LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 162, 11 December 1874, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE. (Continued.) If Mr O'Rouke could have read the inscription he would never have suspected his own complicity in the matter. But there the marble stood, sacred to his memory; and soon the snow came down from the grey sky and covered it, and the invisible snow of weeks and months drifted down on Margaret's heart, and filled up its fissures, and smoothed off the sharp angles of its grief; and there was peace upou it. Not but she sorrowed for Larry at times. But life had a relish to it again ; she was free, though she did not look at it in that light ; she was happier in a quiet fashion than she had ever been, though she would hot have acknowledged it to herself. She wondered that she had the heart to laugh when the ice-man made love to her. Perhaps she was conscious of something comically incongruous in the warmth of a gentleman who spent all winter in cutting ice, and all summer in dealing it out to his customers. She had not the same excuse for laughing at the baker; yet she laughed still more merrily at him when he pressed her hand over the steaming loaf of brown bread, delivered every Saturday morning at the scullery door. Both these gentlemen had known Margaret many years, yet neither of them valued her very highly until another man came along and married her. A widow, it would appear, is esteemed in some sort as a warranted article, being stamped with the maker's name. There was even a third lover in prospect, for according to the gossip of the town, Mr Donnehugh was frequently to be seen on a Sunday afternoon standing in the cemetery and regarding Mr O'Rouke's 'headstone with unrestrained satisfaction. A year had passed away, and certain bits of colour blossoming among Margaret's weeds indicated that the winter of her mourning was over. The ice-man and the baker were hating each other cordially, and Mrs Bilkins was daily expecting it would be discovered before night that Margaret had married one or both of them. But to do Margaret justice, she was faithful in thought and deed to the memory of O'Rouke—not the O'Rouke who disappeared so strangely, but the O'Rouke who never existed. 'D'ye think, mum,' she said one day to Mrs Bilkins, as that lady was adroitly sounding her on the ice question—'dy'e think Fa condescind to take up wid the likes o' him, or the baker either, after sich a man as Larry ? The rectified and clarified O'Rouke was a permanent wonder to Mr Bilkins, who bore up under the bereavement with remarkable resignation. •Peggy is right,' said the old gentleman, who was superintending the burning out of the kitchen flue. ' She won't find another man like Larry O'Rouke in a hurry.' * Thrue for ye, Mr Bilkins, answered Margaret. ' Maybe there's as good fish in the say as iver was caught, but I don't belave it all the same.' As good fish in the sea ! The words recalled to Margaret the nature of her loss, and she went on with her work in silence. ' What—what is it, Ezra ?' cried Mrs Bilkins, changing colour, and rising hastily from the breakfast table. Her first thought was apoplexy. There sat Mr Bilkins, with his wig pushed back from his forehead, and his eyes-fixed vacantly on the Weekly Chronicle, which he held at arms length before him. ' Good heavens, Ezra ? what is the matter? Mr Bilkins turned his eyes upon her mechanically, ajS if he were a great wax doll, and somebody had pulled his wire. ' Can't you speak, Ezra?' His lips opened, and moved inarticulately; then he pointed a rigid finger, in the manner of a guiderboard, at a paragraph in the paper, Which he held up for Mrs Bilkins to read oyer his shoulder. When she had read it she sunk back into her chair without a word, and the two sat contemplating each other as if they had never met before in this world, and were not overpleased at meeting. The paragraph which produced this singular effect on the aged couple occurred at the end of a column of telegraphic despatches giving the details of an unimportant engagement that had just taken place between one of the blockading squadron and a Confederate cruiser. The engagement itself does not concern us, but this item from the list of casualties on the Union side has a direct bearing on our narrative. ' Larry O'Rouke, seaman, splinter wound in the leg. Not serious,' That splinter flew far. It glanced from Mr O'Rouke's leg, went plump through the Bilkins mansion, and knocked over a small marble slab in the Old South Burying Ground.

If a ghost had dropped in familiarly to breakfast, the constraint and consternation of the Bilkins family could not have been greater. How was the astounding intelligence to be broken to Margaret? Her explosive Irish nature made the task one of extreme delicacy. Mrs Bilkins flatly declared herself incapable of undertaking it. Mr Bilkins, with many misgivings as to his fitness, assumed the duty; for it would never do to have the news sprung upon Margaret suddenly by people outside. As Mrs O'Rouke was clearing away the breakfast things, Mr Bilkins, who had lingered near the window with the newspaper in his hand, coughed once or twice in an unnatural way to show that he was not embarrassed, and began to think that maybe it would be best to tell Margaret after dinner. Mrs Bilkins fathomed his thought with that intuition which renders women terrible, and sent across the room an eye telegram to this effect, 'Now is your time.' ' There's been another battle down South, Margaret,' said the old gentleman presently, folding up the paper and putting it in his pocket. ' A sea-fight this time.' 4 Sure, an' they're alius fightin' down there.' 'But not always with so little danger. There was only one man wounded on our side.' I4' Pore man! It's sorry we oughter be for his wife an' chilcler, if he's got any.' 'Not badly wounded, you will understand, Margaret; not at all seriously wounded; only a splinter in the leg.' • Faith, thin, a splinter in the leg is no pleasant thing in itself.' 'A mere scratch,' said Mr Bilkins lightly, as if he were constantly in the habit of going about with a splinter in its own leg, and found it rather agreeable. ' The odd part of the matter is the man's first name, His first name was Larry.'

Margaret nodded, as one should pay, ' There's a many Larrys in the world.' ' But the oddest pait of it,' continued Mr Bilkins, in a carelessly sepulchral voice, ' is the man's last name.' Something in the tone of his voice made Margaret look at him, and something in the expression of his face caused the blood to fly from Margaret's cheek. ' The man's last name,' she repeated, wonderingly. ' Yes, his last name—O'Rouke. 'D'ye mane it?' shrieked Margaret — • d'ye mane it ? Glory to God ! 0 worra ! worra !' • •Well, Ezra,' said Mrs Bilkins, m one of those spasms of base ingratitude, to which even the most perfect women are liable, ' you've made nice work of it. You might as well have knocked her down with an axe !' ' But, my dear ' «0 bother!—my smelling-bottle, quick ! —second bureau drawer—left-hand side.' Joy never kills; it is a celestial kind of hydrogen of which it seems impossible to fet too much at one inhalation. In an hour largaret was able to converse with comparative calmness on the resuscitation of Larry O'Rouke, whom the firing of a cannon had brought to the surface as if he had been in reality a drowned body. Now that the whole town was aware of Mr O'Rouke's fate, his friend Mr Donnehugh come forward with a statement that would have been of some interest at an earlier period, but "was of n» service aa matters stood, except so far as it assisted in removing from Mr Bilkins's mind a passing doubt as to whether the Larry O'Rouke of the telegraphic reports was Margaret's scapegrace of a husband. Mr Donnehugh had known all along that O'Rouke had absconded to Boston by a night train and enlisted in the navy. It was the possession of this knowledge that had made it impossible for Mr Donnehugh to look at Mr O'Rouke's gravestone without grinning. At Margaret's request, and in Margaret's name, Mr Bilkins wrote three or four letters to O'Rouke, and finally succeeded in extorting an from that gentleman, in which he told Margaret to cheer up, that his fortune was as good as made, and that the day would come when she should ride through the town in her .own coach, and no thanks to old flint-head, who pretended to be so fond of her. Mr Bilkins tried to conjecture who was meant by old flint-head, but was obliged to give it up. Mr O'Rouke furthermore informed Margaret that he had three hundred dollars prize-money coming to him, and broadly intimated that when he got home he intended to have one of the most extensive blow-outs ever witnessed in Riversmouth. 'Oche!' laughed Margaret, 'that's jist Larry over again. The pore lad was alius full of his nonsense an' spirits.' 'That he was,' said Mr Bilkins dryly. Content with the fact that her husband was in the land of the living. Margaret gave herself no trouble over the separation. O'Rouke had shipped for three years; onethird of his term of service was past, and two years more, God willing, would see him home again. This was Margaret's view of it. Mr Bilkins's view of it was not so cheerful. The prospect of Mr O'Rouke's ultimate return was anything but enchanting. Mr Bilkins was by no means disposed to kill the fatted calf. He would much rather have killed the Prodigal Son. However, there was always this chance; he might never come back. The tides rose and fell at the Rivermouth wharves; the summer moonlight and the winter snow, in turns, bleached its quiet streets; and the two years had nearly gone by. In the meantime nothing had been heard of O'Rouke. If he ever received the five or six letters sent to him, he did not fatigue himself by answering them. * Larry's all right,' said hopeful Margaret. ' If any harum had come to the gossoon we'd have knowed it. It's the bad news that travels fast. Mr Bilkins was not so positive about that. It had taken a whole year to find out that O'Rouke had not drowned himself.

The period of Mr O'Rouke's enlistment had come to an end. Two months slipped by, and he had neglected to brighten Rivermouth with his presence. There were many things that might have detained him, difficulties in getting his prize papers or in draw T ing his pay; but there was no reason why he might not have written. The days were beginning to grow long to Margaret, and vague forebodings of misfortune possessed her. Perhaps we had better look up Mr O'Rouke. He had seen some rough times, during those three years, and some narder work than catching cunners at the foot of Anchor street, or setting out crocuses in Mr Bilk in's back garden. He had seen battles and shipwreck, and death in many guises ; but they had taught him nothing, as the sequel will show. With his active career in the navy ws shall not trouble ourselves ; we take him up at a date a little prior to the close of his term of service. Several months before, he had been transferred from the blockading squadron to a gun-boat attached to the fleet operating against the forts defending New Orleans. The forts had fallen, the fleet had passed on to the city, and Mr O'Rouke's ship lay off in the stream, binding up her wounds. In three days he would receive his discharge, and the papers entitling him to a handsome amount of prize-money in addition to his pay. With noble contempt for so much good fortune, Mr O'Rouke dropped over the bows of the gun-boat one evening and managed to reach the levee. In the city he fell in with some soldiers, and, being of a convivial nature,' caroused with them that night, and next day enlisted in a cavalry regiment. Desertion in the face of the enemy—for though the city lay under the Federal guns, it was still hostile enough—involved the heaviest penalties. O'Rouke was speedily arrested with other deserters, tried by courtmartial and sentenced to death. The intelligence burst like a shell upon the quiet household in Anchor street, listening daily for the sound of Larry O'Rouke's footstep on the threshold. It was a heavy load for Margaret to bear, after all those years of patient vigil. But the load wa3 to be lightened for her. In consideration of 0 Rouke's long service, and in view of the fact that his desertion so near the expiration of his time was an absurdity, the Good Presdent commuted his sentence to imprisonment for life, with loss of prize money and back pay. Mr O'Rouke was despatched North and placed in Moaymensing Prison. 3P> tff continued,