LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2106, 23 November 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MYSTEET OP LOED BRACKENBUEY: A NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. EOWABD3, Author of "Barbara's History," ''Debenbarn's Vow," &c. LContinued.) ' I shall pass through La Spezzia, but I am bound for Borne,' replied Lord Brackenbury, •Rome? Ah, I have a twin sister in Borne whom I have not seen for six years. Rome is a long way off—l wish the Signore was taking me with him !' The postillions were by this time in their saddles, and Sandro QuarantaSette waited his lordship's pleasure to give the signal for starting, Mr Prouting meanwhile looked on in amazed displeasure. Never had he sren his master talking so freely, smiling so pleasantly. If there was one thing in the world that Mr Pouting hated more than another—and he hated most things and most people —it was low society. He prided himself on his Conservatism. In Mr Pouting's eyeß, a lord was a lord; a valet was a gentleman's gentleman; a fisherman in shirtsleeves was low society. He almost felt that it was his painful duty to give warning on the spot. "And from Borne Igo home to Kngland, which is still further away,' said Lord Brackenbnry. ' Home ! The Signore is not Engish ?' ' Surely I am English.' ' Diavolo ! The Signor speaks Italian as well as I do!'

Lord Brackenbnry looked amused. He thought, perhaps, that he spoke it somewhat better. Not only was his that 'lingnaToscaua in bocca Romans ' which a cultivated foreigner sometimes very nearly succeeds in acquiring ; but he spoke flnently the soft, slipshod Neapolitan, the resonant Venetian, the barbarous Bolognese, and even the mongrel PiedmoDtese. He had. In fact, made the dialects and folk-lore of Italy his particular study ; and certain well-known translations of Canti Popalarl in all these dialects which had appeared a few years before in ' The Pantheon' were from his pen. But this was a secret known only to himself and the editor. Not even his own brother suspected that Lord Brackenbnry had ever turned a line of verse, except as a school exercise.

The postillions, turning half round in their saddles, listened and laughed ; Mr Fronting, understanding not a word, loosed the picture of outraged dignity; while Sandro Qnaranta-Sette took advantage of the delay to whisper tender nothings in the ear of the black-eyed waitress who had brought out Lord Brackenbury's coffee. •If I come this way next year, with a good yacht instead of a carriage,' said Lord Brackenbnry, * I will take you to Civita Vecohia, my lad, and that is only a day's walk from Borne.' The man's eyes sparkled. * Will you, Signore ?' he said. •Isit a promise ?' ' Assuredly it is a promise—if I come.' ' Ah, but you must come!' ' Meanwhile you will drink a flask to my health. Now, drivers—ready.' And Lord Brackenbnry, having given back his cup, paid for his coffee, and slipped a parting present into the fisherman's hand, nodded a friendly farewell, and drove away. The man's cheek flushed, and his fingers closed quickly on the coin. The old mother tottered forward. ' What has be given thee, 'Tonio ? she asked quaveringly. ' Corpo di Dio!' said Antonio, with a half laugh ; so holding his hand that she only could see into the palm.. It contained a piece of gold. The new horses were fresh ; the post-boys had just dined; the way was level; and for the next mile or so the yellow calecho west at a rattling pace between the sands and the sea. Then came the cypress-crowned promontory barring the forward view; and then the road wound upwards and landwards, turning away from the coast through a sterile country interspersed with meagre plantations of cork and ilex, from this point, the ground rose rapidly, and kept rising. Vineyards and olivegroves ware by and by succeeded by tractsof unrepayingsoil where the oxen ploughed toilsomely against the slope. Then came fir-woods stony wastes relieved here and there by cultivated patches—wind-swept heights where snow lay in the hollows—here and there a rude cross, where once upon a time some snow-blinded wayfarer had perished—then, in a sheltered spot some three thousand feet above the sea, a solitary post-house where Sandro Quar&ntaSette stayed to change horses. Hence the road rose again, more and more rapidly, reaching at last a bleak stretch of level summit where a gang of cantonieri were at work clearing the road of newly-fallen snow. They had lit a fire in a kind of natural grotto among the rooks, and had fixed up an olive bough and a rude print of the Madonna, in honor of the Feata.

Lord Brackenbury got out and talked to the men while the horses rested ; warmed his hands at their fire; tasted their sour wine; and gave them a handful of small silver at parting. . The postboys said to each other that he was a "bravo Signorej" but Mr Prouting was more than ever scandalised. That his master should familiarily chat, and even drink, with rough mountaineers in sheepskin jackets, was another evidence of that fatal taste for " low sosiety " whichso jarred upon Mr Prouting's finest feelings. Things ware bad enough in England, thought Mr Prouting to himself; but they were worse abroad- Often and often when they were at home at his lordship's place in the north he had seen his master walking side by side with common working-folk—-field laborers, sand-carriers and the like; sitting down in their cottages; talking to them with disgusting familiarity; listening patiently to all their vulgar troubles. There was even an improbable story afloat in the servants' hall, to the effect that one evening last winter, in the midst of a heavy snowstorm, Lord Brackenbury had been seen carrying a pail of water for an old woman who lived somewhere on the edge of the moor. This was mere rumor, however, and for all his expsrience of Lord Brackenbury's eccentricities, Mr Prouting coald hardly bring himself to believe it. Then, to be sure, these were his lordship's own people—a part, so to say, of his estates. Here, the case was altogether different. What was condescension in England was low taste abroad. Mr Prouting had no low tastes. His tastes, on the contrary, were lofty, aspiring, aristocratic. Nature, he felt, had intended him for a gentleman. _ Circumstances had made him a valet. His brow, he told himself, when he contemplated that feature in the glass, was moulded for a coronet. A coronet, in fact, would become it far better than it became the brow of Lord Brackenbnry. Not that he had ever seen a coronet on Lord Bracfeenbury'sbrow ; but that was of no moment. The expression pleased Mm as a figure of speech j and he liked to dwell on it. He also considered that he looked ten times more a lord than Lord Brackenbnry. He was no taller, for Lord Brackenbury's cast off clothe* fitted him perfectly; bat hia whiskers were bushier, and his bearing, in his own .opinion, was more dignified. . In a word, Mr Pronting flattered himself that he had "the grand air," and that Lord Brackenbury had it not. Besides it was not merely a question of manner or appearance, bnt of social proclivities. Mr Prouting was intensely exclusive. No power on earth would have induced him, for instance, to associate with servants in livery, or to givo his arm to a housemaid. . He would no more have carried a pail of water for an old woman, or have drunk souc wine out of a cracked mug with a gang of Italian cantonniers, than he would have eaten his head. Seeing how Lord Brackenbnry " Demeaned'' himself, how wanting ho was in everything like a proper sense of what was due to his position, Mr Pronting shook his head at Fate, and asked her what she meant by installing his master in the yellow caleche, with a handle to his name and twenty thousand a year to his rent-roll, while she consigned himself, Samuel James Prouting, to the rumble ? The long bleak ridge, the snowy summit, the friendly cantonniers, were presently left behind* The road, beginning to descend,

turned the shoulder of an overhanging bluff. Then, bristling with hill tops and furrowed I with valleys, a vast panorama obscured to the ! seaward by driving mists, and ending land* wards in a ghost-like chain of jagged marble peaks, opened out ahead as suddenly as a I scene is disclosed by the rising of a dropcurtain. ' And now, the horses being in good condition and used to the work, the yellow caleohe went at a swinging pace down a fine road that wound and doubled and zigzagged daringly along the mountain side. The last snowdrifts were soon left far above, and the first belt of sparse vegetation and wind-tormented firs was zeached again. The landscape varied with every turn of the road. Vineyards, and chestnut-woods, and olive slopes showed green and grey in the valleys below ; and where the mists parted, shifting glimpses of blue sea, now here, now there, were suddenly revealed, and again as suddenly hidden

Down into the teeth of the storm the road plunged presently, and they reached the next poet house in a whirl of rain and sleet. The horses were taken out, splashed and reeking, and replaced by four fresh from the stables The post-boys touched their hats for a liberal gratuity ; the new ones jumped into their saddles ; Sandra Qiaranta-Sette lit a fresh cigarette ; Mr Prouting followed suit with a cigar, and they were off again. They bad now been many hours on the road, and the sun, gleaming through mist as the storm broke a r d p&S3"d, was fast dropping westward. Still winding, still descending, the road led down through scant chestnut woods, and farm lands, and over another snd a lower pass, to a large rambling village among the bills, where they again stopped to change horses. The carriage drew up before a clean-look-ing inn ; landlord, landlady, and an elderly waiter in rusty black, waiting at the door to receive them. ' Borghetto, mi • lord,' said Sandra Qaaranta-Sette, presenting an obsequiously smiling face at the carriage door. 'We are at Borghetto." Lord Brackenbnry, who was reading, looked up from his book. •Borghetto?* he said. '"What of Borghetto ? I had hoped it was Spezzia.' * Ah, Dio ? Signore, we are still twentyfive kilometrl from La Spezzia, and we have been travelling since seven this morning. At this season, when the days are short, many travellers sleep at Borghetto. Here, at the Hotel Europa, are good rooms, good beds, and a good cook.' Lord Brackenbnry shook his head. 'No, no,' he asid. 'We must go on.' ' Bat, Signore, the sun will Bet in threequarters of an hour or so, and it will be dark before we get in I' ' What of that ? Yon have a good road and fresh horses.'

Otill the vetturino persisted. The landlord of the Europa was his particular friend, and kept in his cellar a certain choice vintage for which Sandro Qoaranta-Sette entertained an especial weakness. 'Bat my honored Signore,' he urged, in his most persuasive and deferential tone, ' the Hotel is as good—nay, it is better, than the Hotel at La Spezzia ; and . . . * Lord Brackenbnry frowned. ,1 have told yon to go en,' >e said, authoritatively. 'My arrangements aremade. Be good enough to get your horses in as quickly as possible ' {To be continued.')