LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1353, 15 June 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MARGERY FENNELL. By the Author of “In the Dead of Night.” Ten o’clock striking by the little Dutch clock in the corner, and George Fennell not yet at homo Margery Fennell was used to her father’s absence of an evening—had been used to it all her life ; but whenever ten o’clock struck without bringing him home, she could not help feeling restless aid uneasy. She knew then where he was to be found, and in what condition. Either at the Leyburne Arms, the upper end of the village, or at the Two Travellers, at the lower end, and in a state of maudlin, but good humoured intoxication.

To-night, as on countless previous occasions, Margery put on her bonnet and shawl, and pn pared to set out in search of her father, George never refused to go with his daugiiter when she found him “ I must bid you all good night now, lads,” he would say, when he caught sight of Margery’s white face in the doorway : and he would accompany her home. How hateful such quests were to Margery no one but herself could have told.

George Fennell was a ganger on the neighboring railway. He had a number of men to work under him, and it was his duty to keep a certain length of line under constant supervision and repair. Although a man of very limited education, he was shrewd and capable at his work, and earned good enough wages to have kept himself and his two daughters in humble plenty, and to have put something by for bad times, had it not been for his fatal habit of spending his earnings at the public house. But setting out to-night, Margery took ofif the fire the savory Lttle stew which was cooking for her father’s supper, and put it to simmer on the hob. Then she blew out the end of candle, and lighted a fresh one, for although Bella was now to all appearance fast asleep, she might wake up before her sister got back, and be frightened at finding herself alone in the dark.

It was from this Bella, this little sister now eight years old, that Margery drew at once the sweetness and the sorrow of her life. The sweetness came to her through the intense, yearning love she bore the motherless child. The sorrow came to her because through her the child’s life had been blighted. One day when Bella was not quite a jmar old, a few months before Mrs Fennell died, the latter sent Margery to fetch some milk, and told her to take the baby with her. Margery went, but the day was frosty, and the roads slippery and on her way back she fell. She herself was uninjured, but Bella’s spine was hurt by the fall, and she had been a cripple from that day to this : and a cripple the doctor averred, she wou ! d remain as long as she lived. She could walk, but only with the aid of crutches, ami a few steps at a time. She loved best to lie in the big old-fashioned clothes-basket that had been fitted up for her as a movable bed—out under the lilac bush on sunny days, and in the warmest nook of the hearth when the weather was wet or cold. A silent child mostly, with large patient eyes, who would lie for hours together twining and untwining her long thin fingers, thinking her own thoughts, while she watched the shadows ilung on wall and ceiling, or the sunbeams slowly slide from brick to briok of the cottage 110 >r. Her dearest delight was to get her sister to read to her of an evening, when the home work was done, and before George Fennell got home; and, thanks to the kindness of several ladies in the village, Margery was kept well supplied with books. Who can tell Margery’s anguish of heart, or the martyrdom she underwent when she saw what her sister was, and thought of all she might have been but for that unlucky fall. Day and night she bla,med herself for not having been more careful, and vowed that while shq lived nothing on earth should come between her and her devotion to the crippled child. Marge<y gave a last look round, and then she stooped to kiss the sleeping child. The touch of her lips, light as it was, sulliced to wake Bella.

‘ Are you going to look for father ?•’ she asked, when she saw Margery’s bonnet and shawl.

Margery nodded, ‘ I shall not be long away,’ she replied. 1 1 will keep house till you come back, and the clock s^all keep me company.’ said Bella. ‘ You can’t fancy what strange things it says to me sometimes when wc are by ourselves. It says nothing but tick-tack when anybody els ’ is by, but when we are alone every ticktack changes into a word, and I ask it questions abo t fairies and giants, and the little men who live inside the hills. And sometimes ah at once it calls out gur-r-r-r. That is its way of laughing, and then 1 laugh too. Oh, I shan’t be a bit lonely while you arc gone.’ Margery kissed the thin pale face agaiu and then went swiftly out, and shut the door behind her. She remembered with a pang what Mrs Mallott, a neighbour, bad said more than once ; ‘ That child’s too oldfashioned for this world.’ Then she thought of her father, and life felt very bitter. She paused for a moment to pin her worn shawl more closely round her thy ;at, for the September night was chilly, and then she set out at a swift pace up the straggling village street in the direction of the leyburne Arms. Most of the villagers, having to rise betimes, were already in bed, but here and there a solitary light shono cheerfully, and showed that others than herself were still awake. They were just preparing to close the Leyburne Arms when she reached it. The landlady was standing in the doorway, taking in ‘a mouthful of fresh air,’ as she called it; rather a needful process considering the state of tho atmosphere indoors. ‘lk father here <’ asked” Margery, almost, out of breath, so quickly had she come. ‘ Rless your heart, no, dearie He left here aim, st an hour tgo,’ said the landlady. ‘ lie wss a little bit so-so, but knew wc 11 enough what he was about.’

‘ Thank you. Go d night/ said Margery, and away she sped back into ijhe darkness.

‘ What a fine girl that do get,’ muttered the bud lady. ‘ There’s a look in them grey eyes of hers that I never noticed in anybody el-e’ J . It’s a burning shame that George Fen nell don’t look more after her and his h- me ’ Sfie never thought, or never cared to remember, how much both of his time and money George Fennell spent under her own ’Oof.

Not finding her father at the Leyburne Arms, Margery’s mind jumped at once to

the conclusion that he must have walked past his own door and have gone as far as the Two Travellers at the opposite end of the village. More than once before he had done the same thing Almost at a run, Margery sped back through the village, and taking a foot path through the churchyard, which cut off a bend of the road, she found herself in a very few minutes at the door of the Two Travellers. With a little sinking of the heart, she saw that all was dark and silent. Not a light, not a sound anywhere. The inmates were already in bed. Where could her father be ?

Margery stood for a moment to think. She could call to mind but one other place where there was any likelihood that her father might be fonnd, and that was the lodgings of Black Dick. Her father had been there twice previously, and there was just a possibility that he might be there again tonight. The thought had hardly formed itself in her mind before she [was on her way to Black Dick’s. The owner of the above unenviable sobriquet had appeared in Cheverton one day. coming from nobody knew where, and seeking out George Feenell, had demanded rather than asked for work. He knew nothing of railway work, he said, but he had been in Australia, and he could [handle a spade and pick as well as most men. George Fennell took to the man and found him work. That was six months ago. ‘ He’s a rare scholars, said George, ‘and a chap that’s seen better days.’ He gave George an occasional cake of strong tobacco, and thereby kept in his good graces. Where he got the tobacco fr >m he never condescended to explain, but George firmly believed it to have been smuggled, and enjoyed it all the more on that account. If there was one person in the world that Margery Fennell disliked more than another, that person was Black Dick. Whenever they met, and it was only by accident when they did, for Margery would go a mile out of her way rather than run tha slightest risk of encountering him, there came a look into his fie'ce black eyes that made her heart shrink within her. Nothing but the strong necessity there was upon her of finding her father would have taken her near Black Dick’s cottage to-night. Dick lodged in a lonely little cottage up a side lane that opened out of the main street. The cottage belonged to a deaf old woman of the name of Moore —a widow. Mrs Moore and her cottage were well known to Margery, who, as a child had stayed there once for a month when her mother had been called away to nurse a dying sister. As Margery turned out of the village street into the lane she slackened her pace and went more cautiously. But not a soul did she meet When she came in sight of the cettagp, it looked as dark and silent as the Two Travellers had looked, but Margery knew that Black Dick’s room was at the back of the house, aud that she should have to go round through the little paddock before she could make sure that all was dark on that side. she was on the paint of turning off the foot path and crossing the stile when she caught sight of some unfamiliar object between herself and the cottage. Venturing forward, step by step, she made out in a little while that the object in question was neither more nor less than a light country trap, with a horse between the shafts. It was evident that there was company at the cottage to-night, and no doubt her father was there among the rest. Retracing her steps a little way, she crossed the stile, and took the foot path through the paddock, which brought her to a little wicket that opened into the orchard at the back of the cottage. Yes —there was a light shining through the chinks of the shutters of Black Dick’s room. Step by step she drew nearer, but she trod very cautiously now. Not for the world would she have Black Dick know she was there. All that she oould do was to wait patiently till her father should Dave the cottage, then catch him up when he had gone a little way, ana conduct him safely home.

When as nt ar the cottage as she deemed it safe to venture, Margery took her stand in the deep shade of an apple tree, and made up her mind to wait there. But suddenly a sound of voices from the inside of the cottage fell on her ears. This struck her with a little surprise, because the voices did not sound like those of men who had grown noisy over their cups, but rather like the voices of men in deep and Earnest conversation. Quitting her hididg place, and stepping lightly through the thick grass, she slowly drew dearer to the cottage, but ready to fly at the slightest indication that the party was about to break up. Then she saw how it came about that she had heard the voices so plainly. Although the shutters had been closed inside the Jroom, the sash of the window, which had doubtless been pushed up on account of the warm afternoon, had not been drawn down again. The shutters were old and warped. The light escaped through them here and there, and through them came the sound of voices that Margery had heard. Perchance, if she durst venture close to the window, she might be able to satisfy herself whether her father were in the room or not. Anxiety and curiosity emboldened her. With her heart all a flutter, but with no more noise than a mouse might have made, she crept inch by inch nearer the window. She reached it at last. Then she was obliged to pause and hush her breathing before she durst venture to look or listen, (To hp continued.)