LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1795, 21 November 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MEG. {Concluded ) She would have turned round and gone back to Eysdyk the very next day if she could have had her way. But a journey was a journey to people of their rank and condition. Her mother, who had taken it to please her and somewhat against her own will, was not to be blown about like a feather by her caprices. She had suspected a love quarrel was at the bottom of Meg’s sudden and impetuous desire to go immediately on a visit to her Aunt Margaret in Kilmarnock. But once being there old lady was determined to have the * worth of her money’ before she went back, She could not afford to go jaunting round the country, she said, as if she were the Queen herself, with all Parliament at her back. When she had had her visit out she would go home, and not before. Meg was a good girl, but she was a bit hot tempered. This lesson would do her good. But why, do you ask, did not Meg write to her lover, if she felt she had been in the wrong ? And why do wiser ones than she not always do the best thing, the right thing? Besides, she was a woman, and a proud one. After having discarded her lover she would not forthwith fall at his feet and ask him to marry her. But, ah 1 she thought, as the long slow days wore on, if she could but look upon his face once more, he would know all without the telling. There was another reason. Writing was a hard and unaccustomed task. She could not talk with her pen. Sometime, if the good God would let her see Matt face to face, she might be able to explain. But she could not write.

And now after all the months of waiting she was back to Rjsdyk, but he—he was in America. It was as if he had gone out of the world. One day she went to the rectory and asked Miss Agnes to let her look at a map of America. The young lady did so and showed her England also, and the wide waste of waters that lay between the two, What a speck England was to be sure. Then she asked to be shown Lake Superior, and Miss Agnes pointed it out wonderingly. How far it was 1 As far from the sea board, almost, as the width of the Atlantic itself.

_ She turned away with a long shuddering sigh. Hope was dead within her, Matthew Erickson had gone out of her little world into another of which she knew nothing. He would have been nearer if he had been dead.

Once in a while, as the years went on, at rare intervals news of him came back to Rysdyk. He was well. He had fair wages, though gold was not to be had for the gathering in America any more than in England. He had been promoted and had charge of a gang of men. At lengthjthere was a long interval of silence. Then||came floating rumors of ill; then after a while a letter in a strange handwriting, a letter to his uncle, who had died three weeks before it came. There had been a bad accident in the mines—an explosion—and in the effort to save others, Matthew Erickson had himself received dangerous in juries. No one thought ho could live. But now, after months, he was slowly recovering, if recovery it could bo called. For he was blind. |The poisonous vapors had destroyed his sight. It was five years since he went away—five years that had brought many changes to Meg. It was a sobered, thoughtful woman, not a hot-tempered girl, who knelt by the Widow Neale’s side a week after the letter came and said :

* Mother, have I not been a good faithful child to you these many years ?’ Her mother looked at her wonderingly. Two quiet women living alone, they were not in the habit of being over demonstrative. ‘ A good child ? Why do ask that, Meg ? There’s not a better in all Lancashire.’

‘Have I ever vexed you or given you sorrow 1 Tell me, mother.’ ‘No,’ said the Widow Neale slowly. * Only—it vexes me that yon will not marry. An old maid’s no good, and you know that two of the best men in Rysdyk worship the very ground yon tread on this day. I call no names and I say nothing. A woman mnst answer for herself. I wish yon were married, Meg, I’ve saved up a good penny for your dowry ; you know that.’ ‘ Yes,’ she said, her lips quivering.

‘Whatever was the reason you did not have Matt Erickson ?’ her mother went on querulously. ' You’d been a proud wife now, and he here hale and hearty.’ With a quick gasp Meg threw up both arms, and then bnried her face in her mother’s lap, sobbing vehemently, while the latter sat aghast, frightened at the storm she had unwittingly raised. At l>st she touched her daughter’s hair softly. ‘ Don’t, Meg,’ she said. ‘ I did not mean it.”

But Meg only drew the wrinkled hands about her neck, and let her tears flow unchecked. At length she looked up. ‘lt was I who drove him away—Matt Erickson,’ she said. ‘We had a little quarrel, just a few idle words about a ribbon, and I told him in my silly anger I would have no more to say to him while the stars shone. And now they do not shine for him, for he is blind—blind. O, mother, I cannot live, I cannot bear 1’ ‘Yes, you will live, child,’ the widow answered quickly. ‘We can bear anything, we women. Your father was brought into me dead—killed in these mines when you were scarce three years old, my Meg, and I am alive yet.’ ‘ But this is worse than death,’ she cried passionately. ‘ Mother, do yon hear ? He who was my plighted husband is blind, in a far, strange country. I must go and bring him home, to Bysdyk.’ She had risen from her mother’s arms, and stood before her in the moonlight, pale, resolute, with her hand elapsed rigidly. • Give me my dowry, mother, and let me go,’ she said. ‘Bo not deny me this thing. lam well and strong, and, if I' do say it, I am quick-witted; I can make my way. 1 shall come back safely. Let me go, mother!’ ‘lt is not your place, Meg. Let soma one else go,’ * Who ? Tell me that t Has he father or brother or uncle ? Who is there to go ?’ ‘ But—it’s not right maidenly to go off after a lover, Meg. What will the folks say ? And—would you marry a blind man?’

‘ Maidenly ? It is maidenly to do right,’ said Med sturdily, her brown cheek flushing, • What do I care for the folks. I’m not a young girl to drop my eyes and bo shamefaced because folks will talk. They always talk. And as for marrying—lt is not of marriage I am thinking now—it is of bringing Matt Erickson —he whom I drove away with my ill-doings—back safe to his own country— * She hesitated a moment and then went on: * But I’ll not play false with you, mother. He’ll not ask me to marry him. But I shall know. If he wants me, after all that’s past, he shall have me, and I’ll take care of him till I die.’

Their talk lasted far into the night. But with it we have no more to do, nor the details by which a little money was made to go a great way. For after many tears, the widow consented that Meg should take her dowry and spend it as she chose. If they had been more wordly-wise they would have known how to accomplish their purpose through the agency of others. As it was, they saw no other way than for Meg to do herself the thing she wanted done. Oh that weary, weary journey I Why was the world so wide, the way so long ? Meg kepi up a brave heart until the boisterous ocean was crossed, and she had made her way as far as Buffalo, where she had been told to take the steamer for Marquette. It seemed to her that she had travelled the width of the whole wide earth already since her foot first fell upon the soil of the strange new world. »Is this Lake Superior, sir,’ she asked of a policeman, as she left the cars and saw the water of Lake Erie sir Aching away in the distance. ‘And can you tell me, are we near Ishpeming?’ . . . ‘ Ob, no, my girl, this is Erie. Lake Superior is far away up North, hundreds of miles from here—lspheming ? Never heard of such a place. But here's your steamer, it you’re going up that way.’ Her heart sank like lead. All day, and day after day, she sat silently in the bow of the boat, gazing forward. On, on, till Erie was passed —on through lovely St. Clair with its softly-rounded shores and fairy Islands —then up through Lake Huron, still struggling up, as It were, past towering heights, past stretches of interminable forest, past rocky headlands, past sandy beaches, through tortuous channels and devious ways

into the wild rapids of the Saul Ste. Marie, Then at last Superior 1 grand wierd, majestic in its awful silence, sweeping on between its mighty, far stretching shores, dark as the grave.

Where was she going? Would she ever find Matt ? Sailing on and on—penetrating nature’s secret places, where the foot of man bad never trodden. So it seemed to her. Could human kind live in these vast, wild wildernesses ?

It was like a new birth, when, after many days, the steamer entered the beautiful bay of Marquette, and the fair young city rose before her astonished eyes, its white cliffs gleaming in the sun, its green eho-es sweeping downward to the water’s edge. She was near her goal at last. For Ispheming was about twenty miles away up the railroad, and thither she went by the first train. How rough and wild it all was I And how the charred and blackened pine trees towered aloft like grim giant?, and pointed their ghastly fingers at her as she swept through their solitude ! ‘ Can you tell me where to find a mm called Matthew Erickson V she asked of the depot-master, trembling from head to foot. ‘Erickson? Erickson? Blown np in the mines a year a year or so ago, wasn't he ? He stays at Sam Ayres’, the Englishman’s, I believe, Justyer go round that corner, ma’am, then turn to the right and go up the hill -or stay ! Let me lock np and I’ll go with you. Ever been in Ishpeming btfore ? No ? I thought you looked like a stranger in these parts.'

He left her at Fam Ayres’ gate, having opened it gallantly when he saw that her cold fingers were unfit to do her bidding. A kindly-fared woman came to the door and bade her welcome.

Meg’s story was soon told. ' And you have come all this long way to take Erickson home agiin ?’ her eyes filling. * God bless you, dear, for I’m sure he sent you. We’ve done the best we could for him, but you are his sister ?’ * No, I’m a friend—a neighbor. There was no one else,’ she said simply, * What’s your name ? I’ll tell him. ‘No matter about the name; say a friend from the old country.’ The woman came back presently. ‘Be careful,’ she said, ‘ he’s weak yet. But I want to tell you something just to keep your heart up, for he looks like a ghost. There was a great doctor from New York up here last week to look at his poor eyes, and he told Sam there was a chance for him yet—just one chance in a hundred.’ * Does he know it ?’ asked Meg tremulously, her color coming and going. She was but a woman after all. Only blindness would have brought her there, ‘No, and yon must not tell him. The doctor said so most particularly. Will you go up now ?’ Be had been sitting in the sun by the window all day brooding. They had been very kind to him, these people, but kindness wears itself out after awhile. What was to become of him P The wages he had laid up were wasting away. The early Northern winter would soon set in. He shivered as he thought of the fierce winds, the pitiless drifting snows. There was nothing a blind man could do here. If he were only at home in Kysdyk. Would Meg be sorry for him, he wondered, if she knew bow desolate be was, how lonely in this strange land 7 If he were at home he could learn to weave baskets like old Timothy. Here he was just a dead weight. * Some one to see him [from the old country ?’ He turned his sightless eyes towards the door where Meg was entering noiseless as a spirit, and his face kindled eagerly. Noiselessly she closed the door behind her. He was so changed, so white and worn, that her own heart stopped its pulsations for a moment. She feared any sadden shock might overcome him. She dared not speak lest he should know her voice. Strange that she had not thought of this before. He put out his band vaguely, feeling the presence that he could net see. ‘ You are very welcome,’ he said; ‘but I do not know who it is. Who are yon ?' He thought it was some kindly Englishman who, having heard of his misfortunes, had come to speak a word of cheer and comfort. Bhe gave Him her band, still silently. A woman’s hand 1 A swift thrill shot through his frame and his face flushed. Holding herself still with a mighty effort, Meg knelt by his side, laying her head npon his knee. His hand touched her hair, her forehead his lips. She gave a low cry, trembling like a leaf. ‘ Speak to me, quick, ’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Mat?’ ‘ O Meg, my Meg 1’