LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2687, 17 November 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A TRIP WITH ST. SIMON’S CHOIR. AND WHAT CAME OF IT. Concluded. There would be still time to meet the party, and, if the boys did not pursue me, to get a stroll and chat with pretty Maude. And that would be a recompense for all I had endured that afternoon. But I had not done with my persecutor yet. The tide was still low, and as the vessel dropped her anchor the carts were ready to take us through the shallow water to the shore. With some squeezing I contrived to pack all my party into one cart, but the perverse Salter made the close quarters a plea for cuffing his next neighbor. The youngster naturally resented it, and a scuffle ensued. Salter was seated at the edge of the cart, and before I could raise a finger to stop him there was a splash, and I saw my bugbear in the water. Whether it was merely accident or the result of malice prepense I had rather not be called upon to determine. But I strongly suspect the latter, This was the finishing stroke. I clearly foresaw the gallows for the boy if he should survive the waves. Hideous visions of pleurisy, bronchitis, inflammation of the lungs, and a host of other ills likely to accrue to the little singer from a prolonged immersion flitted before me as I jumped in after him. How should I ever face the enraged Triggs if I returned without my charge, or with only his lifeless remains ? What would St. Simon’s choir be, robbed of its mainstay '{ I made a desperate clutch at the boy’s collar; but he determinedly eluded my grasp, and began to' fight his way through the water, which was almost up to his neck. I struggled after him, expecting momentarily to see him carried off his feet by the force of the waves. The cart, meanwhile, had stopped, the inmates eagerly watching this novel mode of human duck-hunting. Some cheered the parson and some the boy, and all evidently keenly relished the, to me, shameful and disgraceful spectacle. ‘ After this St. Simon’s choir would be more notorious than ever, and its discipline would be held up in der:sion for years to come, for the affair would be ‘ nuts and apples ’ to all the pro- ■ incial papers. As we got into shallower water length of arm and leg told. The race became uneven, and I at last bore down upon the unwilling victim amid the triumphant shouts of the crowd assembled upon the pier. They appeared to view the whole scene as part of the programme of the day’s entertainment. Drenched with salt water and mortification, I dragged the luckless Salter, dripping, struggling, and resisting to the last, over the wet sands to the hotel, where we had dined in the morning. There I consigned my captive to the tender mercies of Messrs Spinks and Pulling, and withdrew myself into the shelter and retirement of blankets, whilst my clothes (alas for my Sunday best, put on for this auspicious occasion) were carried down to be dried in some subterranean region. No strolling with Maudo now, thanks to the audacious chorister ! In my mummied state I was presently visited by the remorseful Triggs, full of consternation and concern, as well he might be. But don’t mistake me. It was not for me, his ill-used fellow-curate, but all for the woithless Salter. He regretted ever having consigned him to my charge, as I had fulfilled it so unfaithfully in bringing him back in the condition in which he had just found him. . This was adding insult to injury. Even a worm will turn when it is trodden on. And I was not a worm. ‘ Triggs !’ 1 exclaimed indignantly ; ‘ how can you, a man and a clergyman, stand there and address me in this manner ? You ought to be ashamed of yourself !’ Show me the man who would not have been wrathful under similar provocation. To quote an old parishioner, I ‘ then and there up and told him,’ in plain unequivocal language, what had really occurred during the excursion on the water. But as I waxed warm in my own defence, my sense of the ludicrous suddenly overpowered my sense of the indignities that had been heaped upon me, and I burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter. Triggs, of course, joined in, and we roared till our sides ached. After that little episode tea and the ind'speusible shrimps soon followed. But the dread of further persecutions from the relentless choristers kept me away from Maude, and sent an unwilling blush to my cheeks every time she addressed me, which fact I have no doubt was treasured up and made the most of afterwards by those little sinners. Tea being ended, there was still a short time to spare. The choir dispersed for the last stroll on the cliff or the pier, Salter being given over into the custody of Messrs Spinks and Pulling, who promised to answer for his safety. The pier had no attractions for me, so I followed Maude Malony into one of the sitting rooms overlooking the sea. There was a chair temptingly placed in the balcony. She took it, and I stood beside her, leaning against the balustrading, out of sight of all the obnoxious choristers, with their long ears, and still longer eyes. This was the moment I had been longing for all day. In the bliss of finding my desire gratified I forgot all the woes and sorrows of the afternoon, and enjoyed to the full the exquisite delight of having undisturbed possession of Maude Malony. How musical her laugh was, how silvery her voice was, how pretty every movement of her head, how gaily she chatted about her afternoon adventures, and how sweetly she sympathised in all that I had endured. The moments sped like lightning ; a, soft evening glow began to creep over the sea and sky. But I wanted something more than sympathy

from Maude, and what time could be more propitious for telling her so? The sentence! in which I was to offer her a life-long devotion was trembling unuttered upon my lips, my arm was already within an inch of ucr slender waist, when we were rudely interrupted by the irrepressible Triggs coming up with the information that it was time to start. ‘Triggs,’ I said, in a sudden rush of generous feeling quite touching in its selfdenial —for Maude had accepted the withered rose in a way which led me to believe that she would accept the giver later on—‘if you like I will travel hack with the choir, and you can go with Mrs Malony’s party. ’ Triggs said it was of no consequence, but ho was rather tired, but it certainly would be far pleasanter to go in state with the vicar’s wife, and—well, I ought to take my turn with the choir; it would look better. It is to be hoped that virtue was its own reward. It certainly got none from the unappreciative Triggs. We have a pretty little vicarage of our own now, Maude and I, and two goldenheaded little ones to share it. with us, and a happier home it would be impossible to find in the whole British empire, colonies included. But whenever my wife proposes to take our choir for a day’s excursion to the seaside, which she does sometimes in playful . pite, I say, ‘ No, darling, anywhere else in the universe, but don’t ask me to take them to the sea. It may be a ho’iday to them, hut it will be something very different to me.’ But as she smiles fondly on me and lifts up her coral lips for a kiss, I think that that day’s adventure at the sea did not turn out so badly for me after all.