LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1269, 12 April 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

——■ —♦ CAROM EL’S FARM. BY JOHNNY LUDLOW. ( Continued .) And, married they were on the following morning, amidst a score or two of spectators, What was agate had slipped out to others as wed as ourselves. Old Clerk Bum ford looked more angry than a ra en when he saw us flocking into the church, Nash had fee’d bi n to keep it quiet. As the clock struck nine, the oarty came The bride and one of her si- both in white silk ; Nave and sume strange gentleman, who might be a friend of his ; and Caromel, paler than a ghost. Charlotte the Second was pale too, but uncommonly pretty, her mass of beautiful hair shining like silken threads of gold. The ceremony over, they filed out into the porch ; Nash leading his bride, and Nave bringing up the rear alo> e ; when an anxiousIqoking lit le woman with a chronic redness of face was seen coming across the churchyard It was Mrs Tinkle, wearing the deep mourning she had put on for Charlotte. omebody had carried her the tidings, and she had come running forth to see whether they could be true. And, to watch her, poor thing, with her sacred face raised to Nash, and her poor hands clasped in pain, as he and his bride passed her on the pathway, was something sad. Nash Carom el’s face had grown white again ; but he n<-vcr looked at her, or turned his eyes, fixed straight out before him, a hair’s point to the right or left. ‘ May heaven have mercy upon them—for surely they’ll neei it 1’ cried the poor woman, ‘No luck can come of such a wedding a.s this.’

The months wont on. Mrs Nash was ruling ttie roast at Calomel's Farm, being unquestionably both mist ess and master Nash Caromel’s old easy indolence had gtown now to apathy. It almost seemed as though the farm might go on as it liked for him ; but his wife was energetic, and she kept servants of all kinds to their wmrk, Nash excused bimaelf for his hasty wedding when people reproached him—and a few br,d done that on his return from the i ymoon. Hi* first wife had been dead ■ for some months, he said, and the farm wanted a mistress. She had only been dead to him a week, was the answer he got to this : and, as to the farm, he was quite as c rapetent to manage that himself without a mistress as with one. After all, w'here was the use of bothering about it when the ’ hing was done ?—and the offence concerned himself, not his neighbors. >So the matter was condoned at length ; Nash was taken into favor again, and the past dropped. Hut Nash, as I have told you, grew apathetical. Hist spirits were low; the Squire remarked OH9 day that he was like a man who had some inward care upon him. Mrs Nash, on the contrary, was cheerful as ; a summer's day ; she filled the farm with visitors, and made the money fly. All too soon, a baby arrived. It w T as in May, and he must have travelled at railroad speed. Nurse I’icher, called in hastily on the occasion, could not find anything the matter with him A beautiful boy, she said, as like his father, Master Nash (she had kuow’n Nash as a boy), as one pea was like pother. Mrs Nash told a tale of having been run after by a cow; Duffham, I; when attacked by the parish on the point, shut Ins lips, and would say never a word, good or bad. Anyway, here he was ; a fine little boy and the sou-ar.i’.-hmr; and if he had mistaken the proper time to appear, why clearly w must be hisown fault <«r the cow’s'; other people were not to be blamed ’or it. Mrs Nash Oarumel, frantic with delight at its being a boy, scut au mder to old bumford to set the bells a Anting.

Rut iuw, it was a singular thing that the squire should chance to be present at the delivery of another of thorn letters that bore the bandwriting with tlio angular t >iia. Not but that very singular ©incidences do take place In this life, and I often think it would not hurt us if we paid more heed to them, Caromel’s Farm was getting rather behind*

i band with its payments. Whether through t*s masters apathy, or its mistress’s extrai vagance, ready money grew inconveniently short, and the squi e eou'd n>t get hia interest paid on the twelve hundred pounds. ‘ I’ll go over and jog his memory,’ said he one morning, as we got up from breakfast. ‘ Put on your cap, Johnny.’ '1 here was a pathway to Caromel’s across the fields, and that was the way we took. It was a hot, lovely day, early in July. Some wheat on the Caromel land was already down. Splendid weather it has been for the corn,’ cried the squire, turning himself about, ‘and we shall have a splendid harvest. Somehow I always fancy the crops lipen on this land sooner than on any other about here, Johnny.’ ‘S'- they do, sir.’ ‘ Fine rich land it is : shouldn’t grumble if it were mine. We’ll go in at this gate, lad ’ ‘ This gate ’ was the side gyre. It opened on a pr.th that led direct to the sitting-room ydth glass doors. Nash was standing just ’ aside the room, and of all the uncomfortable expressions that can sit on a man’s face, the woivt sat on his. The Squire noticed it, and spoke in a whisper. ‘ Johnny lad, he looks just as though he had seen a ghost. ’ Its just what he did look like—a ghost that frightened him. We were close up before he noticed us. Giving a great start, he smoothed his face, smiled, and held out hia hand. ‘You don’t look well,’ said the Squire, as he sat down. ‘ What’s amiss V ‘Nothing at all,’ answered Nash. ‘The heat bothers me, as usual; can’t sleep at night for it Why, here’s the postman 1 What makes him so late, I wonder ?’ Pettipher was coming straight down to the window, the letters in his hand. Something in hia free, onward step seemed to tell that he must be in the habit of delivering the letters to Nash at that same window. ‘ Two, sir, this morning,’said Pettipher, handing them in. As Nash was taking the letters, one of them fell, either by his own awkwardness or by Petripher's. I picked it up and gave it to him, address upwards. The Squire saw it. ‘ Why, that’s the same handwriting that puzzled me,' cried he, speaking on the impulse of the moment. ‘lt seemed familiar to me, but I could not remember where I had seen it. It’s a foreign letter.’ Nash laughed—a lame kind of laugh—and put both letters into his pocket. *lt come* from a chum of mine that I picked up over yonder,’ said ho to the Squire, nodding hia head towards where the sea might be supposed to lie ‘ I don’t think you could ever have been familiar with it,’ They went away to *alk of business, leaving me alone. Mrs Nash Caromel came in with her baby. She wore a white dress and light green ribbons, a lace cap half shading her bright hair. Uncommonly pretty she looked-but I did not like her. ‘ls it yon, Johnny Lud'ow ?’ said she, pausing a moment at the door, and then ho’ding out her hand. ‘I thought my husband was here alone ’ ‘He is gone into the library with the Squire.’ ‘ Sit down. Have you seen my baby before? Is he not a beauty ?’ It was a nice little fellow, with fat arms and blue knitted, shoes, a good deal like Nash. They had named him Duncan, after some relative of hers, and the result wa* that he was never called anything but “ Dun.” Mrs Caromel was tolling me that she had “ short-coated ” hitn early, as it was hot weather, when the others appeared, and the Squire marched me off. (To he continved.)