LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1476, 8 November 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

OLD SIR PIERCE. [*" ALL THE YEAR ROUND."] (Continued.) The photographer remained silent for a minute; then approaching his visitor, he said : 'lam that Jack Osborne, and you—yes, it must be so, Buth">W you're You're Hugh Challoner!' For some moments they stood still, earnestly gazing at each oth-r. ' To think of our meeting like this ! It was more chance brought me here. You were the nearest photographer. I bad no other reason Strange ! If any thing's strange; and I begin to doubt it. Iv'e gone through no much that nothing can seem very s'rar-fre to me, except, perhaps, good fortune. I've known so very little of that.' Thev shook hands with a sort of sad cordial it v. ' I in glad we've met again, Hugh, though certainly we might have met under happier circumstances. It's long since we've seen or heard anything of each other. Yet we've b en travelling the same road, it seems, all the while—the road to ruin, I mean; an easy j urney, downhill all thoway.' ' Somehow, T frit from the fir t that I was talking to a friend. I read as much in your eyes, I think. I am sorry you've had ill luck, too, Jaok. Yet it can't have been so bad as mine. You've no dead wife or child to mourn ?' 'No, Hugh, it's not been fo bad as that w ith me But it's been bad enough—thanks to myself, chiefly. I confess it Mine b an old, old story of folly and c.rrov, wastefulness find wickedness. I've led a shifty, v>g*bond, worthless life. Xo one knows tint better than I do. Of late I've been, trying this trade I used to think I

was rather clever as an operator. But time and trouble certainly knock the conceit out of a man.'

' I'm very glad it's fallen to yon t-> photo* graph the poor child, Jack,' said Hugh Chailoner. His great sorrow bad made him selh\ j h ; he could scarcely give attention to his friend's attention. ' You'd lwe loved the little one if only you could have seen him alive, Jack. He was the brightest, cheeriest, prettiest Httle man, eyes over looked upon. Even now you can see for yourself what a littln beauty he was.' Jack Osborne nodded his head significantly. Hugh Chailoner stooped down to kis u , once more, the cold lips of his dead child. Jack Osborne busied himself again with preparations for the photograph. ' I must tell you my story some other time, Jack,' said Hugh Chailoner, sighing deeply. 'lt doesn't differ so very much for your own. At least, misfortune has been the burden of it all through.' 1 Is there no chance of your making peace with your father V 'There is no chance. You've forgotten what Sir Pierce was like, or you would not ask such a question. Age has not changed him much—has not softened his heart in the slightest degree.' • And your sister V The photographer averted his fac < somewhat as he asked this question. * Can she do nothing, Hugh ? She was your firm friend in the old time.' ' Poor Nelly ! She is my firm friend still for that matter But what can she do ? What can I ask or expect her to do ? Nothing ' She is unmarried ?' asked Osborne, still with his face turned from his intercutor.

' She is unmarried, Jack, Yet changed, I fancy, from what she was as you knew her, Jack. She is the old man's s'ave —bound hand and foot. She moves and thinks but as he bid* her. She has m vill of her own. She lives only to obey him, and tend him, and wait upon h'm ' 'She lov»s her father,' said Osborne. ' She always loved him.' • Yes—if that can be called love which is so much made up of for.' ' Don't blame her, Hugh, for loving her father.'

'I don't blame her. Who am I—what am I—that I should blame anyone ?' The photographer held up his hand byway of signal. There was peifect silence in the stufiio.

'I think I've been successful," said Osborne presently. He was speaking of the photograph—his voice issued from the recesses of a dark cupboard. He reappeared, drying his hands with a ragged towel. ' You must tell me whei c you are to be found, Hugh.' ' I live in a very poor way, in a very poor place,' Hugh ea ; d, with troubled looks.

'Let us hope for better times, Hugh. And —let me help you if y>uif I can. I'm poor enough myself, Heaven knows! yet I may do something. And you'll want money now, you know." 'To pay for the little ono'a coffin ? Yes ; I've been thinking of that I've been reckoning over what T could turn into money. But there's little left me, very little, that's of any sort of value. I've a room at No, 12, Purtoi.'s Rents ; it's a wretched place, but there was no help for it. Beggars can't be choosers, you know. You know the place? You go over the canal-bridge, and turn down by the gas-works. Anyone thereabout will point out Parton's Rntsjit isn't really a atoue's-throw from hero, though it's hard in find—hidden away as though people were ashamed of it; and certainly it isn't a place to be proud of.' So they parted. 'Poor Hugh—and has it coroo to this? I thought my own luck as bad as it could well be. Yet his ts worse. Not that I had the fact so ve-y consoling. What a change a few years makes ! Why, it seems only yesterday that we were all so haopy together d>wn in Devonshire. What fools we are when we're young ; and yet how happy we are. I don't know that we grow so much wiser as we grow older, but certainly we grow sadder. Then came the storm that separated us and sent us &11 adrift. I lovtel Nelly Challoner, and she—but what does it matter now whether or not she loved mo back again ? It was a mad dream. I was not her equal —I wis unworthy of her in every So ended that romance. And Hugh ? I remember hearing something about it; but it happened long afterwards. He fell in lovo with his sister's governess. I forget her name; but it doesn't matter. Yes; his sister's governess—that was the story, I think. And he was sent away from home. If, afterwards, he defied his father and married her, and this child is their child, that woull account for much. But it's terrible to think of. Can it really be that Sir Pierce is so unforgiving ? How little did I think, when I first took up with this miserable trade of mine, that I should ever be called upon to photograph Hugh Challoner's dead child!'

Enquiring for Hugh r balloner in Purton's Rents, Jack Osborn» could at first learn no tidings of him. People shook their heads—they didn't know th* name. Didn't know as they had ever heard of such a name. lid he mean the gentleman on the two-pair back ?—the gentleman whose little boy was dead ? Ah ! Yes! He was in. He didn't £>o out much. And wasn't likely to go out much, worse luck. It was a wretched room, with a sloping roof. The ceiling was stained with the damp, and broken in places, exposing the bare rafters, and freely admitting the rain M?ny vindow-panes were patched with paper, or their places supplied with rags. The floor was carpetiess, and of furniture there was very little. On a crazy-lookiDg chair rested a child's coffin, of the - plainest and cheapest sort.

Hugh ]ay stretched upon a ragged palissse ; the straw was forcing its way out at every aperture of the soiled cover. •la it you. Jack ?' he asked faintly. ' It's very good of you to come.' ' How goes it with you, old man ? See, I brought a bottle of wine ; and here's food—bread snd meat.'

' You're very Jack I want to get up my strength if I can ; but I feel dreadfully knocked over, pist rmw. The east wind plays the deuce with me—pierces through me, and seems to chill and pinch my very bones. But you Fee I must make baste and be well, to attend the little one's funeral. You've brought the photograph— I'll send it—home.'

'You'll toll thorn in what straits you're in, Hugh ? You'll tell them where they may find yon, and render you help and comfort ?'

' I'll send my father the picture of his dead graudchild. He shall Bee and know what he has done. He has sought to punish me ; he shall judge whether I am punished enough. He may fiud, perhaps that the blow fallen upon me has not left him unharmed. He has made roe suffer. I hope and pray he may puffer t o.' •Hush, High!' ' How can I hold my peace ? Or if I keep back my words, do you think I can check niy thoughts ? Jack, that poor child's death lies at his grandfather's door. I say that he is verily guilty in the matter, in that he saw the anguish of my heart, when I besought him, and he would not hear! For I did beseech him for bread to i;ive the child. Its death ws hastened by rheer want, Jack. Can you think of a poor little starving child, Jnek, and. keep the tours back from your eves ? He could, Jack - the child's grandfather. Can I hopo that he should not suffer ?'

A carriage, containing aladv and a gentleman, had stopped in front of the Photographic Saloon and Fine Art Gallery. So unusual a spectacle occasioned some stir For it was a carriage of a highly-fashionable description, with crests upon its burnished panels and tassel'od hammer-cloth 9, with powder whitening the pomatumed looks of its coachman and footman.

' Ileie's a old gent going to be took,' observed a street hoy to a friend of his own age and position, as the gentleman with some effort descended frcitn the carriage, and leaning upon the arm of the lady, approached the Photographic Saloon. ' You're &urc you're right, Eleanor? You're

quite eure? What a place! What a neighborhood !'

The lidy connilted a card she carried in her hand. On one side « f the card appeared the photograph of Huu;h Challoner'a dead poti ; on the other hand, was inscribed the address of the photographer. ' YVs ; this must be. the place,' she said, And they entered the Photographic Saloon and Fine Art Gallery, and were presently mounting the stairs to the studio.

' Sir Pierce and his daughter,' muttered Jack Osborne with a sta t. An expression of embarrassment flitted across his face, and for a moment his cheeks flushed.

'Your name is "sbome, I think,' Sir Pierce began, in rather pomoous and artificial tones. 'I have called concerning a photograph whic'i has been lately sent to me —a photograph of a child.' As he spoke he took the card from his daughter's hand, and exhibited it to the artist.

' How he's changed!' mused Jack 03borne, as he affected to examine the portrait. ' How old he looks, how feeble, and shattered altogether ! And he doesn't recognise me in the least. Nor does Kelly either. Perhaps she will not.' Sir Pierce looked, in truth, very old, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the pains he had taken to look young. His tall lean figure drooped, and he leant heavily upon his cine as he walked, or rather tottered along. He was fashionably dressed, wore a flower in his button hole, tight lavender coloured gloves, and a very glossy hat. The pallor of his hollow wrinkled face was intensified by the dark dye of his moustache, the jet black curls of his wig. His eyes were dim and glazed with age, his movements were tre mulouß and and uncertain, there was a bus • picion of paralysis in the dragging method of his gait. The muscles of his face twitched curiously as he spoke, and limbs jerked abruptly, imitative, or emulous, perhaps, of the jaunty restlessness of youth. (To he continued.)