"Do you mean to go to Tilney, Alice?" asked her mother, curtly.

"If Mr. Maitland would like to add Mrs. Maxwell to his curiosities of acquaintance."

"I have met her already. I think her charming. She told me of some port, or a pair of coach-horses, I can't be certain which, her late husband purchased forty-two years ago; and she so mingled the subjects together, that I fancied the horses were growing yellow, and the wine actually frisky."

"I see that you _have_ really listened to her," said Mrs. Trafford.

"Well, do you consent to this visit?"

"Delighted. Tell me, by way of parenthesis, is she a near neighbor of the worthy Commodore with the charming daughters? Gambier Graham, I think his name is."

"Yes; she lives about twelve miles from his cottage: but why do you ask?"

"I have either promised, or he fancies I have promised, to pay him a flying visit."

"Another case of a savage princess," whispered Mrs. Trafford; and he laughed heartily at the conceit. "If we take the low road,--it's very little longer and much prettier,--we pa.s.s the cottage; and if your visit be not of great length, more than a morning call, in fact,--I 'll go there with you."

"You overwhelm me with obligations," said he, bowing low, to which she replied by a courtesy so profound as to throw an air of ridicule over his courtly politeness.

"Shall we say to-morrow for our departure, Mr. Maitland?"

"I am at your orders, madam."

"Well, then, I'll write to dear old Aunt Maxwell--I suppose she'll be your aunt too before you leave Tilney (for we all adopt a relation so very rich and without an heir)--and delight her by saying that I have secured Mr. Maitland, an announcement which will create a flutter in the neighborhood by no means conducive to good archery."

"Tell her we only give him up till Wednesday," said Lady Lyle, "for I hope to have the Crayshaws here by that time, and I shall need you all back to receive them."

"More beauties, Mr. Maitland," exclaimed Mrs. Trafford. "What are you looking so grave about?"

"I was thinking it was just possible that I might be called away suddenly, and that there are some letters I ought to write; and, last of all, whether I should n't go and make, a hurried visit to Mrs. Butler; for in talking over old friends in Scotland, we have grown already intimate."

"What a mysterious face for such small concerns!" said Mrs. Trafford.

"Did n't you say something, papa, about driving me over to look at the two-year-olds?"

"Yes; I am going to inspect the paddock, and told Giles to meet me there."

"What's the use of our going without Tony?" said she, disconsolately; "he's the only one of us knows anything about a colt."

"I really did hope you were beginning to learn that this young gentleman was not an essential of our daily life here," said Lady Lyle, haughtily.

"I am sorry that I should have deceived myself."

"My dear mamma, please to remember your own ponies that have become undrivable, and Selim, that can't even be saddled. Gregg will tell you that he does n't know what has come over the melon-bed,--the plants look all scorched and withered; and it was only yesterday papa said that he 'd have the schooner drawn up till Tony came back to decide on the new keel and the balloon jib!"

"What a picture of us to present to Mr. Maitland! but I trust, sir, that you know something of my daughter's talent for exaggerated description by this time, and you will not set us down for the incapables she would exhibit us." Lady Lyle moved haughtily away as she spoke; and Sir Arthur, drawing Mrs. Trafford's arm within his own, said, "You 're in a fighting mood to-day. Come over and torment Giles."

"There 's nothing I like better," said she. "Let me go for my hat and a shawl."

"And I'm off to my letter-writing," said Maitland.

CHAPTER XVII. AT THE COTTAGE

What a calm, still, mellow evening it was, as Tony sat with his mother in the doorway of the cottage, their hands clasped, and in silence, each very full of thought, indeed, but still fuller of that sweet luxury, the sense of being together after an absence,--the feeling that home was once more home, in all that can make it a centre of love and affection.

"I began to think you were n't coming back at all, Tony," said she, "when first you said Tuesday, and then it was Friday, and then it came to be the middle of another week. 'Ah me!' said I to the doctor, 'he 'll not like the little cottage down amongst the tall ferns and the heather, after all that grand town and its fine people.'"

"If you knew how glad I am to be back here," said he, with a something like choking about the throat; "if you knew what a different happiness I feel under this old porch, and with you beside me!"

"My dear, dear Tony, let us hope we are to have many such evenings as this together. Let me now hear all about your journey; for, as yet, you have only told me about that good-hearted country fellow whose bundle has been lost Begin at the beginning, and try and remember everything."

"Here goes, then, for a regular report. See, mother, you 'd not believe it of me, but I jotted all down in a memorandum-book, so that there's no trusting to bad memory; all's in black and white."

"That was prudent, Tony. I 'm really glad that you have such forethought. Let me see it."

"No, no. It's clean and clear beyond your reading. I shall be lucky enough if I can decipher it myself. Here we begin: 'Albion, Liverpool.

Capital breakfast, but dear. Wanted change for my crown-piece, but chaffed out of it by pretty barmaid, who said--' Oh, that's all stuff and nonsense," said he, reddening. "'Mail-train to London; not allowed to smoke first-cla.s.s; travelled third, and had my 'baccy.' I need n't read all this balderdash, mother; I 'll go on to business matters.

'Skeffy, a trump, told me where he buys "birdseye" for one and nine the pound; and, mixed with cavendish, it makes grand smoking. Skeffy says he 'll get me the first thing vacant'"

"Who is Skeffy? I never heard of him before."

"Of course you 've heard. He's private secretary to Sir Harry, and gives away all the Office patronage. I don't think he 's five feet five high, but he 's made like a Hercules. Tom Sayers says Skeffy's deltoid--that's the muscle up here--is finer than any in the ring, and he's such an active devil. I must tell you of the day I held up the 'Times' for him to jump through; but I see you are impatient for the serious things: well, now for it.

"Sir Harry, cruel enough, in a grand sort of overbearing way, told me my father was called Watty. I don't believe it; at least, the fellow who took the liberty must have earned the right by a long apprenticeship."

"You are right there, Tony; there were not many would venture on it."

"Did any one ever call him Wat Tartar, mother?"

"If they had, they 'd have caught one, Tony, I promise you."

"I thought so. Well, he went on to say that he had nothing he could give me. It was to the purport that I was fit for nothing, and I agreed with him."

"That was not just prudent, Tony; the world is p.r.o.ne enough to disparage without helping them to the road to it."

"Possibly; but he read me like a book, and said that I only came to him because I was hopeless. He asked me if I knew a score of things he was well aware that I must be ignorant of, and groaned every time I said 'No!' When he said, 'Go home and brush up your French and Italian,'

I felt as if he said, 'Look over your rent roll, and thin your young timber.' He 's a humbug, mother."

"Oh, Tony, you must not say that."

"I will say it; he's a humbug, and so is the other."

"Who is the other you speak of?"

"Lord Ledgerton, a smartish old fellow, with a pair of gray eyes that look through you, and a mouth that you can't guess whether he's going to eat you up or to quiz you. It was he that said, 'Make Butler a messenger.' They did n't like it. The Office fellows looked as sulky as night; but they had to bow and sn.i.g.g.e.r, and say, 'Certainly, my Lord;'

but I know what they intend, for all that. They mean to pluck me; that's the way they 'll do it; for when I said I was nothing to boast of in English, and something worse in French, they grinned and exchanged smiles, as much as to say, 'There's a rasper he 'll never get over.'"

"And what is a messenger, Tony?"

"He's a fellow that carries the despatches over the whole world,--at least, wherever there is civilization enough to have a Minister or an Envoy. He starts off from Downing Street with half-a-dozen great bags as tall as me, and he drops one at Paris, another at Munich, another at Turin, and perhaps the next at Timbuctoo. He goes full speed,--regular steeple-chase pace,--and punches the head of the first postmaster that delays him; and as he is well paid, and has nothing to think of but the road, the life is n't such a bad one."