LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 258, 9 April 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

CHARLES VAX RHEYN. [From the Argosy .) ( Concluded) * Charley, what’s the matter ?’ But he could not answer. He was panting frightfully, as though every gasp would be his last. What on earth was Itodo ? Down I knelt, saying never another word. ‘ it—gives —me —much—hurt,’ said he at length, with a long pause between every word. ‘ What does ?’ ‘ Here,’ —pointing to his chest —towards the left side. ‘ Did you hurt yourself ?—Did you fall ?’ * Xo, I not hurt myself, I fall because not able to run more. It is the breath. I wish papa was near me!’ Instinct told me that he must have assistance—and yet I did not like to leave him. But what if delay in getting it should be dangerous? 1 rose up to go. ‘ You—you not going to quit me! ’ he cried out, putting his feeble grasp on my arm. ‘ But, Charley, I want to get somebody to you, ’ I said in an agony. ‘ I can’t do anything for you myself; anything in the world.' ‘No, you stay. I should not like to be alone if I die.’

The shock the word gave me I can recall yet. Die! If there was any fear of that it was all the more necessary I should make a rush for Dr Frost and Mr Featherstone. Never had I been so near my wit’s end before, from uncertainty as to what course I ought to take. All in a moment, there arose a shrill whistle on the other side the stile. It was like a godsend. I knew it quite well for that vicious young reptile’s, but it was welcome to me as sunshine in harvest. ‘ There’s Raddy, Van Rheyn. I will send him.’ Vaulting over the stile, I saw the young man standing with his back to me near the hedge, his wretched outer garment—sack without shape —hitched up, his hands in the pockets of his dilapidated trousers, that hung in fringes below the knee. He was whistling to his dog in the coppice. They must have struck through the tangles and briars higher up, which was a feat of difficulty and strictly forbidden by law. It was well Sir John’s agent did not see Mr Raddy—whose legs, scratched and bleeding, gave ample proof of the trespass. * Yah!— yah !’ he shrieked out, turning at the sound of me, and grinning fresh defiance. ‘ Raddy,’ I said, speaking in a persuasiv# tone to propitiate him in my great need, ‘ I want you to do something for me. Go to Dr Frost as quickly as you are able, and say ’ Of all the derisive, horrible laughs, his interruption was the worst and loudest. It drowned the words. ‘ One of the school has fallen and hurt himself,’ I said, putting it that way. ‘He’s lying here, and I cannot leave him. Hush, Raddy ! I want to tell you,’—advancing a step or two nearer to him and lowering my voice to a whisper, —‘ I think he is dying.’ ‘ None o’ yer gammon here ; none o’ yer lies’—and in proportion as I advanced, he retreated. * You’ve got a ambush in that there coppy—all the spicey lot on ye awaiting to be down on me to serve me out 1 Just you try it on !’ ‘ I am telling you the truth, Raddy. There’s not a soul in there but the one boy I speak of. I say I fear he is dying. He is lying down helpless—l will pay you to go :’ feeling in my pockets to see how much I had there. Raddy displayed his teeth : it was a trick of his when feeling particularly defiant. ‘ What’ll yer pay me ?’ ‘ Sixpence’—showing it to him. ‘ I will give it you when you have taken the message.’ ‘ Give it first.’ Just for a moment I hesitated in my extremity of need, but I knew it would beonly the sixpence thrown away. Paid beforehand, Raddy would no more do the errand than he’d fly. I told him as much. ‘ Then, be dashed if I go !’ And he passed off into a round of swearing. Good heavens ! if I should not be able to persuade him! If Charles Van Rheyn should die for lack of help! ‘ Did you ever have anybody to care for, Raddy ? Did you ever have a mother ?’ ‘ Her’s sent over the seas, her is ; and I be glad on’t. Her beated of me, her did: I warn’t going to stand that.’ ‘ If you ever had anybody you cared for the least bit in the world, Raddy; if you ever did anybody a good turn in all your life, you will help this poor fellow now. Come and look at him. See whether I dare leave him. ’ ‘None o’ yer swindles! Ye wants to get me in there, ye does. Yah ! I warn’t horned yesterday. ’ Well, it seemed hopeless. ‘ Will you go for the sixpence if I give it you beforehand, Raddy ?’ ‘Give it over, and see. Where the thunder have ye been ?’ dealing his dog a savage kick, as it came up, barking. ‘ Be I to whistle ye all day, d’ye think ?’ Another kick. I had found two sixpences in my pocket ; nil its store. Bringing forth one, I held it out to him. _ . ‘ Now listen, Raddy. I give you this sixpence now. You are to run with all your might to the house —and you can run, you know, like the wind. Say that 1 sent you—you know my name, Johnny Ludlow—sent you to tell them that the French _ boy is in the coppice dying :’ for I thought it best to [»ut it strong. ‘ Dr Frost, or some of them, must come to him at once, and they must send off for Mr Featherston. You can remember that ? The French boy, mind.’ ‘ I could remember it if I tried.’ ‘ Well, I’ll give you the sixpence. And, look here—here’s another sixpence. It is all the money 1 have. That shall be yours also, when you have done the errand.’ 1 slipped one of the sixpences back into my pocket, holding out the other. But 1 have often wondered since that ho did not stun me with a blow, and take the two. Perhaps he could not entirely divest himself of that idea of the “ambush.” I did not like the leering look on his false fac«, as he sidled cautiously up towards the sixpence. * Take a look at him; you can see him from the stile,’ 1 said, closing my hand over the sixpence while I spoke : convince yourself that he is there, and that no trickery is meant. And, Kaddy,” I added, slowly opening the hand again : ‘ perhaps you may want help one of these days yourself in some desperate need. Do this good turn for him, and the like will then be done for you.’ I tossed him the sixpence. He stole cautiously to the stile, making a wide circuit round me to do it, glanced at V an Rheyn, and then made straight off in the direction as fast as his legs would carry him, the dog barking at his heels. Van Rheyn was better when I got back to him ; his breathing easier, the mouth less blue; and his arms were no longer up, clutching the tree trunk. Nevertheless, there was that in his face that gave me an awful fear and made my breath for a moment nearly as short as his. I sat down beside him, letting him lean against me, as well as the tree, for better support. ‘ Are you afraid, Charley ? I hope they’ll not be long.’ ‘I am not afraid with this,’he answered with a happy smile—.and, opening his hand, I saw the little cross clasped in it. Well, that nearly did for me. It was as though he meant to imply he knew he was dying, and was not afraid to die. And he did mean it. .... ‘ You not comprehend? he ridded, mistaking the look of my face—which no doubt was desperate. ‘ I have kept the Saviour with me here, and he will keep me with him there.’ , , ‘ Oh but Charley! on can t think you arc going to die. ’ ‘Yes, I feel,’he said quite calmly. ‘My mother said that last Sunday I might not be long after her. She drew me close to her,

and held my hand, and her tears were falling on mine. It was then she said it.’ ‘ Oh, Charley, how can I help you ? ’ I cried out in my pain and dread. ‘lf I could but do something for you.’ ‘ I would like to give you this,’ he said, half opening his hand again, as it rested on his breast, just to show me the cross. ‘My mother has seen how good you have always been for me: she said she should look down, if permitted, to watch for me till I came. Would you please keep it to mj memory? The hardest task I’d ever had in my life was to sit there. To sit there quietly helpless. Dying! And I could do nothing to stay him! Oh, why did they not come! If I could but have run somewhere, or done something! In a case like this the minutes seem as long as hours. Dr Frost was up sooner than could have been hoped for by the watch, and Mr Featherstone with him. Eaddy did his errand well. Chancing to see the surgeon pass down the road as he was delivering the message at the house, he ran and arrested him. I saw his ill-looking face over the stile, as they came up, flung him the other sixpence, and thanked him too. The French master came running; others came: I hardly saw who they were, for my eyes were troubled. The first thing that Featherstone did was to open Van Rheyn’s things at the throat, spread a coat on the ground, and put his head flat down upon it. But oh, there could be no mistake. He was dying: nearly gone. Dr Frost knelt down, the better to get at him, and said something that we did not catch. ‘Thank you, sir,’ answered Van Eheyn, panting again and speaking with pain, but smiling faintly his grateful smile. ‘Do not be sorrowful, I shall see my mother. Sir—if you please —I wish to give my cross to Johnny Ludlow.’ Dr Frost only nodded in answer. I daresay his heart was full. ‘ Johnny Ludlow has been always good for me,’ he went on, in his translated French. *He will guard it to my memory; the keepsake. My mother would give it to him—she has seen that Johnny stood by me ever since that first day.’ Monsieur Fontaine spoke to him in French, and Van Rheyn answered in the same language. While giving a fond message for his father, his voice grew feeble, his face more blue, and the lids slowly closed over his eyes. Dr Frost said something about removing him to the house, but Featherstone shook his head. ‘ Presently, presently.’ ‘Adieu, sir,’ said Van Eheyn faintly to Dr Frost, partly opening his eyes again. ‘Adieu, M. Fontaine. Adieu, all. Johnny, say my very best adieu to the boys; say to them it has been very pleasant lately; say they have been my very good comrades. Will you hold my hand?’ Taking his left hand in mine,—the other had the gold cross in it—l sat on beside him. The dust was increasing so that we could no longer very well see his features in the dark coppice. My tears were dropping fast and thick, just as his tears had dropped that evening when I found him sitting at the foot of his bed. Well, it was over directly. He gave one long deep sigh, and then another after an interval, and all was over. It seemed like a dream then in the acting; it seems, looking back, like a dream now. He had died from the running at Hare and Hounds. The violent exercise had been too much for the heart. We heard later that the French family doctor had suspected the heart was not quite sound; and that was the reason of Monsieur Van Eheyn’s written restrictions on the score of violent exercise. But, as Dr Frost angrily observed, why did the father not distinctly warn him against that special danger: how was it to be suspected in a lad of hearty and healthy appearance? Monsieur Van Eheyn came over, and took what remained of Charles back to be laid beside his late wife. It was a great blow to him to lose his only son. And all the property went away from the Van Eheyn family to Mrs Scott in India. ‘ I say, though,’ cried Parker, in a great access of remorse, speaking up amid the general consternation, when I gave them Charley’s message that night, ‘we would never have worried him had we foreseen this. Pock- Van Eheyn!’ And I have his gold cross by me to this day. Johnny Ludlow.