LITERATURE

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 959, 23 July 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE

THE WHITE HOUSE. By the Author of “ The Witch-Thorn.”) ( Concluded .) A few minutes after a frightful cry was heard, followed by the noise of crackling twigs, and the downfall of an avalanche of stones into some tremendous depth. Isabel and the other occupants of the cabin rushed out, bearing lights. Co onel Mb 'arty land his companion should now have been close by the cabin, but neither of them was visible. No doubt was possible of the fate they had met. On the edge of a near precipice the stones were loosened and the earth torn up. There were marks of footprints, and, farther on, lay a hat, which Isabel recognised as her father’s. Transfixed with horror she stood, feeling that by her ill-considered act of removing the light she had been the cause of her father’s death. But how was her horror and remorse increased when a pocket book was picked up, which at a glance, she knew to be the property of her lover, thus making it apparent—however it had happened—that Weldon, and not Tyrrel, had been her father’s companion I She uttered a piercing shriek, made a rush forward to fling herself down the precipice, but was held back. For a few moments shriek followed shriek, but when peals of wild laughter resounded, and the mountains answered, as if every rock and crag shook with mocking and irrepressible mirth, the effect was more horrible. From that hour Isabel was a maniac. It was perhaps well that Isabel’s reason had fled before circumstances were ascertained, which, by contrasting her present misery with the full and unexpected happiness that might have been hers, would .have added another sting to her anguish. Through the testimony of a person who had been on the spot, and heard something of what passed, it was learned that as Weldon was on his way-, to keep his appointment with Isabel, he had encountered Colonel M‘Carty. Isabel’s flight was then discovered, and the Colonel accused Weldon of taking her away. Warm words ensued ; but in the midst of them a circumstance was revealed that totally altered Colonel M'Oarty’s feelings. Years before, Colonel M‘Carty, lying wounded, and believed to be dead, had owed his life to an officer, who, at much risk to himself, bore him to a place of safety. He never learned the name of the officer, though he had always been most anxious to do so. Now, first, through an allusion to his father, casually introduced by Weldon, certain questions were asked, and it became apparent to Weldon that it was Colonel M'Carty whose life his father had saved, and to Colonel M'Carty that Weldon was the son of that officer whose name he had long wished to know. The Colonel, seizing his companion’s hand, shook it heartily, declaring that to no other would he so soon give his daughter as to Weldon Thus, reconciled, they proceeded to inform Isabel of the happy agreement that had been come to, and to bring her back, that her marriage might take place with all due formality and suitable rejoicings. Istabel’s madness |beuig pronounced hopeless, her aunt and sister quitted Switzerland with her, and returning to Ireland, chose their abode in one of its remotest parts. Caroline devoted herself with untiring zeal toiler sister. But, as Isabel’s moods were sometimes violent, otherattendance was required, and a woman who had been in their service in Switzerland undertook the charge. No one but themselves and this woman knew of Isabel’s presence in the house, Caroline intended to inform Captain Bowring of all, before their marriage; she had delayed doing so through her dislike, "which was almost, morbid, to drag forward the painful

history. But on the very evening of her parting with Bowring she had resolved that the next day he should know it. It was necessary to keep 'he strictest guard over Isabel, for she was constantly frying to escape, and ge/ to some precipice or height to throw herself down. Mrs Stevens and Car line believed the attendant to be most careful; but Isabel was skilful and indefatigable in forming plans for getting out. Thus, during their absence, when Bowring saw her in the drawing-room kissing the picture of her dead lover, and again in the garden, when she passed before him and Caroline, unseen by the latter. From the evening of her appearance before Mrs Stevens, when she returned from the gh n where Bowring had again seen her, and the sight of her had thrown the peasant into such a fright, a stricter guard still was kept upon her. She contrived, however, to e’ude it, and by a skilful manoeuvre managed once more to leave the house. An instinct seemed to guide her in r,he direction of the castle overhanging the abyss, which on other occasions it was supposed she had made attempts to reach, but had been hindered from proceeding so far. When her absence was discovered, Caroline, accompanied by the Swiss woman and the gardener, who then was taken into their confidence, set out in great alarm to search for her. Their apprehensions led them in the right direction. But they arrived at the castle only in time to behold Isabel fling herself from its summit into the chasm below, and to see Bowring rush to the verge to follow her example. They called aloud to him, but Caroline, pausing not one instant, without one exclamation or cry of horror, sprang up the steep steps, in a moment was at the top, and had saved her lover’s life. * * * *

When a sufficient time had elapsed t° have softened in some measure the shock o her sister’s melancholy fate, Caroline became the wife of Captain Bowring. The scene o such painful events was no place to linger in or visit again. Besides, despite the explanation of all that had appeared so mysterious, the substance of which quickly spread around, some among the peasantry still continued to regard Caroline with eyes of suspicion, and, shaking their heads, persisted in maintaining that the figure which flitted over the abyss was no mortal shape, but the Double, which, its power ended, had thus disappeared. In the course of time Caroline had again a Double. But the sight of it as it flitted about their home awoke no horror, for it was their daughter, who grew so like what her mother had formerly been that the picture of the one, taken before her marriage, was also an exact likeness of the other. THE TRAMP. [By Bret Hart.] I had been sauntering over the clover downs of a certain New England seaport. It was a Sabbath morning, so singularly reposeful and gracious--so replete with the significance of the seventh day of rest, that even the Sabbath bells ringing a mile away over the salt marshes had little that was monitory, mandatory, or even supplicatory in their voices. Rather they seemed to call from their cloudy towers like some renegade muezzin: ‘ Sleep is better than prayer ; sleep on, oh, sons of the Puritans I still, oh, deacons and vestrymen. Let, oh, let those feet that are swift to wickedness curl up beneath thee ; those palms that are itching for the shekels of the ungodly, lie clasped beneath thy pillow. Sleep is better than prayer.’ And, indeed, though it was high morning, sleep was still in the air. Wrought u| on at last by the combined influences of sea and sky and atmosphere, I succumbed, and lay down upon one of the shoulders of a little stony slope to gaze upon the sea. The great Atlantic lay before me not yet quite awake, but slowly heaving with the rythmical respiration of slumber. There was no sail visible in the misty horizon. There was nothing to do but to lie and stare at the unwinking ether.

Suddenly I became aware of the strong fumes of tobacco. Turning my head I saw a pale blue smoke curling up from behind an adjacent boulder. Rising and climbing over the intervening grauite I came upon a little hollow in which, comfortably extended on the mosses and lichens, lay a powerfully built man. He was very ragged ; ho was very dirty. There was a strong suggestion about him of having too much hair, too much nail, too much perspiration, too much of those supeiffuous excrescences and exudations that society and civilization strive to keep under. But it was noticeable that he hacl not much of anything else. It was the Tramp. With that swift severity with which we always visit rebuke upon the person who happens to present any one of our vices offensively before us, in his own person, I was deeply indignant at his laziness. Perhaps I showed it in my manner, for he arose to a half-sitting attitude, returned my stare apologetically, and made a movement toward knocking the ashes from his pipe against the granite. ‘ Shure, sur, and if I’d belaved that I was trisspassin on yer honor’s ground, it’s meself that would hev laid down on the sayshorc and takin’ the salt waves for me blankits But it’s sivinteen miles I’ve walked this blessed night, with nothin’ to sustain me, and hevin a mortal wakeness to light wid in my bowels by reason of starvation, and only a bit of baccy that the Widdy Moloney give me at the cross-roads to keep me entoirely. But it was the dark day I left my home in Milwaukee to walk to Boston, and if ye’ll oblige a lone man who has loft a wife and six children in Milwaukee wid the loan of twenty-live ciute, furninst the time he gits wurruk, God’ll be good to ye.’ It instantly Hashed through my mind that the man before me had, the previous night, partaken of the kitchen hospitality of my little cottage, two miles away ; that he presented himself in the guise of a distressed fisherman, mulcted of his wages by an inhuman Captain ; that he had a wife lying sick of consumption in the next village, and two children, one of them a cripple, wandering in the streets of Boston. 1 remembered that this tremendous, indictment against fortune touched the family, and that distressed I’shcgman was provided with clothes, food, and some small change. The food and ! small change had disappeared, but the garments for his consumptive wife, where were they ? He had been using them for a pil , low.

I instantly pointed out this fact and charged him with the deception. To my

surprise, he took it quietly, and even a little complacently. ‘ Bedad, yer right; yer see (confidentially), ye see, sur, until I get wur-ruk, and its wur-ruk I’m lukin for, I have to desave now and thin to shute the locality. Ah, save us, but on the say coast they are that har-rnd upon thim that they don’t belong to the say.! I ventured to suggest that a strong, healthy man like him must have found work somewhere between Milwaukee and Boston. ‘ Ah, but you see, I got free passage on a freight trian, and didn’t have to shtop. It was in the Aist that I expiated to git wurruk ’ ‘ Have you a trade ?’ ‘Trade, is it? I’m a brickmaker, God knows, and many’s the lift I’ve had a* making brick at Milwaukee. Sure, I’ve as aisy a hand at it as any man. Maybe yo' r honor might know of a kiln hereabout.’ Now, to my certain knowledge, there was not a brick kiln within fifty miles of that spor, and of all unlikely places to find one would have been this sandy peninsula, given up to the summer residences of a few wealthy people. Yet I could not help admiring the assumption of the scamp, who knew this fact as well as myself. But I said :* I can give you work for a day or two,’ and bidding him gather up his sick wife’s apparel, led the way across the downs to my cottage. At first I think the offer took him by surprise, and gave him some consternation ; but he presently recovered his spirits, and almost instantly his speech. * Ah, wur ruk, is it ?’ God be praised ; it’s meself that’s ready and willin’. Thouvh maybe my hands are spoilt with brick making.’ I assured him that the work I would give him would require no delicate manipulation, and so we fared on over the sleepy downs. But I could not help noticing that, although an invalid. I was a much better pedestrian than my companion, frequently leaving him behind, and that, even as a tramp, he was pomologically an impostor. He had a habit of lingering behind the fences we had to climb over, as if to continue more confidentially the history of his misfortunes and troubles, which he had been telling me during our homeward walk, and I noticed that he could seldom resist the invitation of a mossy boulder or a tussock of aalt grass. (To he continued.)