LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 821, 8 February 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE PARSON’S PUPIL, ‘Well, Muster Roger, if ye must have’em, why, ye must, an’ that’s all about it; but things is changed now, an’—l’d a deal rather not part with ’em ? ’ The last few words, uttered in the form of a question, indicated that the speaker desired to get out of a repented bargain, the rough half-trader, half-poacher fellow glancing furtively up at Mr Roger Yarley by way of emphasis. But Bouncing Barnes was not exactly a fascinating man to look upon—country costermonger and general mauvais svjet of the decayed little town of Elywich, some four miles from Indolstone Vicarage, in the dense shrubbery of which the pair were confabulating—and he might as well have hoped for mercy from the vicar himself, the Rev Athanasius Royce, had he been placed before that stern magistrate and most ascetic of Ritualists on a charge of publicly using blasphemous or profane language. ‘What do I care about things being changed ? I suppose you mean you’ve laid some fresh plant, some new devilment V was the reply of the reckless-looking young man, who stood chewing an ash-plant, and spitting the pieces all around, while his dark, almost swarthy features appeared like determination embodied. ‘ What’s change to me ?’ he went on; ‘ a bargain’s a bargain, and have them I will.’

‘ But it must be for money down ?’ The face of the vicar’s pupil darkened still more as he noticed the cunning look of the fellow, who evidently hoped ho might get Varley’s normal condition—and it seemed as though the young man were about to explode into passion. But he checked himself, saying with a contemptuous laugh—- ‘ It won’t do, Barnes ; don’t you try your bounce on me, my line fellow; I know too much of you— —’ ‘ Well,’ interrupted the other hastily but meaningly, and twisting his hedgehog cap in his fingers, ‘ we’ave been pardners in one or two bits of larks, Muster Roger, an’ old friends didn’t oughter squabble—but, tell yer wot —-’

‘ Confound your impudence !’ cried the young gentleman, nevertheless wincing visibly. ‘ Ilsh ! ’ whispered Bouncing Barnes hurriedly, grasping Varley’s arm with one dirty and clawlike hand, while he pointed with the other towards where the shrubbery commenced close to the old fashioned and rambling vivarage~‘ Utah! Wowed if parson

his self ain’t a-coraing I I seen his black coat a slippin’ into the wood.’ ‘ Nonsense 1 ’ said Roger, looking, however, in the indicated direction, now rapidly darkening in the shades of the dull Septem ber evening ; * this is his vesper hour, as he calls it, and he wouldn’t come out for love or money.’ ‘ But I seen the black of him,’ persisted Barnes, preparing for a bolt ; fear of the Vicar of Indolstone being a well-established quality of his mind, though well leavened with hate.

By Jove! so it is ! ’ cried the pupil, smiling slily, as his rough companion turned away. ‘ Hook it, Bouncer, and I’ll drop in and see you this evening at your own place. ’ Mr Barnes decamped with all the soft yet swift agility of a gentleman habituated to making his way through a private wood without noise, and in a few seconds he was out of sight. Then Roger Varley laughed quietly to himself, and, pushing his way through the dense foliage and undergrowth, stepped up to meet the ‘ black’ which had so much alarmed the Bouncer—so called, by the way, not only on account of his great activity, but also because of his marked proficiency in the kindred arts of playfully cheating and skilfully lying. ‘ My darling Eddy !’ * Darling, darling Roger !’ The black coat of the parson resolved itself into the nunlike costume of his only daughter—a sweet, timid, nervous-eyed little thing, with a pale face set in a frame of rare auburn hair—whom the father had christened Edburga in mistake. For the mind of the Rev Athanasius Royce was not of the clearest, though it was certainly of the most obstinate pattern ; and at the time the infant child, whose mother died in giving her birth, was brought to the font, the vicar was under the impression that Edburga was a Saxon saint, whereas she was a royal lady of easy character, as the Rev Athanasius apeedilydis covered, and was clothed in shame thereby. As a peace-offering to the whole choir of Saxon saints, so grossly insulted as they must have been, he laid out a few extra hundreds of pounds—for he was a man of large fortune, without any taste for, or means of, spending it—on ancient chalices altar cups, &c, to join the plentiful collec tion already stored in the Oratory of his monkish, old-world vicarage, which cen turies ago had been a sort of hospice attached to the long ruined monastery of Indolstone ; and he gave the strictest orders—the canon law would not permit a second, or cancelling, baptisement —that the child was to be called Eddy, and nothing else. More than that, he had determined in his warped brain that Edburga the Mistake should make compensation for Edburga the Reprobate—in fact, that poor unconscious Eddy, if she did not become a nun out-and-out, should at least remain in that state of holy virginity which St Paul recommends as the better way. That being so, the horror of the Rev Athanasius Royce may be well imagined when he found his pupil—the son of an old friend and distant relatives, who had died leaving little or next to nothing but his blessing to his wild and wayward boy, and a hope that Athanasius would look after him—when, then, he witnessed Roger Tarley gradually stealing into the affections of poor Eddy, and plainly seeking to uproot from the virginal vineyard of the Church one of its most promising plants. For once the Vicar of Indolstone acted without the muddling or the mole-like feebleness by which his conduct in regard to Roger Varley’s former frequent and very serious escapades had been characterised. He called that delinquent young man, who had just completed bis twenty-second year, into his study, told him very plainly his intentions regarding Eddy; informed him that the ninety-five pound a-year which old Mr Varley had left—or the capital it represented, if Roger so preferred it—should be paid to him when and wherever he liked, and politely but firmly requested Mr Roger Varley to select other quarters than Indolstone Vicarage for his future abode. The young man was thunderstruck; he had no idea that his host and tutor was acquainted (though he certainly suspected him of a certain amount of mediaeval espionnage) with any of the love passages between himself and Eddy ; he had counted on the vicar’s patronage or money to launch them in the world ; and now, in a breath, all his castles in Spain were melted into thin air. How ever, Roger succeeded in making better terms than might have been expected, viz, that he was still to appear in the world’s eye as Mr Royce’s protege; that he was to come over from Elywicb, where he would abide until ‘ something ’ could be done .for him, twice a week or so as guest, but was never to attempt to see Eddy, save in the presence of her father ; and that finally, all these indulgent terms were to be subject to the approval of Jemmy Royce, the vicar’s only son, a great invalid always travelling in search of health, whom Varley had never seen, and the only human being who could influence the father—who could, in fact, twist him round his little finger. To be continued.