LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1874, 25 February 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE SILVER HORSE-SHOE. ( Continued .) God knows how full my heart was in those days of darkness I He was teaching me the deepest lessons of life, for “in the days of my sorrow I sought the Lord.” Not with long prayers, or any outward acts of devotion, but with a close dependence on his care that became as the very air I breathed. Nor was I without comfort. The sympathy of those dependent upon us is a beautiful thing in time of trouble—and there was not a servant in our household whose heart did not beat in sympathy with mine; not one who did not rejoice with me in the safe return of the master evening by evening, and enter into my repressed anxiety as we saw him ride away in the morning. At length came a day—one of those days that are to be found in most lives—a day that, however long we live, however far away from its scenes our fate may drift us, is traced upon our memories In indelible colors, and forms a picture upon which we turn and look back, to marvel again how we lived through its horror and its anguish. Chapter 11. The days were beginning to shorten. I love the gloaming, and was not sorry to welcome the soft dusk a wee bit earlier each day. Baby liked it too, I think ; for twilight makes idle fingers, and I had more time to toss him up and down and listen to the merry music of his crows of pleasure. However sad and anxious at other times, I always managed to cheer up when baby made his appearance in my sitting room ; and, oh, what a comfort I found in the touch of his velvet-soft cheek cuddle.t up against mine, and his little pink-palmed hands clinging round my finger ! Well, one day, or rather afternoon, as the shadows were lengthening out, and robin was piping the first notes of his plaintive even-song, I sat alone in my cosy morning room.

My mother (I call her thus because, in my creed, John’s belongings are mine too,) had been ailing for a day or two. The strain of anxious, loving thought of her son had told upon that fragile frame, wearing it as the sharp sword wears the scabbard. For our troubles were black around us m ever.

‘ If I had dealt nnfairly by a single man in my employ, I would own to the wrong and make reparation,’ my darling said. * Some hands have jnst cause to complain of the masters ; mine have ncne, I will not budge one inch.’

It seems to me that I am telling my story in a strange, desultory fashion, but I cannot help it, I give you the memories of those days as they rise one by one before me. The illness of Mrs Otway kept her a prisoner to her own home, and day by day I went to sit by her couch and talk of John, and of scarce aught else. Women who are leal and true can give sweet store of comfort to each other in time of trouble by community of sympathy, even if they be but close friends; how much more, then, could we two, to each of whom the man upon whose head sorrow had fallen was the best and dearest 1

Baby, on the day of which I now write, and from which I seem ever wandering in devious pathways of thought, had seen fit »o take his sleep at an unwonted hour; so I was alone in the deepening twilight for once.

The house was very still just then, for the servants were at their tea, and a thick, green-baized door shut off their premises from the rest of the rooms. It was so quiet that through the open window I could hear * 1 assie ’ whinny softly in her stable across the yard; so quiet that the sound of tny own name, spoken hurriedly and almost in a whleper, made me start, and seemed, as it were, to tear the mantle of silence that was brooding over the early Autumn evening. • Mistress Otway I Mistress Otway ! ’ said the voice, * for God’s sake come round to t’ doir and let me in. I’m nigh dropping 1 ’ In a moment I had reached the porch, opened the door and was half-supporting, half-leading a figure so ghostly, so deathlike that it might almost have teen taken for a visitant from the spirit-world. It was Jim Stevens’ wife, a woman haggard and fever wasted, and whom I had seen the day before lying weak and wan, with her two-days’ old baby by her side. ‘ Lizzie 2 ’ I cried, as she staggered into my room, and still holding my arm in a wild

I convulsive grasp, gasped out something I | could not understand, ‘ are you mad ? ’ * Ay, a’moat,’ she whispered, raising her fever bright eyes to mine, and wiping the sweat from her poor, thin face with a corner of her shawl, * Listen, lady,’ she went on, * if they miss mo fro’ my bed, and Jim learns as I’ve coom oop here, I’m a dead woman ; ha’ll brak every boan in my body, as sure as there’s a God above; but I dunot care. Yo’ve bin a good friend to me, and the like o’ me, and I woant see yo’ made a widder, and yer little one fatherless.’

The words struck me like blows, felling me where I stood, with their terrible force.

On my knees, with my head in that poor creature’s lap. I wrestled with a pang so awful that as I write about it now, after long years, it seems to rive my heart again. * Nay,’ said Lizzie, lifting my bowed head with her poor, shaking hands ; yo’ manna greet—yo’ mua be strong and hale—for the the sake o’ him that loves yo’. If summat ain’t done he’ll be carried whoam to yo’ dead this neet, wi’ a bullet i' his bress.’ ‘My God, my God !’ I cried, staggering to my feet, * help me.’ ’ Ay, I say Amen to that, lady,’ said Lizzie, catching my hand, and pressing it against her bosom. ‘ Yo’ve helpt others ; happen God ’ull mind that now and help yo’.’ ‘ What can Ido ? Tell me—tell me the whole truth, Lizzie. See I’m strong and hale now ; God has helped me already. He has put courage into my heart.’ ‘ Thou’l need it, my lass,’ said Lizzie, forgetting in her eager trouble all barriers of class for pain, the great leveller, set us for the nonce side by side, just two sorrowing, timorous women, and nothing more. 1 It’s Jim as is at t’bottom o’ it all—may God forgive me for speabin’ agen my mon, Mis* tress Otway—l wudna, but it’s to hinder murder bein’ done, and afore I tell thee, wilt swear that ne’er a word shall pass thy lips to hurt him ? He’s a bad mon, I know; but for a’ that he’s my mon—and it’s hard for ony woman to speak up agin her mon!’ In sorest anguish of impatience I wrung my hands the one in the other, and, with lips az white as Lizzie’s own, swore the oath she craved for.

Then she told me all the shameful story. The foreign workmen whom (so report had it) John had decided to employ were on their way to the North; there was no chance now of bringing the owner of Otway mills on his knees. The furnace of heat, heated seven times with the fuel of drink, seethed like a mighty cauldron. Jim stirred it with bitter angry words. He had been at fault more than once, and at last dismissed; he had wrongs to revenge, he said they all had. Thus the evil tongue tried to stir up strife; but only one or two other turbulent spirits like himself would be led into plotting against the master. These then laid a foul plot—the plot that poor, faithful Lizzie had left her bed of weakness and pain to warn me of.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘the big wood wheer t’ two woods meet, half way ’twixt here an’t’ mills ? Weel, the’re to watch for him passing by theer on his black horse, and, oh, my lady, the shot ’nil coom from behind the trees.’ ‘ When—when V I almost shrieked.

‘ To-ueet,’ she whispered hoarsely, as though she feared the very walls would tell Jim of her great treachery. ‘Theer’s no toime to lose. Thee must go theesel; they’d know summat’s up if ony other body goes by. Which o’ the roaads does the meeater coom by V she added, with a sudden look of dread in her eyes that wert mirrored in my own.

* Sometimes one, sometimes the other,’ I wailed. * Oh, I cannot tell which ! ’ ‘lt’s hard on thee,’ she said, with wonderful, pitiful lovingness. * How wilt thou knaw which way to gang V ‘ How, indeed ?’ * One—two—three—four, ’ rang out the little clock upon the bracket by the window. We both started, and Lizzie gathered her shawl about her.

* I must gang my way,’ she said, her head drooping on her breast. But she lingered a moment more, holding my hand close and peering eagerly in my face.

‘lf Jem ketches me.’ she said, ‘if he murders me, if I see thy face no more, dunna forget my little ’un, for heaven’s love !* • No, no,’ I cried ; * but do not speak such words ! they break my heart 1 God keep you from barm. He will ! He will!’ She shook her head, and a tear trickled down her cheek- ‘ Tell thy errand to none, ’ she said, earnestly. ‘ The men love the sight o’ thy bonny face, even the roughest of ’em; but they’re not theirsel’s now; they’re loike wild beasts mad wi’ the taste o’ blood; they’d shoot yo’ down loike a rat, if they guessed yer errand.’ I had hurriedly fetched a glass of wine, and now held it to her drawn lips. * Drink’s a good servant, but a bad master,’ she said, when she had swallowed it, ‘ and happen I’ll get whoam the better for that. Good-bye, my lady.’ I have always been impulsive—at least, I believe so ; at all events, in another moment my lips were pressed against Lizzie’s sunken cheek, and her tears and mine mingled. We stood thus, hand in hand, no longer divided by any thought of class or caste, only two sobbing, troubled women and then—{To he continued.')