LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1256, 28 March 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ORDEAL BY TIME;. OK, THE memorable tryst. A Story of Two Epochs. BY W. \V. FENX. Chapter I.—First Epoch. Forty years ago, as at the present day, the Royal Horae Artillery stationed at Canterbury were in the habit of going in the summer for target practice to the little village of Culverness, on the northern shores of Kent. The bleak flat piece of the coast so named, upon which stood a straggling group of fishermen’s huts and a solitary inn, was, just about this time, first looked upon as a Jocality/eligible ’for extension into a fashionable watering place, and one or two isolated and ugly structures of the lodging-house pattern were beginning to spring up, in a timid uncomfortable way, along the first inceptions of es dauade and sea walk. An old shop or two asserted themselves at the corners of the intended rectangular streets, which were mapped out in the rudest fashion across corn and potato fields, and at the date to which 1 refer one family were actually in possession of, or lodging in the only abode, as j et finished and furnished. A certain v >rs Far rant, an elderly invalid lady, had, with her niece, acted as the health-seeking pioneer of the new district, and had come over from Canterbury, nine miles off, for the benefit of the bracing air. On a brilliant Midsummer morning, about a month after Miss Uorrant and her niece had been staying in their seaside lodging, two batteries of artillery rode into the place, and, a target having been towed out to sea, the guns were got into position as usual, at the foot of a sloping green hill which ros* from the general flat level of the shore, and gradually formed to the eastward of the village a series of more or less abrupt cliffs, surmounted by com and clover. On this occasion the muster of the soldiery was con-

siclerably larger than usual. A small camp equipage accompanied them, and a tent was pitched conveniently on the sloping hill near the beach, the fine weather having evidently tempted the officers to combine the pleasures of a picnic by the sea with their gun practice The heavy firing at the mark, which went on for an hour or more, of course drew to the spot odd groups of the stragglers and idlers about the place, who only dispersed when the practice ceased and the officers retired to the luncheon prepared for them within the tent. Men and horses were picketed on the slopes, and some of the former were dismissed for a relaxation to such pleasures as the embryo town might afford.

Thus the coast was soon again left to ita normal solitude, and two hundred yards beyond the officers’ encampment not a creature was to be seen—that is to say, by a mere casual observer; but anyone who had chanced to notice the young lady who. soon after the arrival of the artillery, had strolled from the one occupied lodging house on to the cliff tops with the rest of the lookerson, and anyone who had been attracted by her appearance, as few could have failed to be, and had continued to watch her, would have seen that she prolonged her walk far beyond the sloping hill, and had made her way by an easy descent on to the sandy shore, which was now being left clear for a great distance below the cliffs by the ebbing tide. They would have seen her, as the sound of the last gun died away, stop and look back, as if expecting some one. Then they would have seen her continue her walk just to where an angle in the coast shutoff her backward view and left her in perfect solitude

An attractive-looking girl, certainly, say of about twenty, a trifle above the middl height, slender but firmly knit in figure, wiih that carriage and elastic step which go only with perfect health and strength. A face somewhat too rigidly handsome to be entirely beautiful, but with large lustrous eyes and a tender sympathetic expression, which softened to a great extent the firm mouth, which, whenever the lips parted, displayed a brilliant set of teeth. The unbecoming fashion in which the hair was worn in those days did not rob it of ita dark and silky beauty, and the equally unbecoming costume, wi;h its short waist, short skirt, and poke bonnet, failed to detract from the charm of her appearance. As she lingers on the lonely shore, the purpose for which she is there soon becomes evident; for from ttie officers’ tent, some quarter of a mile back, now strides forth a young soldier, who, adruist a few gay words from his companions, bends his way along the sands in the direction she has taken, the distance between the two speedily lessens. She returns toward the angle in the cliff which at present shuts him from her view, but ere she reaches.it he rounds it, and they meet—not coldly, nor yet quite with the air of lovers. Hands were shaken and held firm-locked, and stiff, quite still, for a while, but at arm’s length, whilst each looked half askance at the other, and murmured rather than spoke a few words of greeting. He moved forwards ; she turned and walked by his side, making motion as if about to take his arm; then checking herself, she folded her hands behind her and went slowly on, her face bent upon the ground. Neither spoke for some minutes; she was the first.

‘I had your letter, Allan,’ she said hesitatingly. * I suppose so, or you would not have been here.’

‘ "Well, yes—l think I might have come when I heard the guns.’ ‘ What ! whether you had been wanted or not ?’ he said in a tone intended to be bantering, but which had a ring of seriousness in it.

‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘ and more readily, perhaps, if I had doubted whether I was wanted; perhaps it is doubt that now brings me, for I do not cai-e much to be seen meeting you in this ■way.’ ‘Doubt, Jessie?’ he repeated, affecting an air of surprise. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I will be candid; I did not like your letter, the more because it seems to confirm suspicions which of late have come into my mind when I think of all my love for you. ’ * Suspicions,’ he said ; *of what ?’ ‘ Well I simply that you are changing; that you have changed in your feelings towards me.’ Now, for the first time, she looked up at him with her frank eyes as she went on, ‘Be honest, be open with me, Allan.’ ‘ What a silly child you are ! Women do get such queer fancies into their heads ! : he said, but without meeting her look for more than a second. * Women’s fancies, as you choose to call that intuition which so often helps us to right conclusions, tell me that I am right now in what I say ; and you will not, you cannot deny it, if you are still the same truthful, honest Allan I have found you. I say that for the last month or more, whenever yon have been over from Canterbury to see me, I have noticed a gradual change in your manner—no, not your manner exactly, for you are just as kiod, just as thoughtful fur me—but I can’t explain it - only there is a difference. I see it in a thousand little ways ; you have no control over it yourself —1 see you struggling against it, striving to keep it back ; but yet it is there, Allan, there in your heart of hearts.’ ‘ Upon mv life, I don’t.understand you, Jessie. I declare I have no wish to change our’—he began. ‘No,’ she answered, ‘ you have no wish of your own better self to change our relations - I give you credit for that—but there is a feeling more powerful than your own wish at work. You can’t help its being more powerful than your wish, or even your will; but there it is. You don’t like me less I was going to say—you do not even love me less —I believe’you will always like me —only the liking and the loving are becoming rather what you would give to a sister than to the woman you have thought of making your wife.’ .To he continued.}