LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 927, 14 June 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

"THE DEVIL'S HOLE." [from "ciiambers's journal."] Chapter I.

Fifteen years ago I was a slim, tolerably good-looking young curate, addicted to Jong coats and Pioman collars, condemned hy poverty to celibacy, and supporting myself upon the liberal salary of seventy pounds a year. I am now a Liverpool merchant in nourishing circumstances, 'fat and forty,' with a wife, lots of children, and religious views somewhat latitudinarian. ' What a change was there ! ' it may well be exclaimed. And indeed, when I look back upon what I once was, and compare my present with my past self, I can scarcely be lieve lam the same man. I shall, therefore, conceal my name, in relating, as I am about to do, certain occurrences accidentally connected with my change of state, and substitute for that of each person and place concerned in the little narrative, some fictitious appellation. To commence then. I had been for three years curate of St. Jude's Church, Ollyhill, a populous agricultural district in Lanca shire, when one morning in Easter week, as I was disrobing after an early celebration, I fell upon the vestry floor in a dead-faint. The sacristan, who fortunately was at hand to render assistance, after accompanying me home, and observing that I was still weak and indisposed, thought proper to convey intelligence of what had happened to the vicar. The result was that in the course of the morning I received a visit from that gentleman, the Rev Fitz-Herbert Hastings He found me stretched upon the typical horse hair covered sofa of a poor curate's lodgings, suffering from a severe nervous headache, and to judge from his exclamation of concern, looking, as I felt, really ill. Taking a seat by my side, he condoled with me very kindly, expressed his opinion that I had been overworking myself; and went on to prove the sincerity of his sympathy by offering me a fortnight's holiday, with the very requisite addition of a cheque for expenses. Most gladly did I hail his proposition, affording me as it did an opportunity for which I had j ust been longing, of getting away for a time from Ollyhill. But neither my desire for charge of scene, nor my illness, arose from the cause to which the vicar attributed tbem It was true that I had of late, during Lent, been working very hard, as also had Mr Hasting* himself.

But in producing the state of utter physical and mental prostration in which I now found myself, these duties of my sacred calling had had little share. My malady, unhappily, was not the effect of any mere temporary reaction or overstrained faculties —its seat was the he*rt. In that tender, though not hitherto susceptible region, I had been sorely wounded—loaih as I am to admit it —by the mischievous little god of Love. Six months ago, Lily, only daughter of Squire Thornton, our prin cipal churchwarden and most wealthy parishioner, had returned home from her Parisian boarding school a lovely girl of eighteen, with rippling auburn hair and dis tracting violet eyes, but with tastes and manners which I considered a little frivolous. Fenced about by celibacy, and little dreaming of any dangerous result, I had, from our first introduction, set myself to effect an improvement in her taste, and to take a general interest in her spirihual welfare. Only too abundant had been the sue cess which rewarded my efforts. Lily had proved an excellent pupil, looking up to her self-elected monitor (at the superior but not altogether fatherly age of twenty-five) with the utmost reverence, and obeying with an unquestining childlikeness eminently charming, my slightest wish or suggestion. Under my directions she had given up novelreading, and had become an active member of the Dorcas Society, a teacher in the Sunday school, and a visitor of the sick. As a matter of course, her attention to these good works had involved frequent meetings and consultations ; and the constant intercourse had by degrees proved destructive of my peace of mind. In vain had I, tardily awakening to a knowledge of the truth, made every endeavour to exercise self-discipline. The mischief, almost before I was aware of its existence, had gone too far for remedy. There had been nothing for it, as I had eventually seen, but to avoid as far as possible all further intercourse with my charmer ; and upon that principle I had accordingly shaped my action. Then had followed a time of very severe trial. Unable to understand my coldness, Lily at first had treated me to reproachful glances whenever we chanced to meet ; subsequently, growing indignant at the continuance of what seemed to her my unaccountable change of demeanour, she had scornfullly seconded the avoidance. And finally, my breast had been wrung in perceiving that she too suffered, as was evinced by her sorrowful air, and by the fact that she was becoming pale and thin. For several days before that upon which my fainting-fit had occurred, I had missed her from her accustomed place in the church; forbearing, however, to make inquiries concerning her, I had failed to learn, as I might have done, that she had been sent for the benefit of her health to visit a relative residing at a sea-bathing place in North Wale?. In ignorance of this, 1 set off on the morning following my vicar's visit, for the same country, bent upon a pedestrian excursion, and determined, during my absence from Ollyhill, to make vigorous efforts towards conquering my unfortunate passion. About a, week afterwards I found myself, at the close of a day's hard walking, at a. small fishing village on the south west ooast, frequented during the summer season as I learned, from the cards in two or three lodging-house windows, by a few visitors. But as yet Lleyrudrigg was, I surmised, empty of all save its ordinary inhabitants. At any rate, there appeared to be no other ytraugor than myself in the rather large hotel in which I had taken up my quarters for the night. It was a dismal dispiriting evening. The rain, which had been threatening all day, was now descending in torrents, beating against the windows of the coffee room and swelling the gutters of the narrow street.