LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2471, 8 March 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

ONLY TEN MINUTES ; OR, WHAT MY DREAM TOLD ME.

(Concluded )

‘Nightmare’s common and death’s common 5 it wou’d be otrango if they didn’t meet together now and then.’ * X dreamed of tho cholera cloud ; I saw a Chinese city. I did not know my unde was married ; and ye- X eaw him and a woman turn together Into corpse-candles, and die out together before my eyes. I seem to see it now. It was hideously grotesque, but I did not recover from it for a whole day.’ * Working too little and eating too mneb is as bad for the brain, yon’ll find, as working too much and eating too little. Anybody that knew George Kenrick would be sure to dream about a woman if they dreamed of him, just because of the way ho used to talk of them.’ ‘Nevertheless, it was a strange dream, oven in detail— ’ _ ~ *We can try that,’ said Dr. Menzles, getting interested. ‘ You say they were turned into corpse candles, burning one against the other. Did yon know which was ho and which was she ?’ •I knew them both to the end.’ * Then you can tell which of them burned out first. If you’re wrong, it will show that your dream was but a partial ooinci dence, just aa I say. You would naturally dream of a near kinsman, and be safe to dream of a woman for the reason I gave. Ton knew ha was In China, and might have seen in the newspapers —though you might have forgotten—that there was choler* In Shanghai. But y.« could scarcely know which died tho first, unleis I tell you ; for nobody was in tho two rooms where they died but a Presbyterian minister and myself.’ •Her candle went out the first,’said I. * I remember counting ten, and then his followed hers.’ * That's r*ght enough,’ said Dr. Menzies, a little surprised at lost. 'lt was she who died the first, and—you counted ten ? It was just ten minntas by the watch before he followed her. Well, all I can say is that —’ '• It’s something mere than strange? ’ * No, Mr Kenriok. It seemed a little strange at first, but on second thoughts, no 1 If you dreamed one went out before the other, it must have been one of the two, and it was no more than the chances of heads or tails which one it would be. If I throw up a penny and you guess heads, and it is heads, you were just as likely to be right os wrong. There’s nothing about it that’s either strange or not strange. That there are not more such coincidences than there are is almost a miracle. There’s no such thing as waste in Nature, Mr Kenrick. And if a dream like that was more than a common ordinary coincidence, it would be waste; for what would bu the use tf your dreaming that one of your candles went out before the other when the fact itself could be of no manner of use to you ? ’ Even so had Mildred herself argued ; and 1 was perforce compelled to put up with a chain of reasoning in which bur imaginative nature agreed with the proiaio system of L’r. Menzies. Certainly mine had been a useless dream, and must have been useless by its wary nature. 1 had nothing more to say. It was merely accident that had made me remember my nonsensical dream when Mildred lay ill, and it went fairly out of my mind again as roon as Dr. Menzies had gone Mildred had fallen asleep, and I sat and watched by her bedside, thinking how I could contrive to put life straight for her. She had no friends to shelter her from the daily troubles of our life till she should bo strong enough to face them again; and ruy marriage, even more than the loss of my fortune, had made my relations cease to be my friends. Pe-haps I was wrong, hut I could not bring myeelf to ask favors—that is to say, charities—from those who now regarded me as a ne’er-do well, and Mildred as a blunder and a burden. 1 was a stranger in the land ; no more a Kenriok who had a right to the help and countenance of other Kearicks than Mildred herself. My share in my uncle’s estate had gone long ago ; ov-"r five hundred in paying old debts, the rest in keeping us going while wa had been w, rking and waiting, now as it seemed in vain. Without Hope by my side in tbe person of Mildred, I felt that I must lay down my brash once for all, and find something or anything to do than would insure her health, however uncongenial it might be. The idea of emigration came uppermost in my mind. I had not neglected my body, and could use my hands in better ways than in painting pictures that nobody would buy. But since Mildred most go out with me. and aince she could not travel till she was well, and since I must, being no longer a bachelor, carry out with me some sort of means or capital, oven emigra'ion did not look particularly hopeful. However I managed next day to leave Mildred for an hour or two while I went out to moke inquiries about colonial matters in such quarters as were open to me. I needed advice, and could think of none better worth having than that of Mr Archer, a young lawyer, who bad alwaa been in a way one of my friends in old times. He was a shrewd man of business, with an essentially practical way of looking at everything, but with no intolerance for people of different natures. He would give me the best advice he could, I was sure.

‘I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting,’ ho said. ‘Bat I was very deeply engaged, and I’m afraid I can’t give yon much time now. So yon think of giving np painting and going abroad? Well.it does not b< nnd badly. Only, as a married man, yoa can hardly treat emigration a? a simple adventure, and go out with nothing in yonr pockets bat yonr hands. I must think it over. Sit down and have a chat—it’s a long time since we met, you and I. Not since we’ve been married men. We’ve both had our romances, it seems. Bat I’m hanged if there’s any romance in all yonr Bohemia that beats what wo find every day in the law. Talk of fiction 1 Why, if 1 wanted that sort of light reading, and had to choose between the novels and magazines on the one hand and the law reports on tho other, give me the law reports any day. Do you know why lawyers are so notoriously fonder of reading novels than any other men ? It’s because they get biases with remanco, and want to refresh themselves with solid, probable. heavy prose. I was np to the eyes in a queer ati ry when yon cams In, or rather in a wild sort of riddle that wili take all the courts years together to solve. It beats me. A, you see, makes a will. B ext to the law of marriage for oonumdrams give me the law of wills. All A’a estate is left to B, a married woman. We’ll call B’s husband 0. Very well. If B, tho wife, dies and leaves children behind her the estate goes to the children. If B, the wife, dies and leaves no children, but O, the husband, survives her, the estate goes to him. If B, the wife, dies and leaves neither children nor husband surviving, then tho es’ate goes to a distant relation, D. fihnt, avoiding techcal language, is tho effect of the will, and you’d never guess how such a plain-sailing, every day will as that coold possibly become likely to pnzzle the House of Lords,’ ‘ No,’ said I, already puzzled myself between A, B, C, and D, ‘ I certainly do not aoe.’

‘lt comes to this. First of all, B, the wife, dies. Afterwards A, the testator dies. To whom does the estate go?’ ‘To B’s children.’ ‘ She had none.' * To B’s husband, then V ‘He is dead too.’

‘To the distant relation, then ?’ *D ? You’re missing the point—that’s the very question that’s got to be answered. If you’d bten the least bit of a lawyer, you’d have asked me whether the wife survived the husband, or the husband the wife, yon see. lion’t yon see ? If the wife survived, the estate goes to the distant relation. If the husband survived, the estate goes to him.’ ‘ But if he is dead ?’

‘That isn’t the question. The question is, whether the estate goes to the distant relation, D. And, therefore, D must maintain that B, the wife, survived her husband,’ ‘And which did survive?’

‘Now you’re getting warmer! Heaven knows. They were found dead on the same day in two rooms of the same home, and so says the register. Get out of that if you can. It’s an awful muddle. There’s no rule of law. There are oases, of course—there always are. There’s a great case where a man and a woman were washed off the same plank out at sea, and both drowned. On

one side it has been argued that the man is likelier to survive because he’s the strong! r and the more selfish and tha better able to swim. On tho o her sid-, that the woman is llkel.er to survive because women have more vitality than men, and because a man naturally take* more care of a woman than ho does of himself, especially if he’s a sailor 5 and so on, and so on, through leagues of nonsense unspeakable. But it all comes to this—that thoro’e no rule, that every case must stand on its o«n bottom, and that tho courts will have facts, and nothing to do with fancies. Now Kenrick — why, that’s the very name of the wife and the husband, B and o—that’s queer ! However, that has nothing to do with tho question. Tho question is—’ 1 But it is queer 1 ’ said I. ‘I had an undo and an aunt who died in the same house on the same day. Did I never speak to you of my uncle George, of whom I was godson, eldest neohow, and almost son ? ’ •By George ! It must be tho very man. Not that I ever heard of your having any unde in particular till now ; or, if I ever did, I don’t profess to remember pedigrees that I’m not paid to keep in mind. This was a George Kenrick, who, with his wife, died of cholera on the same day in Shanghai.’ ‘Yes, within ten minutes of one another. It is a terrible story—more than terrible to me.’ • Ten minutes ? How do you know that ? What do you mean ? ’ < I was told so by the doctor who attended them both and was with them when they died.’ . • What! The doctor P Where is he ? What’s his name P ’ • Dr. Mnazies. I saw him yesterday — ‘ Did he tell you which died first—he or —’

‘She.’ , _ 1 She 1 . . . Can you lay hands on Dr. Menzies ... in an hour? You can? Then ... Don’t you understand ? Under tho will of Mia* Reynolds— ’ • Miss Reynolds ? ’ ‘Under the will of Miss Jane Reynolds, those ten minutes have given you an estate in Lincolnshire worth a least four thousand a year 1 For she left everything to a niece who married your unole, and ha survived her by ten minutes ; and it is all real estate which goes to your uncle’s heir-at-law ; and you, as the oldest eon of his next brother, are ho ! ’

I have been making a very long story very short indeed. My case vai certainly as clear as daylight; but that, as Archer would say, is not the question, nor is it the question—though that, too, is a strange one—that Miss Reynolds, by disinheriting Mildred, had made the man in rags her sole heir. To me tbe strange thing is, and must remain, that all this could never have happened unless I had dreamed my dream. Had I not dreamed of the extinction of the candles in their proper order and of tbe number ten, I should never have mentioned the matter to Menzies, or learned tha precise nature of tho coincidence —if 10 it must still bo called —from him. And, therefore, had it rot been for my dream, I should have been without the one piece of evidence wanting to complete the chain and make good my legal title. Nevertheless, 1 pass no definite opinion. I quite see that, being in an excited state of mind, I should bo likely to dream ; that, if T dreamed at all, it should be of uncle George; that, dreaming of him, I should dream of a woman ; that, dreaming of two failing candles, one of them should go out without the other, and that it was a mere toss up which went out the first of them It is difficult to find oven the elements of so common a thing as a striking coincidence in so simple a matter. My readers must decide as they please. But was this all ? In one way It may be yes ; but, in another, moat surely no,’ ‘Mildred,’ said I to her one day, not so very long ago,— ‘ Mildred, I once had a very strange and a very wonderful dream. Is was that I—l of all men—neither strong nor wise nor particularly brave, who had been selected, by some mysterious piece of injustice, to bo the husband of the best, truest, and bravest of all the women in the world I dreamed it so vividly, that 1 went out among tho hills, and married the first girl I met before I knew anything about her, except that I loved her. was not that a strange dream for a fairly sane man ? Well, I woke up—one always must wake up at last from the vsry best of dreams, and from the best the soonest—and I found that what my dream told mo was— ’

‘ What ?’ asked Mildred, with at least a show of fear.

‘ True 1’ said I. And I say so still.

Truth, Indeed, la always stranger than fiction. I add a fow words which may Interest the reader who Is struck by the pivot of my narrative, and that narrow bridge of time which is ‘ ten minutes ’ led to such important results. The genial skilful physician who stoed by and saw the two ‘life-candles’ burn out, and whoso tentlmoey in tho case became so Important, is at this moment a distinguished practitioner in ‘the Garden Isle,’where his knowledge of the healing art and of the world together make him at once a most des’rable ‘guide, philosopher, and friend,’