MY SIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1819, 1 October 1886, Page 30

MY SIN.

When I was a young man I fell in love, as young men generally do, with the girl wh« came handiest. This particular girl happened to be Belle Burton, and I devoted myself ta her — rode with her, boated with her (it was a country place where we met), walked with her, talked with her, begged her for the roses she wore in her hair, and tried (in vain), for I was no poet, to make sonnets not only to her " eyebrows," but to her hair, her cheeks, and her lily-white hands. In fact, I went through the pretty dream of first love as most young people do, and it ended, as it generally does, in an unpleasant awakening. One day a stage arrived at the hotel with a dozen dashing New Yorkers for passengers. The next, one of them obtained an introduction to Belle Burton. There was no doubt whatever that he was handsomer than men usually are, or that his grace and accomphishments were equal to his personal charms. Handsome Arnold he was generally called, and girls went into raptures over his large, long-lashed eyes and blonde moustache, and men feared his broad shoulders, deep cheat, and splendid proportions. For my part I hated him from the first, for no sooner had he appeared upon the cai^pet than Belle seemed utterly to forget my very existence. I suppose she has never cared anything about me, but she had flirted with me while there was no better fun to be had, and I was not old enough to know that the man she loves is the one no woman ever flirts with. With Arnold she was rather graver than with most men, but her eyes sparkled as he approached her. She blushed when his name was mentioned, and cared for nothing in which he had not some share. In fact it was as plain that she was in love with him as that he was devoted to. her ; and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that all this would end in a wedding. It was a good thing, said the old people, for poor Belle Burton, for she " had nothing." For my part, it seemed to me that all the luck was Arnold's. I had never thought myself very ill-looking before, but now I was wretchedly conscious of all sorts of. deficiencies. I looked in the glass many times a day. I spent half my time criticising ray countenance and longing vainly for the charms of handsome Arnold. I could not hope to possess them, even should I use all the hair-oils and cosmetics of the advertising columns of the daily paper, aud bribe to my aid the tailor who best understood the art of padding shoulders ; but next to having a fairy transformation effected for my benefit, I should have been pleased to see Arnold lose beauty. I hope I've been forgiven for it. I scarcely can forgive myself, but I could have prayed that some ban might fall upon him — that he might bre k his limbs or catch the smallpox, or somehow spoil his complexion or figure. I was not a wicked young fiend by nature, but love, which, when it prospers, is the most humanising emotion of the soul, is most likely to develop all the evil emotions o£ one's nature when it comes to grief. I should have taken my departure and put myself out of the way of hourly torture, but I did not do so wisely. I lingered about the place and did small things to spite the happy pair— intruded on their tete-a-tetes, managed to force the society of some excellent and loquacious matron or some troublesome child upon them, look daggers of contempt at him and forget to pass the butter to her. At last a grand chance for annoying him occurred. He was a good rider and proud of his accomplishment, and he had a restive, nervous animal, whioh he boasted no one could ride but himself. I had heard him declare himself perfect master of the creature, who had never given him serious trouble save once, when suddenly brought into the presence of an artist, who was sketching under a white umbrella. " That," said handsome Arnold, " was something Prince could not understand, and it made him forget who held the bridle.-^ As he came prancing up to the gate, or "rode away with an air, ! used to wish for an artist with a white umbrella. I desired to see that fellow unseated and ingloriously turned into the mud. That would hftve made ma happy, and once, when he had offended me more' than ever by his gallant style of riding, I sauntered out into the fields — cursing him in my inmost soul — when what should I I spy in the middle of the grass, intent upon a bunch of clover, but a fat pre-Raphaelite artist in a white suit, a flapping hat, and a white sketching umbrella that would have frightened the clergyman's grey mare, who was nearly as old m himself, into being: a

runaway. I rushed toward this artist with with enthusiasm. I took off my hat to him. I said: "Sir, I rejoice that one of your glorious profession has at last visited us. You love the minute, I see. Have you noticed the spider-webs on the blackberry bushes at the turn of tho lane, the dew sparkling on the silvery film, the delicious fruit growing beneath— have you seen that, sir?" The pre-Raphaelite artist scratched his head with his brush and said : "Well, no, I ain't." " Will you come and see it, sir 1 " I said. " Will you make it immortal on your canvas t" The pre-Eaphaelite artist replied : " Well, I wouldn't mind." I did not care what he said so that he came. My object was not art — it was the white umbrella. I desired to have him seated where the eyes of handsome Arnold's restive Prince would fall upon him as he turued the corner of the garden walk, and to that very spot I beguiled my artist and there stationed him, and when he had settled, with Chinese precision, to his spider-webs and blackberries, hid myself behind a tree to enjoy the comic scene I fully expected would follow. I heard handsome Arnold bid adieu to the ladies. I heard the patter of his horse's feet upon the road, and in a moment more I saw him come gaily on, a smile upon his handsome face, a rich colour on his cheek — youth, health, Strength, and happiness expressed in every curve and outline of his statuesque form. The next instant Prince had seen the white artist and the white umbrella. And then — then, heaven forgive me, not the amusing spectacle' of handsome Arnold's discomfiture that I had hoped to see. He kept his seat, while Prince, rearing and plunging, dashed wildly away with him toward a precipitous path along the cliff side, and vanished like a mad tiling with his rider still upon his back, going straight toward a certain awful precipice which overhung the rocky shore below. I cannot go on. They picked him up just alive, no more, at the foot of that precipice ; and they carried hjfa, a mere mass of broken bones and bleeding flesh, back to the great hotel. Late at night I crept softly upstairs on my way to bed, and, passing Belle Burton's *door, heard those low, heavy sobs that tell of a breaking heart issuing thence. " He cannot live," the messenger had said, and I was, perhaps, doubly a murderer. I thought seriously of adding to my crime by committing suicide that awful night. But poor Arnold did live. He had a wonderful constitution, unbroken, as all the men that knew him knew, by dissipation of any kind, and it is hard to kill such a man. He lived, and strength returned to him at last ; but no one would call him handsome Arnold any more. He had fallen on his face on the horrible jagged rocks, and during his illness all his bonny brown hair had turned gray. No one would know him, they told me ; and so powerfully had his beauty and his sweetness affected even men of coarse natures that they nttered these words for the most part with tears in their eyes. As for myself I would far jsither have seen a ghost. Yet the sight was forced on me. One day I received a' note from him, asking me to come to the hotel, and it was signed — Henry Arnold. I had no choice. I could not refuse. I went to him. As I saw him, seated in a great arm • chair in the room, to which the waiter ' showed me — as he rose and advanced toward me, and I saw that he limped heavily — I wonder that I did not die. I felt the blood leaving my face, and I saw the hot flush rise to his as he noticed the shock he gave me. But he only said : " Sit down. It is kind of you to come." I staggered to a chair, and I saw nothing for a while ; yet through it all I wondered what he thought of my strange conduct, and hated myself for my weakness. At last he spoke : " I see how I — how my appearance affects you," he said, very sadly. "It is a horrible thing that I am trying to get used to. I wish I had broken my neck. Of course any man would under the circumstances. But I did not ask you to come that I might say that to you. I want yo to take a note fromftne to a lady at your aunt's house, if you wUTbe so kind. I choose you because you are, as it were*, one of the family, and you will be very careful and — and kind, I know. It is Miss Belle Burton. I hoped to marry her one day. Of course all that, is over now. No woman would — no woman could — overlook my hideous appearance." His voice broke a little, but he went on bravely :"So I have written to her. I do not want her to see me, and I shall go abroad in a week or so, and — you'll tell her y O n — you've seen me, you know. I have loved her very much. I always shall ; and this is terribly hard." He broke down entirely there, and took a letter from his bosom and put it into my hand. " Give it to her," he said, and turned away. I took it from his hand and left him I went straight to Belle Burton. I found her in the garden, and I told her from whom I came and gave her the missive. She read' it through gravely and without tears. Then she looked at me with eyes that had snch a solemn, holy look in them as one would hope to see in an angel's. " Edward," she said, "he says he is frightfully altered ; is it so ?" " Yes," I answered. "Do you know what he has written ?" she said softly. " I guess what it is." "My poor boy !" said she. "As if anything would change me but a change in his" heart. Will you take me to him, Edward ? I must go at once." " Command me," I said. She caught up the wide straw hat on the bench beside her and drew on her gloves and took my arm. I never loved her so well as I did then, but for once, it was with a perfectly unselfish love. I knew what she was about to do, and I blessed her for it. And so I took her to him ; my hand opened the door of his room for her ; my eyes saw — yes, and gladly — that however that changed face might affect others, it only made her love for him more tender. I saw her rush into his arms and hide her head on his shoulders ; and then I went softly away and hid myself t where no one could see me, and cried like a baby. Ah, well, that is a good while ago, and they have been very happy. The big fellow is almost as graceful as ever, and as for his face— l do not think it would matter very Bftuch to me what my face was if anyone loved it as well as Belle does his. I go. to

see them sometimes, and my mad fancy of kneeling down and confessing my share in the horible affair of the past is quite abandoned. Besides, Belle's daughter is sixteen now, and if an old fellow of thirty-six— ah, well, who knows what may happen in the future. Only that would be another story quite. If it is written, it is written. — M.X.D., in New York News.