LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2281, 25 July 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THE SACKFUL OF SOVEREIGNS. [From "London Society." Chapter 111. THE IUCK. (Continued.) ' I don't know how you are going to do it, Tom,'she answered sadly. 'When I think of how affairs stand with us all, there comes a great knock at my heart in the midst of my gladness at having you back again. What a great big fellow you have grown!— I can't help looking at you. I should never have known yon but for your eyes ; and they are, as always, exactly liko dear father's. You will be the Image of him 'when you are as old.' • Ah, in looks perhaps; but I am afraid that's all I follow him in,' answered the brother. ' I feel like a horrid brutu as I sit here, and remember the misery I caused the dear old chap. I can see him sitting over there where George is as plainly—ah well ! it's of no use talking about it; but I suppose if it hadn't been for me he would have managed differently about his money. Yes, 1 am the cause of the trouble all around. Yon would, no doubt, have been well off but for me.' ' I 'on't say so, Tom,' chimed in George, ' it's bad luck, but we can't tell; you must not accuse yourself of too mnch. You and I mutt go on working hard, that's all it cornea to.'

• Yes,' slowly answered the burly Bailor, after a pause ; but it's very strange to think that nobody baa any idea of what ho diu ■with all his savings. Dear heart 1 it's very j curious !' Then there was eilence for a long wbil '■•■ But when tho er.ndles came the talk went on again, rising at times into merriment, au t again lapsing to tho sadder key, but ever hinging of course npon tho return home, tho adventures abroad, and all that had happened during these, long years. Iho Christmas eve waned; little L'.ly weat to bed ; and, finally, bedtime came fo • all. Alice and George both saw their broth r up to the little room which for many days past had been ready for him. He never seemed weary of gazing about him at all the old familiar domestic objects—the passages, the stairs, the rooms. Just as they were bidding 'good Dight,' Tom turned to hiu sister and suid—'And the garden, Alice—la that much the same? All toe queer gnarled apple trees just as they wore?' 'Yob,' she answered; 'but I don't often go down there now ; it has been sadly neglected of late years.' ' And the doll's nest ?' went on the brother —'is that still in existence?' «The what ?' inquired George from tha threshold of the room where he was standing. 'The doll's nest,' repeated Tom. *Do you mean to oay that Alice never told you about the doll's nest? Why, we used to have rare fuu there I We used to sit in the doll's neat for hours together when she and I were children—didn't we, Alice ?' ' Never heard of it,' said George. ' Oh, it was only a queer old bole in tho largest apple tree,' broke in Alice ; ' it made a rough kicd of seat, and Tom t sed to lift me up into it, and put his arm round my waist, and hold me in alongside him, and wo usad to ca'l it the doll's nest, that's all. I have not given it a thought for years; but it is there still I have no doubt.' • Well, I have often thought of it,' said Tom ; ' thought of it when I've been thousands of miles away, the other Bide of the globe—thought of it and dreamt of it frequently, and you and I sitting in It, dear.' • Well, I have never heard of it,' repeated George j 'but goodnight, now, old boy. I'm very glad yon are back again, safe and sou ad, once more.' And not long after, everybody was fast asleep, and stillness reigned throughout the house. With ChrSstmaa morning the conversation seemed inclined to rise to the happy key. Everything favored a joyous tone of talk ; the sun shone bright and clear, and set the snow and the icicles sparkling like jewels. Little Lillian looked fresher and better, her mother said, than she had done for weeks. She thought her uncle's return had begun to act like a tonic on the child. Alice herself likewise seemed to have taken a dose of it, for there was a genuine happiness in her face to which it had long been a stranger. Aa to the sailor, ha had so brushed himself up, and polished bis brown cheeks with soap and water, that he was hardly recognisable for tho travel-stained wanderer of the evening before. George VVoodwyn alone had failed to catch this infection of beaming looks. He had a meditative absent sir about him, quite unusual, and ate his breakfast without seeming to know what he was doiDg. To all enquiries as to what was the matter he ancwered ' Nothing ' : there was nothing the matter with him, not a bit of it; but it took him some time even to reply thus much ; and tho Btrangeness of his manner continued long after breakfast was finished, and all the way to church, and was quite observable even in church ; and Alice went so far as to nudge her brother several times during the i service, as much as to say, 'Do you see how strange he is still ?' And Tom would respond by raising his eyebrows; and the ; child was caught by them both watching her father, and wondering what it could all mean. For, let it be clearly understood, I there was no expression of unhapplness on • hia face ; on the contrary, tnere was almost > a smile playing over it at times, as though ; he were thinking about some'hlng not altoi gether unpleasant that he could not forget. > When ohurch was over, and the party > were returning through the crisp clear air. ) everybody now a little silent under the > influence cf George's strange manner, he himself suddenly stopped in the middle of the quiet lane which was the short cut home. He planted his umbrella firmly down in front of him, as if to give additional force to something he was evidently about to say, and then/looking with the most serio-comic expression possible, first at his wife on the i left, and. then at her brother who was on the right, began—'l must tell you —I can'c keep it any longer. You will both laugh at me perhaps, , and I feel inclined to laugh at it myself, and yet It is no laughing matter. At first I ' thought I would not tell yon ; but I cannot ' shake it off, and so I must out with It. The faot is, I saw grandfather last night.' * Saw grandfather ! What do you mean ?' from both sides. 'What I say. I saw grandfather, old Mr Matthew Kiokman, as plainly as I ever saw him in my life.' 'Why, you are dreaming, George,' said his wife. 'Mo, you were dreaming,' cried Tom. ' Well, you may choose to say so, and to thinks.' went on the speaker, ' but there he was, standing at the foot of onr bed ; and if I was dreaming—why, then all life's a dream, for I never saw anything more real since I was born.' George was so earnest in his assertion, that the listeners were distinctly impressed. At least Tom was, for his sister soon began to laugh ; but the brother, on the contrary, grew graver and graver, and after fixing his eyes on the gronnd for a minute looked up inquiringly, saying, ' Bid he speak ? ' ' Yes, answered George seriously ; ' and that's what seems so convincing If I had I only seen him, I might have thought it a dream ; but I heard him as plainly as I saw him.'

* What did he say ? asked the Bailor, solemnly. ' Why, went on George Woodwyn, 'he said these wordH, thongh what on earth they meant I can't tell, but he said distinctly, "Bhoot an arrow from the doll's nest." Tom, giving a perceptible start, looked at his sister : she was grave now, and returned his look. Then, for a minute, they both seemed to be on the same traok of thought, and the family likeness, always strong between them, appeared stronger than ever, whilst the expression in each of their faces was identical. ' How odd 1 ' at length they both exclaimed in a breath. Alice continued : ' Don't ycu remember, Tom, we used to shoot with our bow and arrows down amongst the old apple and pear trees ? ' ' Of course I do,' was the answer ; ' have I ever forgotten those days ? and what's mora, don't you remember why we once shot an arrow from the " doll's nest " itself ? ' Alice dropped her eyes in thought for a second; then said, 'To be sure ; when we hid our money-box.' Her brother nodded: ' Ye?, and father saw üb, and laughed at our queer pranks.' Then there was another pause, when George, moving oa down the lane, said, ' Well, what has all this got to do with my dream, if you choose to call it a dream ?' But he received no answer for sever A moments, during whioh Tom was murmuring to himself again and again, as if in deep cogitation, ' Can it be possible ? can it be possible ?' * Can what be poieible ?' he was asked. 1 Just this,' he eaid : ' we had a common money-box, Alice and I, and we used to hide it down at the bottom of t'le orchard, in tho thickest corner of the underwood—buried it in fact ; and wo decided on the place we would hide it in first of all by shooting an arrow as we sat one day ia " the doll's nest," and the spot where the airow fell was to be the spot where we were to bury our box. Then, in order to find it again (because we never disturbed it till we had something to put into it, and so it was somt time left for a week or two together), I, with my tailor-like turn of mind, took the bearings ; that is. we were to get the old stask of twisted chimneys on the cottage exactly on a line with " the doU's nest," and then twenty yards straight away on that line, down towards the orchard wall, was the exact spot where we should find the box. "Why, Alice, you must remember all this surely,' urged the speaker warmly. ' Certainly,' she answered ; 'lt all comes back to me. now yon speak of it, vividly enough ; still, I don't quite see what it has to do with George's dream. ' No, nor I,' eohoed the husband.

'Be patient, and I'll tell you,' went on Tom, ' what I think it has got to do with it. Life at soa may make people superstitious. They say that sailors are so ; perhaps I am. I have dreamt and seen many queer things in my time not always quite easy to make out; but let that paBS. What occurs to me now is simply this. Aa I said, father knew of and saw our dodge about the money-box, and it may bo just possible that ia his lcttoidays, when he got a little queer aud cranky, as we know he did, and with his views about property and probate duties and bo on, that he may have remembered what we usfd to do, and have done something himself of tho same kind. It was this he was going to refer to, perhaps, when he began to write the words, "That my ohildren only may understand how tho main bu—" I say, it is just possible ; odd men do odd things ; who would ever have thought of his having £4OOO of gold stowed away just under his bed head ?'

Tom's reasoning so excited him that ho stopped suddenly, looking straight into space, saying, ' I suppose it has never entered your heads to have a look round abont the garden, to see if there were any signa of a hiding place V Of course it never had entered either of their heads, and they said so. •Then it has mine,' said Tom; 'and what's more, I'll have a look before I am an hour older. Dear heart! if I should be right after all. Come along.' They had reached by this time tho end of the lane where it passed round the lower part of the old moss-grown wall surrounding the cottage and grounds. At one of the angles there was a heavy nailed door. ' Can't we get in here ?' said Tom, giving it a poke impatiently with his stick. O, dear, no ; it hadn't been opened for years. The path on the other side had been long disused, and overgrown with bushes. (To be Continued.)