UNWILLING WITNESS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7068, 14 February 1893, Page 4

UNWILLING WITNESS.

lsterature

rcONTUTUBD.) | •As for that cabin and girl and pup , ■tor?,’ Bodjiwin went on. • *T)bn’l yoo belierei it ?’ asked Hill- ■< I am tolerably well acquainted with tboafl woods myself. Ho got himself lost, like the cockney he is, and io*enlad this story to osrry it off. That Sunlight-on-her-yellow-dair business is rather 100 musty.’ • I think yod are mistaken, Bodewio. Craig to me looked and ta ked like a man who had just bad that sort of lack, to be stumbling along disgnste lly and suddenly oanio upon the little idyl in the forest. If it were an inTention, why put in the old prospect hole and the setter-pup ?’ ‘lt ia possible be has seen such a cabin and such a group by /the door, bat I doubt if he mlw them this alternoon.* , , ‘Bodewin,l will bat you a box of cigar* I will find that cabin myself within a week.’ ‘You’ll wests your time and lose : your cigars—and Oraig is an ass !’ They were in the office of the Wilteie House, sitting on the row of chairs along the wall opposite the clerk’s de*k. In the confusion of unmodulated roices their own lower tones were lost. .. . , »How long would you be a friend ot Mrs Oraig if she knew yon thought so ?’ Hillbury asked. . t *1 im not ind"bfed to Craig for bis wife’s acquaintance. 1 knew Mrs Craig years before he erer saw her. At a pinch I dare sa? she could exist without me, and I possibly without her. fhsre are times when I find Craig too great a discount on the friendship of any woman.’ ‘What is the matter with you, old

man?* , _ . . ... ‘Hillbury,* said Bodewin, with a change of manner, taking a small, worn, lea'her note-book from hie pocket, and turning over its pages absently,' 1 wish the Lord would let me burn this book !’ < * Does he hold you resj onsible for it •afe keeping P ’ * It looks like il. 1 have dropped it down shafts; I have left it in my old ooat-pocketa when I moved and had it sent back to me ; I have, within the past year, taken it out more than once with as debbera’e intention as I have of going to bed to night of destioyingit. Upon my soul, I can’t do it! * * What have you in it i ■‘Only some memoranda relating to the Harkins and Eagle Bird suit. The Bird people want me to appear on their side.’ * So Lhave heard,’ Hillbury said, much in'eres'ed and quietly observant o£ bis friend. ECe bad speculated not a little upon the probable meaning of Bpjdwin’s' reluctance to testify on this suit, even as ho often speculated abpnt Bodewin himself : bat the two men roight bave been sola occupan's of a light house for a yekr, without its ones occurring to Hillbury to ask bis friend the question Miss Nswbold had posed him with an hour after his introduction to her. t ‘ Yes,’ Bolewin oontinned. ‘ It’s a horrible nu’sanoe. I would like to I ell you about it, bat .you know me too well, Hillbury. I should ba'e to have the thing perpetually associated with me in ycur mind. The only people, after all, to confide in, are those whom you like at first sight, end never expect to see again.’ ‘ I don’t sgree with yon, but then that’s noth : ng new.’ ‘I will tell ton this m »cb,’ Bodewin began, but HUlbury interrupted. * Why tell me any thing P I am not suffering for your confidence.’ * Because it bores me so ! I am sold into bondage! I am under an obligation to Harkins—a most delicate, persona), strenuous obligation. It in▼olves-— ’ Bodewin found ho had been precipitate after all. He could not say to Hillbury, whose peolem the East knew bis own, ‘ It involve my sister’s name and memory.’ He paused, with his friend's dark, grate eyes resting on bis face, and ended stupidly. 4 It involves the name of a womanone of the sweete*io'id ever made for man to destroys If I have to haul Harkins’s game, he is just clever enoughto see that here is bis revenge. Don’t I know with what an unholy glee he would parade ray obligation to him and bis generosity to her whose name I most protect P ’ * Bodewin, my dear fellow, will you forgive me for saying this whole thing, ii ybn bint at it, sounds to ms fantastic and morbid. I have always sutpected' you.of a dangerous kind eothasiasm in your moral processes. The business df living is, after all, nothing but a series of in vestments at a high rate of intercut with corresponding risks, or at n low rate with good security. .1 am .afraid yon go in too mndb for ten par cents and the risks in your moral investments. Yon will go into bankruptcy if you are investing in Harkins and hie crowd. ’ * What do you mean by going into bankruptcy ?’ •Welli don’t mean wickedness, in jronr 4 ease. But despondency, want of grit.* You’d: better slick to the plain Hoes of duty, so far as Harkins is cohcerned.and protect your own name first. It occurs to yon, no dodb', that this is a little gratuitous on my pary, but lam older »bauyou, and on some pointsnot so sensitive.’ , ‘Nptso vulerable, you. mean,’said Bodewin, with a touch of bitterness. Hillbury bad ‘no time to respond before Mr Hewbold joined them with bis daughter’s excuses instead ot her company. Sbewaßtired,be said,and did pot care to change her dress. ‘ She’d jjpve poms down fast eobu|h if Hrf

Graig had stayed, bat she’s not accustomed to be the only lady ; and ib® j rsstauranlrfvdtf know, at this hour • The green-baiaed covered door ot tbe dining-room closed up tbe sentence. Bodewin belonged to that generation of the country’s youth which was harried into premature manhood by the shock of the civil war. He was sixteen the spring of 1861, when bis elder brother left “home in response to tbe President’s first call for volunteers. That summer young Bodewin went up to Yale to pass bis preliminary examination. He was already a man in stature, and it was thought the best way to keep him from hunting the recruiting officers. The second year of the war closed darkly, with the Burnside’s losses before Fredericksburg, which increased the demoralisation of the Army of the Potomac, on which the hope of the East were fixed. Bodewin entered with all the passionate pessimism of youth, debarred from action, into the uncertainties of the situation. If disruption were at hand he did not care for hie future : if the war were to be successfully and honourably brought to a close, he could not accept the price of some batter man’s life. Thus be brooied, sitting on the college fence, under the budding elms, in the sad spring twilight. He wrote to bis brother for advice. Captain Bodewin told him plainly that this place was with tbe non-combatants for at least four years to come, and reminded him that in all wars, in all ages, the widow has ever been entitled to one son. This was not the advice young Bodewin wnntad. In tbe facs of it be abandoned hi* books and | followed tia boyish leadings into the army, enlisting as a private in bis brother’s regiment, the ——Oon--1 necticut Cavalry. He served faithfully 1 until tbe close of tbe war. When tbe ■ armies were disbanded ho went home 3 alone, an old looking boy of twenty, v * already accquainted with grief, lean of ' cheek and limb, with hollows under i h ; B young eyes, with a habit of lienee, with the discipline of ten years crowded into two —a discipline with stern limit-1 ations, bowerer. He bad learned j 1 something of endurance, of obedience, » and of self restraint; but of the world 8 of men and women he had been spared 8 ta spend bis life among, he had all to “ \ learn. {To be continued.}