SHORT STORY

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 351, 29 January 1903, Page 7

SHORT STORY

The little party straggled listlessly enough down the village street. Valentine brought up the rear with Mrs. Winston, and ha was gracious enough to evince a brave show of interest in her words, but his eyes and his mind were busy with the brightness ahead. The sty and the grass and the sunlight, all the colour and sound and beauty of the river wrld seemed to blend with and breathe upon the girl, to sum their own perfection in her loveliness, to honour her as the very rose of that June day. To Valentine the flutter of her thin gewn about her ankles appeared as a miracle, and tl e poise of her fair head a favour vouchsafed by heaven. While he listened with feigned intensity of attention to Mrs. Winston's fluent appreciations of early Italian poets, a confusion of mellifluous names, he was trying to find the right words, the exquisite exact words to match her daintiness, to translate her grace What poet in all the spacious cemetery ef dead singers ever praised such a lady? What lover ever leved woman - with the same fine heat that burned for her in his heart ? Did Winston, walkuur ahead with Miss Bennet, once feel as I Valentine felt ? His gaze' travelled over the faded prettiness of Clara Winston's face, and while his consciousness remained indifferent to h°r brisk speech his imagination renewed her youth, rejuvenated Winston, the plump and red, weighed them in the balance with his love and the girl he loved and found them wanting. No sense of humour pricked him as he turned his head to look again at Lena Sutaon. She was laughing merrily at some jest of Harold Culpin's, and he knew that her laughter rang fresh and sweet over the fields of fairyland. He thought in a great ecitacy that he might hope to call that delicate creature his, and he smiled a superior smile as Lis memory persisted in finishing the quotation.

The march came suddenly to a halt Winston aad Mabel Rennet had stopped ia fioat of one of the few shops that the single street of the little river village sheltered, Lena and Culpin had [stopped in their torn, and the four clustered around the window chattering and laughing, "They have found something amusing,' said Mrs. Winston, eagerly, dissipating her Italian poeta into air in her sudden appreciation of some possible excitement in an unexciting place. His leisurely pace quickened to something like a run; Valentine followed his heart in following her impulse, aad the group in front of the shop window became six. It was the the characteristic commonplace general ■hop that is to be found in every hamlet in England, the shop that sella •verything that is needed -by a small com* munity which cannot be got at t he baker's or the butcher's, the grocer's or the tavern, the greengrocer's or the cobbler's. Fins and tapes and buttons appealed to. the slovenly to pull themselves together j melancholy toothbrushes voiced the claims of personal cleanliness; copy-books and ink bottles hurried the imagination to dreams of new Iliads; and for eternal youth a few staring toys asserted the ttflrsaUy meretricious. ' What have you found V asked Valentine, but he was not thinking of the shop or looking at its ironic summary of the human game; he was feasting en the soft face of Lena Sutton, flushed now, to his fancy, with a diviner pink than the dawn. Harold Culphin answered him, smiling , wrily as he always did when he was i amused, and speaking in his chill staccato.

* The Philoeopher'B Stone j the Elixir of Youth 5 and hour's diversion.' He pointed to a corner of the window, where a doll reclined, a large and gaudy doll, liberally crimson of cheek, liberally blue of eye, liberally yellow of hair, liberally par. mented in a skimpy cotton shift * Are you going to boy a doll V Mrs. Winston asked, astonished. Lena laughed, and the sound of her laughter rippled over Valentine's heaitstrinas. *We are going to have acockahot,' Bhe said, 'the rustic sports of old England revived on the village green. Buy that doll, somebody i well stick it up and pelt at it,, and I'll give a prize to the best l^lnr^f^^T^H||^ l , They crowded into the shop, vivacious, noisy, filling the dim narrow place with vehement humanity, and startling the duaty little man who rose up gnome-like from behind the counter to greet them, and who peered dubiously at them through ancient barnacles. Culpin bought the girl for a couple of ■hillings when he had succeeded in persuading the shopkeeper that he meant business, and was not merely maTring game of him, and then they ail steamed out again from that queer wizard's cave into the sunny sleepy street Where the street ended a green began, a green that was almost a common, a green bisected by a wide white path that led to the station, that was fringed with venerable trees, and boasted a pool beloved by thirsty cattle. Lena button led the way to a quiet corner, Culpin followed, holding the flagrant doll, and the rest came behind, c»r iggiing at their heels in loose order. Sirs. Winston bad forgotten all about the Italian poets in her zest for a pastime new to a woman weary of croquet and the punt while Mabel Bennett questioned ahriily the nature of the promised prize, and shook her head derisively when Lena suggested over her shoulder a photograph of herself, and was answered by the plauditß of the attendant men. Culpin, ever manually dexterous, prodded a stick in the ground, propped the blatant image against it, and marked the place upon the grass where the competitors were to Btand. The party scattered, collecting stones and sticks, rallied again loaded with whimsical ammunition, toed the line properly under the auspices of Culpin, and the fun began. It seemed at first rather poor fun to Valentine. There were many things he " would ratherhave done with the lees ot that summer day than to stand ono of a row on a space of rusty grass and fling Btoaes and sticks at a foolish effigy ef humanity, fie had hoped for a solitary ramble with Lena among the scented lanes; he had dreamed of an hoar alone with Lena,

Tie Man and Ike Doll.

steering his pant through the shining shallows of some lonely blackwater. ihere was something he wanted to say to Lena, something sweet and secret and sacred which his lips had not yet uttered however much his mind might have, long since, betrayed the purposes of his heart, rhere would be golden evening hours etiil in which to say his say, or silver hours ot waning evening if the confession, if the question that trembled on his tongue must needs be made and put that day He knew very well that the confession would not surprise her; he had sometimes allowed himself to believe that the question would not be harshly answered. But his divinity had proved capricious that morning. Harold Culpin's presence had seemed to divert and detain her with its accompaniment of dry tireless gaiety. There was always something sinister about Culpin's gaiety, Valentine had whispered to himself, only to sn*er at himself immediately for so poor a play of jealousy; * He had aimed listlessly while he thought and his bit of flint flew wide of the mark. Mrs. Winston followed with like result. Culpin, felways dexterous, struck the doll on the shoulder, and made Jt stagger a little, but it still remained a target perpendicular against its pole. Winston cheered the success; Mabel Bonnet jeered the failure; Mrs. Winston pointed out the resemblance of the doll to the conventional Christian Martyr in the conventional arena. Valentine turned to look at Lina, and suddenly felt his breath fail and his heart tighten. The girl was leaning forward with fiercely shining eyes; her warm red mouth was strained tenße; her balanced body poised rigidly eager; so might Diana have looked when first the hounds gave tongue after Actaeon and the valley rang with:the cries of the human stag. The stone'she held, truly aimed, struck the pilloried puppet on the painted face, tearing away a piece of the waxen cheek, and with an ugly shudder that mountebanked vitab'ty the doll reeled in a heap on the ground, Winston and the two women applauding vociferously; Lena and Culpin ran forward together, the one to examine thd result of her cast, the other to restore the martyr plaything to its place against itß gibbet. Only Valentine said nothing, did nothing. He stood quite still whUe a queer feeling surged over him, a feeling as if he were going to be violently sick, as if grass and sky were in a conspiracy to deceive him by shuffling their relative positions with incredible Bwiftneas. He was himself again in a moment, but from that moment the game gained a new significance for him. Till then it had seemed stupid, foolish business enough, the idle invention, of an idle afternoon; now it appeared like a nightmare, dim and cruel and barbarous, a ceremony as hideous as Black mass and as wicked as an Autoda-fe. His own flesh seemed to be torn, his own being to bleed with the wounds of the doll; all childhood, all motherhood screamed at him in shrill pain from the battered and mangled bedjj the wail of all the gentler spirits of the world, love and pity, and tenderness, sounded in his ears, and he longed, weakly, for the moral courage that would have allowed him to ape the daring of the monk Telemachus who leaped into the Soman blood-ring, and bought with his own life an end to the battle of living men. All that was best in him wanted bim to place his body as a bulwark for the ruined plaything that represented bo much in its piteous dissolution. But he did not dare. Tee sneer on Culpin's face, the derision in Lena's eyes chilled him as he thought—and the game went on. He flung when ha turn came but his missiles went ever wide, shamefacedly sparing the mark amid the mockery of his companions who pelted away lustily, unconscious of the latent tragedy, with varying fortunes. The girl that Valentine loved was the luckiest in her aim, and hers was the final blow that left the outraged toy so battered as to seem profitless for further sport.

The excitement was over: the artillery exhausted: the hunting spirit flagged. Lena's suggestion that another quarry might be extracted from the little shop was overborne by numbers; Mrs. Winston's brief enthusiasm had evaporated, and Miss Bennet insisted sturdily upon tea. As they stood in debate on the edge of the white highway Valentine, silent and slightly apart, wondered at his mood, fie felt at odds with his summer comrades, exasperated with them for what he had not done; asking himself if he were unreasonably hot in a trivial quarrel; if the shattered plaything really had a voicce that had a right to insist so piteously. His speculatians and the beady argument for and against immediate adjournment to the tea table were interrupted by an exclamation from Culpin. 'By Jove, look there,' he said, and pointed the lean forefinger of a long hand at the deserted shambles. Along the narrow footpath worn through the common grass a little girl was coming. The footpath was one of many that radiated from the neighbourhood of a distant school house; the girl who seemed to be about six years old, had some school books under her arm; Bhe was just a poor, commonplace little child, travelling her commonplace route at the conclusion of her commonplace day. But she had seen from afar the doll lying on the ground, and at the sight her steps had quickened, and it was to this that Culpin had called her attention with a smile on his unkind face. He group stood in silence and looked on as the little girl, unconscious of being watched, but very conscious of the coloured muddle on the ground, ran quickly to the spot where the doll lay. They saw her stoop over the ruin, look at it for a few seconds in surprise and doubt; then, taking up the dilapidated carcass in her little arms, she moved away, sorely embarrassed by the addition to her load, but hugging her worthless discovery tightly Cnlpin laughed, and Lena laughed loudly as the little figure stumbled away in the direction of some cottages on the far edge of tho green; the others laughed a little; Valentine did not laugh at all. All his doubts had bean instantly defeated by that vivid picture of the eternal motherly; the cry of all offending ehildhoed seemed to be accusing nim; he shivered with selfdieguat in the warm sunlight What a a beast he had been, what beasts they had all been in their selfishness, their brutality, their wantonness! Lena, in the midst of her amusement, turned and saw him, and asked him why he was looking

bo solemn. *I am sorry for the little girl,' he answered. Calpin's face wrinkled into an ironic smile at bis words; Lena shrugged her shoulders in good-humoured disdain. 'Ho.r dreadfully sentimental you are,' she said, pityingly, and he answered slowly,' I'm afraid I am.' The others had already begun to move in the direction of home. Lena and CulSUi turned to follow them. Valentine ngerad behind under the pretense of filling a pipe. Onlpin said something to L ua and her laugh rang out in ready response; Valentine had little doubt that an ironic draft upon he? sense of his absurdity has been promptly met. He did not care. He was oppressed by a sense of wrong-doing which he could scarcely put into articulate words, a sense that be had helped to spoil Borne small human soul's small chance of happiness, a sense also of a great personal loss, of an as yet unrealizable catastrophe. Shame and regret wrestled in his breast with the devil of indifference; he longed to make amends for the unamendable, to retain the unretainable, to tell himself that all was not lest as well as honour. His friends were already far away, and still his pipe was not alight. He was looking at the little cottage that had Bwallowed up the tiny child and h6r tragic burden; he was thinking intolerable thoughts. Suddenly he thrust his pipe into his pocket and made brißkly for the village. But he did not rejoin his companions; he halted at the door of the accommodating comprehensive shop, and vividly aware of his own heart-beats, he went in. (To be concluded next week.)