LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 565, 10 April 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ROSE LODGE. (Concluded.") 1 Come into my room,' he whispered. 'Those fellows who disturbed us the other night are at the gate again.' Tod's light was out and his window open. We could see a man bending down oiitside the gate, fumbling with its lock. Presently the bell was pulled very gently, as if the ringer thought the house might be asleep and he did not want to awaken it. There was something quite ghostly to the imagination in being disturbed at night like this. ' Who's there !' shouted Tod. 'I am,' answered a cautious voice. 'I want to sec Captain Copperas.' ' Come along, Johnny. This is getting complicated.' We went out. The man was not either of the two who had come before. Tod spoke to him, but did not open the gate. ' Are you a friend of the Captain's V whispered the man. ' Yes, I am,' said Tod. « What then ?'

'Well, see here,' resumed he in a confidential tone. 'lf I don't get to sec him, it will be the worse for him. I come as a friend ; come to warn him.' 'But I tell you he is not in the house,' argued Tod. 'He has let it to me and left Cray Bay. His address? No, I cannot give it.' ' Very well,' said the man, ' I came out of friendliness. If you know where he is, you just tell him that Jobson has been here, and warns him to look our for squalls. That's all.'

' I shall begin to believe we are living in some mysterious castle, if this kind of thing is to go ou,' remarked Tod, when the man had gone. ' It seems deuced queer, altogether.' It seemed queerer the next morning For a gentleman walked in, and demanded payment for the furniture. Captain Copperas had forgotten to settle for it, he said—if he had gone away. Failing payment, he should be obliged to take away the chairs and tables. Tod fiew into a rage, and ordered him out of the place. Upon which their tongues went in for a pitched battle, and gave out some unorthodox words. Cooling down by-and-by, an explanation was come to. He was a member of some general furnishing firm, ten miles off. Captain Copperas lvul dor « them the honour to furnish his house from their stores, including the

piano, paying a small portion on account. Naturally they wanted the rest. In spite of certain strange doubts that were arising touching Captain Copperas, Tod resolutely refused to give any clue to h's address. Finally the applicant agreed to leave matters as they were for three or four days, and wrote a letter to be forwarded to Copperas. But the news that arrived from Liverpool staggered us more than all. The brokers sent back Tod's first letter to Copperas (telling of the grenadier's having marched off with the linen), and wrote to say that they did not know any Captain Copperas ; that no gentleman of that name was in their employ, or in command of any one of their ships. People to apply, too, for petty accounts that seemed to be owing—a tailor, a bootmaker, and others. Betty shed tears.

One evening, when we had conic in from a long day's fishing, and were sitting at dinner in the front room in rather a gloomy mood, wondering what was to be the end of it, we caught sight of a man's coat whisking its skirts up to the front door. ' Bit still,' cried Tod to me, as the bell rang. ' lt'a another of those precious creditors. Betty, don't you open the door. Let the fellow cool his heels a bit.'

But, instead of cooling his heels, the fellow stepped aside to our open window, and stood looking in at us. I leaped out of my chair, and nearly out of my skin. It was Mr Brandon.

' And what do you two fine gentlemen think of yourselves ?' began he, when we had let him in. • You dou't starve, at any rate, it seems.'

' You'll take some, won't you, Mr Brandon,' said Tod, politely putting the breast of a duck upon a plate, while 1 drew a chair for him to the table.

Ignoring the offer, lie eat down by the window, threw his yellow silk handkerchief across his head, and opened upon our delinquencies in his thinnest tones. In the squire's absence, Mrs Todbetley had givtn him my letter to read, and begged him to come and see after us, for she feared Tod might be getting himself into some inextricable mess. Old Brandon's sarcasms were keen. To mal e it worse, he had heard of the new complications, touching Copperas and the furniture, at the Whistling Wind. 'So !' said he, ' you must take a house and its responsibilities upon your shoulders, and pay the money down and make no inquiries !' 'We made lots of inquiries,' struck in Tod, wincing. ' Oh, did you ! Then I was misinformed. You took care to ascertain whether the landlord of the house would accept you as tenant; whether the furniture was the man's own to sell, and had no liabilities upon it ; whether the rent and taxes had been paid up to that date ?' As Tod had done nothing of that kind, he could only slash away at the other duck and bite his lips. ' You took to a closet of linen, and did not think it necessary to examine whether linen was there, or whether it was all dumb show ■"

' I'm sure the linen wa.° there when we saw it,' interrupted Tod. ' You can't be sure ; you did not handle it, or count it. The squire told you you would hasten to make ducks and drakes of your five hundred pounds. It must have been burning a hole in your pocket. As to you, Johnny Ludlow, I gave you credit for some sense.'

' I could not help it, sir. I'm sure I should never have mistrusted Captain Copperas ' But doubts had floated in my mind whether the linen had not gone away in those boxes of Miss Copperas, that I saw the grenadier packing. Tod selected a paper from the letter-case iu his breast pocket, and handed it to Mr Branden. It was a cheque for one hundred pounds. ' I thought of you, sir, before I began upon the ducks and. drakes. But you were not at home, and I could not give it you then. And I thank you very much indeed for what you did for me.' Mr Brandon read the cheque and nodded his head sagaciously. 'l'll take it, Joseph Todhetley. If I don't, the money will only go in folly.' By which I fancied he had not meant to have the debt repaid to him. ' I think you are judging me hardly,' said Tod. ' How was Ito imagine that the man was not on the square ? When the roses were here, the place was the prettiest I ever saw. And it was dirfc cheap.' ' So was the furniture, to Copperas,' observed Mr Brandon.

'"What is done is done,' growled Tod. ' May I give you some raspberry pudding ?' ' Some what ? llaspberry pudding ? Why, I should not digest it for a week. What are you going to do ?' ' 1 don't know, sir. Do you !' ' Yes. Oct out of the place to morrow. It's going to be stripped, I hear. Green simpletons, you must be! I daresay the landlord will let you off by paying him three months' rent. I'll see him myself. And you will both come home with me, like two young dogs with their tails burnt.' ' And lose all my money ?' cried Tod. ' Ay ; and think yourself well off that it is not more. You have no redress ;as to rinding Copperas, you may as well set out to search for the philosopher's stone. It is nobody's fault but your own ; and if it shall bring you caution, it may be an experience cheaply bought.' ' I could never have believed it of a sailor,' Tod remarked ruefully to old Druff. ' Ugh ? line sailor he was !' grunted Druff. 'He warn't a sailor. Not a reg'lar one. TV!if,'ht ha' been about the coast a bit in a home vessel, perhaps—naught more. As to that grenadier, I believe she was just another of 'em—a sister.' ' But we heard a whiff of news later that told us Captain Copperas was not quite so bad as he seemed. After he had taken Itose Lodge and furnished it, some friend, for whom in his good nature he had stood surety to a large amount, let him in for the whole, and ruined him. And so that was the inglorious finale to our charming retreat by Bendemeer's Stream. Johnny Ludlow.