“Burnside, Tuesday morning.
“Dear Sir,—I'll not take the three days you gave me
to consider your offer; I accept it at once.—Yours truly,
“Tony Butler.
“Norman Maitland, Esq., Lyle Abbey.”
“I'll have to write to Skeffy,” said he to himself, “and say you may tell my noble patron that I don't want the messengership, and that when next I call at the Office I 'll kick Willis for nothing. I don't suppose that this is the formal way of resigning; but I take it they 'll not be sorry to be quit of me, and it will spare the two old coves in white cravats all the trouble of having me plucked at the examination. Poor Skeffy won't be pleased, though; he was to have 'coached me' in foreign tongues and the Rule of Three. Well, I 'm glad I 'm in for a line of life where nobody asks about Colenso's Arithmetic, nor has so much as heard of Ollendorff's Method. Oh dear! how much happier the world must have been when people weren't so confoundedly well informed!—so awfully brimful of all knowledge as they now are! In those pleasant days, instead of being a black sheep, I 'd have been pretty much like the rest of the flock.”
The speculations on this topic—this golden age of ignorance and bliss—occupied him all the way, as he walked over the hills to leave his letter at the gate-lodge for Mr. Maitland.
Resisting all the lodge-keeper's inducements to talk,—for he was an old friend of Tony's, and wanted much to know where he had been and what doing of late, and why he was n't up at the Abbey every day as of yore,—Tony refused to hear of all the sad consequences that had followed on his absence; how the “two three-year-olds had gone back in their training;” how “Piper wouldn't let a saddle be put on his back;” how the carp were all dying in the new pond, nobody knew why,—there was even something gone wrong with the sun-dial over the stable, as though the sun himself had taken his departure in dudgeon, and would n't look straight on the spot since. These were, with many more, shouted after him as he turned away, while he, laughing, called out, “It will be all right in a day or two, Mat. I 'll see to everything soon.”
“That I 'll not,” muttered he to himself when alone. “The smart hussar—the brave Captain—may try his hand now. I 'd like to see him on Piper. I only wish that he may mount him with the saddle tightly girthed; and if he does n't cut a somerset over his head, my name is n't Tony! Let us see, too, what he 'll do with those young dogs; they 're wild enough by this time! I take it he 's too great a swell to know anything about gardening or grafting; so much the worse for my Lady's flower-pot! There 's one thing I 'd like to be able to do every morning of my life,” thought he, in sadder mood,—“just to give Alice's chestnut mare one canter, to make her neck flexible and her mouth light, and to throw her back on her haunches. And then, if I could only see Alice on her! just to see her as she bends down over the mane and pats the mare's shoulder to coax her not to buck-leap! There never was a picture that equalled it! the mare snorting and with eyes flashing, and Alice all the while caressing her, and saying, 'How silly you are, Maida! come, now, do be gentle!'”
These thoughts set others in motion,—the happy, happy days of long ago; the wild, half-reckless gallops over the fern-clad hills in the clear bright days of winter; or the still more delightful saunterings of a summer's eve on the sea-shore!—none of them—not one—ever to come back again. It was just as his reveries had reached so far that he caught sight of the four dappled grays—they were Alice's own—swinging smoothly along in that long easy stride by which thoroughbreds persuade you that work is no distress to them. It was only as they breasted the hill that he saw that the bearing-reins were not let down,—a violation of a precept on which he was inexorable; and he hastened, with all the speed he could, to catch them ere they gained the crest of the ridge.
To say the truth, Tony was somewhat ashamed of himself for his long absence from the Abbey. If it was not ingratitude, it had a look of it. They knew nothing of what had passed between Mark and himself, and could only pronounce upon his conduct as fickleness, or worse; and he was glad of an opportunity to meet them less formally than by a regular morning visit. Either Alice and her sister, or Alice alone, were certain to be in the carriage; for Lady Lyle was too timid to trust herself with those “grays;” and so he bounded forward, his heart full of expectancy, and burning once more to hear that voice whose very chidings were as music to him.
He was close to the carriage before he saw Maitland,—indeed, the sight of Alice, as he drew near, had so entranced him that he saw nothing else; but when his eyes did fall on her companion, a pang shot through him as though he had been stabbed. In the raging jealousy of the moment everything was forgotten but his passion,—his hatred of that man. He 'd have given his right hand to be able to hurl at him a mortal defiance, to have dared him to the death. Indeed, so far as the insolence of his stare could convey his meaning, it declared an open war between them. Nor did Maitland's attitude assuage this anger; he lay back with a cool assumption of superiority—an air of triumphant satisfaction—that seemed to say, Each of us is in the place that befits him.
So overcome was he by passion, that even Alice's invitation to get into the carnage sounded like an outrage to his ears. It was bitter enough to cast him off without making him witness the success of another. Maitland's daring to apologize for him—to explain away why he had or had not done this, that, or t' other—was more than his endurance could brook; and as he hurried away from the spot, dashing recklessly down cliff and crag, and sprang from rock to rock without a thought of the peril, he almost accused himself of cowardice and cold-bloodedness for not having insulted him on the instant, and by some open outrage forced upon him a quarrel from which there could be no retreating. “If I 'd insulted him before her,” cried he, “he never could have evaded me by calling me an angry boy.”
“I'll have no companionship with him, at all events,” said he, suddenly checking himself in his speed; “he shall neither be leader nor comrade of mine. I 'll get my letter back before it reach him.” With this resolve he turned his steps back again to the Abbey. Although he knew well that he must reach the lodge before they could return from their drive, he hurried along as though his life depended on it The keeper was out, but Tony dashed into the lodge, and found, as he expected, the letter on the chimney; he tore it into fragments, and turned away.