LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1254, 26 March 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

TAK EN 11E D-HANDED. [ L.nidnu. Society , j Concluded. ‘Not that, not that I .-pare me, 0 spare me, the hideousness of blood!’ r > hey had been speaking of the Carlist war; of the shocking sternness of their father iu driving from lakelands and dis inheriting their cousin, Edward Royston, for the double reason that ho had become a Catholic, and was bitten with a ma ia for pe sonnily aiding on Carlos ; and of their hopes that the poor fellow might not be slain in any of the battle he ventured into. The moment bid la had cried out as above, they had ceased their conversation, and it was never again renewed in her pre aenec. Nor did she oiler any explanation of her emotion, and they had perforce to lay the whole of Spain and all things Spanish for the future under as strict a tapu as though Nella avas a Maori chieftain and had ordained complete silence about the country, the people, and the events detracting it from end to end

And so it gradually came to pass that she was left entirely to herself whenever she showed the least inclination that way ; and whether she was in her room or about the house, whether she was musing Mr Royston called it ‘brooding’ or working, whether she was in her private boudoir or indulging in one of her frequent long rambles in the woodlands leading over to lake or Mere, she met with no and passed wholly unquestioned, wholly unchallenged.

The little inn in the village of Cubblebirt had a guest, on a Juno afternoon, of whom neither landlord nor waiter could make head nor tail. The stranger announced that he should only stay a tew hours, though he would probably bo backwards and forwards a good deal; ordered the best dinner and the beat wine the house could afford, and then called for a sheet of note paper, an envelope, and a boy messenger to his letter to its deatinati m Writing materials were promptly supplied, and he sat down ia the little coffee room to indite his epistle. Suddenly he started up. said he was not sure of hie geography, aud asked if their was any point in the neighbourhood whence he could see Lakelands. Surely there was-a hill scare five hundred yards away ; and to that he went, carelessly leaving his letter in the blotting-pad. He had hardly passed out by the backdoor of the inn, when a fiy d ove up to the front one, and a passenger, who had travelled from London via Keswick, alighted. He was a foreigner—Was Gelasco- and he wanted a room for the night. Ordering his solitary valise to be taken up to it, he was ushered into the e Wee-room, saying that he would have dinner—anything there was—as soon as it could be got ready ‘ Yessir, certainly, sir !’ replied the waiter, and vanished.

Q-elasco mooned about tlie apartment for a moment or two distractedly, and then his eye lit on the blotting-pad, which he opened in idleness.

Ha! what is this he sees ? The envelope addressed to * Miss Fitzgibbon, Lakelands the letter, couched in wi'tn terms of affection, asking her to ‘ meet me in our dear old trysting place, where the path skirts the angle of the garden wall, and the thicket running down to the lake commences —about twilight, or perhaps a little before, will suit mo ; but you had better be early than late, and give me a little law if I am not there punctually. I shall be alone this time. — Yours till death, Edward lloyston.' The face of Uelasco turned a horrible greenish-yellow. His fierce black eyes sparkled again with the very concentration of passion; he stamped furiously on the floor, and the nails of his clenched lingers scored deep into the brown flesh of his hands.

‘Traitress !’ he cried, in bis own language; ‘ infamous traitress and deceiver 1 I knew it —O, my maddened h art knew it long ago. Rut I will be revenged—revenge 1 1 will be there first 1’

The stamping brought the waiter running in, with astonishment staring from his eyes. But there was nothing unusual to be seen. (Jelasco was looking out of the window at the lake, and there was no longer any sign of emotion. He calmly said he had been unable to find the bell; he had changed his mind ; this room was suffy, and he would have his dinner in his own chamber, and as soon as possible. ‘Yessir; directly, sir!’ and Gelasco followed the speaker up to tho bedroom which had been assigned him.

Eveniug time —late evening time—and Nella, who had been wildly composed all day, had been weeping bitterly, when not hysterical (caused apparently by the receipt of her letters by the morning mail), said she would take a little stroll, for the air from the Mere might do her good. ‘But dinner, Nella, my dear,* said the. •Squire; ‘be sure yon come back in time for dinner.’

‘Not if I find the evening breeze really refreshing,’ she weariedly replied; ‘£■ r my poor head is very bad. No, I shall not be back to dinner in any case, aud you will kindly excuse me ?’ ‘Certainly, dear Nella, if you wish,’ answered the three sisters, in varying form of words to exp ess the same idea ; aud their handsome guest-she was more than ladyhousekeeper, but more mistress than either —stepped out of the open French window, just as she often did, without hat or shawl, and strolled away to her left, towards the walled-in fruit-garden. It was the nearest way to the lake side, and a very favourite lonely walk of hers, particularly at the gentle hour now commencing, when the dying day lingeringly expires in the soft arms of the coming night.

Once under shelter of the red brick wall, still throwing out some of the June heat absorbed during the sunlight, ella Fitzgibbon hastened her steps a little Her hitherto languid eyes shone with a desiring flame, and by the time she had reached the path, across which began the limits of the wood, her heart was beating with a strange excitement, and she peered wistfully across the tolerably open ground lying between ■where she stood and the village of Cubblebirt.

‘ Surely ho will not keep mo long, dear devoted fellow!’ she said, as one thinking aloud, and the great black eyes blazed again while they strained in the direction whence she expected Edward Hoyston. But a greater, a blacker, a fiercer burning pair of eyes were watching her every gesture from behind the dark shade of a tree, only a few paces on her left half front; and had not her eager desire kept her rooted where she first had paused, then surely must she have seen the intruder. Seen him, and been horrified almost past the bounds of human horror. For the most furious passion the soul of man knows— Revenge, the child of Mad Jealousy-was raging in his breast; in his breast, where also lay a trusty pistol, and on its butt a stern determined hand, grasping it with a murderous intent. With his eyes he devoured her in all the radiance of her beauty ; with his ears he listened for the love-words he knew must come.

Nor was he mistaken ; nor wait them.

‘ 0 Edward, Edward ! 0 Edward, my best, my only —’ Having madness ! He drew and levelled hia dreadful weapon with a ferocious execration. She heard him, shrieked wildly, sprang back as he fired, and then fell hurtling to the earth, ‘ Great heavens, man, what have you done ? ’

Ed. lloyston, as he shouted the words, flung himself- from behind on Bias Gdasco. One desperate barful struggle, and the Spaniard was pitched clean on his head out on the pathway, and right in front of the spot where poor Nella Fitzgibbon had fallen.

Royston raised her up in his arms; she was unconscious. He shook her, in his craving to see a sign of revival ; but she moved not. He tried everything he could to restore her; he was quite unsuccessful. He Was seized by Qelaaco, who had re*

covered by this time from his stunning fall; his throat was gripped as with bands of steel, and his eyes were already forcing themselves from their sockets, when two of the footmen from the house ran up and .separated the pair. ‘ What devil’s work is this ?’ cried old Mr Royston, who had started out when h« heard the shot, and was followed by his daughters, screaming in piercing unison. ‘Edward You hers? And Sella shot 1 Good Lord, she’s not dead.’ Some of the female servants had now reached the scene of the tradegy. They examined Miss Fitzgibbon, but could find no t ace of a wmiud ; and Priscilla Royston for once in her life became useful, and applied her smelling salts to the unhappy lady, who thereupon speedily revived.

* Who's this fellow?’ asked the old Squire, amazed out of his seven-senses, as he pointed to Gelasco, firmly held by two of the men. ‘ Edward, have you no tongue ? What the dnee does it all mean V

‘ For the life of me, I can’t tell you, uncle, but this gentleman, Bias Gelasco, is certainly Nella Fitzgibbon’s husband.’ There was a cry of astonishment from all the assembled women—Nella excepted—that might have been heard s.t Cubblebirt, so earsphttmg was it. ‘ Aud you, villain snd traitor, ara her paramour 1’ this from Gelasco, whose straggling, foaming fury was appalling to behold. ‘ Husband ! my own, my darling Bias !’ came faintly from Nelli, ‘ are you truly alive? We had news of your ceath on the fatal hills of Ramosa, and—o heavens, my brain .'-and the body was identified as yours-’ ‘ Mine I’ —he was strangely mdlided ; for if ever a woman spoke the truth, Nella was speaking it then : * Mine ! Jo, Nella ; it wa» that of my poor cousin, Bias Gelasco of Vera.’ ‘ And what did you slioot at the woman for, you scoundrel?’ This from old Royston, nearly as mystified as ever. * Hncle,’ interposed Id., * we had better—that is to say, if you vill let me enter your doors again ?’ ‘O, stuff, stuff! Of course you may enter them. Look you, Ed. : I revoked my deed Jong ago. There, there, all right; you are my heir again. But, for goodness' sake let us in, and have the whole thing cleared up,’ That it speedily was. Nella and Bl« had been one of the happiests couples in Spain when the CaGist war broke out, dwelling at Osuna on the banka of the Ebro. One night, the husband being absent, the Royalists had made a sudden attack on the place, captured it, and spared r.o man, woman, or child they could lay hands on. Nella’s infant boy was snatched from her arms, two soldiers were offering her violence, when Ed. Royston, travelling in disguise by that route *fie better to carry on his Carlist schemes, burst iu on hearing her cries, disposed of the ruffians, placed her in his carriage, which was furnished with a Madrid official ‘pass,’ and succeeded iu getting her away from the horrible charnel-hom-e Osuna had suddenly become. Three days afterwards came the news that Bias had fallen at Ramosa, and Ed., at his wit’s end, had the unfortunate lady taken to Santander, where ship a for England was readily procured. Her babe had never bean heard of. * Her babe—my babe—is alive 'and well } the soldiers spared it because of the mark of the Virgin on its little body.’ ‘My God, I thank you !’ And .Nella fell on her knees before her husband who had uttered these words. But he held her from him, and went on ; * Did you not criminally elope with this man Royston, when Osuna fell ? Have you not lived with him here, under this roof, ever since ?’ But why d tail au explanation that took a considerable time to make? Nella was pure as the driven snow ; she had neve-- set eyes on Ed. Royston save in the presence of a third person, even if it was only a servant or a message-boy ; and to him her deepest gratitude was due for all he had done for her, including his placing her, through the kind offices of a friend of his uncle’s, at Lakelands, since he had saved hen fife at Osuna, her reason in England. The very morning of this threatened tragedy, she had received a post letter from him, telling her that there was some reason to believe that, after all, her husband might be alive, might even be iu England ; and it was to get some clue whereby he might advertise successfully for Gelasco, who had. left no London address, that he had been down aud sought, as he was forbidden to go near Lakelands openly, a private interview with her.

An t N ella aud Bias Gelasco have at this in raent a sweet cottage ornec between Lakelands and Cublilehire; and Ed. Royston lives, in full favor aud heirship, permanently with his old uacle ; and the three * caudlesticks’ melt as they doat over Nella’s charming lit le semi-Spanish boy; and ‘the mystery,’ Nella Fitzgibbon that was, has no longer any reason to regret that lovely Jnne twilight when she was ‘taken red handed’ trying to devise the best means of finding her husband.

The Victorian Education Department, following the example of the Belgian Government, have just issued for the use of the State schools of the colony a colored chart illustrating the more common insectivorous birds indigenous to Victoria. The chart has been prepared by Mr A. R. Wallis, secretary for agriculture, and has been issued by the Government printing office. It has been produced by chromo-lithography. It contains illustrations of thirty-six species of birds, while the letter-press attached supplies the common and scientific name of each, the locality of Victoria where each bird is found, and some particulars respecting (he nature of its food.