LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 57, 5 August 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

DENNY'S INTENTIONS

In Four Chapters, Continued.

' What ! has he come into a fortune, then?' ' Not yet, Mr Denny ; but they do say he's looking out for somebody's shoes. Well if he don't know how to make the money, he'll know how to spend it.' ' Oh !' I didn't know he'd any expectations,' said Denny, looking cold and blank. ' Well, Mr Denny, then you are the only person as hasn't heard of it: he's trumpeting about it all over the place. Charles Blake, Esq., Manor Farm; why, it's written all over the blotting paper. Look here Mr Denny.' Denny came up to the desk, and looked at the blotting-pad—it wasn't Charlie's by the way ; but that didn't matter—sure enough, there was Chas. Blake, Esq., Manor Farm, Charles Blake, Manor House, scribbled all over it. ' Oh, he's trumpeting it about, is he, Mr Marrables ?' ' So everybody tells me. I don't pay any attention to what he talks about, myself. ' There's such a thing as blowing the wrong end of the trumpet, Marrables, and them as dees siugs small. Come, where's Hutton ? I want to speak with him directly.' Mr Denny was closeted some time with Mr Hutton. When he had gone, Hutton came out and spoke to his managing clerk. ' Where's young Blake V he asked, with some asperity in his voice. ' 1 think he's gone to a picnic, Mr Hutton.' ' Oh ! Is there nothing for him to do, then V 1 Yes, sir ; there's plenty, if we could only get him to do it.' ' Um ! Did you give him leave to go ?' ' Oh, dear me, no, sir ! The young gentleman never thinks of asking my leave about anything.' «Well, in future, see that he does.' ' Yes, sir. I beg your pardon, but you see it is very awkward for me to interfere, when Miss Fanny comes and fetches him away.' < What! did Fanny come for him? Very well, Marrables, I'll put a stop to all this. Scud him into me when he comes in.' Charlie didn't, however, return before the office closed, and Hutton went home to the Linus in a very bad humor. What ho saw tht'TH didn't tend to restore his equanimity. The picnic up the river had turned out in some respects a failure. Miss Hutton had expected a large party to join thorn a few miles up the river, but the weather in the morning had bceu threatening, and the expedition was abandoned. Fanny and her brother had paddled up in canoes to the rendezvous, whilst Charlie had pulled up with his sister in a light outrigged skiff. The other people were to have found provisions, whilst the contribution of the Huttons was a hamper of wine. The wine was there but nothing to eat with it; and after waiting some time in vain for their friends, Fanny proposed that they should change their plans, and have an afternoon's croquet and • high tea ' on the lawn at the Limes. They could take the light cart in which the hamper had been brought from the house, and drive home, whilst the servant pulled the boats down the river. This was a very capital arrangement, everbody thought. Tom drove, and Mary sat beside him, whilst

Charlie and Fanny stowed themselves at the hack on the top of the wine hamper. They were merry and happy, driving along sunken sandy lanes, where the elms formed green aisles, flecked with golden sunlight. The horse was young and fresh, and Tom was rather a reckless driver, and, perhaps, instead of having his eyes on his horse's head, he had them on somebody else's face; anyhow, something scared the horse—a boy sitting on a stile, or a wheelbarrow with a spade in it—and he swerved, spun violently round, and galloped off in the opposite direction, the wheel of the trap going over a thick root stub. Tom stuck to his seat, and Mary stuck to Tom : but the other two were whirled violently off. Charlie landed in an tint's nest on the bank, and Fanny in the ditch, among a heavy crop of nettles. Charlie was up in a moment, and didn't feel the bites of the pugnacious red ants, who attacked him furiously ; for there was Fanny stretched, pale, and apparently lifeless, in her couch of nettles. He sprang to her side, and drew her gently to the turf at the side of the road : he chafed her hands, he rubbed her temples, he tore open the band of her dress to give her air. She came to then, and blushed rosy red. ♦What are you doing, Charlie ? * she said. 'What's the matter? '

'A spill, that's all. I thought you were dead.'

' Well, you might have laid me out comfortably, at all events,' said Fanny, sitting up, leaning on her elbow. 'Thank Heaven, Fanny, you are all right,' said Charlie, heaving a great sigh of relief.

' ' Where's the hamper, and where are Tom and Polly ?' ' Oh, I daresay they're all right. But you, Fanny, are you quite sure you're not hurt anywhere ? Oh, you don't know the agony of "the moment, when I thought you were killed !'

' Did you think I was killed? Poor Chariie, you wouldn't have cared after the first minute.'

'My dear, I should have killed myself. Fanny, you can't realise how, in a moment, the thought of all you were to me burst upon me as I saw you lying senseless.'

' A nice way you have, Charlie, of helping one to get one's wits together. Don't bother me now, but help me up.' She sprang to her feet readily erough ; and they hadn't walked more than a few paces before they heard the dogcart rattling up behind them. Mary jumped out as soon as it stopped, and threw her arms around Charlie, and burst into tears. Tom looked on sympathisingly. Fanny rapped with her feet upon a stone. * There, that'll do, Polly,' she said ; ' why don't you come and cry over me ? Come, I vote we three walk quietly home ; it's not more than a quarter of a mile now ; and Tom may break his own neck if he likes with that wild little horse of his.'

They didn't say anything about this little mishap when they got to the Limes, but set to work playing croquet. Tea was brought to them on the lawn ; and after that, as they were tired of croquet, they roamed about among the shrubberies. Charlie had just said enough to Fanny to make him determined to say more ; and after a little manoeuvring, he contrived to find himself alone with her in a rustic summer-house at the end of one of the walks; and then he told her that he loved her sincerely, devotedly. Fanny didn't seem much surprised. 'Yes, it's all very well, Charlie,' she said ; 'I like you very well, as much, perhaps, as you do me ; but what's the use of it ? We can't live on air.'

'But, Fanny,' said Charlie, 'if you would give me a little hope, perhaps—indeed, I know I should have motive enough to make me win my way in the world. As your papa says, one must have a motive.' 'lt's a long process, Charlie ; we should be both of us gray before it was finished. And how would you set to work to begin 1 '

Charlie couldn't exactly sny at that moment, but be would find a way somehow.

' Then, when you make a start, Charlie, you may come and ask me again : that's fair, isn't it ?' ' O Fanny, you don't know what life you have put into me, with thus much hope' ' Master Blake, Master Blake !' cried a voice from the shrubbery. Charlie turned round, and saw Mr Hutton standing there, looking at them with no favorable eyes. ' Fanny,' he said, coming forward, ' your mother wants to see you in the drawingroom.—Blake, I want to speak to you.'

Mr Hutton walked inside the summerhouse, and sat down in the carved oak-chair that stood against the inner wall, quite in the shadow, so that nothing of him was to be seen in the declining light but his face and white broad shirt-front.

Charlie stood by the door, leaning against a rustic pillar that supported the thatched roof. He felt as if he were on his trial, and Hutton were the judge. ' Well, Master Blake,' began Hutton, ' do you call it a proper return for the kindness I have shewn you, to betray my confidence, and try to ingratiate yourself with my daughter—eh, sir 1 ' Charlie shrugged his shoulders, ' I didn't know that when I entered your service, I undertook to efface all natural affections. My attachment to your daughter didn't begin to-day or yesterday. I don't think she can have been altogether ignorant of it, or you either, for that matter. But I didn't intend to say anything about it at present, till accident opened my lips.' * Do you call it I'.o conduct of a gentleman coming into my employment, and visitinsr at my house, to make love to my daughter V Mr Hutton was trying to work himself into anger. He felt he was as much to blame as Charlie, but he wasn't going to own it.

' I can't see that I'm to blame in any way,' said Charlie, ' except that perhaps I ought to have spoken to you sooner. However, I'll repair my error as well as I can. I love your daughter, Mr Hutton, and I request your permission to pay my addresses to her.*

'Ha! that's very fine,' snorted Hutton. 1 And, pray, what do you propose to keep my daughter on ? Eh, what are your means, my good fellow ? I suppose you expect me to maintain you both in idleness ; but you're mistaken.' • I admit,' said Charlie, ' that my means are not ample at present.' 'Ample Why, you're a beggar, my dear fellow, a pauper' Charlie went on, ignoring Mr Hutton's offensive language. ' You know better than I do what my prospects are. I t'on't like to speculate on uncertainties, but I think from hints that you've dropped, and jour general

attitude to me, that you imagined—that you thought, in fact, that I had expectations,' ' I suppose you mean from your friend Denny V 'Well, yes.' 'Why, man,' cried Hutton, almost in a scream. ' you'll never get sixpence from him; he told me so this very day !' Charlie gasped and shivered in astonishment |and dismay. Ho had never realised till now, how much this air-built castle of his had taken hold of his imagination, how he had cherished it in secret as a panacea for all the ills of life. Now he found that all his days he had been nursing a silly empty delusion, but he wouldn't believe it. Hutton wan angry and talking wildly. 'lt may be as you way,'began Charlie. 'I have never built upon old Denny's inheritance, but certainly he has always given me to understand that he took a great interest in my welfare : and he has often enough hinted to me that I might expect something handsome at his death. Why should he befool me so, if he meant nothing?' 'l'll tell you, Charlie Blake,' said Hutton more gently ; he had a liking for the youth himself, and felt a little remorse at the part he had played. ' Old Denny has hoodwinked me as well as you. It was certainly at his suggestion that I offered you the berth in my office, and I quite understood from Denny that he took a personal interest in your welfare, and had a design to make you his heir.' ' And what has caused the change V said Charlie thickly. ' It seems that this was the old fellow's cunning to get you put off your African expedition. He has a very serious interest in your life—in this way.' ' Well ?' said Charlie, bending eagerly forward. ' You know, Blake, that the Manor farm he now holds is a very valuable one ; it would let for a thousand a year at least.' 'Yes, I know,' said Charlie. 'And it belongs to the see of Bincaster, and Denny has it on a lease.' ' Well, what of that V ' This lease, in the time of the old bishops, was always by ancient custom renewed on payment of a small fixed fine.' ' What has that to do with me V ' When the old bishop died,' Hutton went on tranquilly ; he had almost got into a good temper again, and he delighted in a lucid description—' when the old bishop died, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners took the management of the whole estates into their own hands, paying the present bishop a fixed salary.' CHAPTER 111. 'Never mind the bishops,' cried Charlie impatiently ; ' what have they to do with me !' ' Don't be so impatient, Blake ; I'm just going to tell you. Old Denny's lease was a lease for lives—for three lives. About fifteen years ago one of the lives fell in, and Denny, according to custom, renewed his lease by inserting another life, paying a couple of hundred pounds to the bishop. And that life was yours, Charlie.' ' Still I don't see.' ' You will in a minute. When the next life falls in, the old bishop is dead, and Denny, when he goes to renew, instead of dealing with old Bob at Bincaster, has to go to a sharp clever lawyer in Westminster. Renew his lease. Bless you, he laughs at him. It must run out, he says, and then they will deal with the case on its merits. Well, that was a terrible blow for poor Denny, who had always looked on that farm as his freehold. He didn't come to me. but he went to some lawyer in London and consulted him, and found he could do nothing. Almost immediately after that his second life dropped ; and thus your life, don't you see, becomes his only holdfast? That accounts, you'll observe, for his sudden increase of interest in your welfare. I ought to have guessed,' said Hutton, striking his hand on the arm of his chair, ' when I saw old Denny with the tears in his eyes begging of me to try and stop you from going abroad to risk your life in the tropics, and to give you a chance of settling here, where he could keep his eye upon you and watch the growth of your character. HaDg it, I ought to have known that Denny would never have shed tears over anything but the loss of his money.' ' And that's the reason you offered me a seat in your office ?' ' That, and no other. I don't mind telling you I was under considerable obligations to Deuny at that moment. He'd a very large sum in our bank, and if he'd withdrawn it just then, we should have been iather pressed. And then, Blake, I must say that I was very glad to have an opportunity of serving you.' ' You're very kind.' To he continued.