LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 27, 1 July 1874, Page 4

LITERATURE.

GEORGE LOVELACE’S TEMPTATION. A Tale in Four Chapters, Continued. The change in their life was great—almost unbearable at first. Like the blaze of light on an eye accustomed to darkness, the excess of their present ease had stunned, at first, those who were becoming inured to difficulty and distress. But, after a time, this wore off, and the feeling of astonishment and doubt which arose from it, and prevented, for some time, the thorough enjoyment of their new circumstances, gave way in the minds of George and Ethel to a calmer state, in which they"were thoroughly able to appreciate the bounties which Fortune had given them. Before he moved from his lodging, George had caused the strictest search to be made for his father’s will. He must be sure of his right, he said, before taking possession of the estates ; and it was only after every imaginable place had been futilely ransacked, that he consented to have transferred to his own name the handsome balance which lay unemployed at Hoare’s. Then he had taken Ethel and baby abroad, and they had roamed over Switzerland and Italy, to the intense delight and advantage of the young wife, and then—when the roses were in full bloom in England and in Ethel’s checks —they had come back for a little London, preparatory to going down to Blackwood for the autumn. Ethel had completely rccooered the effects of her pauper life, and could afford to look back on it without pain, and even talk of it during the many interviews which she had with her good old landlady, It was a bad thing for the lodgers in the little house that Ethel had moved Mrs Grumpe to her London house before taking her down to Blackwood ; for it may be doubted whether there existed a more benevolent or painstaking old housekeeper in the whole city. But Ethel said she would not leave the good soul where she was, and insisted on showing—now she could—her appreciation of her kindness when they lived in her house. So she would often send for Mrs Grumpe to her room, make her have tea, and chat about old times —for they already seemed old to Ethel—and joke about the shifts they were put to to pay the rent. ‘ And I must say this, my dear—l beg pardon, I mean my lady, would be old Martha’s constant refrain—‘there never was no one more punctual to the minute than you, ’cept the time when you took ill, and that there blessed infant was born, and then you could not help it.’ 1 And so you forgave us the debt ; eh, Martha 1 ’

‘ Well, my dear, I didn’t want to press ye.’ But George never joined these stances, nor did he ever allude to his past life in conversation with his wife ; and whenever anything recalled it to his mind, Ethel thought that a shudder passed over him, as it were of detestation of some horrible thing. Nor was his health at first good. The harassing anxiety of the four years of struggle seemed to have left its stamp upon him. He would show signs of lack of energy and lack of vigour. Little things w r ould annoy him, and though with Ethel he was always gentle and affectionate, with others he would with difficulty repress an inclination to be peevish and querulous. These symptoms, however, faded away after a time, and George seemed, when he had been in London for a month, as well as ever he had been in his youtn.

And the whirl of Loudon went on. The same nonsense was talked in ballrooms, the same scandal in boudoirs, the same false logic at clubs. And George and Ethel, having determined to do London, did it as perhaps young married people alone can. They were made much of, too —she in the saloons of the women, he in the clubs of the men of his party, who had already extracted from him half a promise to stand at the next election for tac county. And they obtained everywhere a welcome which they owed to their position, their strange story, and Ethel’s striking beauty, and which they kept up by the many good qualities which they possessed. But all this while George never spoke about their past life to Ethel, nor did he mention the subject until they had been at Blackwood for a fortnight, and then it was in this wise :

They were in the garden one evening after a warm day towards the end of August, sitting in two basket-chairs, and watching the sun set slowly behind the hills which separated their county from its neighbor. Their garden was bounded on two sides by an avenue of due trees, while on the side opposite the house there was nothing to keep the eye from roaming over a fair and fertile valley, closed in by the range of hills, and through the middle of which the waters of a silvery river glittered here and there in the sun. It was a lovely evening ; some thrushes were singing in [the fulness of their appreciation of a receut shower ; some doves were cooing in a wood hard by, and their notes seemed to bring out in contrast the calm which reigned everywhere around. It was a sort of day on which existence alone is a pleasure , and George, as he left his chair, and threw himself at the feet of his fair wife, felt this, and broke rather a long silence by saying : ‘No, I don’t think I could bear it.’ ‘ What, dear V said Ethel, though she had, before his answer came, followed his train of thought. ‘ To leave all this and go back to our past life. When I think of what tvas our past life. When I thick of what was our existence and what was evidently meant to bo ours for life, I cannot help feeling as one docs after waking from a horrible nightmare; and when I see your dear face looking so well and happy, and know that you can do all the good actions which you love, I cannot help thinking some providence must must have prevented my father doing what ho must have intended. You are happy here, Ethel V 1 Yes, perfectly. Why ?’ * Because I should be' sorry if you were not. I want to live here a great deal. I think a man has duty on his property, and ought to do that dnty as much as he can. He aloue can decide many things without producing the discontent wffiich an agent’s decision, even if equally just, often gives, I therefore want to make this our home, and not be away from it much. There is plenty for you to do, when baby can spare you. The schools are in a villanous state, and several cottages ought to be built in the village. Don’t be in a hurry though, and don’t run amuck against people’s prejudices; others arc not necessarily wrong because they don’t agree with you. With tact you may do much good. By heaven, to think I can give you the means of doing it, and that once—it ia too horrible to think of that life I ’

CIIAPTEII 111. ‘ To thine owuself be true ; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’ So they made up their minds to stay at Blackwood ; and before they had been there a year the property began to show manifest signs of the change of owners. The village began to grow tidier. A model cottage or two were put up here and there. The schoolroom was rebuilt and the church improved. Then Ethel had her classes and worked hard at them ; not spasmodically and with the zeal which is warm one day and negligent the next, but with care and determination and patience. She found it up-hill work at first, and the difficulties many, but she soon overcame them. She took up the choir too, and paid attention to the singing in church. The result was increased attendance and greater interest. Then she made George pay a good salary to a curate to help the rector, and contrived that he should select a clever man from Balliol, who was wise enough to preach simple homely sermons, which the country people understood and liked far better than the argumentative disputations of poor old Prohser. Then she busied herself with the poor, and helped them to help themselves, not by giving them money, but by putting them in the way of earning it. Sometimes she helped them to buy a sewing-machine ; sometimes she gave them direct employment ; and sometimes she did them more good by showing them how to supply each other’s wants, and by doing so, help themselves. She had the power which a pretty woman always has, and she used it well. Then too, when sickness broke out and low fever came, she" sent for a London doctor, and kept him in the house for a month till he had broken the neck of the disease, and showed the local man the newest manner of dealing with it. When Amy Dunscombe, who lived at the lodge, was taken ill, Ethel nursed her herself, and the doctor said that it was entirely owing to her ladyship’s care that the girl came round as she did. No one knew who Amy was. She had been sent to the lodge-keeper’s by old Sir George, who paid a certain sum for her keep, on the ground that she was the daughter of an old tenant who was dead, and to whom he was indebted. She was a violent girl, and not in good repute in the village, where she was not much loved, and where stories were told not at all in her favor. But she was frightened by her illness, and was grateful—for a time —to Ethel for her care. A little while afterwards, however, she had forgotten this, and became desperately angry one day because Ethel told her she was too much about with Walter, the village attorney’s clerk, a low foul-mouthed chap, who was not often seen at church or where he ought to be. She was very insolent too, and when Ethel threatened to send her away said she did not care ; if she had her rights she was as good as any of ’em —ay, as my lady herself, notwithstanding all her airs.

But it must not be imagined that Ethel was the only one who worked. George put his whole heart into his duties. Ere long ho knew every tenant and their holdings ; and while he was extremely firm with those whom he thoughtcareless ornegligent in their farming, he was always ready to help those who were in want of temporary aid, and he assisted more than one to drain a field, to stock a farm, or to buy a steam-engine. He was liked, for he had a popular manner with every one, and he had also tact and weight, and his ready sympathy and open-handed liberality, coupled with his inflexible uprightness, gave him power and influence. One day when he and his wife had been at home about fifteen months, as they were leaving the churchyard after having been present at the wedding of one of their servants, a knot of villagers were gathered together as they passed. ‘There she goes,’ said one. She’s the purtiest lassy in all the county, ay, and the best too ’

‘ Ah,’ said a second, ‘ he’s a fortunate man, and he deserves it.’

‘ That he does ; when my old woman was down so bad he sent broth and port wine every day from ta big house.’ ‘He gave ray lass a gownd when she married.’

‘He would not na touch a penny of John Roberts’ rent last year when the disease was so bad with ta cattle.’

‘ Na ; and he gied poor old Biddy Murtagh that mangle that keeps t’ ould girl going.’ ‘ God bless’m both, say I; let’s gic ’em a cheer.’

In the county also George did his work as a magistrate honestly and well ; and his opinion—even though he was utterly innocent of law —was always listened to with respect. He subscribed liberally to hounds, and though he did not hunt much there was always a fox in his coverts during his first season. He was a great man for working at the county infirmary and the district lunatic asylums, in which he remedied many abuses and put affairs on a much better footing than they had known formerly. He was always ready to be put on any committee for county purposes, for his past life seemed to have had one effect upon him—that he was unable to be idle. So that if he was not engaged in out-door sports, he was nearly certain to be at work at something or another.

Nor did he neglect; his social duties, and those who accepted the hospitality of Blackwood were never sorry that they had done so, and were always glad to come again. George was never a wild man, and now he felt far happier in the company of those who had, than of those who had not, something more to recommend them than mere social popularity ; and at Blackwood therefore you would generally iiud men of literary or artistic distinction, men of ability in the law, one or more of the leading men of the ministry—in a word, men of repute in some line or another. And on occasions when such a party would assemble at Blackwood, Ethel would play the hostess with as much pleasure as she took in looking after her village, and would be as popular with George’s guests as she was with her own friends. To he continued,

A member of the Missouri Legislature, whose reputation was exceedingly below par, absented himself for a while, and then had his death announced. Thereupon the Legislature passed the usual resolutions of condolence ; some of the wily member’s bitterest enemies eulogised their “ departed friend’s exalted character and and high moral worth and the next day he reappeared in his seat with the resolutions and eulogies neatly pasted in his memorandum-book, as a receipt in full for the past and a letter of credit for the future,