LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1013, 24 September 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

POPPIES. [By the Author oi ‘ Phocbe of PIASTH WAITE. J ( Tinsley.) ( Continued.) Every year Silas Black, the shepherd, made a speech. This time, in his slow hoarse voice, he followed his old custom. After a cheer for the ‘master’ there was one for ‘the young master,’ and Lassie was greeted by jokes from the young men of his own age, who took the licence of the occasion to break the line between master and man. Rustic wit brought the colour into his honest face, but he laughed off the rough jokes good-humouredly enough. Outside the old barn were the young ones for the most part, and there he betook himself. Standing in twos and threes in the soft evening air the boys and girls loitered about. Some in a faraway corner were singing—pinging with fresh young voices well and in parts, as they do in these villages, where the choir in the church and the teaching in the schools makes music a necessity among the people—simple glees and catches that have been sung for hundreds of years in the villages, sweet and melodious, ringing along in the evening air with a most plea sant harmony. As Lassie went along he hummed in unison, and coming up to the group joined in wir.h his full tenor. Born and bred amongst his father’s people he sat down and sang too, shouting heartily theuld words. Two or three girls were there who sang their beat now Master Lassie had come, and shy looks peeped out from the pretty young eyes. Ruth was there leading, and her looks were not shy; at any rate she had no need to alter them for her young master, for had she not Ralph Henderson at her side, whose wife she was to be one day ? However, for all that, Ruth, like many another girl, was glad to say that her master thought her pretty and nice as well as Ralph. They were singing on when far away came the sound of another voice singing low in a full contralto, harmonising in a still, quiet sort of way with the more lively high voices. Ruth caught the sound, and gave a little petulant toss of her head. She knew it was Margie’s voice, and she did not want her.

But Margie was on the other side of the hedge, and passed along unheeding the rest. For one reason, because there was no way through just there; another was that she had been strolling along the fields, gathering flowers here and there, and was making her way to her father, who she knew would be wanting her to go home with him. To reach him she came through a gate a few yards from the singers, and coming through was seen and called to. She shook her head and pointed over to the old barn, but they would have her.

‘ Call her, Master Lassie,’ urged the boys ; she daren’t say nay t’ ye.’ ‘Margie, Margie, come here I’ shouted Lassie obediently.

And she turned and came, with her apron and her hands full of the flowers she had been gathering. * Sit down, Margie lass,’ said Lassie, ‘and sing on. Silas is not ready for you yet.’ Margie was too shy to say ‘No’ to her master, so obeyed, and sat down at the feet of the others and just below Lassie. The fair wild flowers fell about her a rich manycoloured heap, and as she sang she played with them and twisted them into tiny bunches. Lassie, singing too, bent over her, and threw the bunches to one and another, and, playing too with them, fastened someinto Margie’s golden plaits. Bright poppies and blue corn-flowers shone out from the silky yellow threads, and when the heap was scattered he whispered down in her ear, j ‘ I am the only one, Margie, with no flowers ; haven’t you any for me ?’ ‘ Eh, what, Master Lassie ?’ blushed Margie ; ‘ but there are none left.’ ‘Find one, Margie,’ came down to her ear.

Her plump hands tossed over the stray bits.

‘ Nay, there’s none here. But ye don’t want any !’ ‘Yes, I do.’ ‘ I’ll go, then, and get yon some fresh ones, if ye must be like the rest;’ and she jumped up. Two scarlet poppies fell down from her apron, all hanging their delicate heads as if sleep-weary, falling down in a little shower of broken grasses. A short quick laugh from Ruth shook itself out from amid the chatter; something in it made Margie’s cheeks flush rosy red, and stayed her feet from running to gather fresh flower.

All tremblingly and hastily she stooped and picked up the two poor faded poppies and put them into Lassie’s hand.

‘ Couldn’t ye find any better than they for the master?’ shouted a lad.

‘The master is quite content, Bill,’ answered Lassie, with a smile, and stuck them in the buttonhole of his coat.

After that Margie went away to her father There was no trouble in finding him, and the two were in a few minutes threading their way out of the old brown barn on their homeward way. But as they passed out the young master came in and gave them ‘good-night,’ and Margie saw that her poor faded poppies were gone. Lassie was not wearing them. Why did Margie feel all at once a great pain, and why did the bright, sunny, happy day become in a moment clouded over and so sorrowful ?

She was angry with herself for having given him the worthless faded things. A few hours later, when Margie and her father were sleeping quietly in the little whitewashed cottage under the moonlight, the same cool moonlight came slantinj through the latticed window of a room higu up under the eaves of the old farmhouse, putting to shame the flicker of a candle in a golden-bright brass candlestick. Full in the sheen of the moonlight stood a young man with a grave face, and leaning with one hand on the high window-ledge, the other resting within his waistcoat. What his thoughts were matters not. Eis face looked satisfied, and yet as the quiet moonlight silvered down over it he was so grave that the gravity might have been named care Presently the hand that had been resting within his waistcoat came out, and in it were Margie’s two poor faded poppies all crushed and dead. He looked at them with the same grave look, took a leather case from his pocket, put the faded poppies into an old envelope back in the leather case.

Would the moonlight whisper across to Margie in her dreams, and tell her she was not forgotten ? {To he continued .)