LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2200, 15 March 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

. » THE MYSTEET or LORD BRACKBNBURY: A NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. EDWABDS,

Author of "Barbara's History," ''Debenbarn's Vow," &o. (Continued.} ' Well, I was saying that Bari is not like Venice. But it is a bright and busy place, in a land of sunshine and plenty, and I think your Uncle Stefano, smoking his pipe at sunset in that little pergola——' 4 What about me ?' asks the wheelwright, waking with a start. 'A plot, little ancle!' ' A plot to starve me, eh ? Do you know what o'clock it is, my little girl ? Twenty minutes past nine and no supper ready!' So La Giulietta hutries in to spread the table; and presently they are all sitting together at their evening meal—a meal literally of Attlo simplicity, consisting of bread, salad, salted olives, a kind of sweet cake made with chesnut flour, and a measure of country wine iu a wicker fla6k, For Cesare Donato is now become as one of themselves, and partakes of their ordinary fare. While at supper, he leads back to the subject of Bari. To-morrow he must go to Venice, to ship part of his oargo ; thence to Trieste, and from Trieste to Smyrna, touching at Bari by the way, in order to set a builder to work upon the repairing of his house. He will be gone not less than a month—possibly as long as five weeks. In the. meanwhile (assuming, as a matter of course, that they are to live together as one family) the question to be settled is, whether Uncle Stefano will undertake to farm the land?

To this, the wheelwright, though inwardly nattered, replies with a string of objections. He has lived all his days in Verona, and is too old tobepullednp by the roots. He has no mind, at his age, to live under another man's roof.. Besides, what should a fellow who has been making wheels all his life, understand about farming P ' How much land have you ?' he asks presently. • Very little—about sixty acres, planted in olives and almonds.'

' You call that very little, do you ? I call it a great deal. And as for growing olives and almonds, I know as muoh about that work as you know about fitting spoken to a nave. No, thank you ! I'll neither spoil your crop.-, nor make a fool of myself. But I'll tell you what I will do, if you will fike it. Find me some place near by—anything with four walls and a roof and half adozen acres of land that I conld till with my own two hands—and I'll end my days there, and be content.'

'I will build yon a Loaso, and let you six acres of my own land,' said Donato. But the old man would hear of no compromise. His mind was made up. He wbnld not hire ; he would buy. To own 'a bit of land,' to cultivate it himself, to eat * polenta of his own growing,' had been the patient ambition of his life, and he would not be baulked of it. The Italian peasant nature, the deeply-rooted love of the soil, for the soil's sake, was strong within him.

' Find me that,' he said, ' and I shall be happier than a king ; and it will be for your children, when I die.' So Donato promised to find it, and the thing was settled. The lovers were long saying their last words that night in the passage. They wonld not meet again for many weeks; and it was their first parting. 'lt is a foolish thing to ask, ' said Donato ; ' bnt I want you, dear, to give me something that yon have tonohed, or worn —a glove, a flower—anything—no matter what 1' the left him a moment, and came back with a book in her hand. 'lt is old and worthless', she said ; * bnt it was my mother's. And there is not a page of it that I have not read a hundred times over.' It was a thin .volume in a parchment cover, dog-eared, and broken, and yellow with age. It had once a clasp. The rivet-holes were there ; bnt the clasp was gone. He glanced at the title-page. ' Yon. call this worthless ? Why it is Luigi da Porto's "History of two Noble Lovers'—the rare original edition of Romeo and Giulietta! You must sot give me this —it is tno valuable.' "If it is valuable, so much the better,' she replied, simply. 'I give it to you because it is precious to me—and I love you.' He kissed the book, and put it in the breast-pocket of his pilot-coat. ' Then I accept it. And what shall I give you?' ' That silver ring upon your finger.' ' This ? It in too rough and ugly, snd has too sad a history. It belonged to an Abyssinian slave; and it was sold to me by his owner, in the slave-market at Alexandria. Besides, I will not give you a ring, till I put the wedding ring on your Soger.' ' Why so T I know two girls who are i betrothed, and their lovers have each given ' them a ring.' ' Well, sailors are superstitions, and I 1 should look upon it as a bad omen. No, my darling, I cannot give you a ring ; but I will bring you a bracelet from Smyrna. In the meanwhile, take this li'tle seal. I have worn it for years on my watch chain ; and see, it is engraved with a dog's hand. That means " Fidelity."' ' I will put it on. a ribbon and wear it day and night till yon come back:' Be took both her hands in his.

' I will write to you to-morrow evening from Venice,' he said. ' And remember, J shall look for letters at every port—Trieste, Bari, Smyrna.' * Che ! che! Don't be ont there all night, saying good-bye !' shouted the wheelwright, testily. 'He ia right. The longer jne lingers the harder It la to part! God bless you, mj darling.' ' I cannot bear yon to go,' she ai.il, cling ing to him. • And I cannot bear to leave you !' He folded her in his arms ; he kissed h. r with many kisses

' My Oiulietta, good bye.' * No, no—not yet—a minute longer—my love, my Romeo I' He kissed her once again—put her from him —shut the door quick'y, and was gone ! For a moment eho stood listening to the rapid ring of his footfall growing fainter down the atalra ; than crept away to her own little room ; cowered down in the dark, and wept silently. It was a wide, stone staircase, dimly lighted here and there. Donato ran daw quickly. lint there was an unaccustomed lump In his throat, that made him e'cop for a moment at the bottom, and draw a deep breath.

' Poor little thing !' So brushed his hands across his eyes. Man-like, he was impatient of his pain, and 5? [ a * hamed of it. So he told himself that he was pitying his little Giulietta, while in truth he was pityinz Cesare Donato. Then he took a cigarette, and crossed the courtyard; intending to borrow a light from the Madonna, before whose shrine » feeble wick was burning. Now, betide the little lamp there stood a broken tumbler, containing a handful of faded flower* ; and theee flowers caught hie eye, jnst as he waa about to touch the flame with the end of his cigarette. Ho recognised some of the orchids and edelweiss that he had sent her nearly a fortnight ago. And this waa what she had dona I Poor child ! TouoLed by the artless pity of the little ottering, he put bsck his cigarette. To light ™ so would ho sacrilege in her eyes ; and though he smiled at bis own weakness, he forbore for her sikc. Th*n he looked up at her balcony : but old Stefano was already gone to his room, and in the window there was no light. All the house was dark. Ine empty votlur«s Flood in the midd e of wwywd; the ostrria was shut up; the stable-door was locked for the night To hugsr was idle ; so, buttoning his coat over the old b:.ok she had given him, he turned towards the street. It was dark in the yard, end darker still ra the archway. Yet amid that depth of blackness, the seaman's keen sight seemed to detect something—something that waa not mere shadow Was it a prejeotion of the masonry ? Was it a man standing tinflat agafnHt the wall ?

Whittling carelessly, but keeping his eye upon this unknown object, he went on unhesitatingly. That instant the figure sprang upon him - grappled him with deadly silence —and rolled with him on the ground.

Chaptkr XLVII. CHBISTMAS EVE IN BAVABIA.

A Christmas meeting at Pastor Krentsmann's—so home'y, so hearty, so hospitable —more resembled a clan-gathering in some Tyrolean farmstead than an evening party within the charmed circle of Munich society. For Munich society—governed by a Drsy oonian law of etiquetta, and stultified by the religious observance of a code of infinitely minute formalities -was at that time one of the most artificial in Enrope. It oscillated between the extremes of servility and insolence; and it reproduced, at all events in its three or four uppermost strata, the stilted ab-nrdities of Versailles two hundired years before. Bred under a despotism of precedence, and educated in an atmosphere of petty ceremonial, the upper-class Bavarian of that mimio Court waß as learned in matters of genealogy as the Gotha Almanack, and as skilled in the art of bowing as Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, Re spent his life in the feverish pursuit of a decoration, a promotion, or a plaoe ; and if half a century of toadyism chanced to be at last rewarded with the office of DeputyAssistant - Court Bootjack -in - Waiting, be was forthwith translated to the seventh heaven of gratified ambition, and died content.

It need scarcely be said that society composed of Depaty-Assistfint-Court Bootjaokin Waiting, their patrons, olients, wives, families, and friends—a society built up circle above circle, clique within clique, each duller, stiffer, more purgatorial than the one next below it—was not only the most artificial but the most portentously exclusive that our century has beheld. A stranger armed with a diplomatic introduction—above all, a stranger with a title—could obtain admission to its dismal coteries without muoh. difficulty. Lancelot Lord Brackenbury, (or Instance, might have spent his Christmas Eve in any of the most jealously guarded saloons of Munich—nay, at the Boyal Palace itself, had he been so minded; bnt to a 'VonMesa Bavarian gentleman, no matter how well educated or well mannered, the social platform one step above his own was as hopelessly inaccessible as Mecca to a Giaour.

As for tho simple'lvroutzmanu family, they were as muoh beyond the pale of what was called ' society ' as if the; belonged to some savage tribe unweaned from flint implements and bone carvings, Yet the Kreutzmancs themselves, In common with the honest Bafrisohe middleclass to which they belonged, believed quite innocently and devoutly in the sublime infallibility cf all these little Chamberlains, Marshals, Go'd Sticks, High-Stewards, Equerries, and other Court functionaries who revolved at such an immeasurable distance above their heads. To them a Deputy-Assistant-Court-Bootjaok-in Waiting was invested with almost superhuman dignity, while the King and the ex-King, the Queen, the Princes, the Princesses, and all the Royal and Serene Highnesses of the family, down to their august seventy-times-seventh con-ins thrice removed, were godlike beings of whom it would be trecson to suppose that they were compounded of merely mortal clay, or liable to such cracks and breakages as plebian pottery is heir to.

And now Frau Kreulzmann's ChrietmtKT gathering was actually graced by the presence of a real, live English ' Herr Baron,' as godlike, as gifted, as superior to> humaoity in general as any native luminary whrso titles were to be found in the Bavarian Court Guide. Surely the good soul would have been more than mortal if she had not felt a flutter of houest pride when that same* Baron led her niece Eatchen out for the first waltz, and engaged the hand of Braidsfur the second

' You see him ? He who danced just now with our Eatchen—that is the Herr Baron. He lodges at thr Hotel Maulick. He is betbrothed to Frautein Winifred. That is ■he—that fair maiden sitting yonder in theoorner of the room. She does not dance tonight— pho Is in too deep mourning. She only looks on. Beautiful ? —I should think so, indeed 1 Beautiful and gentle as an ai-gel! She is living with us for the winter —about to study in Herr Eruger's atelier. She is an orphan, and has lately lost her last blood relation—a dear, sweet child! Already she is like one of ourselves. I don't know what we shall do when it comes to parting from her—E&tchen and Brendawill break their hearts, for how long, doyon ask ? Ah, that I cannot tay. A yearwas talked about; but who knows ? Perhaps they will marry before then. They will make a beautiful couple. And noble—the noblest of the nob!e. 'lis said he owns estates as big as all Suabia.' Repeating the same little story in almost the s»me words, Fran Kreutztnann went round among her guests ; whe.eupon each plump Frau in succession held up her hands, opened her eyes an wide as possible, and (varying the ejaculation more or less profanely) exclaimed — 'Ach, Himmel! Ton don't say so. Cousin Lisbeth ! —A Herr Baron ! And' what is his moEt high lordship's name and titls?*

To which F/au Kreutzimnn, with as near an approach to the English as her tongue could frame, replied—- ' The Herr Baron, Lord Brankenburg.' The younger guests were even more interested and mors inquisitive than their elders. The girls gatheted ronnd Katchen and Hrenda, asked innumerable questions, and listened open mouthed to all that was told them. Had the Herr Baron a castle in England? Why was he not in uniform?" Why did he wear no ribbons or decorations? Was the beautiful Fraulein also noble ? Had she ' the florine ?' Was the fond of him t Did he adore her t When were they to bemarried ? Most interesting of all was the fact that the-e illustrious strangers were but just engaged. 'lt is a romance !' slgbed a stout damsel, whoso Iwo long plaits of magnificent flaxen, hair hung down her back, tied with bine ribbr-ns. ■ But [will there be no betrothalfeast ? No cards? No announcement in. the Court " Zeitung V' (To be continued on- Saturday.')