LITMIR.BIZ

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me declare that I combine all the qualities. You see me now ‘organizing;’ in a few days you shall judge me in the field; and, later on, if my convictions do not deceive me, in the higher sphere of directing the great operations of an army. I place these words in your hands that they may be on record. If M’Caskey falls, it is a great destiny cut off; but posterity will see that he died in the full conviction of his genius. I have drawn on you for thirty-eight, ten-and-six; and to-morrow will draw again for seventy-four, fifteen.

      “Your note has just come. I am forced to say that its tone is not that to which, in the sphere I have moved, I have been accustomed. If I am to regard you as my superior officer, duty cries, ‘Submit.’ If you be simply a civilian, no matter how exalted, I ask explanation. The dinner at the Dawson Arms was necessary; the champagne was not excessive; none of the company were really drunk before ten o’clock; and the destruction of the furniture was a plaisanterie of a young gentleman from Louth who was going into holy orders, and might most probably not have another such spree in all his life again. Are you satisfied? If not, tell me what and where any other satisfaction may meet your wishes. You say, ‘Let us meet.’ I reply, ‘Yes, in any way you desire.’ You have not answered my demand – it was demand, not request – to be Count M’Caskey. I have written to Count Caffarelli on the subject, and have thoughts of addressing the king. Don’t talk to me of decorations. I have no room for them on the breast of my coat. I am forced to say these things to you, for I cannot persuade myself that you really know or understand the man you correspond with. After all, it took Radetzky a year, and Omar Pasha seventeen months, to arrive at that knowledge which my impatience, unjustly perhaps, complains that you have not attained to. Yet I feel we shall like each other; and were it not like precipitancy, I’d say, believe me, dear Maitland, very faithfully your friend,

      “Miles M’Caskey.”

      The answer to this was very brief, and ran thus: —

      “Lyle Abbey, August.

      “Sir, – You will come to Coleraine, and await my orders there, – the first of which will be to take no liberties of any kind with your obedient servant,

      “Norman Maitland.

      “Major M’Caskey, ‘The Dawson Arms, Castle Durrow.

      “P. S. Avoid all English acquaintances on your road. Give yourself out to be a foreigner, and speak as little as possible.”

      CHAPTER IX. MAITLAND’S FRIEND

      “I don’t think I ‘ll walk down to the Burnside with you to-day,” said Beck Graham to Maitland, on the morning after their excursion.

      “And why not?”

      “People have begun to talk of our going off together alone, – long solitary walks. They say it means something – or nothing.”

      “So, I opine, does every step and incident of our lives.”

      “Well. You understand what I intended to say.”

      “Not very clearly, perhaps; but I shall wait a little further explanation. What is it that the respectable public imputes to us?”

      “That you are a very dangerous companion for a young lady in a country walk.”

      “But am I? Don’t you think you are in a position to refute such a calumny?”

      “I spoke of you as I found you.”

      “And how might that be?”

      “Very amusing at some moments; very absent at others; very desirous to be thought lenient and charitable in your judgments of people, while evidently thinking the worst of every one; and with a rare frankness about yourself that, to any one not very much interested to learn the truth, was really as valuable as the true article.”

      “But you never charged me with any ungenerous use of my advantage; to make professions, for instance, because I found you alone.”

      “A little – a very little of that – there was; just as children stamp on thin ice and run away when they hear it crack beneath them.”

      “Did I go so far as that?”

      “Yes; and Sally says, if she was in my place, she ‘d send papa to you this morning.”

      “And I should be charmed to see him. There are no people whom I prefer to naval men. They have the fresh, vigorous, healthy tone of their own sea life in all they say.”

      “Yes; you’d have found him vigorous enough, I promise you.”

      “And why did you consult your sister at all?”

      “I did not consult her; she got all out of me by cross-questioning. She began by saying, ‘That man is a mystery to me; he has not come down here to look after the widow nor Isabella; he’s not thinking of politics nor the borough; there ‘s no one here that he wants or cares for. What can he be at?’”

      “Could n’t you have told her that he was one of those men who have lived so much in the world it is a luxury to them to live a little out of it? Just as it is a relief to sit in a darkened room after your eyes have been dazzled with too strong light. Could n’t you have said, He delights to talk and walk with me, because he sees that he may expand freely, and say what comes uppermost, without any fear of an unfair inference? That, for the same reason, – the pleasure of an unrestricted intercourse, – he wishes to know old Mrs. Butler, and talk with her, – over anything, in short? Just to keep mind and faculties moving, – as a light breeze stirs a lake and prevents stagnation?”

      “Well. I ‘m not going to perform Zephyr, even in such a high cause.”

      “Could n’t you have said, We had a pleasant walk and a mild cigarette together, —voilà tout?” said he, languidly.

      “I think it would be very easy to hate you, – hate you cordially, – Mr. Norman Maitland.”

      “So I’ve been told; and some have even tried it, but always unsuccessfully.”

      “Who is this wonderful foreigner they are making so much of at the Castle and the Viceregal Lodge?” cried Mark, from one of the window recesses, where he was reading a newspaper. “Maitland, you who know all these people, who is the Prince Caffarelli?”

      “Caffarelli! it must be the Count,” cried Maitland, hurrying over to see the paragraph. “The Prince is upwards of eighty; but his son, Count Caffarelli, is my dearest friend in the world. What could have brought him over to Ireland?”

      “Ah! there is the very question he himself is asking about the great Mr. Norman Maitland,” said Mrs. Trafford, smiling.

      “My reasons are easily stated. I had an admirable friend who could secure me a most hospitable reception. I came here to enjoy the courtesies of country home life in a perfection I scarcely believed they could attain to. The most unremitting attention to one’s comfort, combined with the wildest liberty.”

      “And such port wine,” interposed the Commodore, “as I am free to say no other cellar in the province can rival.”

      “Let us come back to your Prince or Count,” said Mark, “whichever he is. Why not ask him down here?”

      “Yes; we have room,” said Lady Lyle; “the M’Clintocks left this morning.”

      “By all means, invite him,” broke in Mrs. Trafford; “that is, if he be what we conjecture the dear friend of Mr. Maitland might and should be.”

      “I am afraid to speak of him,” said Maitland; “one disserves a friend by any over-praise; but at Naples, and in his own set, he is thought charming.”

      “I like Italians myself,” said Colonel Hoyle. “I had a fellow I picked up at Malta, – a certain Geronimo. I ‘m not sure he was not a Maltese; but such a salad as he could make! There was everything you could think of in it, – tomato, eggs, sardines, radishes, beetroot, cucumber.”

      “Every Italian is a bit of a cook,” said Maitland, relieving adroitly the company from the tiresome detail of the Colonel. “I ‘ll back my

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