LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 804, 19 January 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE SACKFUL OF SOVEREIGNS. A WONDERFUL STORY OF CHRISTMAS LUCK. ( Continued.) * I am grieved for you, my poor George,’ said Alice, ‘more than I can say, but we must not let trouble take away all our hope and strength: we need both. And we should not forget the dear bright days we have known now that we have to face unflinchingly many a dark and dreary one ; for I too have only sad news to tell. By the mid-day post came a letter from poor Tom : he has lost all—every farthing of the £ISOO. His partner has absconded with everything he could lay his hands on ; and we may expect Tom here, bereft of means, and having worked his way home (as in his happier and younger days he worked his way out), trusting and assured that with us he will lind comfort and a hearty welcome, God help him and us ! The hearty welcome he shall have, George, from both of us, shall he not? Bub another mouth to feed—will be—a burden—and my heart is heavy !’ Here a few quiet tears stole softly down Alice’s cheeks, and for a moment choked her utterance. ‘Tom coming home!’ said George, ‘and penniless!’ ‘Yes,’ answered the wife; ‘and he will be here a day or two before Christmas day, if the ship makes as good a run as he expects. This letter was sent by the mail which started a week before he was to sail.’ ‘Well, well, (well, dear ’wifie,’ said poor George, ‘ he is your brother, has your dear eyes and kind heart, we know ; such as we have he shall share ; and, thank God, no i man can rob us of the love that has hallowed I these walls to us for many a year past. Let ij us thank him that we stand here together - with one heart and one hope, and not a I thought unshared by the other. ’ £ Somehow, notwithstanding their gloomy I prospects, this opening of heart to heart j gave to each a fortitude which sent them to ■ sleep that night more peacefully perhaps ' than had been the case for a long while j past. \ Chapter lll.— The Luck. j Christmas-eve, in this the most memorable of all years for the Woodwyn household, fell upon a Sunday. The long-anticipated fatal call on the shares had come about a fortnight previously, and the poor drudging bank clerk, unpromoted yet, save by a very slight step, had met it with great difficulty and many sacrifices; but he returned to his little home at Highgate on the Saturday night, determined that at least for the next two days care should be driven from its doors, and that nothing but gratitude to the Giver of all good for what was still left to him should fill his heart. So the best fare befitting the season that circumstances would allow, though falling far short may-be of the profusion of some former Christmas times, had been prepared by the careful housewife. The minor portions of it-for the great feast was, of course, not to be dreamt of till the morrow—was being set forth by degrees that Sunday afternoon upon the table in the little parlour looking out upon the lawn and garden, all now crisp and brilliant under a freshly fallen canopy of snow. As far as the immediate moment was concerned, one thing alone slightly clouded the happiness that, notwithstanding their troubles, beamed in the faces of our two friends and their little girl. No further news had been heard of that other luckless and long-absent member of the family. ‘ I could have wished,’ said George, ‘that poor Tom could have arrived in time to eat his Christmas beef with us. There would be enough for him ; and I had heartily hoped that he might have “ come to hand,’’ as we say in the City, in time. ’ _ I The words had scarcely passed his lips when, after that fashion of ‘coincidence’ so j necessary for stories and plays, and which j by critical readers and audiences is often j held to be artificial in fiction, but which j when occuriug in real life is considered only I ‘ very fortunate*’ the bull at the outer gate (

beneath the ivied arch clanged with a boisterous peal; and two minutes later the little sitting room was dwarfed in its proportions by the appearance within its walls of a huge, broad-chested, large-limbed, weatherbeaten man, sadly travel stained and battered as to his exterior, but with a pair of bright pure eyes, so full of hope and cheeriness that they made your heart bound at once with trust and joy, and they made not only the heart but the whole person of Alice Woodwyn bound ; for, with the rapidity of lightning, she sprang towards him, and before a word could be uttered had flung her arms around his neck, and almost hidden his bearded honest face by the deluge of kisses she poured upon it. What a talking and hand shaking and kissing, again and again, began after that! What a succession of incoherent questionings and impossibly constructed answers ? What ungrammatical voluble sentences were scattered about! How they never seemed to be any likelihood of the performance coming to an end and matters settling down again ! First —if there ever could be a first in such a complication of sayings and doings —Tom would take up his little niece with so much strength of arm and hand that the child’s head appeared imperilled by the low ceiling, then he seemed inclined to treat his own sister in the same way, and was not quite sure but what he would give George a hoist up in his arms, so entirely overcome was he by the boisterousness and strength of his joy. Nor was that of the other three in their degree less demonstrative. They had thoroughly caught the infection, and all the time their eyes were as full of tears as they could hold—and Mrs Woodwyn’s didn’t hold them, for they kept running over and streaming down her face, so that you would have thought a private cataract was somewhere at work, and was only hidden from view by the profusion of her brown curls, which now, fairly escaping the bondage of all plaits and bauds, were flowing about in every direction, and getting so mixed up and entangled with her brother’s locks—which were exactly the same colour, and only, as it seemed, a little less long—when his head shook with laughter, that the confusion of appearance was quite as great as the confusion of tongues. By degrees, however, a little tranquility set it, and when every due arrangement had been made for everybody’s comfort, the whole party fell to at the repast. After a while it was but natural that a certain amount of reaction should follow, as we know there were many circumstances connected with the little group likely to have a depressing influence. The evening too began to close in, and for the first half hour after the chairs were pnHed round the fire and before candles were brought the conversation took rather a gloomy turn. But presently Tom, bringing his big hands down on to his knees with a heavy spank, said, whilst the ruddy glow of the fire which he bad just stirred showed his face beaming again ■with smiles. } ‘ Well, it’s no use repining; we must try and make the best of matters. It is true I haven’t got a penny in the world —not a stiver, but I am full of hope and good health, thank God, and between ns we will retrieve our fortunes somehow. At present I am too glad to be in the dear old home once again for anything to depress me much: Dear heart! only to think ! sixteen years since I was in this room—-and then I was but sixteen years old I How small the place looks 1 And this little puss—she seems very I pale and peaky, poor child ! —wasn’t bora or thought of; and 1 had only seen you once in my life, Mr George, and a mightily stuckup young prig I thought you casting sheep’s eyes even then at Alice, not but what she was nearly as tall at fourteen as she is now —yes !’ looking straight at his sister and patting her cheek: ‘ but you don’t look quite so plump and rosy in the face as you did then, you poor darj ling ! But we’ll bring the roses back somej how yet!’ S ‘ I don’t know how you are going to do it, ITom,’ she answered sadly. ‘When I think of how affairs stand with us all, there comes i a great knock at my heart in the midst of ' my gladness at having you back again, What a great big fellow you have grown ! I can’t help looking at you. I should never have known you but for your eyes; and they are, as always, exactly like dear father’s. You will be the image of him £ when you are as old. ’ | ‘ Ah, in looks perhaps ; but I’m afraid ( that’s all I follow him in,’ answered the i brother. ‘ I feel like a horrid brute as I sit ( here, and remember the misery I caused the f dear old chap. I can see him sitting over : there where George is as plainly—ah, well! ! it’s of no use talking about it; but I suppose ► if it hadn’t been for me he would have managed differently about his money. Yes, I am the cause of the trouble all round. You would, no doubt, have been well off but for me.’ ‘ Don’t say so, Tom,’ chimed in George ; ‘ it’s bad luck, but we can’t tell j you must not accuse yourself of too much. You and I must go on working hard, that’s all it comes to.’ ‘Yes,’ slowly answered the burly sailor, after a pause ; but it’s very strange to think that nobody has any idea of what he did with all his savings. Dear heart! it’s very curious ! ’ Then there was silence for a long while. But when the candles came the talk went on again, rising at times into merriment, and again lapsing to a sadder key, but ever hinging of course upon the return home, the adventures abroad, and all that had happened during these long years The Christmas-eve waned; little Lily went to bed ; and finally, bed-time came for all. Alice and G eorge both saw their brother up to the little room which for many days past had been ready for him. He never seemed weary of gazing about him at all the old familiar domestic objects—the passages, the stairs, the rooms. Just as they were bidding ‘good night,’ Tom turned to his j sister and said, ‘ And the garden, Alice—is that much the j same? All the queer gnarled apple-trees ; just as they were?’ (To he continued .)