LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2206, 22 March 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

the mystbet o? liOKI> BRACKENBUEY: A [NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. E3WAUDS, AYrthor of "Barbara’s History,' 1 ' Debsnhana’s Vow,’’ &c (Continued.} Having shown her guests to their saveral quarters, Frau Kreutzmann prepared to see Winnfffed up to her room. This vraa a little act of kindly attention whioh she and her nieces performed every night as hj*variably as the clock struck ten. To-night, however, late as it was, they lingered at ihe foot of the- stairs, as if there was something yet to be done. ‘Are yon too tired to go in search of he Blue Closet, ' liete ’ Wintifred ?’ said i 3renda. ‘ You would hots me believe that there is •a Blue Closet ?* ‘Can you doubt it ?’ said Frau Kreutzmann. ‘ You have the key.’ I ‘ Which opeas nothing. ’ But the girls protested that the key was actually the key of ths Blue Closet ; so humoring what seemed to her a somewhat pointless jest, Wianffesd suffered herself to be conducted from corridor to corridor, from door to door, always trying the key, and always trying in vain. At length their roraad brought them to Winnlfred’s own door, and Winuifred’s own door, it will be r> memSrered, was last but one at the extreme end of the- upper corridor. Here, then, bxr quest mast terminate. 4 So there is no Bine Closet after allt’ ' Nay, dear child, you must persevere till yon find it,’ said Frau Kreutzmann. 4 But neither Christine's room nor my own Is a blue Closet; and the end room is empty, how can I persevere farther, unless by going out upon the roof ?’ * Brave heart holds fast to the last; faint heart fails on the threshold,’said Katchon, quoting a Bavarian proverh. ‘ Why not try the end room ? ’ said Brenda. 'Ah I—it is the end room I’ She was tired, perhaps a little weary of the fruitless jest; but something in Brenda’s look and tone roused her cariosity. The door of the end room was locked. She listened; bat all was silent within. Th«n she turned the key ; and for the first time look and key fitted. * Some one la inside !’ she said, drawing back quickly. * No one, dear child.’ 4 But I see a light!’ 4 What of that ? Nay, go in fear nothing 1’ Fear I Did Frau Kreutzmann suppose that she was afraid ? Granted, that her heart was heating a trifle quicker, it was with anticipation—not fear. She smiled, turned the handle, and went in.

The empty room was an empty room no longer. It was a sculptor's studio and a lady’s boudoir in one. There were flowers in the windows, engravings on the walls, warm rugs on the floor; in one corner a stove, a piano, and a writing table ; yonder a couch for rest—an easel for work—casts to draw from—books to study. ‘Well, my child—web, dear Frank in,’ said Fian Krentzmann. delightedly. What say yon to the Herr Baron’s Christmas present? What do you think of your Blue Closet ?’

Chaptib XLIX. IN THE ENOLISHER OAH TEN.

•By Heaven I I don’t know how lam to wrench myself away. And yet, when the hour comes, I suppose I shall take my ticket and my seat, apologise to my opposite neighbor for the length of my legs, and look out of the window when the train moves off, with a face as stolid as if I was not leaving half my life and all my hopes on the banks of the Isar !’

‘ Whilst I, being only a woman, may lock myself into my room and cry my eyes out. That is, at all events, one of onr few privileges—we can howl without disgrace.’ . They were rambling in the Englischer Gerten, beyond which, on the other side of the river, the Kreutzmann’a lived. Having had their portraits taken the other day by a Munich daguerreotypiet, they had this morning fetched the miniatures from the studio ; two of those exquisitely delicate and tenderly tinted heads on silver plates which we are, with so much j nstics, admired for a few years, while they were in fashion. And now, although it was midday, and Winifred was due at the pastor’s dinnertable, the lovers still went lingeringly to and fro nnder the big trees whose barren bonghs, clear out against the sunshine, marbled the path with shadows. For Lancelot was going back to England by the evening mail; and this was their last walk together. They had the place to themselves, too ; for it was universal ‘ mittag's-essen’ in Munich ; and street, and squares, and parks were all deserted- There was no one to observe them ; no one to listen to them. They conld ramble and talk as they pleased—such disjoined,' delicious talk as lovers are wont to indulge in ; all retrospect and project, all castle-building and dream weaving, interspersed with ‘Do yon remember ? 1 and ‘ kid you suspect ? ’ and ‘ Shall you ever forget ? ’ ‘ I can’t say that I ever yet arrived at howling point,’ sid Lancelot, replying to Winifred's exposition of the privileges of her sex ; * but I know I felt bad enough that day when I left you sitting in the porch, and knew I should not see you again for a week. Yon remember how I lingered ? I conld not bear to say ’ Good bye.’ My heart was filled with an immense tender, ess and pity for yon. I longed to take you in my arms —to tell yon how I would try and make up for all you had lost. Yet I dared not. Yonr sorrow seemed to stand between us, Bat I took your hand, dearest Do you remember ? I took yonr hand, and while I held it, I said to yen—silently, but with such intensity of purpose that I conld actually hear the words in my mind—‘l love you—l love you—l love you 1’ I wanted to make you feel what I was saying. If you had looked at ms, you would have known it all; but you never lifted your eyes. You did not even say, ‘Good bye,’ ‘ I tried ; but the words would not come.’

‘ Did the week seem long to you ? It seemed like a month to me. Ah, if you had known with what a heavy heart I turned away?’ * You thought I did not care ?’ *By Jove I I didn’t know what to think. You let me go without a look—without a word. *

* But I waited in the porch—thinking you would come back.’

‘Had I known that, I would have come back, though I had got half way to Munich!’

* But yon rode away ; and I listened till the last echo of your horse’s hoofs died in the distance. How lonely I felt when I conld hear them no longer ! ’ ‘ And you will be lonely again when I am gone ! ’ ‘ Lonely—yes ; but it will not be the loneliness of desolation, as that was You will write to me, and I shall write to you. There will always be a letter to receive or to answer. And the Kreutzmancs will be very good to me ; and, above all, I shall have occupation ! You don’t know how hard I mean to work, or how I will strive to make the most of Herr Kruger's teaching. I shall want you to praise my progress when you come back at Easter ! ’

‘But, my dear love, how shall I judge of your progress ? You forget that you hare never allowed me to see a sing’e sketch,’ ‘ Uow could I show my feeble attempts to a great artist like yon ?’ Now when Winifred called him a ‘ groat artist,’ Lancelot, as if by way of protest, drew her hand through his arm, and there held it, caressingly. ‘Ah, no!’ he said. ‘I am not a greet artist. I shall never be a great aniat—now ’

rhe looked up inquiringly. The momentary shade of hesitation, of regret, caught her oar at once.

‘Why “now?”’ she said. ‘What do you mean by “ now 7 ” ’ ‘ I mean that the conditions of my life ar; changed, and changed in a way that is fatal to my prospects as a paiuier. Art tolerates no divided duty. A man must give his whole soul to It—his whole time—-

his whole powers of observation, of memory, of comparison, of study. Erei' to, the thing he does must always fall short of the thing he had hoped to do. The greates t painters who ever lived, spent their lives, w.e may b« certain, in the vain pursuit of on nfiattain* I able ideal. But, at all events, they .did so spend their lives. They worked at least aa hard as if they had been masons, fir plumbers, or joiners. Now, my chances of doing snob fair and hornet work arir over. I am no longer free. I have other duties—duties dry and distasteful enough for the most part; but thev are duties, and I cannot escape from them.’ ‘ What sort of duties ? And why needt they interfere with yocr art that you sodearly iove ? Do yon mean your Parliament tary duties ? 3urely there arc Lords enough *t Westminster to pass bills and make' speeches, without you ?’ 'I don’t mean my Parliamentary duties, r be said, smiling,. 4 though they mint; ot course, count for something. I mean my' duties as a landlord There is a world of' work of one sort and another involved in? the management of ai large estate; and in- ; my case, owing to the peculiar c:rcnmstane n a of the last four years, She work falls just so' much the heavier. If on have no idea of the arrears of business I shall have to wide' through when I get back to England.’ 4 But when that wadifig is done and over r yua-wilp Be free to take up your own work again ?’

‘ 2 shall never be free, my darling, as I • was- before, said Lancelot, with a B igh. * How isit’possible ? Look* at the tenants —conM'l leave their interests in the bands' of stewards and lawyers ? I must do as Cnthbert woaid have done—mud what ’ 1 1 know ho intended to do There is his pet project of red aiming the Danebury Ma-ahes that will bs the work of year*. Above all, there are those wretched ‘dark folk,’ who ' need reclaimiftg more than the Marshes.’ ‘Yon will never succeed in cfvilisine the dark folk.’

* I mean to tty, anyhow. Think of what they are—a predatory horde, as ignorant as savages, as lawless as banditti. Blow can I harbour snch a-godleas lot, and not try to make them better ? If ever a plain doty stared me in tbo fsoe, Winifred, it is thie. ’ And then he went on to tell her of the things ho purposed doing On a certain part of the moor, where springs were abundant and the soil was less barren than elsewhere, he meant to found 1 a new oolony. This colony—it would be too widely scattered to be called a village—would consist of a number of detached, cottages, dotted here and there over the space of about two square miles ; each with its bit cf garden ground, and all within easy distance of a small obnrch and school'bouse. The cottages once built, he meant to pull down all the old cabins, so compelling b : g ‘dark-folk’ to settle down into something like a community, This done, it would be comparatively easy to draw their children >to the schoolbonsa ; and though the parents would pro. bably bo irreclaimable to the last The young ones would, at all events, grow up in habits of decency and order, thus a new condition of things would gradually be established, and in the oonrse-of another generation or two, the vagabond traditions of the race would be forgotten. * Yon and I may not live to aee it, Winifred,’ said Lancelot j ‘ but one grandchildren will surely do so*’ ‘ It is a good work,’ said the girl, warmly. ‘ I would not have you leave it - undone for all the world ! ’

‘And then I have thought that the church and school-house might stand there,-dear, in remembrance, . . . ' His voice faltered. 4 In remembrance of—Cuthbert P’ -

‘Ayj in remembrance of Cuthbert. 1 I have sketched a design for the'bnildings, and I have sent it to an architect for correction. It will be an out-of-the-way spot to live In ; but there will be real work to do, and an earnest man—such a man as your {fiend, Mr Pennefesther, for instance—would not think his life ill spent in doing it.’ Winifred looked up eagerlyj as if about to speak ; but checked herself, and waited.

‘lt seems premature to talk of giving away the living before the church is built,’ said Launcclot; ‘ but I think you 1 would perhaps like mo to offer it to Mr Pennofeather.'

‘ Oh, Launcelot! It is what I would have asked, if I had dared.’

* I cannot afford to make it worth his acceptance. I mean. In fact, to devote the revenue of the past four -years to these matters. The money has besn aoenmaIsticg in Marrables’ bands, and I, of coarse, have not touched a penny of it, It makes a big snm altogether—more than enough to drain the marshes, bnild the now colony, and endow the living. I suppose the Fennefeathers would think themselves passing rich with a snug vicarage, a dozen acres of glebe, and fonr or five hundred m year ?’ (To be continued on ■Saturday.')