LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2372, 9 November 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

FAI MBR TUBB’S REVENGE.

( Concluded) The slow days spent themselves and Farmer Tubbs moved in his wont-.d routine ; a little paler and weaker, but daily gaming strength Ha was restless, however, and ■was often observed to take from hu packet newspaper cuttings an'l read them diligently. The man Ephraim Biggies was committed for trial at the Assizes, and when the day came round Farmer Tubbs would fain bo there to see. The Court was crowded, for the case had excited much interest. The prisoner, with a worn and wearv look upon his face, pleaded -‘Not guihy ” in a hard mechanical to m. During the whole trial his thoughts seemed to be wandering, and it was ■with apparent < tl'>rt that ho brought them back to attend to the evidenca xhat was given The p lints of the css's as sworn by the various witnesses and by Samuel Leggat. were to the ett'sot that Leggat, a widower now for two years, fived alone in his cottage, and that ho was reported to have a good bit of money hidden away somewhere; that _» neighbor, Mrs Benson, who looked after his domestic affairs for a few hours daily, had on the day in question left his house as tho clock was strik ng one; that ho had bolted the front door after her, and had then gone to work in his garden. A few minutes afterwards he thought he heard someone moving in the house, and, hastening to see who It could be, he had found a man, with hia back towards him, rifling hia bureau, which had been broken open. He uttered an exclamation ; the man turned, and at one blow felled and stunned him. Ho knew no more. He could not swear positively that the prisoner was the man, but he was like him. Two or three witnesses swore positively that they had seen the prisoner on the evening before the assault, lurking In a dry ditch near the cottage, and had asked him what ho was doing, to which he had replied that he was only resting a bit, as he had twenty miles to go. r ne witness, a milkmaid, said that he had asked her for a drink of milk, and had ■told her he had not a halfpenny in the world, that he hoped to get some the next day, and if he failed he should do something desperate. A police constable deposed to finding him on the day after the assault at Oolsoy Green, sleeping in a barn, and had ■taken him into custody on a charge of being there for an unlawful purpose. He had then noticed blood stains on his hands and -clothes. These stains had been examined by s medical man, and were pronounced to be human blood. The prisoner was undefended. He asked but few questions, and those in a careless and Indifferent way. He admitted being in the lane on the night preceding the burglary, having conversed with several witnesses, and ha acknowledged that the substance of hia conversation had been given accurately enough. Some mistakes had been made, but what did it matter ? Ha had never entered leggat’s cottage, he said, and at the time the assault took place he was twenty miles away, for he had walked the greater part of tho night. Asked if he had any witnesses to call, ha said, ‘No, none.’ The Judge was about to sum up. when a clear voice was heard from the back of the court—‘ My lord, ay csn tell suthln’ about this.’ At the sound of this voics the prisoner started, his face became ashy white and rigid, the eyes fixed; he clutched the dock convulsively, and stood visibly shivering, and with suspended breath. Through the whole court, for an Instant, there was a dead bush, and every eye was riveted on tho prisoner. In that Instant farmer Tubbs bore witness that on the 23rd of July, at one o’clock p,m., the prisoner, Ephraim Biggies, had been with bim, twenty miles away from the scene of the burglary’ In the simplicity of his honest boul he had believed that this would be enough, that the prisoner would be at once discharged, and he had determined to tell no more. But the lawyers wormed the whole story out of him, and though he writhed under the torture of the question, he knew no arts of prevarication or falsehood. The substance of what was elicited by the in genuity of the lawyers, and the subsequent Inquisition of Mrs Tubbs—who was destined to have her way in this as in other matters —may be told in a few words. Ephraim Digglea was a younger brother of farmer Tubbs, and had once been the petted, spoiled, and self-willed joy of a widowed mother. He had, as a young man, betted and gambled, till his portion was wasted ; he had then been assisted more than once by his brother, who some years ago had supplied him with the means of emigrating He had gone to California, and had for a time done well; but his passion for play had again ruined him, and, loathing himself for his weakness and folly, he had caused a report of his death to be sent to his brother, And had assumed the name of Ephraim Digglea, which he had once seen on a Midland tombstone and had remembered. For several years he had lived a miserable, hand-to-mouth life; till a few months ago a great heart hunger seized him to see his native land again ; to look on the old farm where his happy boyhood was passed ; perhaps to grasp a brother’s hand, and to obtain the means of making, though late, a saart in a new and better life.

He had tramped down from Liverpool to Essex on foot, expending his last coin on the way, and getting for his only meal on the last day’s jonrney the drink of milk at Oakstead. In a feverish and irritable frame of mind and body he had accidentally encountered his brother, and had made himself known to him. lam able to give, nearly in his own words, John Tubbs’ account of that interview, as related some months afterwards. He was a man of education superior to his elder brother, and In knocking about the world had lost his provincial accent. ‘ That night at Oakstead,’ he said, ‘ I had almost given np the hope of reaching Lykeham, and resigned myself to lie down and die by the road-side. Some of those good fellows who stopped to speak to me I know would have given me a crust had I asked them; but the memory of the last time I was at Oakstead, with money in my pocket and hope in my heart, came upon me strongly, and I should have choked had I tried to beg there. But when that buxom girl came by with her milk pail, there was something so kindly in the tone of her voice that it broke down my reserve. * Yow look tired, maister,’ she said, * I am tired,’ I answered, hoping she too would go on and leave me to my wretchedness.

* Hev yon come fur ?’ she asked. ‘ Ay, lass,’ said I, ‘and I am afraid I’ve come on a useless errand after all.’

* How fur,’ she enquired, * her you come to-day ?’ * A matter of thirty miles, I guess,’ said I ; ‘ but I’ve been walking as much, or more than that, every day for a week, and I’m nearly dead beat.’ * Yow nivver reckon to goo no furder tonight, du yow V she asked with such womanly compassion in the tone, that I oould have cried like a baby. ‘Yes, my good girl,’ said I; ‘I have twenty miles more to do, and I must do them while I can put one foot before the other.’ * I’m woundly sorry fer yow, maister,’ she said simply ; ‘is there anything ay ken dn fer yow V ‘ Nothing,’ I said, ‘ unless you think you may give me a drink of that milk. ’ ‘ A y,’ she answered, ‘ay ken du that, and yow’re kindly welcome to it. Here’s wishing it was more I could dn,’ she added as she handed me a tinful.

‘ I walked on the strength of that milk all the night, but I walked slowly and painfully, and when in the morning I caught sight of the dear old hills again, and saw .Lykeham spire rising over the trees, the joy that stirred in me was hardly so strong as the sense of shame at the thought of the mother who had nursed me within sound of the village bells, of the good brother whose love to me had been so constant, and of all the opportunities I had so recklessly thrown away.

* Had my physical strength been greater, I think I should, after all my toilsome journey down, have turr ed and hidden myself in some remote and obscure place. As it was, I crept into Charnock Copse to rest for a bit, and there, utterly worn out with fatigue and prostrate with weakness. I lost all consciousness for an hour or two. It must have been past noon when I woke, and staggered out into the road. My legs trembled under me, and the dear old landscape swam before my eyes. ’l'hree sailors were passing at the time, and one of them called out to me — ‘What cheer, mate ?’ ‘ Devilish bad,’ said I.

‘Ay, ay, mate,’ he said, ‘yo don’t look nothing to boast of. What’s amiss with you, man ?’ ‘Hunger and thirst, and weariness, and

bitter thoughts,’ I snarled out; ‘everything’s amiss with me.’ ‘ Are you near homo, mate ?’ one of them asked.

‘Very near,’ I said, for I thought I was going to die. 1 Well, cheer up then, my hearty. Here take a pull of this, and it’ll help you to weather the breeze.’ He handed me a bottle of rum, and I drank greedily. * Have another swig,’ said he when I gave tho flask back ; * there’s more where that came from, ain’t there Bill ?’ I drank again, and tho spirit ran like liquid fire through my veins. I felt as though I had the strength of ten men, but everything jarred upon mo. The sailors struck up a song as they left me, and I ground my teeth as I listened, in a fit of nervous irritability such as I had never known before. A blackbird started noisily from the hedge near mo. and I was conscious of a savage desire to wring its neck, at the same time that I cursed myself for my brutality. More than ever I felt ashamed and unable to show myself to my brother Thomas. I thought I would go down to the brook and bathe my head. One of the laborers had left a spud near the gate where I entered the meadows, and I seized it to steady my steps, but I had not reached the water when suddenly 1 came upon Thomas. ‘He did not know me; how should be, haggard and wretched-looking as I was, and having believed me for years to be dead ? I do not know if you will understand me when I say that my nervous irritation, so intense and uncontrollable, though all the time I knew It to be preposterous and unreasoaable, was increased when ho stood before me, the picture of hearty, jolly, robust health, and called out to me in his genial voice— _ * Hallo, my man, what are you doin’ here ?’

‘ I’m doing no harm,’ said I. surlily, ‘ Mebbe, mebbe,’ he said ; ‘but there ain’t no path through these madders. You marn’t come here.’

The utter absurdity of my feelings_ are a wonder to me now. There was nothing to take offence at, and I knew it well. Yet his healthy happy face and his patent prosperity came upon me in its salt and bitter contrast, almost like a personal wrong, and to be ordered off the old meadows where I had played with him so often maddened me. ‘ What’s your name ?’ he asked, and I felt still with that sense of wrong that made me angry with myself and with him and everything, that he was regarding me with cariosity, though without recognition. •Ephraim Biggies,’saidl, giving the name I had assumed ever since I was cruel enough to send him home a false account of my death.

‘ You bsan't from these parts ?’ ‘No.’ ‘And where du yew come from? And where are yew goin’ tu ?’ he asked. ‘ What the devil hfis that to do with you I’ I asked fiercely. I can’t tell what a strange rush of feelings came over me—anger, shame, bitter remorse, a whole legion of devils seemed to have possessed me. There was something of my former self, though, I suppose, In the tone in which I answered, though, I suppose, in the tone in whioh I answered, for Thomas cried out—- ‘ Lord a mussy me, man. How yow dn mind me n’ summon as is dead and gone ! Why, it can’t nivver be Yow ain’t Jack Tubbs, are yow? God’s sake, man, let’s look at yow.’ The dear old fellow’s voice quivered, and I could feel his band tremble as he placed it on my shoulder. Knowing what yon know, I can hardly expeot you to believe me when I say that I felt his great love then to be infinitely precious, but a black wave of selfloathing swept over that feeling ; it seemed to touch every better impulse, as one after another rose swiftly in my mind, and to change it to something fiendish and dread. A moment more he had mo In his arms, and was pressing my devilish heart to his honest, manly breast, and was sobbing over me, and calling me ‘Jack, dear Jack 1’ and laughing and crying, now holding me from him to look in my face, now drawing me closer and closer; he was wild with joy. And this after all that I had done, and all that I had bean. Ho was ready to give more than the prodigal son’s welcome to the prodigal brother.

* Come along np to the farm, Jaok,’ said he, ‘my missis ’ll be waitin’ dinner by this time. Yow shall tell me all about it as we goo along. ’ I had never doubted, all that dreary Atlantic voyage, nor all that weary tramp from Liverpool, that Tom would forgive me sooner than I should forgive myself. ‘He will come round,’l had said to myself thousands of times. I had not looked for such a frank overwhelming reception as this, and yet that fiery devil In my blood, against which reason and affection were fighting, made me petnlent, fractious, irritable, unreasonable. ‘ No, Tom,’ I said. ‘ I won’t come up to the farm. Give me a little money that I may go and get something to eat and drink, and then when I am more myself I will tell yon all, and you shall consider whether you can give me a new start. I don’t deserve It, and 1 won’t pretend that I do.’ * Not come np to the farm, man!’ said he ; ‘ d—n it I you shall, ef I carry yow myself,’ and he stretched out his strong loving arms as he spoke. 1 started back. That oursed spud was in my hand ; I don’t know what the impulse was, but I swung it round violently, and there at my feet lay the gentlest, noblest, and tenderest brother god ever gave to man—dead, as it seemed to me ; dead by my own hand; stricken down in the very act of pouring out on me in his rough, honest fashion the treasures of bis love. What followed is a blank to me. I have a confused recollection of rushing madly over the country, I knew not, cared not where. I must have sunk down at last where I was found in sheer exhaustion. I had taken no food or drink for oight-and-forty hours, nothing but that drink of milk and those accursed spirits; and little enough I had had for days before that. I woke in the hands of the police with the sense of a hideous nightmare upon me. Slowly it all came back to my mind. I never doubted that my blow had proved fatal, and when Thomas came forward in Court my first thought was that his angry spirit had been permitted to come and reproach me. So In effect, and nearly in these words, Jack Tubbs told his story. There was some little delay, which the good farmer had not anticipated, in procuring his acquittal. Other witnesses had to be summoned to confirm the good fellow's statement; and the judge, an austere man, even urged upon him the duty of prosecuting his brother for assault, in the interests of society. The audacity of the suggestion quite took away the farmer’s breath, and so prevented his giving utterance to language of unprecedented strength which would certainly have ensured hla committal for contempt of Court. bis arms were open as ever to receive the brother who had been lost and was fonnd, who had bean dead and was alive again. He took for him a farm in the same county—for farmer Tubbs is a well'to-do man, and has no children—and In it Jack is now a thriving man. Mrs Tubbs has never been brought to receive him or to listen to any excuses made for him, and this is the only drop of bitter in the honest farmer’s happiness. * I told you I’d know who it was, Thomas,’ said she, ‘ and I wish him hanged, whoever it was. Howsomever, seeing ye are all right again, I don’t want to bear no malice, and I don’t wish him no ill ; bnt don’t let him come nigh me, for I couldn’t ahear it. It dares me to think ov what he done, and I knaw if ever we meet I shall give him a ohioe ov my mind, such as might breed ill blood.’

* Yow are too hard on 'im, mother,’ was the reply ; ‘he whs a kind a light headed when he done it, and even then ’twas more accident than anything else. But yow shan’t be pressed about it, YonTl come round i’ time.’

As yet, however, Mrs Tubbs shows no signs of ‘ coming round.’