LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 892, 4 May 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE .

ON THE WEST PIER, A Tai.f. tn Two Chapters. Chapter I. A iroT summer’s night at Brighton, a nigid when there was no win;! and no stars, a night so intensely black that the restles ;. moaning waste of waters below was hardly to be distinguished from the moveless, silent vault above, save when now and then a break in the inky cur'ain of the latter showed a tawny, orange colored gap and the gleaming of a crescent point—showed a fainter orange glare on the languid roll of the sea, a paler gleam on the wet shingle of the beach.

Very still that beach was just then. The shingle, a few hours back scattered over with children, red-cheeked and short-skirted, shrieking, laughing, beating each other with little wooden spades, or splashing barelegged in the surf and foam —with loosehaired nymphs in classically fluttering attire —with trim nurserymaids, and wet-legged, blowsy, semi-masculine bathing women—was silent and deserted now : abandoned to the white bathing machines and gaily-painted hauled up high and dry, out of reach of the mischievous element with which they had been battling all day ; and scarcely to be distinguished in (he darkness. Very silent and dim the parade, so gay with

earriaves and horses, and crowded with pedestrians, that very afternoon. More silent still, and still more dim and dark, tin; town behind. All Brighton se raed to have gone to sleep and been buried behind its rattling bow windows and brown paper walls. All Brighton seemed to be awake and lively on the West Pier. No silence there !—no darkness, desertion, or desolation ! From end to end of the huge, frail looking [erection nothing but a glitter of lamps, green, white, and red, nothing but a sea of people crossing, recrossing, meeting and remeeting one another, sitting on the benches talking, laughing, eating ices, flirting, fooling, perhaps (God knows ! ) grieving, to the languid airs of ‘ La Traviata’ or the ‘ Blue Danube,’ as performed by the band of the Coldstreams, or the hushed and sighing murmur of the sea. People of all ages, sexes, nations, and degrees ; wealthy publicans with portly wives and overdressed daughters; Jews in profusion, male and female, easily diftiuguishable by too much nose, too much full red lip, too much curly hair, too much gaudy color and sham jewellery; ladies of the ‘ haut monde ’ in dinner dress, shrouded in shawls and cloaks, and carefully protected by white-cravatted husbands and brothers ; ladies of the demimonde. in war paint and plumes, and not shrouded at all in any way ; children in Highland plaids or sailor costume scampering about, and getting under every one’s feet; Rotten-Bow “swells,” eyeglass in eye and drawl on lip; naval officers, happily unconscious of the nauticality visible through every stitch of their ready-made shore gar ments ; volunteer officers, bristling in full military uniform; army officers, rigidly disguised in the severest “mufti,” and supremely oblivious of their amateur companions;—all these land a thousand others making up the gay-coloured, harpy-looking swarm congregated above the elastic timbers of the West Pier. Rather apart from the crowd, centred round the band at the further end of the pier, two young men of the last-mentioned type of individual leant against the railing chatting in a low voice -■ Captain Garsford of the —th, a big, dark, good-natured looking man, without much strength of character written in his handsome face, and his friend Cyril Granger, a smaller, square-built, fa;rhaired, fair-faced young fellow in the same regiment, a soldier all over, trimly put together, with a pair of piercing blue eyes and a square resolute chin which belied the almost boyish blondness and delicacy of his hair and skin. There was a pause in the music, and many people who had stood still to listen to a triumphant “ finale ” recommencee their slow promenade. These two, however, seemed more lazily inclined. The night was hot, and Granger had been riding all the afternoon : it was pleasanter to lounge in that quiet corner, puffiing faint clouds of blue smoke into the still, warm air, and discussing the people about them, than in go round and round with the stream like goldfish in a bowl. ‘Well, it is difficult to tell who is who, nowadays,’ Granger said at last in answer to some remark of his friend; ‘ barring paint (and that’s not easy to see at night), one set of women dress so closely after another that I for one don’t see how you can tell them apart.’ ‘ Except in a place like this,’ objected the Captain; l in the park or opera, I grant it you—sometimes ; but here ’ ‘Well, what’s the difference here? Has the place any particular touchstone by which to test society of the fairer sex ?’ ‘ One touchstone is sufficient. Take this pier for instance, decent women don’t walk alone on it.’ ‘ Nor your Mdlle Phryne either, if she can help it.’ ‘ Possibly; but you were speaking of finding out the good-form ones. They wouldn’t dream of showing in such a place at all sans chaperon of some sort. ’ ‘Granted, sometimes, as you observed just now,’ said Granger slowly, his keen, quiet glance travelling over the throng around him, —‘Not always though—look there!’ taking the cigar out of his mouth to direct attention to a girl passing them, a tall, lithelooking girl in handsome black silk, and walking with the quick but irresolute st p, shoulders rather forward and eyes down, but head erect and expression both proud and timid, betokening to an experienced eye an unaccustomedness to being alone in a crowd, and a dislike at once shrinking and haughty to the glances cast on her. ‘ There’s a woman walking by herself; but ‘ for a’ that an’ a’ that ’ there’s a something about her—l’d lay my life she’s a lady, and good form too.’ * That! Why, how the deuce Good heavens! I should rather think so. It’s my sister, man.’ And it was, for the raised tone and sudden plunge forward startled the girl. She turned her head, and the next moment was at her brother’s side, her hand on his arm, while the look of pleasure and relief in her face abundantly proved the truth o! Granger’s surmise. The younger office) drew politely on one side, waiting for an introduction, but not wishing to appear to claim it. The girl had never noticed him. ‘George, lam so glad,’ she said breath lessly. ‘ I was beginning to be afraid, for 1 couldn’t see you anywhere, and there are such lots of people down there.’

‘ But, my dear girl, what the deuce brought you out at all by yourself? Lots of people! I should rather think so. You’ve no business to be here by day without Mrs ‘■Jar-ford or someone else. It isn’t respectib) it A bat, in the name of heaven, did you do it for? ’ Carsford was really angry. To have just been in the act of passing a stricture on a particular distincri u between women, and to find that your own sister, the pearl and pride of your life, has unconsciously been serving as an example to point the moral, is irritating even to a mind usually placid to a fault, and Ethel Garsford, very unused to anything like harshness from her brother, flushed all over her delicate high-bred face, like a lily smitten by the last red rays of the setting sun. Young Granger felt sorry for her, sorry, and yet glad too, that he had had keen enough eyes to distinguish the ‘ good style ’ in her, even among equivocal surroundings. ‘ I am very sorry,’ she said gently ; ‘ but it was not my fault, George, Do not be angry, dear. It was not, indeed. We all came out here after dinner, my stepmother and her brother and I, and then she fancied that the smell of the sea made her feel sick, and said she would go back again. George, I had got so tired of sitting in that hot. stuffy draw ng-room, with the sun glaiiug in at the how window all day long; ami just then she High sight of you standing alone, and told mo that if I wanted to stay out { h id 'iu tt r go :,<> you, as she would be just as glad of » quiet hour to tail; business with her brother. 1 wasn’t quite sure if you would want me,’ looking up wist fully into her brother’s face, ‘ but she was vexed at my hesitating, and then when I turned back I could not see you. You had moved, and though I went on I began to feel nervous. So don’t be vexed with me, dear. You shall take me home now at once if you like ’ *lf I like ! Nonsense ! ’ said George, pacified with her, though not with the incident. ‘Of course you can stay with me. It was just like Mrs Garsford’s consummate selfishness, not to put you in my care before taking herself off. She’s no more fit to be your chaperone than —but of course I like to have you ; though, as it happens, I wasn’t alone. Granger of ours——Why, where the deuce is he ? ’ But young Granger had disappeared. Moved by the wistful sweetness of her face to determine that his presence at any rate should neither recall the past contre.-temps, nor come between the brother and sister’s walk, he had quietly taken himself off, and indeed devoted some trouble to keeping out of the way of the other two for the remainder of the evening. {To he continued.) POETRY. LONDON BY THE SEA. 0 Brighton in November Is what one should remember, When from town so dull and foggy we all of us would flee ; Where air is pure and bracing, The breezes we are facing, Aw r ay the blues there chasing— At our London-by-the-Sca. The morning’s plunge at Brill’s there, It scares away all ills there, How dull or sad or sober you may ever chance to be ; The sunshine bright in flashing, While in the water splashing, Away dull care you’re dashing At bright London-by-tlie-Sea. You’re sure to find collected On pier a crowd protected From weather as they listen to a symphony in B : ’Neath crystal screen’s flirtation, Scarce screened from observation, You’ll find with consternation— At gay Lendon-by-the-Sea. Grave judges there are jokers, With actors and stock-brokers, With every sort of person of high and low degree; Professor of art fistic, And preacher ritualistic, With poet wild and mistic— At brave London-by-the-Sea. O’er downs to madly scamper, Without a care to hamper—’Tis just the thing to do you good 1 think you’ll quite agree: All worry you are crushing, Your blood is gaily flushing, As off you’re swiftly rushing— At light Loudon-by-the-Sea. With Amazons fast going, Such tangled tresses flowing, Such skirts and dainty ribbons in breezes blowing free: What joy to canter faster, With beauties of the castor, As humble riding master, At smart London-by-the-Sea. Then frequently there passes An army of school lasses, So full of buoyant spirits and of gladsome girlish glee That when they softly patter The pave o’er and chatter, I’m as mad as any hatter— At fair London-by-the-Sea. Some lake a modest tiffin, Or bun or Norfolk biffin, At Streeter’s or at Mainwaring’s, but that will not suit me, Though folks may call me glutton, 1 do not care a button, But love a lunch with mutton— At this London-by-the-Sea. The flys are slow and mouldy, As every one has told ye, Its shrimps by far the finest you could ever wish for tea; Its shops are rare and splendid, Where everything is vended Till money’s all expended— At dear London-by-the-Sea. If spirits you would lighten Consult good Doctor Brighton, And swallow Ins prescription and abide by his decree: If nerves be weak or shaken Just try a month with bacon, His physic soon is taken— At our London-by-the-Sea. Boudoir Ballads.