LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1054, 13 November 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A DAY IN BIHAR WOOD. (Continued.) * And how does this young North get a living V asked Sir John. 'Ry poaching ? and rifling the poultry-yards 'C ' Like enough he do, Sir .John. Them tramps have mostly light ringers.' ' They sell tins —and collect rabbit skins,' struck in William. ' Johnny Ludlow and I charged the encampment this morning, and nearly got our fortunes told.' Jessy Eednal's chin went up. ' They'd better let Uednal catch 'em at their fortunetolling ! —it was the wife, 1 know, sir, did that. When she was but a slip of a girl she'd go up aa bold as brass to any gentleman or lady passing, and ask them to cross her hand with silver.' With this parting fling at the gipies, liednal's wife ran oil' to the cottage for another bisin of sugar. The heat made us thirsty, and we wanted about a dozen cups of tea apiece. But now, I don't know why it was, but I had rather taken a fancy to this young woman, Bertha North, and did not believe the words ' as bold as brass,' could be properly applied to her. Gipsy though she was, her face, for good feeling and refinement, was worth ten of Jessy Rednal's. It's true she had followed us, wanting to tell our fortunes, but she might have been hard up for money. When we had swallowed as much tea as the kettles would produce, and cleared the plates of the eatables, Sir John suggested that it would soon be time to move homewards, as the evening would be coming on. This had the effect of scattering some of us at once. If they did not get us, they could not take us. 'Homo, ir deed ! so soon as this !' cried Helen, wrathfully—and rushed oil" with her brother Harry and Featheraton's nephew. I was ever so far dowu one of the wood path", looking about, for somehow I had missed them all, when sounds of wailing and crying from a young voice struck my ear. In a minute, that same fair little child came running into view, as if she were flying for her life, her sobs wild with some terror, her face white as death. What she said I could not make out, though she made straight up to me ami caught my arm ; the language seemed trango, the breath gone. But there was no mistaking the motions : she pulled 'me along with her across the wood, her little arms and eyes frantically imploring. Something must amiss, J thought}, What was it?

' Is there a mad bull in the way, little one? And are you making off with me to do battle with him V

No elucidation from the child: only the sobs, and the words I did not catch. But we were close to the outskirts of the wood now (it was but narrow), and there, beyond the hidge that bordered it, crouched down against the bank, was a man. A fair-faced, gO'-d-)ooking y< ung man, small and slight, and groaning with pain. No need to wonder who he was : the likeness between him and the child betrayed it. How like they were I even to the expression in the large blue eyes, and the colour of the soft fair hair. The child's face was his own in miniature. ' You are Walter North,' I said. ' And what's to do ?' His imploring eyes in their pitifnl pain looked up to mine, as if he would question how I needed to ask it. Then he pulled his fustian coat aside and pointed to his side. It made me start a step back. The side was steeped in blood. ' Oh, dear, what is it ?—what has caused it? An accident?' 'I have been shot,' he answered—and I thought his voice sounded ominously weak. • Shot from over yonder.' Looking across the field in front of us towards which he pointed, I could see nothing. I mean nothing likely to have slot him. No men, no guns. Uff to the left, partly buried amid its grounds, lay the old house called the uranary ; to the right in the distance. Yale Farm. The little child was stretched on the ground, quiet now, her head on his right shoulder ; it was the left side that was injured. Suddenly, he whispered a few words to her ; ehe sprang up with a sob and darted into the wood. The child, as we heard later, had been sent out by her mother to look for her father : it was in seeking for him that she had come upon our tea-party and peeped at us. Later, she found him, fallen where he was now, just after the shot was fired. In her terror she was flying off for assistance, and met me. The man's hat lay near him, also an old drab-coloured bag, some tin basins, and a lutch oven 'Can I move you, to put you easier?' I asked amid his groaning '<an Ido anything in the world to help you ?' 'No, no, don't touch me,' he said, in a hopeless tone. 'I am bleeding to death.' And I thought he was. His cheeks and lips were getting paler with every minute. The man's diction was as good as mine ; and, tramp though he was, many a gentleman has not half as nice a face as his. ' If you don't mind being left, 1 will run for a doctor -old Featherston.' Before he could answer yes or no, Harry Vale, who must have espied us from their laud, came running up. * Why—what iu the w ;rld V he began—*is it you North 1 What? ishot, you say ?' ' From over yonder, sir ; and I've got my death-blow: I think I have. Perhaps if Featherston ' ' I'll fetch him,' cried Harry Vale. ' You stay here with him, Johnny.' And he darted away like a lamplighter, his long legs skimming the grass. lam nothing but a muff ; you know that of old. And never did I feel my own deficiencies come home to me as they did then. Anybody else might have known how to stop the bleeding—for of course it ought to be stopped - if only by stuffing a handkerchief into the wound. I did not dare attempt it: I was worse at any kind of surgery than a born imbecile. All in a moment, as I stood there, the young gipsy woman's words of the morning Hashed into my mind. She had foreseen some ill for him, she said ; had scented it in the air. I tow strange it seemed ! The next to come upon the scene was the Squire, crushing through the brambles when he heard our voices. He and Sir John, in dire wrath at our flight, had come out to look for us and marshal us back for the start home. I gave him a few whispered ■words of explanation. * What!' cried he. ' Dying ?' and his face went as pale as the man's. ' Oh, my poor fellow, I am sorry for this !' Stooping over him, the Squire pulled the coat aside. The stains were larger now, the now was greater. North bent his head forward to look, and somehow got his hand wet in the process. Wet and red. He snatched it away with a kind of horror. The sight seemed to bring upon him the conviction that his minutes were numbered. His minutes. Which is the last and greatest terror that can seize upon man. ( To be continued.)