LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1022, 4 October 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

mS GUARDIAN AS GEL

(Argosy,) They drew back, shrining and fearful, as he passed by the little crowd gathering about the church whose bell was calling to vespers The women shivered as they glanced in the dark strange face, and whispered that, handsome as it was, there was an evil spirit in him. A wild, gloomy, fell face indeed, in which sorrow and passion and a dire purpose bad set their seal, never to be softened save by one thing; never to be broken save by one hand.

Is he searching for some one, that he half pauses as he comes on and looks, with his great gleaming black eyes, from face to face of the passing groups? If so, he is ever searching, for they say that he always has that look—and he has been long enough about the voisinage of Verbois-sur Loire for them to no* ice that, and to know his name, Count Max de St. Mar. But who he is, or what his history, and why he haunted the place, no one knew, and none cared to ask the gloomy, lonely stranger, who came and went, silent, solitary, and watchful. A heavy frown darkens that strange, handsome face now, as he sees how afraid of them they are. The tall, slight form shivers as he passes swiftly on, shunning the church and people—on, on, towards the wooded banks of the fast flowing Loire. What is he ? who is he ? To what strange story is that gloomy, suffering, passionate face an index ? Is he a reckless dare-devil ? Is there the doom of a dark deed upon him ? Or is he hogging close a great vengeance which is eating out heart and soul, and forging, each hour, a new link to the chain which binds him to the Gates of Darkness 1 What sound is it that meets his ear as he moves on, with a step now slow and weary ? Not the chanting from the church away be hind him ; not the ceaseless rush of the waters before him. No, the rich, soft tones, mellow and full as the nightingale's note, of a girlish voice singing—to herself, it seemed. He knew the sweet melody, and started to hear the words so distinctly. ' Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.'

Yet he paused as if fascinated, till the last soft cadence died away. Then he pushed aside the branches of the trees, and came out upon the river bank. There she sat with a lap full of flowers, a beautiful, golden haired child, f r she scarcely numbered sixteen years, with great, dreamy, loving eyes, and an exquisite Madonna face.

Livht as his step was. she heard it and turned. Would she too shrink and fly ? did she too know his name and whisper that he was possessed and c>st iushadow? and if so, was it not t>ue? Had he not hid<!en his cross away twenty years ago, and clasped a devil to his breast in tead ? nestled the dark thing into his very ht art so close that his Guardian Angel bad lost all hold save one frail thvead of gold ? No, she does not shrink ; but as his tall, slight figure cornea between her and the waters, she looks up in his face and smiles, half in sweet childlike recognition, half with the deep tender pity that an angel's face might wear. Involuntarily the gloomy stranger pau«ed, in very wonder that she too did not shrink from his glance ' Chiltl, art thou w aving offerings to the river god !' he said, pointing to the flowers —and the deep voice was full of music. ' Ah, no; they would die,' said the girl, shaking her golden head. * Some - these white flowers are for the church, not these roses. Will Monsieur accept this one ?' The little fingers picked out the most beautiful moss-rose, and offered it. ' You will not be robbing la Sainte Vierge, M. de St. Mar ?'

He took the rose gravely, and laying his hand lightly on her head, said : 'She would not say thee nay if thou gathered them, my child." Somehow it came naturally to his lips to call her child. . y he was so very young and fair, and he full twenty years older, with lines on his brows, and grey hairs straying amongst his coal-black 1 cks. ' How is it,' he added, suddenly, 'that you do not fear me like the others ? ' The blue eyes looked up wonderingly. ' Fear you ! Uh, no, I am only sorry for you.' Sorry for him 1 Was he dreaming ? Why should this pure being be sorry for him ? The flash of light in the black darkness of his soul dazzled him.

He had pi iced the rose in his breast; now he fo'ded his arms tightly. Did the fell thing that lay there coiled so closely quiver and tremble at the soft voice that stole from far off to its jealous ear. 'Not afraid—sorry,' he repeated, looking down on her. ' Child, what do they call you?' 'M. le Comte, they call me La Cora.' ' A sweet name ; but thou art no peasantborn girl, Cora.' ' Peasant; oh, no,' she said, smiling. 'No more than M. de St. M ar.'

' How know you who or what I am ?' he said, quickly. ' I only know Monsieur's name ' ' Do you live among the fairies, Cora ?' The girl smiled again and answered, ' No, she was living with M. le Cure, her dead mother's brother.'

Tire dark strange man stood looking down on the child. ' Belle petite, voila votre rose; know you what it means in Flora's graceful language?' ' It means love, M. le Comte.'

' Love l' he repeated, half aloud in Italian, with such bitter emphasis that the child shivered ; ' never more for me. Lost, lost 1 sold for the one thing left me ; the demon I have hugged till naught else is left to Max de St. Mar.'

' Naught else but what, signor mio ?' said the child's pitying tones in the softest Etruscan.

The man started back. ' Nothing, child ! nothing. Take back the rose, it is not for me.'

But the little fiugers stayed his hand ere it could take the flower from his breast ' Pover' infelice ! wear it, and when it is dead La Cora wiJl give you another.' The slender, orm glided away through the tr* es Was it a child hoverinp -n the confines between girl and womanhood, or w r as it an angel or a vision ? No, there nestled the rose in his breast, there in hisear still lingered the deep pathetic pity am sorrow in those two words, ' Pover' infelice.

* Away, away ! it is too late 1' came hh awful cry ; ' naught is left but the power o' vengeance! body and soul have paid th price, and they are lost. Ha ! what then, wheu mino ia the vongeanoe 1' Was it a

dream or a fancy that he heard as from afar that child's voice, like distant music, whisper back like the echo of other years, • Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'

With a stifled cry the man of fell purpose fled away f'om the but the rose still lay on his breast. Had his guardian angel, clinging yet to the one frail thread left, breathed its heavenly misuon int > that young, pure human heart, and left her to work It out? It might have been so, for from that time the miserable, gloomy man, wrapped in the very darkness of his great sin, sought her out, or let her seek him—he could scarce have said which it was. Day after day they would stray together through the woods, or by the riverbank, or often cross it in her little boat and wander on the other side ; she—the pure, innocent girl who had read him, yet never Bhrunk, always sprang joyously to meet him. M. le Cure, good, guileless old man, had been fearful at first, but she had whispered a word in his ear that made him smile and bid her 'God speed, then,' and the simple villagers, when they saw the str neelymatched pair pass, came at last to say, crossing themselves, that 'Heaven had sent La Cora, and neither man nor devil could harm her.' Perhaps there was more truth in that ignorant, beautiful fa'th, half superstitious though it might be, than wiser heads have fathomed.

One day she had wandered down first to the bank where, now dark and quiet, the stately Loire flowed more gently ; in vain the golden-headed Cora st-od ready by the little boat and called aloud, 'Cher M. Max, je suis a vous ' For once M. de St. Mar wa3 late, and the child pushed off, keeping, however, within hail; but as she turned the boat's head, a voice called across from the opposite bank, for the river was narrow there, ' Hola, is that Verbois?'

A man was standing on the bank, and La Cora, turning her voice so as to throw it well across without any effort to herself, answered :

'Oui, Monsieur, c'est Verbois-sur-Loire,' *Eh bien! And how am Ito get to it 1 I have lost my way, somehow.'

' Monsieur can cross three miles below this at Aumone.'

' Unless,' called the stranger, pleasantly, ' Mademoiselle would allow mo the honor of pulling across in the boat. lam weary, for I am fifty years old and have walked far.' ' I will ferry Monsieur over.'

He threw himself on the turf and watchpd the pretty boat as it came swiftly on under the skilled, steady pull of the young girl, the moment the boat's nose touched he rose and stepped down. ' How can I thank you, my child? Permit me to re ieveyou.' 'i\o, thank you. Sit down, Monsieur, if you pie se ; my boat knows me best.' For now that she saw him close the child preferred to keep the mastery of the situation. His f ice was such a one as few would take on trust, for all its smiling front and gr'-y hairs. G.'ancing round presently, she thought she saw the tall form she had never been so glad to see as now, pass along towards some noble trees right down by the water's edge ; if sq» he pan sod, look towards the boat, and suddenly disappeared behind the trees. A little faster the child's heart beat, and she instautly headed for those very trees, rejoicing that M. de St. Mar was there, that when she landed her passenger she would not be alone with him. Oh ! that wonderful instinct of w< mankind, which a loving Father has implanted for her protection in the heart of the youngest, the most innocent, the most trusting. She sprang on shore quickly and fastened tho boat tightly to a sapling, as the slower stranger set foot on land. In that moment St. Majr stepped suddenly forward face to face with the stranger, and the child started to see a pistol in his right hand, and a look in the face she loved such as might wJI strike terror into her and the man before him ; such des erate, passionate hatred, such nerce, blaz ng wrath, such a deep, relentless purpose, that the stranger shrunk in abject terror, and Cora laid her little trembling hand, never yet repulsed, on St. Mar's arm. He put her sternly back.

' At last, at last, I have the devil incarnate in my power. Turn to fly, stir a step, and you die five minutes sooner! You, whom I have sought for twenty years ; you, who escaped justice, shall not elude me. "V* here is my only, my twin brother ? the hoy whose innocence you poisoned; whom you draggedinto yourownviees, int» in, step by step ; and when he tried madly to free himself, tau. ted him, till in his misery—ha 1 you know it was not suicide, it was murder, murder on your own head, and with body and soul you shall payjthe ransom !' But in the very second that he fired, the weapon was struck up and hurled into the rolling waters by a girl's slight hand. • The boat!' she cried. ' Thou murderer — fly ! For his own soul's sake he shall leave vengeance to God. Fly !' ' Child, back, back, or -' fle was springing desperately on his foe, but the child threw herself on his breast, wrapping her arms around him with a strength he could not loosen without usiug cruel force; and the boat shot out into the stream.

' Loose thy hold, Cora '. Thou hast let my brother's murderer escape my vengeance,' he cried, with a fierce wrath which seemed as if it would fain shatter even this frail loved form to reach his eud.

But she was weeping bitterly now. ' Oh. Majc ! I have* but saved thy soul from death, from the awful stain of blood, See,'—" loosing her clap only to cling as closely to his arm—'he is gone, and will never more cross thy path.' He looked down on her beautiful face with his wild gleaming eyes. ' Child, you have done me a bitter wrony. For twenty long years have T nourished this just vengeance, lived on it, my only hope, myall; dreamed, brooded, fed on it, till all else vanished before it; earth and heaven, body and soul were flung into the scale ! I sold everything; in this world and the next for this one jswel, and you, you whom I loved, rob me of it !' (JVi hi' rmitinnp/?.)

The Effects of Dissipation. - The burning thirst gnawing in the stomach, headache, nausea, hand-trembling and wakefulness, which are the effects of dissipation,,are terribly hard to bear. For these manifestaions of a disordered stomach, disturbed brain md weakened nervous system, as well as for uental exhaustion and physical fatigue, science iever provided a speedier and pleasanter -modv th i" UnotPHO "Wot/fk's SOHIBDAM