LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 631, 27 June 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN OLD LOVE STORY. IN THREE PARTS. Part I. ( Continued.) Joy was sitting on the bed with a look of awe upon her child-face, when suddenly the squire, who had been sent for, entered the cottage, and came straight to her, taking her in his arms tenderly, and holding her tight. But Joy looked back over her shoulder at Willy still, and a look of pity grew in the squire’s face as his glance followed hers. Then with sudden sharpness he turned to the groom and said : *Go for the doctor; quick ?’ By that time, however, Willy had recovered a little, and was lying very quietly with his temples bound up in a cloth, and his eyes, I remember, with the still startled look in them. The squire stood near him, with one arm clasped round little Joy, her ! ittle white hands clinging fast to it. _ The Frenchwoman had recovered from her fright, and was telling the squire all about the accident in a wonderful way. The squire stood there a long time looking down at Willy; and I well remember the sad expression .A his face, although I knew nothing of its meaning then, and as little did I guess the nature of his thoughts. I only saw the proud Squire Harding, and thought it was very good of him to be sorry for Willy. He took no sort of notice of me at all, which I was aware was only natural, although I must have been a noticeable enough object, being drenched and plastered all over with water and mud from the ditch. I liked h'm better though, as he stood there silently, much better than ever I had done before ; and I ventured to look at his face, a liberty I had not up to that time been equal to taking, only knowing him by his clothes and voice ; and I remember, boy as I was, thinking what a fine clear face he had, and how well shaved it was from ear to chin.

Before long Dr Lambton came with his gisr, and said Willy might be moved ; and as the mill was a mile off, and the Hall quite near, the squire directed that he should be taken to the Hall. So they removed him there in the gig, the squire walking alongside, with Joy clinging to him. But before he went, the squire told me to run as fast as I could and tell Uncle Stephen where Willy was. I was quite pleased to think that he had seen me after all, and I ran home as the crow flies.

I expected Uncle Stephen to be as glad as I was about Willy being taken to the Hall; and I was, therefore, greatly astonished to see a black angry look on his face, mingling with a look of pain, when I told him of Willy’s hurt. He seized his hat at once, and strode off in the direction of the Hall, 1 followed him by instinct, straight away to the front-door of the mansion. It was open, and he walked straight into the entrancehall. I followed as far as the mat, beyond which even my instinct of following deserted me, and I stood gazing at the rich furnishings and the grand painted window in the staircase. I heard Uncle Stephen ask a servant sharply where his master k was, and then I saw him disappear up the great stair, where, to my excited imagination, he seemed as if going to heaven, by that time the summer sun was setting, and glowing through the painted window, making it very beautiful, and striking me with awe ; for the figures on it looked as if alive, and not like the painted men and women they were. I have seen the setting sun shine many a time since upon the same rich window, and I know now the sweetscriptural story that it tells with its groups of dazzling figures; but I have never seen it again as it looked that day. I sat down in the hall, and had not waited long before Uncle Stephen came back with Willy in his arms. I was fairly startled at the angry way in which he walked out of the house, but I followed mutely. When he got outside he wrapped Willy carefully in his coat, although the evening was warm, and walked all the way in his shirt sleeves, carrying him home to the mill. It was not for years after that I got to know what took place up stairs _ while I waited in the hall. I have known since, not fromjWilly, who remembered nothing, but from Joy herself, who, although only eight years old, remembered everything that passed. The squire had ordered that Willy should be carried to his own room ; and the

I two ladies of the house, the doctor, the squire himself, and little Joy holding by his hand, were all there when the miller’s presence in the house was announced. Uncle Stephen was not a man to be kept waiting much at doors ; so, thrusting aside the footman, he walked up to Willy, who wa* sitting in an easy chair, looking very pale and listless. The lad jumped up excitedly when Uncle Stephen entered, but fell back again with weakness ; and Uncle Stephen knelt by his side, putting his arm round him supporting him. Then, looking towards the squire, he said: *Mr Harding, I did not expect e er again to enter your house, for good or ill, after our last meeting within it; but I thank you all the same for looking after the boy till I came. Now that I am here, he is mine again, not yours.’ Joy, who often spoke of the scene, always told me that when Uncle Stephen said these last words his colour rose, and his eyes flashed defiantly at the squire, who answered him not a word. Then fussy Dr Lambton —Breezy Lambton, as he was called—interfered to prevent Willy being removed, for Uncle Stephen had by that time raised him in his arms jealously, as though fearing to lose him. But the squire laid his hand upon the doctor’s shoulder and motioned him to silence. So Uncle Stephen bowed to the ladies, who seemed to understand his words and manner as well as the squire did, and then he lifted Willy, and walked silently from the room with him. The squire followed him to the landing outside the door, and said something very earnestly, and the two looked into each other’s faces for a brief'* moment.

*Mr Harding, I cannot, ’ said Uncle Stephen, as he went down the stair; while the squire looked after him with the same look of regretful sadness on his face I myself had noticed when he stood silently looking at Willy in the cottage. Uncle Stephen carried Willy all the way home, as I have said, and took him up-stairs \l and undressed him himself; and all that Jj night, and nearly all next day, and the next night after that, he sat by the bedside watching Willy, and waiting on him with great tenderness, although Hannah the ser-vant-maid begged of him to let her do it aITT But there was no danger except a little fever, although it was the best part of a fortnight before Willy was fairly himself again. I moped and was miserable all the time, for I could not live without him. The lesf' sons at school were doubly bitter; and I was\ almost glad that old Snuffy Tegg thrashed \ me so hotly and often, because it seemed \ somehow that I was enduring it for Willy’s ■ sake. A gloomy letter A, imprinted on my mind for life, dates from this period. I took it in from the repeated occasions in which Snuffy’s legs of rusty black strode over my writhing body, while I was being put through an undeniable thrashing. \ Part 11. It would be too tedious to put down on paper many of the incidents of Willy’s life and mine at this time. Nothing seemed to happen for several years after the accident to little Miss Joy and Willy in the lane. Our life—now that I look back on it through the mist of half a century lying between—seems to have been a time of young animal happiness—a life of young colt or of dogs. We seemed to live on the outside of life, it were. I remember we used to listen elders talking over politics or the fighting* news, as if it did not concern us at all, iH remember the war news well, because BillH Stubbs was in the habit of coming over and* sitting in the mill kitchen every Saturday* evening, to hear the newspaper read to himH by Uncle Stephen, and to be reproved his hearty cursing of the Duke of The old man used to s f nmp up and the door when some of the news was read. As for Uncle Stephen, he always used to A read the unfavorable news as if it were a* pack of lies, never giving way to agitation,■ as old Bill did. ■ Willy was the first to take notice of matters of war and politics, although I wasß fourteen at the time, and he only twelve-pB but he was always quicker than I was, and I always met the disagreeabieness of arith- I metic more cheerfully then I could, when he 1 was not excited by Snuffy Tegg, I had a “1 sad dull head, and have still, for the matter of that; but I was tough of limb, and could run across stubble like a greyhound, i and could swim against the mill race 1 which no other boy in our parts could But Willy was always pale aud slender, B with a face as sweet to look upon as a I picture or a flower. The ladies from thcß Hall noticed him more and more, although B we were forbidden by Uncle Stephen to goB near the squire’s grounds. But we frequently met the parties of the gentry about the lanes, aud we learned at last to stand tire as it were, and left off running awav when we saw them coming. MissP* Joy was always in high glee whenever we met, and one day she gave us one of her doll’s children, which were carried in a basket behind her. She told us to share it ' between its and be very good to it I carried I it home carefully, for Willy had rather a j contempt for it; aud it lies, even now, in a / safe place, with a scrap of paper to it, on 1 which is written, ‘ A Present from Joy.’ / The paper is very old and yellow, and the doll is no longer young ; but my youth comes Vback to me afresh when I look at it, and to part with it would be losing part of my life. [ To be continued.'] *