LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2218, 5 April 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MYSTERY

LOUD BRACKENBURY: A NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. EDWABDS, Author of “Barbara’s History,” ’‘Bebenbam's Vow.” &o. ( Continued .)

Mr Pcnnefeatber had by tbis time been made aware of the good fortune in store for him, and he had sent in his resignation of the onracy. ‘ I think they are very happy in their new prospects,’ wrote Lancelot. ‘ The way they received the offer was characteristic of both. Having an appointment with Marrables, I rode round by way of the Hermitage. They had just dined, and the things were still on tne table. Ho was standing before the fire, looking gaunt and care-worn, with something in his hand which 1 am sure was a bill. The baby was sprawling about on an old shawl spread upon the floor. Mrs Pennefeather was scribbling away at that little davenport by the window —doing, what do you suppose? Writing a sermon from dictation ! She said she often did so “to spare I erwent’s eyes.” Her own, poor little woman, looked as if they wanted test at least as much as his. Indeed I think she had been crying. I stated my business as briefly and in ae matter-of fact a stylo as possible. “ They will he a rough lot of parishioners, ” I said ; “And it will be a horribly dull hole for any parson to pitch his tent in ; hat the living is at your service, Mr Pennefeather, if you care to accept it.’’ He listened with his eyes fixed on the floor, and continued silent when I had done speaking. I saw the colour rush up into Mrs Pennefeather’s face. She looked at him, and clasped her hands nervously. Inconceivable as it seemed, T saw at onoe that she was afraid he weald decline. Finding he did not answer I spoke again. ‘ There will, at all events, be no lack of work on the moor,’ I said; ‘ and I know you are not afraid of work, Mr Pennefeather.” Then he spoke. “It is a great work,” he said; ‘'but it will demand a special gift of persuasion. I queAlon if I am worthy of the mission.” Xo this I replied that I knew no one so worthy ; and then, taking his acceptance for granted, I went on to speak about the dark folk, and the trouble I feared they would give him. “The living,” I said, “will be worth £SOO a year, besides thirteen acres of glebe. But you know we at poor stuff the land is up there; too much like the people, I fear—more prone to tares than wheat.” ‘ The tares must be rooted np and oast into the fire,” he said with energy. Then dropping his voice, he added, as if to himself —“ But if a blessing goes with the good seed it will grow—it will grow.” I vow to heaven, Winifred, I looked at the man with envy. Lifted in one moment oat of grinding poverty into comparative affluence, he yet thought neither of money, nor house, nor land, but only of the task to be done and the souls to be saved. But his words, at all events, showed that he accepted the duty, and that was enough. Mrs Pennefeather, meanwhile, had taken her baby in her arms, and was kissing it and crying over it, quite quietly, by the window. As for myself, I had a lamp in my throat that almost choked mo. However, I blurted ont something about being in an awful hurry and it was settled ; and than I just squeezed his hand, and—bolted ! I have seen a good deal of him since than, for we have many things to talk over and arrange ; and the more I see of him the better I like him. A more earnest, simple - minded, loveable fellow never breathed,”

It will be gathered from the foregoing extracts that Lancelot was busy enough in these days ; and that if his work was heavy and his worries were many, he at all events enjoyed the exquisite happiness of making others happy.

Chapter LIII. WHERE WAS ’TONIO MOBETTI ? Blood!

The boy belonging to the Trattoria, who came every morning to clean and sweep up, and old Anita, who at this season of the year was at her post as soon as it was fall daylight, were first to give the alarm. Then came Marla the serving maid, and Giusieppe the cook, quickly followed by the landlord and his family. And then scrambling ont of their beds, flinging open their windows, screaming shrill questions to those below, the lodgers, in various stages of undress, came scurrying down, almost tumbling over each other, and crowding to the gateway. Blood !

Whose blood? How shsd P When, and by whom ? What had happened under that dark arch in the dead of night, when the dwellers in the Osteria del Cappello were asleep in their beds ? Questions which all asked, and none seemed able to answer I 1/ murder had been done, it had been done so swiftly and silently that not a sound, not a cry had j.rred upon the stillness of the night. Stefano Beni, waking to the shrill clamour, did as the rest—ran to the window ; saw that something annual had happened, flung on his clothes, and hurried down. • What Is it all about ? What is the matter ? ’ he asked, first of one, then of another.

* Murder is the matter !’ ‘ There has been an assassination under the nrchway 1’ ‘ There’s blood on the stones!’ * Blood that’s not yet dry!’ He pushed his way through the crowd, and there, in truth, just midway of the gateway, lay an ominous crimson pool connected hy a trail with another and a smaller pool close against the street-kerb. < ’Tis blood, sure enough,’ said the wheelwright ; ‘ but I don’t see why it need mean murder. I b.ed as much from the nose one hot day last summer.’ There was an outcry of dissent. A murder it was, and a murder it should be 1 They were not going to be defrauded of their tragedy in that way. Darting forward with a sudden cry, one of the women stooped, snatched something from between the stones, and held it on high for all to see. * Dio I see here, neighbour Stefano 1 Was your bleeding brought on by such a thing as this ?’

It was a broken knife-blade about two inches and a half in length, and threequarters of an inch in breadth. The wheelwright looked grave, as well he might ; and the babble of tongues, checked for one second, broke out shriller than before. *lt looks as if It might have been sir inches long before it was snapped across,’ said the landlord, turning it th:s way and that. _ *ltis a dagger —it cuts both ways 1 cried the woman who had pickel it up, Stefaao Beni put ou his glasses. *lt is not a dagger,’ he said. It is a knife-blade, newly-ground to a double edge. ’ 4 Ground for tbe purpose! ’ said the landlord, solemnly shaking his head. And then again the woman shrieked that it was a murder —an assassination—a vandetta.

• But there is no blood on it,’ said Stefano Beni, drily. It was true. Tboro was no blood on it—not a smear ; not a spi ck! The thing seemed almost inc. edible. Here was the broken weapon of the assassin—yonder, the blood of the victim. How, then, conld the blade be unstained ? ‘ Che ! che I che ! ’ said wheelwright, contemptuously. ‘ Murders are not committed in this way; and men don’t generally walk away, to save folk the trouble of burying them 1 A drunken soullle, a broken knife, a rut finger, may be—and there’s your mir ler ! ’ The landlord put on his judicial air, ‘There’s more bicod here than ever came o! a cut finger,’ he B'dd 1 But can’t you do better than to stand staring and guessing? Where ie tho bar die and the rest of the olade ? Find that, and we should perhaps get a clue to the mystery. But there, it’s no good attempting to search, unless you all clear out of the gateway. Stand back, Monna Teresa—stand back, Giuseppe 1 By your leave, dame Gianctta. Come into thcourtyard, good friends, or go out Into the street, as you like hist ? Now, Lina Pczz",

since yonr eyes are so sharp, try If you can, find the handle! ’

Thus encouraged, the woman who had picked up the piece of broken blade went tcand fro, peering between the stones, and scraping over the rubbish drifts in the corners, and examining the contents of the street gutter outside; but for all her searching neither she nor any one else could find the other half of the weapon. ‘ If I lent you my spectacles, ’Lina Pczzi, maybe you’d discover the corpse,’ said Stefano Beni,

Poor as the joke was it raised a laugh, and changed the temper of the crowd. ' Murder or ro murder, I won’t waste ray time any longer,’ said the cobbler, shifting off to his stall.

‘Nor 1 mine,’echoed Basilo, the joiner; ‘ I’ve a coffin to finish before breakfast, and my customer won’t wait.’

‘And before I can earn a toldo to-day I must take my mare round to the blacksmith's to be shod,’ gr.-wled Paolo, the vetturino.

Then the landlord hade hi* lad fetch sawdust to soak up the blood, and a mop and a bucket of water to cleanse out the gateway, and presently the men dropped off one by one to their work; and old Anita lit her brazier and spread her chestnuts to roast ; and only Monna Teresa, Dame Uianetta, Brigitta and some others of the more inveterate gossips lingered and wondered and chattered till the last crimson stain was washed away. Sleeping at the bank of the house—sleeping soundly, too, after lying awake and weeping half the night-La Giulietta heard nothing of the clamour that roused her uncle in his bod chamber overlooking the courtyard. But she woke with a start, nevertheless, conscious that she had slept tio la‘e; that she had dreamed troubled dreams ; that something was wrong—though what that something was, she could not at first remember.

Then It all flashed back upon her memory. He was gone! Gone to share the perils of those who go down to the ssa in ships. , This was why her dreams had been all of | wrack and disaster. This was why she woko ? with that dead weight at her heart. t Bnt she must not begin the day with tears and terrors. She must get up quickly, and light a little fire of sticks and pine-coucs ; for Uncle Stefano has a big enp of hot boiled milk every morning before he goes off to his workshop in the Piazza Bra ; and that enp of milk and a dry crust are all the food he takes till mid-day, when he acmes home to dinner.

So 1 a Gulietta made haste with her simple toilet, and ran to knock at her unole's door as she went by. ‘ Uncle Stefano !’

But he was neither in his bedroom, nor in the onter room, nor in the balcony. JH e had got up without being called, and gone out without waiting for breakfast. ! To be continued on Saturday.)