LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2267, 8 July 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A BL '^OKBPITH'S LOVING. " Prairie Farmer." I it.VD resolved, with many persons no doubt who had thaken off its yellow dust, never to visit the dismal little town of Bloomsbury again. It was so callel, perhaps, because of utter lock in vegetation, and because of Its being a Sahsra of rod clay roads and sandy pUins, over which sickly shrubs and vinee strove and knotted together. I had left it in July, with a dull, hot sun cracking and Beaming thi dry marsh leadiDg to the town, and felt as if spared the commission of a crime bv the sudden telegram whish recalled me to the city. I whipped my horse into a mad gallop, and looked neither to the riniht nor left, animated by a vague wonder aa to how anvone existed there. , Again it was July, and by a singular chain o' circumstances I foend myself ambliDg leisurely on horseback down tho dusty high street of Bloomsbury. The same red sun w;is blistering the piint on the little new post otbcD, and the same brawny blacksmith wiped the owoat from his brow before his forge, and stopped work to stare at me In a vacant way. . I had passed some idle hours in hia shop before, and after a stolid scrutiny he recognised me. . . * Back again, 'squire ?* he asked, giving me a familiar nod. 'ltbe a matter of three years now since I shod your grey mare in the off hind foot.' He wns evidently proud of this piece of memory. , , , « Fully that,' I said, again wondering how he had ensured all these days and nights in this Godforsaken spot. He raised his muscular arm, and with a blaokened finger pointed to the tiny gables of a house near «I be married since. I've got a boy up thera, an' he'll be a smithy I reckon, though hii mother is inclined to tho trnde of shoe shrines, tapes, and the like. I hate it, Ido Thnm be all white-skinned, creamy with no grit in them.' I had never deemed it a possibility that there could be marrying or giving in marriage here. In this respect Bloomsbury resembled heaven in my saoreligious mind. Perhaps the 'old, old story' of love had made it a paradise to the young blacksmith. . , I gave my horsa a brief rest and a drink from the good fellow's trough, as I inquired the current news of the town, though, the Lord knows, nothing could be further from my thoughts than to care what news there was. I had seen but once, for a moment, a face which even faintly Interested mo in that horrid place, and try as hard as I would, I could never drive away that vision. I had strolled Into the little yellow church one sultry day to escape the thunder storm which was rapidly coming up from the west, and stepped Into the porch jnst aa the first heavy drops pattered on the roof, and on the bleached grass about the tumbleddown headstones In the yard. It was indeed a lovely face which appeared aa a pate f.tar in the orßan-loft, among common-place, tawny-featured faces, with black and brown ringlets streaming around thorn. She did not blush or return my gaze coyly, as young girls are wont to do in country places, but looked over and beyond me in a pitiful, vacant, meaningless way. I don't know whether she woto pink, or blue, or lavender. It was a cloudy, filmy sort of dress, admirably suited to her large gray eyes and rings of yellow hair. Her bonnet was a sweet little thing, tied up with white ribbon. Her ohin was like alabaster, her cheek was scarcely losa pale.

I lingerod in the ohuroh porch after the congregation had trooped out and the sexton had shuttered np the gloomy little edifice. I had stupidly missed her in the throng, or she had gone out at the ohoir entrance. I bad forgotten the Incident directly, and remembered it now only as young Jansen, the brawny Norwegian, spoke of his wife and baby. •There was a rather pretty young lady h«rothree years ago,' I said, biting a pieceof rice strvw, and looking over the pollard window at the church steeple. ' A pale, white girl in a straw bonnet. An indescribable flush mounted to his -swarthy cheek and stained his brow. He dropped the hammer with a sharp clang, and let hia iron cool while ha looked at me threateningly for an instant. The tigerish green faded from his eye, and left a dull, red glare. ' She wob considered handsome then. I know who you mean. * * I hope she is as pretty still. That was a face I thought a man might see over hia tea urn every day for a lifetime and not tire.' ' Do you think bo, verily V asid Jansen, sending up a shower of sparks "It be all owing to how the face looks at you. If it be with! dead, cold eyes and icy Hps—why, man. death itself at times could not match it. It was a sweet face to hang in a locket.' With jjreat simplicity he had expressed my thought. • Now, your wife,' I said in a bantering way ; ' I dare say she is a smart girl, given to teasing yon, and coming to meet you with your son on her back, and then you three romp away home again.' A sigh of anguish burst from the honest fellow's bosom, and for the first time it dawned on me that in some way I was blunderingly torturing him. I began to taik of other things, and strolled away with my bridle ou my arm until I reached a little gritty stoneyard, where a gritty fellow with daaty eyelashes used to Bing at his work of making grave stones. He was at it still, evolving a Roman-nosed angel in a smock frcck from a block of granite. He was by all odds the merriest fellow in Bloomsbury, acd the gossip of the country. He had many things to relate relative to his trade, and many Inquiries to make relative to the rascals it wa? my business to hunt down. He declared himself very sorry that circumstances had made a stonebreaker of one whom fate clearly meant for a detective. Ha had a pair of pinkish eyes, deeply aet under shaggy brows, aud a face brim full of duplicity and conceit. He could climb like a cat, he told me, and could scale a lichened wall like a lizird. Presently he said that he had seen me talk to a man for whom he had a great contempt —the blaoksmith. This was very droll. I foresaw that the stone- breaker must have at Borne time Injured the Norwegian. He told me at great length a long scandal In which Jansen had mixed himself up. He had married a half-idiot girl and fathered her child, whose father no one had ever seen or heard of, and carried around with him a ponderous threat to kill any man, woman, or child who should speak lightly of hia wife. 'All th it I say makes him a great ass—tliis blacksmith—the more so because he i-3 a porr man and keeps his idiot like a lady, with white-rlngf d fingers aud in stuff gowns instead of linsey ; and, bless you, he baa given up ail hi? ways, dropnsd all his pipes and drinks at the public house for the sake of a wench who utters nothing but sighs. This Norwegian of yours is a prime calf, Mr Detective.* This Norweaisn was a lord, a demi god a philosopher, a humanitarian, whose bulk overshadowed puny meri, such as the gravostone maker and I, as a great tree would overtop a g-.imac. Now I could understand all the mean little doggers I had driven into his heart a while ago—this great, splendid fellow, who wore hia heart in his sleeve f r jackdaws to pick at. Bit by bit during the next two days I gathered the whola sad history of his marriage. There had been no courtship at all. The poor girl's people had cast her off, being Puritans who wore grey gowns and slept in nightcaps. She had not a friend in the world and was in a sore strait, being in urgent Deed of women friends and medicine. Ugel Jansen went to her with the smoke sad grim of hia forge on hia face and hands and spoke very feelingly and simply to her. She went away with him to the minister, and TJgel's Bister, with muoh horror, but wholesome fear of Jansen, took charge until all was over. Daily and hourly Fgel watched by her, asking nothing in return, and by and by he give the baby whom all luted his big brown finger to hold, and the little fellow slept in peace. All this made Ugel the sport of the village and furnished the town an ever lively scandal, but it waa talked of In a smothered way. Jansen had the strength •f an ox, and kept it solely to lavish on •Be man when he should find him. I I oooceived the notion to help him In this I project. '

My mare understood her business well enough about this t.me to cast a shoe. JTanaen was not at the forge, the Bhop was dosed, and I was directed to hi 3 house, a retired little spot, with a cluster of clove pinks In a tiny plot in front. The poor wife's baby was ill—dying — with a bunch of clove pinks on his pillow and Janaen's finger fastened in his cold little fist. Mrs Jansen sat still and gazed vacantly at Ugel, while ho shivered as witn an ague. Perhaps he had prayed to God to fake back that child. He had done nobly by it, though, and now he was even sorry. It was the same pure pale face of the organ loft, surrounded by a tangled mass of curls of a rare dead gold hue, and the sight of her gave me a JaDsen unlocked tho little hand and scattered the pinks recklessly. Then he bent over hia wife and said, aootningly : ' Come into the air, AdelaideJane will take care of baby—he will be all right now.' bhe got up mechanically, and they met me at the door. The sight of mo had a strange effect. She began to remember days before her sorrow. She put her hand to her heart, and with a great cry fell at Janaen's feet. Afterwards she was sane and begged of him to let her go away at once —forever. She thought he must loathe her. He held her fluttering little hand to his lips while a big tear fell on their wedding ring. • You've had a great blaok wrong, lass ; when I have righted tbat you may go, if you wish. Until then I am your brother — nothing higher nor better. lam not fit for such as you. Such as I am you have me bound body and eoul.' He came away with me, and in the shop began to whet up a huge knife. ' Tho poo: little wretch be gone now. Janßen referred to that other man's child. He smiled in an ugly way at the broad, keen j blade of the knife, and passed his fingers down it caressingly. _ * Long ago,' he said, speaking with a bitter tasto in hia mouth, * Adelaide had spells of B l e ep_she could net wake. She slopt la a little place in the turret of her father's house. He was tho curate here. He is a damned devil, though.' Jansen began at the knife again. ' ' Some one scaled that wall. I must fand that man. Then 1 will restore her good name —and I will leave this place —there is a ' curse of the earth here.' ' I will help you,' I said, simply. Me grasped my hand and shut up the shop and put a huge chair across the door. He was going out indefinitely. I went toward the etone-breakor'a yard. His shaft was still, and a thin bit of steam arose from a damp stone on which the hot sun steamed. •.»_»..» A boy near by rigging a line to catch tadpoles Baid that.Beocord, the mason, had gone to stop the coping in the third story of Tyler's mill, where the rooks had started it. It was a dangerous steep place, and Beccord was the only fellow who could climb and oarry mortar. He had been a sailor once in French waters. I had well-nigh forgotten my own affairs in this time, but my game was safely housed at a little resort out of Bloomsbury. At six o'clock all the bells in the place rang sharply, and housewives put on fresh aprons. I met Jansen at the end of the street leading to the mill Bis looks frightened mo. He told me briefly that he had followed Beccord, who, looking down from his narrow parapet, saw a terrible knife waiting him. Whether with intent or from frig'ot his foot slipped, and with a fearful cry the mason went down into the brawling race below, I dropped into the cottage after supper. I found Jansen and his wife sitting hand In hand In the poich. 'She be my wife now,' he said proudly. • She won't leave me, but I know I am not fit for her. lam a blacksmith.' She got up and left a kiss on his forehead. • And do you think my friend Ugel, that I am s > bise or ungrateful as to leave you ? Beside, I have nothing else. You forget that your goodness has made me love you.' Then he held her in his arms until the pinks were wet with dew. Jane was scandalized. I have never known a happier pair than Jancen and Adelaide.