LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 234, 10 March 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

NAVVIES’ TALES. THE PINK HEATH. ( Continued.) ‘ I was very patient, Mr Edgar. ’ The words fell as if from the lips only, so rigid and white and immovable seemed every feature of his face. Something the old man read there struck him like a blow, and it was fearful to see the terrible jiassion that gathered in his face, and turned it from a ghastly white to the hue of blood. ‘You do not believe these idle fools!’ he cried, fiercely. ‘ Surely you do not think that my girl is dead ! If I thought you did I would kill you with these hands where you stand! What would kill her ? Answer me that. Who would dare to murder Minnie Edgar ? Answer me that, coward that you are !’ and as the dreadful words fell hoarsely from his lips, he seized the young man and shook him like a reed. Frederick Booth gasped for breath as he swayed in the strong grasp of his uncle, but he spoke not a word ; and when Mr Edgar, the paroxysm over, fell fainting into a chair near him, he listened to the attempted apology like one in a dream. ‘ They will drive me »mad, these fools with their croakings about death ! ’ he whispered, weakly, ‘ I feel my brain oppressed as if all the blood in my body was lying on it, but don’t mind me, Fred, don’t mind me at all. ’ It was at this moment that Jane, the cook, came through the house, and almost at the same instant our friend Dan, the detective, rode up to the front door. ‘There he is, Mr Edgar,’ she said ; ‘that is the man I told you about, that said he’d come back. ’ ‘You are Mr Edgar?’ asked Dan, when he had dismounted and stepped to the verandah quietly. ‘ I’ve got a letter for you, sir,’ and drawing a note from his pocketbook, as he spoke, he handed it to the squatter, and drew quietly back during its perusal. And standing there silently Dan’s vacant eyes seemed fixed on the distant hills that bounded the horizon or wandered with some appearance of interest to his tired horse. But, careless as he appeared to be, he saw that Edgar’s face grew absolutely white to the lips as he read the letter, and then flushed deeper and deeper, until the red grew scarlet and the scarlet purple, and then crushing the letter in his hand words choked one another in his throat for utterance. ‘ I knew they’d drive me mad, curse them ! She’s not dead, I tell you !’ and he shook his fist in Dan’s stony face. ‘ It’s a vile plot among you all to make a lunatic of me ! I’ll have no detectives ! I want no detectives ! She shan’t be dead ! Oh, Minnie ! ’ and with one more choking gasp Edgar fell to the ground in a strong fit. Dan quietly repossed himself of the obnoxious letter, aud then lifted the insensible man to a sitting posture while he undid his cravat, and called for water; ‘and you, young man,’ he added, ‘just get a fresh horse and ride for the nearest doctor, for this here’s a serious case. ’ And it was. Mr Edgar recovered from the fit only to relapse into a state of delirium that lasted for days, and when that was over it left him until long after the time occupied by Dan Scully’s ‘ case,’ a weak and bedridden man, with a bewildered mind only one remove from idiotcy. It was well for the poor father so. Dan’s first visit was to the shed to see his new friend, old Towzer. The animal was well cared for by Jane, who loved the dog because he had been a favourite of her lost young mistress, and Dan thought he was greatly better than at his previous inspection. Little thought poor Towzer what was depending on his recovery. Dan sat late in the kitchen that night, and in his quiet way got a good deal of information about the inmates of Narraburra. Mr Edgar had steadily set his face against the idea of Miss Minnie’s death from the first, insisting upon it that someone had offended her, and driven her to run away. Even Mr Fred had not escaped, though he loved the very ground she had walked on, poor fellow, and was just like a ghost wandering about the place in despair. Mr Fred had not been at Narraburra on the day of Minnie’s disappearance, but at his father’s place fifteen miles off; but poor Mr Edgar would not part with him since. Not the least idea had Jane that her listener sat there in any official capacity whatever. Mr Edgar’s illness was so sudden that he had no time to explain, and Dan thought it just as w r ell to leave them in ignorance. But he drew out Jane imperceptibly, until he had heard all he wished, and then he went out to the verandah and lit his pipe to smoke and think. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and Dan had seated himself in the squatter’s chair, with the open hall door at his right hand, when a soft step stole out, aud Fred Booth stood beside him. Not a word was spoken between the men for some moments, and then Fred spoke in a voice that trembled at its own tones, ‘ My uncle is better a little, but he is too bad to attend to any business. Is yours anything that I can attend to ?’ ‘No,’ replied Dan, shortly, as he quietly puffed away at his pipe. ‘You stop here to-night?’ again hesitatingly questioned the young man. Dan turned his keen eyes on Fred Booth s face, as he answered shortly, ‘ Yes, I stop here. I have authority for stopping here. Perhaps, when Mr Edgar gets better he may think proper to tell you what authority.’ If young Booth had known Dan Scully, he would have seen that the honest detec tive was as nearly angry as it was possible for a man of his temperament to be; as it was, he drew back suddenly, and a fear only too definite made his heart beat wildly, and a nameless horror to oppress his breathing. Dan was early in the saddle next morning. He had been made comfortable by Jane, and breakfasted with Fred Booth, who paid him every attention in his power, evidently trying to atone for his apparent want of hospitality on the previous night; but Dan had got his mask of stupidity on, aud if Fred had any suspicions to make him uneasy, they vanished completely as he fancied himself better acquainted with the stranger’s utter ignorance. So, when Dan mounted and rode away without any apparent object, Fred looked after him and watched his movements, until ho saw that he took exactly the opposite direction to the boundary road, and the Deep

Creek that stole lazily along down the Bush Cully. What was Fred Booth thinking of as lie turned his haggard white face in the direction of that boundary fence ? Was it of that fair girl he had loved, who had passed through it into the dark bush and returned no more to the light of home. But if he had watched the stranger only a little longer he would have seen that as soon as Dan surmounted the rise that hid him from the homestead, he turned into the bush, and by a circuitous route regained the creek that terminated the boundary fence, and crept through the forest into which Minnie Edgar had last been seen entering. Here h» dismounted, and, having carefully fastened his horse, commenced a close examination of the bush around him. First he sought the spot where John the mailman had assured him the young girl had passed into the bush. It was a common three-railed fence, and there was room enough between any of the rails for the form of a young girl to creep, but, at the panel pointed out by the mailman the space was greater, and there was a faintly indicated track in the long brown grass that seemed to hint that it had been a chosen path. Dan followed it. The bush was scattered here, but as he left the fence fallen timber and undergrowth became more numerous ; still winding around and among them he could trace the front trail; and, all at once Jane’s words occurred to him, when he saw, at the side of a log, a bunch of heath still retaining many beautiful sprays of its pink bloom. The detective went up to it and examined it. It was so close to the track that he did not doubt Minnie’s eyes had often rested on it, and Minnie’s hands, perhaps, as often despoiled it of its flowery treasures. He was not mistaken—many broken sprays were to be seen on the little bush, and one dissevered and withered lay near it, as if cast aside, being less beautiful than its fellows, or accidentally lost from the girl’s fingers. As Dan lifted his head, having picked up the broken spray of heath, he observed that from that spot hfe could catch a glimpse of the creek. He was determined to explore the bush more in that direction, but first he decided to follow the little track to its termination —it was fortunate for his plana that he did so. The little track led him to the edge of the bush, between which and the homestead of Narraburra lay nothing but the home paddock, As Dan stood there and looked toward the buildings, he saw young Booth leaving the verandah, and crossing the paddock, almost directly for the spot on which he was standing. Fifty thoughts followed each other like light into the brain of Dan. He remembered with pleasure that his horse was tied in a spot especially chosen, and most unlikely to be observed. His heart beat as he fancied what might be the errand of this young man, and his hand sought his breast pocket, lest he might hear the crisp rustle of the last letter ever penned by the lost girl, ami which he had been all the way to Melbourne to seek. Drawing back into the dense shade of some thick undergrowth, he watched every movement of the unsuspicious Fred. Fancying himself totally unobserved, he wore no mask on his white and haggard face ; it expressed all too plainly the horror of awful nights and the shadow of terrible fears hidden in the bush he approached. What did he seek? The form of his lost love where he had so often sought before, or the indulgence of a natural grief in the lonely forest where no eye might mark its intensity. He looked behind him as he entered under the shadow of the trees, but there was no one in sight, not a human being on the broad plains behind Narraburra, no passing traveller on the hill road ; he might sit down on that log near Dan and weep his eyes out without a witness, if it would relieve his pain to do it. But Fred Booth’s pain was deeper than tears, even were they of blood could remove, and there was no rest for him on this side of the grave. He went back by the little path Dan had just come, and he cast furtive glances into the dense foliage of the young clustering trees, as he passed them, as though he feared to see Minnie Edgar’s young form lying among them dead ; but he went on and on until he reached the boundary fence, where he paused at the well-known panel, and looked up and down the road, thinking, doubtless, of the strang visitor at Narraburra, and wondering where he had gone. Then he turned again, and at the bunch of pink heath made straight for the creek. At one spot on his way he turned a swift and keen glance to the right, and Dan saw it, for he was following him like a sleuth hound ; and then, like something driven, he urged his rapid steps to the side of the creek, and scanned it up and down with eyes full of awful fear, and lips that trembled as the gasping breath passed them. It crept slowly onward between its green banks, overshadowed at its bends by old far stretching trees, and rippling gently among the tall reeds that flourished at its edges. There was not a sound to disturb it, unless the chirps of the ground frog, or the cry of the parrokeet, yet young Booth fancied that he heard the throbbing of his own heart louder than the noise of the waters in his ear. No, there was nothing! There was no use in looking up the stream, there was no danger there ; but at the bend below, and where that long log lay half hidden in the rushy water. Was there anything there ? What was that dark object among the rushes down, farther down? My God, what was that! Silly fool, it was nothing! Nothing but a heavy swath of rushes bent to the stream ! Why fly then ! What is behind Fred Booth that he flies from in the broad daylight, and gasps as he leaves behind him, and gains the open paddock ? Nothing ! Nothing but a strange light in Dan Scully’s face that he could not have seen, hidden as it was. The detective regained his horse, and having mounted him, took once more his circuitous route to the station. He was very thoughtful, but Dan’s face was as immobile as though he was not sure that ho could lay his finger on poor Minnie Edgar’s last footstep, and point with the certainty of death to her murderer. He regained the homestead and stabled his horse. Just as he was leaving the stable a terrible growl drew his attention to the door of the shed, where poor Towzer had crawled, and where he crouched, showing his fangs, and growling low and terribly while he glared at Fred Booth with eyeballs fiery with unspoken passion. The poor animal had recognised his new friend’s voice as he spoke to his horse, and tried to crawl out to welcome him. (To be continued.)