I love yourself; but even for your love I’ll not give up the fine-hearted fellows who were true to me in my days of hardship, shared with me what they had, and gave me – what was better to me – their loving-kindness and sympathy.”
“You’d bring down the house if you said that in the Adelphi, Tony.”
“It ‘s well for you that I can’t get out of bed,” said Tony, with a grim laugh.
“There it is again; another appeal to the brute man and the man brute! Well, I ‘ll go to dinner, and I ‘ll tell the fair Sister to prepare your barley-water, and administer it in a more diluted form than heretofore;” and, adjusting his hat so as to display a favorite lock to the best advantage, and drawing on his gloves in leisurely fashion, Skeff Darner walked proudly away, bestowing little benevolent gestures on the patients as he passed, and intimating by certain little signs that he had taken an interest in their several cases, and saying, by a sweet smile, “You ‘ll be the better of this visit of mine. You ‘ll see, you will.”