LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 670, 12 August 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

WHY ARE YOU WANDERING HERE, I PRAY ? P a r t I. ' "Why are you wandering here, I pray?" An old man asked a maid one day. " Looking for poppies so bright and red, Father," said she, " I'm hither led." " Fie, fie !" was the old mans cry; " Poppies, 'tis known by all who rove, Grow in the field and not in the grove." ' Aa long as Georgie Verschoyle could remember anything she had lived with her uncle, Mr Arnold, in a small house on the borders of the New Forest; with Mattie, 'the cook and factotum, for mother and governess; and Nellie Shergold, housemaid, and Mattie's predistined victim, for sister and companion. During her childhood and early girlhood the wild free life had been full of charm, and no one was happier than Georgie. For hours she would wander about; there was no spot of beauty in all the forest she had not explored; no tree she had not climbed ; no ' lawn' embowered in high overarching beeches she did not know. Not a rivulet dancing its wayward round was unfamiliar to her. For miles she would follow its windings, crossing and reciossing, watchiug the growth of the ferns and flowers, tracing the birds to their nests, the [snake to its hole, till not a sound or sight in all the whole district was strange to her. Morning after morning she saw the sun rise in majestic splendour; evening after evening she stood gazing while he set, gorgeous in purple and gold, till vital feelings of delight possessed her soul, filling it with a vague poetic yearning, half pleasure, half pain. This was her life -when days were long and bright; but in the winter, when the branches were weighed down with heavy snow, or the forest path ankle deep in pulp, compounded of dead leaves and mud, she would sit in her uncle's room, reading with him and drinking in greedily the information which was the only thing he ever seemed to give her ungrudgingly. Her face resting on her hands, her eager eyes fixed on his, she would follow with quick, keen intelligence through all the intricate paths of learning by which he led her. Theology, history, natural science, nothing came amiss to her; and where her mental development was concerned, no question, no interruption ever wearied him. She was the eager learner; he the sympathising painstaking teacher. But there the sympathy between them appeared to end. Once out of the ' book-room' their relations with each other underwent an entire change. Mr Arnold was again the cold, sarcastic, stern recluse, of whom everyone stood in dread ; George the wild heedless ' bogtrotter,' as her uncle called her, only anxious to keep out of his way; happy if she could get Nellie Shergold to accompany her on an exploring expedition; happier still if she could go alone, without any restrictions imposed by Mattie as to the trees she should climb or the hour she should return. How could she know the exact hour, having only her mother's watch, which wouldn't go, and the sun to guide her? The latter is good—when he shines —iu a broad general way, but is apt to be misleading as.to the quarters. Mattie was given to scold about Georgie's clothes; not, perhaps, without reason. Getting rip to one's knees in a bog in the New Forest is injurious to one's garment's ; and Miss Verschoyle's supply was limited, nor was it an easy matter to increase the stock or to replenish it when diminished, Mr Arnold being unapproachable, especially on the subject of money; so at least Mattie said, and she was the only one whom experience warranted in speaking on the point. ' It's like wringing his heart's blood, just to get a penny out of him!' she remarked, pathetically, to Georgie. In fact Mr Arnold was neither ungenerous nor niggardly; but he was possessed with the idea that, where money was concci'ned, Mattie was not to be trusted; and he was one of those men Avho, suspecting easily, retain with a limpet-like tenacity any suspicion they once get into their heads. This distrust of her arose from the fact that she had applied to the purchase of a pair of red shoes for Georgie the money he had given to her for household expenses. L'rom the moment ho made this discovery her moral obliquity was established in his eyef. She had been his nurse, his mother's trusted servant and friend, and his own, after he had set up his tent in the Now Forest, till that unlucky purchase. Henceforth bis confidence in her was destroyed, and he never gave her the most necessary sums for household expenditure without a protest more or less openly expi-essed. The misapplication of funds was of so innocent a nature that no man less crotchety than George Arnold would have dreamed of making it the foundation for a charge of habitual dishonesty. When it happened, Georgie Verschoyle had lately become an inmate of her uncle's house, and had taken that place in the heart of the mateless and childless Mattie which had long been craving eagerly for something more tender than 'Master George' himself to fill. He had been her child, her darling, and was still the beloved of her soul, her ideal of masculine perfection, her god in short; but a god is to be looked upon with awe and worshipped, not fondled and scolded and cared for. George Arnold was divine, but awe-in spiring, and wanted little taking care of; ate sparingly, drank more so, and absolutely refused to be coddled. Mattie never forgot the look he gave her once when she proposed his nutting hi* feet in hat JMJM faftft

cold ! The woman's heart in Mattie was not satisfied with being thus allowed to worship at a distance. She pined for a less awful idol. It has been said that women need an object to adore; It would be truer to say that they need one to protect and bless, and this object came into Mattie's life when 'the master' wrote to her one day, saying bis sister was dead, and asking her to come and take charge of her only child, who would henceforth live with him. On the wings of love Mattie flew; received the two years' old| girl in her arms, and from that moment found her happiness complete, for * the master's ' distrust of her honesty did not affect her equanimity. She smiled at it as a large strong nature smiles at the littleness or crotchets of a small weak one ; or rather she smiled at it till she found it interfered with Georgie's welfare and comfort. Then she became angry. To dress her darling out in the best she could procure was the pride of Mattie's life ; but this was just the thing George Arnold hated. Looking on the love of dress as the root of all evil in women, he resolved that it should not be fostered in his niece. He loved the girl with a love as profound, though less tender and lovable than Mattie's, and would not be induced to consent to anything he considered injurious to her welfare. He was a born old bachelor—one of those men of whom it may be predicated from their earliest boyhood that they will die unmarried. Not that he was devoid of affection. He had been tenderly attached to his mother, and had loved his only sister, Georgie's mother, with passionate devotion. She warmly reciprocated the feeling; but there came a day when a stronger love still snapped the bond between them : ' Two lovers by a moss-grown spring ; They leaned soft cheeks together there, Mingled the dark and sunny hair, And heard the wooing thrushes sing. 0 budding time, 0 love's blest prime !' George's anger knew no bounds. Stigmatising the lover as a lout and a sot, he refused to see him, thus forcing his sister to choose between the two. She did choose, as nature and generosity dictated. Philip Verschoyle was neither a sot nor a lout, but a warm-hearted, impulsive, gentleman-like soldier, with more precipitancy than prudence in his disposition, as was shown by his marriage with Mary Arnold, penniless though beautiful, and devotedly attached to him. The breach between the brother and sister was complete. ' The dire years, whose awful name is Change, Had grasped their souls still yearning in divorce, And pitiless shaped them in two forms—forms that were united again but for one brief moment in this life. Captain Verschoyle died in Canada, and his young wife, heartbroken and iU, just reached England with her child in time to die too. George heard of her illness and, the sepaparating cause being now removed, flew to her side; but his tardy tenderness could not kindle into vitality the waning spark of life. She followed her gallant husband to the land afar off, commending with her last breath her baby girl to her mother's care. It was then that the latter wrote to Mattie to come and take charge of Georgie. Tender even in that bitter alienation, the sister had called the child after the loved companion of her early days, and—so weak is human nature, such trifles touch us for good or evil—the fact that his niece bore his name did more to soften George Arnold and ensure his tenderness than any arguments founded on reason or principle could have done. The little thing quickly found a place in his heart, though his affection manifested itself in the strangest and most capricious manner. Wherever her intellectual development was concerned, he was gentle, wise, patient. In ail other respects he neglected her completely; never allowed her to lavish any of the love of a most loving nature on him; never let her go anywhere or have any companions; and, what grieved Mattie above all the rest, never let her dress like other girls of her position in life. Mattie did her best; but her taste was not faultless ; besides, she had not the wherewithal to provide materials; and now, at nineteen, Georgie's wardrobe consisted chiefly of her mother's old gowns, modernised according to Mattie's idea of fashion, and of some brocaded dresses with which the old woman had been presented by Georgie's mother. * You should speak to your uncle yourself, Miss Georgie, my dearie, and tell him he ought to give you a proper allowance, the same as your poor mamma used to have, so that you could be dressed like a lady.' But nothing would induce the girl to say a word on the subject. ' I won't Mattie. I daresay uncle George can't afford it. I've no doubt he would give me better clothes if he could.' Then went Mattie, scorning the idea of his poverty, proved beyond a doubt that not want of power but want of wiU was at the root of the matter, Georgie's pride took fire. ' It's very good of him to have me at all,' she returned proudly; 'if he didn't, I suppose I should be in the workhouse. I must' be a great expense to him, and I certainly should never think of asking him for anything more than he chooses to give ;' and such a set determined expression came into the sweet young face, that Mattie, alarmed, resolved never to allude to the subject again. Thus the orphan girl grew up, a strange compound of child and woman; intellectually developed to an unusual degree, yet unconventional, entirely ignorant of the world, and with the artless simplicity of an unspoiled child. She led so secluded a life that, like some beautiful wild animal, dwelling in a land untrodden of men, she was absolutely free from shyness; fearless too, save where her uncle was concerned, and towards him it was not so much fear she felt as a proud reserve. She loved him dearly, but was not at her ease with him, and there was always a root of bitterness springing up to trouble their intercourse. Why would he never tell her anything about her father? Why did he so persistently avoid every mention of him and his family ? Of her mother's family she learned enough from Mattie, the string of whose tongue was always loosed when there was an opportunity of talking about her dear Arnolds; but the old woman knew little of Captain Verschoyle personally, and nothing of his connections, and could not tell Georgie anything, save that her uncle had disapproved of the marriage, and had never seen his sister, after it took place, till j ust before her ! death.