LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 823, 10 February 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE PARSON’S PUPIL. ( Concluded .) Roger Varley had made his own bitter words to her good—he had forged another man’s name ; at all events, he had been charged with doing so at a London police court, and though the case against him had been dismissed, the magistrate’s remarks proved that ithe culprit had escaped this time by a mere quibble. Then it was that poor Eddy Royce felt that all was indeed over ; and, after she had been brought-to by the couple of rude and rough servant wenches, forming the total establishment of that dreary, lonely, desolate vicarage, she prayed to be left to herself and she wandered away into the depths of that very shrubbery where nearly a year before, the faithless one had sworn to her eternal constancy, and had put from him for ever, for her sake, all tendency to the weakness regarding the rights of property which seemed part and parcel of his nature. Here was the very end ; and as she flung herself on the tangled turf in the same hollow where last she had seen him, she shuddered all over with the dread of going mad in her mental agony, for she was already fancying horrors that could have no existence save in a diseased brain, fancying that she saw peering at her through the dense undergrowth the fearful eyes of that very Bouncing Barnes who had first led her lover into poaching and all sorts of mischief, * * * * *

It was the turn of the night into morning, and already the. first faint glimmer of light, or perhaps it would be better to say the first absence of total darkness, struck on the gilding of the cumbrous weathercock of Indolstone Church, and told that the day was at hand.

* Curse these country police ! we shall be awfully late !’ said one of the two rough fellows who had been crouching in the ditch jfof Elywich Lane while the nightpatrol went by. ‘ Curse them, it’s near day break 1’

‘ Well, and wot’s the odds ? Better light to see your job by, an’ not a soul near this lonesome place to make any fuss with us.’ . ‘ There, there 1 that’ll do, Barnes. Let us start. You’re sure the ladder’s there ?’

‘ Ay, sure enough. ’Cos why ? I put it there myself an hour after sundown.’ ‘ Come along then !’ * Stay a bit—best put these mufllers on in case of accidents like j’ and the man drew from the pockets of the capacious and loose navvy’s coat—both the fellows were in that sort of attire—two black half-masks, such as are only seen on the stage or in the possession of burglars. ‘ Jove ! not a bad idea !’ said he who had first spoken; and they speedily adjusted

the disguising contrivances, the one upon ths other. Then they hastily but cautiously crossed the rough stone wall dividing the ’ftoarag® grounds from the lane, passed up through the thick shrubbery without cracking as much as a twig, and crept along the side of the rambling vicarage until they found themselves at the buttressed end nearest the old church, and under a small window more than half concealed by the thick growth of the ancient ivy. There was a rude ladder carefully concealed, as Bouncing Barnes had said, in the long rank grass which it was a crack of Mr Boyce’s to leave unmown, and in the twinkling of an eye that hero planted the ladder against the wall, and the other—the lighter and more agile of the two—at once mounted, having first felt in his wide and deep pockets for the tools that he had previously placed therein. With great skill, and in almost perfect silence, he forced the joint of the old-fashioned window. It flew open, and, with a whispered caution to Barnes to keep a sharp look-out for In's re-appearance, the man crawled in and was lost to sight. He was gone a long time, and Barnes, so callous was the nature of the fellow, actually began to doze and nod as he stood still holding the ladder, when Ah ! what was that ?

In an jinstaut he was seized from behind, flung to the ground, and pinned there by a tall athletic man in groom’s dress, while a second, pulling out a revolver, bade him not utter a word if lie wished to avoid having a bullet through his brain. Bouncing Barnes was flabbergasted, but he had sense enough to do as he was bid; and the younger and more fragile of ,thc newcomers, pulling a second pistol from his overcoat, handed it to the groom, telling him hurriedly to keep the fellow down while he entered to search for the other villain. Before the servant could remonstrate on the danger of the proceeding the youthful master had gamed the forced open window, entered it lightly and cautiously, and disappeared. It was Jemmy Boyce, the vicar’s son, just returned from a tour on the Continent; and, purposing to give his father and Eddy a pleasant surprise, he had arrived home in the very nick of time to detect two burglars breaking into the Oratory, where, as he well knew, his father kept his valuable collection of antique church plate. Full of pluck but very weak, owing to perpetual sickness which had been his companion almost from his birth, Jemmy was always seeking risky enterprises, placing himself in the most dangerous positions, and several times nearly lost his life through his rashness. Pistol in hand, he stole along the passage loading towards the Oratory, feeling satisfied that there he should find the other ruffian whom they had seen, from their vehicle in the road, clambering in ; and as he got to the old oaken door, he paused and listened. Not a sound—stay ! What was that ? He flung the door open, rushing in as he did so. A lamp stood in a niche in the wall burning brightly, and he saw, to his utmost amazement and horror, the burglar bending over and devouring with kisses a female figure he held in his arms—the figure of his sister Eddy! She screamed wildly as she saw the door open. The burglar turned round with a furious cry as Jemmy sprang forward to seize him or shoot him; and then all three paused, white as death, like people suddenly frozen into statues of marble.

‘Eddy!’ * Jemmy 1’ ‘ My preserver !’ ‘ Good Lord ? you’re surely not young Royce ?’ Why linger over a scene that explains itself? The English gentleman whose life Roger Varley had saved near Bordeaux, and gone hurriedly away after the deed to avoid thanks, without oven knowing the name of him whose life he had preserved, was none other than the invalid sou of the Vicar. The ‘ burglary ’ had been indeed ‘a plant,’ put up by Varley, and carried out with the aid of Bouncing Barnes, who had forewarned Eddy that ‘ Muster Roger’ must and would see her before leaving England for ever, to learn from her own lips the cause of her unfaithfulness ; and the two lovers had just explained all to one another—how Milly’s letters must have been intercepted, and the girl herself tampered with, by the Rev Athanasius, who, as afterwards came out, had been present at the shrubbery interview of a year before, and had heard all that passed—and were locked in an all-atoning embrace, when Jemmy had burst in upon them with fire and death blazing from his eyes.

Then he dropped the pistol and laughed heartily—laughed so long and so loud that the guilty couple (if so they could be called) thought he would go into a fit, or burst a blood-vessel; next he sat down, introduced himself formally to the preserver of his life, and promised that, so far as his good offices could go, all should end happily.

And so it did. The Roger Varley of the police-court was a blackguard companion who had taken the name to conceal his own; the real Roger was soon set on his pins again by the aid of Jemmy Roycc’s money, and is now in a first-class position in the business he had instituted, and which he refused to abandon even if given half the vicar’s wealth. For the Rev Athanasius was speedily brought round by his son to seo|the wrong ho had been doing his daughter, and before long consented to abandon St Paul for the time, and to trust to another generation to produce an Edburga as a Vestal Virgin for the Church.