LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 899, 12 May 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE JILT. [BY CHARLES BEADE.] Chatter I. (Concluded.) 'You may well be surprised, sir. But, for as sudden as it was, I seen it a-coming. Yon see, sir, he was always at her, morning, noon, and night. He'd have tired out a saint, leastweyn a female one. Carriage and four, to take her to some blessed old ruin or other ; she didn't care for the ruin, but she couldn't withstand the four horses, which they are seldom seen in Tenby. Flowers everyday. Hindia shawls ; di-nond necklace ; a wheedling tongue, and a beard like a Christmas fir. I blame that there beard for it. Ye see. Captain, these young ladie3 never speaks their real minds about them beards. Lying comes natural to them ; and so, to flatter a clean respectable body like you or me, they makes pretend, and calls beards ojious. And so they are. Thet their Laxton, his beard supped my soup for a wager agin his belly: and, with him chat*ering so' he'll forget to wipe it for ever s > long Sarved him right if I'd brought him a basin and a towel before all the com patiy. But these young ladies, they don't

vally that. What, they looks for in a man is tf he the hopposdite fa ■<-'..rian They hates anl despises their .vvn e • So what the love-: in a man s hunMus' ins? hnvidenc and a long heard. The mor- thev eomplain of a man's htass the more thev likes it, a"d as for the beard, they'd him Lok like a beast, so as he looked very online a woman, which a heard it is. But, if they on e fingers one of them beards, it is all up with 'em. And that is how T knew what was coming ; for one day I was at my pantry window, a-cleaning my silver, when Miss and him was in the little garden ; seated on one bench they was, and not fur off one another neither. He was a-reading poetry to her, and his head so near her. that I'm hlest if his tarnation beard wasn't almost in her lap Her eyes was turned up to heaven, in a kind of trance, a-tastmg of the poetry ; but while she was looking up to heaven, for the meaning of that there sing-song, blest if her little white fingers wasn't ,wisting the ends of that there beard into little ringlets, what seeming to know what they was doing. Soon as I saw that, I said, ' Here's ago It is all up with Cap tain Greaves. He have limed her, this here cockney sailor.' For if ever a woman plays with a man's curls, or his whiskers, or his beard, she is netted like a partridge ; it is a sure sign. So should we be, if the women's hiir was loose; but they has so much mercy as to tie it up, and make it as hugly as they can, and full o' pins ; and that saves many a man from being netted, and caged, and all. So soon arter that she named the day.' Greaves sat dead silent under this flow of envenomed twaddle, like a Spartan under the knife. But at last he could bear it no longer, He groaned aloud, and buried his contorted face in his hands. ' Confound my chattering tongue !' said honest Dewar, and ran to the side-board, and forced a glass of brandy on him. He thanked him, and drank it, and told h'm not to mind him : but to tell him where she was settled with the fellow. ' Settled, sir ?' said Dewar. *No such luck. She writes to her papa every week ; but it is always from some fresh place ' Dewar,' says his worship to me, ' I've married my girl to the Wandering Jew." Oh, he don't hide his mind from roe; he tells me that this Laxton have had a ship built in the north, a thundering big ship—for he's as rich as Crosses—and he have launched her to sail round the world. My fear is, he will sail her to the bottom of the ocean.' «Poor Ellen ! ' ' '"aptain -Captain-don't fret your heart out for her ; she is all right. She loves the man, and she loves hexcitement; which he will give it her. She'd have had a ball here every week, if she could : and now she will see a new port eve*y week. She is all right. Let her go her own road. She broke her to do it; and we don't think much, in Wales, of girls as do that, they gentle, or he they simple, look you.' Greaves looked up, anc> Raid, sternly, 'Not one word against her, before me. I have home all 1 can.' Old Dewar wasn't a bit offended. 'Ah ! nu are a man, you are,' said he. Then, in a cordial way, ' Captain Greaves, sir, you wiil stay with us. now you are come.' ' Me stay here !' ' Ay; why not? Ye mustn't bear spite against the old man. He stood out for you, longer than I ever knowed him st nd out agiinsther: but she could always talk him over: she could talk anybody over. It is all haccident my standing so true to you. It wasn't worth her while to talk old Dewar over ; that is the reason. Do ye stay now. You'll be like a son to the old man, look you. He is sadly changed since she went; quite melancholy ; and keeps a-blaniing of hisself, for letting her be master.' ' Dewar,' said the young man, 'I cannot. The sight of the places where 1 walked with her, and loved her, and she seemed to love me—Oh no !—to London by the first train and then to sea. Thank God for the sea. The sea cannot change into lying land. My heart has been broken ashore. Perhaps it may recover in a few years, at sea. Give him my love, Dewar, and God bless you !' He almost ran out of the house, and fixed his eyes on the ground, to see no nunv objects embittered by recollections of happiness fled. He made hi" way to his uncle, in London, reported himself to the Admiralty, and asked for a berth in the first ship bound to * hina. He was told, in reply, he could go out in any merchant ship ; but as his pay would not be interrupted, the Government could not be chargeable for his expenses. In spite of a dizzy headache, he went into the city, next day, to arrange for his voyage. But, at night, he was taken with violent shivering, and before morning was lightheaded. A doctor was sent for, in the morning. Next day the case was so serious that a second was called in. The case declared itself—gastric fever and jaundice. They administered medicin c s, which, as usual in these cases, did the stomach a little harm, and the system no good. His uncle sent for a third physician; a rough, but very able man. He approved all the others had done- and did the very reverse ; ordered him a milk diet, tepid aspersions, frequent change of bed, and linen, and no medicine at all but a little bark; and old Scotch whisky in moderation. 1 ' Tell me the truth,' said his sorrowful uncle. 'I always do,' said the doctor, 'that is why they call me a brute. Well, sir, the case is not hopeless yet. But I wdl not deceive you; I fear he is going a longer voyage than China.'