UNWILLING WITNESS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7069, 15 February 1893, Page 4

UNWILLING WITNESS.

LITERATURE

fCONTINTTKD.) Th« house had lost its mainstay—that elder brother whom the mother believed wise Heareu had given her to be the support of her widowed years. He bad fallen in the hist great charge of the war. His loss was embittered to Bodewin by a sense of its needleessess, for the straggle was virtually over. It seemed as if the lives lost that day were bat heaped upon the over.full measure of the nation's dead, in the very wantonness of sacrifice. The night after tbo battle Bodewin Searched the field for his brother’s body. A comrade kept at bis side, and helped him in his last: poor services to the dead. The young men were of the same regiment, each had seen and approved the other; in action ; beyond this they scarcely knew each other’s Dames. As they stood together by the new-m»de giave.inthe white dawn before sunrise, Bodewin bad said to bis comrade: *My mother must thank you for this night’s work.* They parted with a promise from Lieutenant Bustle that be would visit Bodewin at the latter’s home if both lived to sea the end of the war. Bustis had accepted the invitation with some diffidence. . * You must not ask me under an impress'OQ that I was a friend of your brother’s,’ be had said. ‘ I admired him greatly, but lam bound to confess that, so far as I know, the feeling was not mutual.* Bodewin could nob have known that this soruqdlousoess was far from being characteristic of Frank Bustis. It was a genuine touch of candour and humility won from him by tbs circum. stances which bad brought the two young men together ; but it was mis* leading, as only nature can be. Bodewin had left his sister a child. A child the still seemed to him, although she was tall for sixteen, when to the broken household came Bustis in bis faded cavalry uniform, with his record of fifty battles and that last service of his to the dead son of the bouse to aid him in making an impression. Bustis came for a week the first time. He spoke of business engagements in New York. Bodewin found him there a month later, looking haggard and seedy. An old wound he bad carried since Fredericksburg bad been troubling him, be said. His family were in Genoa, where hie father held a consulship. Bodewin asked him to come to Cranberry Beach for another fortnight, and incidentally lent him some money. Again Bustis and Ellen were together, and in the still midsummer weather another tragedy of the war was hurrying n.O its consummation.

There was a granite boulder on the lawn where it sloped toward the pied salt-marshes, cool, deeply bedded in ferns, and shaded by a clamp of maple, trees. A breeze from the blue water beyond the marshes was always blowing in their tope. On the hottest days, when the close sheltered bouse dozed m tbo sun, Bustis, with the cbesa-board and tbe hammock-cushions under his arm, followed by Ellen with tbs last magazine, crossed the dry. scintillating grass to this island of coolness and shadow.

Thsy were as secluded here, with the fields of beifc making a wide stillness around them, as Ferdinand and Miranda in the island care. There were sandy paths through the scrub oak and barberry bushes leading to the shore, and there was a shall-xv river winding through the marshes, down which they drifted, sitting face to tace but seldom speaking. All these land ways and waterways they bad taken together before the fortnight was or r. They led all in the same direction, and ended in the ca'astroi he of & young girts life. In those days men were worshipped because they were soldiers merely. They needed no other attribire, and Eustis possessed others besides that perilous association; with a brother’s memory. When after the second visit Bodewm heard his mother ask Eustis to come to them again at Christmas, if bis family were still abroad, it occurred to him at Inst that they were seeing a good deal of thsir summer guest. On his next visit to New York be took pains to make inquiries about Eustis. It was like going to shelf piled with rubbish and palling at a corner of the lowest object of the hetp. He found a cine to some shabby little affair in look, ing up Eustis’s antecedents, and tbe rest came tumbling about bis ears. It was sickening, but it was a necessary lesson for the prwtector of a family of to learn, and Bode win congratulated himself on having learned it in a good season. Bodewin cold bis mother all that seemed necessary of his discoveries in regard to Eustis,, He must not come at Christmas, or at any other time/ he concluded. Mrs Bodewin seemed troubled beyond a reasonable conception of any feeling she could possibly have in the matter. Did be wish the,acquaintance to cease ? she ‘On the part of the women of the family, yes/ he replied. She reminded him of the family obligation. He adored her he would take care of that.. In tbe greatest agitauon she begged him to ha careful for his sister’s sake.

* What has JEustia to do with nay Bister ? ’ Bodewin inquired, and then the blow came. Eustia bad asked Ellen to be bis wife. She loved him, and only waited for the consent of her mother and brother. The former had already given hers. Ellen had been receiving letters from Eustis since big last visit. The mother, had felt obliged to speak to her about them. She bad first done so during Bodewin’s absence, and bsd then received he? child’s

fession that Bustis had offered himself to her before bis departure. Shs had not permitted him to speak to her family then, because the time bad seemed unfit. ‘She was not ashamed to do the thing she was ashamed to speak of!’ Bodewin burst out passionately.

* She is but a child ! What else can she beP’ the mother pleaded. ‘And •he has not answered his letters or given him her promise except on conditions,’ • Eusti* is not the man for her to be making conditions with, mother! If •he is a child, she must be treated aa one. She must be prevented from doing herself this injury,’

‘His done, it is done I’ the mother wailed, ‘and wa faaye done it. It lies at our door.’

*lt lies a* my door!’ said Bodewin. ‘ Mother, I no more imagined any danger to Eden in his being here than to you. How was I lo kno w a girl was like that P To be won in a week, in a month, by the first man that looks at her I To be thinking of a lover, with her brother not eix months in his grave !’ ‘ Hush ! * his mother said, rising an 1 pointing cowards the door as she faltered towards him. He turned and confronted bis sister. She had heard bis words distinctly in the quite honse as she came down the stairs from her chamber. What influence Bodewin might hare gained over her, when bis revolt against the pang of self-cjn-victiou cooled, had shs never beard thiso wild words, may be questioned. As it was, tbe insult had struck too deep for explanation or retraction. Tbere was, perhaps, enough of truth in the words to make them rnforgivable Bodewin patiently went over tbe charges against Bustis with his mother, and in turn she endeavoured to set them before Ellen. The effect they produced was one of repulsion, not towards tbe accused but the accuser. She was prepared for prejudice in one by whom she had herself been misjudged, and the seeds of counsel fell upon atony ground. There were long heart-breaking arguments between mother and daughter, and hopeless consultations between mother and son But the brother and Bister were no longer on terms of argument or consolation, still less of entreaty.

(To be continued, )