Off the Highway.—An Idyll.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 461, 9 April 1890, Page 4

Off the Highway.—An Idyll.

By Harry Norman.

They had been married six years, and the flowers in their garden of love blossomed as gaily and perfumed the air as fragrantly as the day they dressed the marriage altar. Their days had passed by happily, joyously and innocently. They had been like two children, with wants easily satisfied, and cares as few as the clouds in their sky. He wa3 as handsome and noble as the day she first loved him, while the rose-tint of her skin was as fresh and bewitching as the time they walked hand in hand along the silvery stretch of beach, talking of their coming happiness, and of their mutual love —alike to be eternal. He was an artist in his way, and she showed her fervent interest in the touches of his pencil by praising everything, and deprecating nothing. How could she ? She loved him, and the work of his skilful fingers seemed to be wefts in the love-strand that bound their hearts together. They had a child —a fairhaired girl with large longing blue eyes who was four years old. This child was their crowning glory. Into their life she had stolen, and lived with them more like an ethereal being than as a part of their mortality. Their united affections centred round this infant life, and strengthened and multiplied with its growth. Bub the test of their life had come. The serpent had entered the garden. How it all came about they could nob tell—who the aggressor, was a mystery. They had been very very happy that morning, bub a word —a look —or what was it ?—had conjured up from their calm horizon a thundercloud as dark as Erebus, and between them came strife and bitterness —they belonged to each other no more ! A few curt remarks, a vague instruction, and he was gone ! •‘Gone! My God ! No; it is surely a dream !”

And she loosened her thick hair, and convulsively pressing her throbbing brow between her heated palms, sank slowly down, down on her knees, and wept before the spot where he had just stood. Then came blackness, hideous, clammy oblivion, plunging her soul into merciful forgetfulness. By-and-by consciousness returned. The evening light was stealing into the room—his studio—wrapping hia easel in its subduing paleness, and fitfully gleaming on the forsaken palette, thrown hastily on the floor. What was it? Where was she? Ah ! he was nob there to help her ! Then, then it was true ? “Mamma ! Is 00 tummin ?”

lb was her chi'd feebly beating at the door with its little hand. Thank God for it, thank God ! Eagerly opening the door she clasped the little one to her breast, and wept her sorrow out in relieving agony. Slowly and wearily the miserable days crept by, oliering no comfort to her sorrowing heart. She and her husband had lived so much for themselves that their social ties had been severed gradually, and so their friends had become few. Consequently no one visited her ; none knew of her trial. She was glad of this, for how could she tell her wretched tale to unsympathising ears ? How control the tears that would come, and perhaps cause her husband to be traduced ? Her everlasting comfort now was her child. To her she reiterated her heart-broken professions of regret ; to her- she uttered her burning hopes that he would come back to her again, and in these oft-repeated protestations her pent-up feelings found the relief she so much needed. And so the time went on, the moments seeming hours, the hours days, till the colour left her cheeks, and made them pale and worn and haggard.

Up and down the weary streets a man wandered aimlessly, carelessly, dazedly. The unceasing rattle and din beat in his ears and made his senses ache with their untiring repetition. There was no peace, no rest anywhere; not even in his own thoughts, for they were as tumultuous as the city thoroughfares. A little longer and he must go mad ! One day a friend met him, and took him to a club. He himself had been a member of it in his bachelor days, and now his friends welcomed his re-appearance with boisterous mirth. Where had he been hiding himself 5 Oh ! to be sure, some one had spoken of a long artistic tour. Well, had he brought any results back, any gems of art? No! Ah ! then lie had lost his old love of work and was, perhaps, getting passe like themselves. \\ ell, it was no wonder—the world did that for them; they were nob responsible. But none of them remembered the occasion of his marriage, it had been kept so quiet—or remembering it, had nob cared to inquire of his wife knowing that if he wished them to mention the matter he would have broached the subject himself. So he answered no questions ; but let them make their deductions and assume all they wished. Among his old associates he felt a glow of comfort he had nob experienced since deserting his home, and he felt gratefill for the relief. They noted tlmfc he seemed saddened, and .had lost that careless joviality for which he had once been prominent; but they had no time to argue the matter out, and accepted him as he was. Then came invitations from other friends, and by-and-by he found himself moving in his old circle, hearing the same old laughter, listening to the same old reiterated polite cynicisms and sneers, smiling at the same old witticisms and pleasantries which distinguished the peculiar semiBohemian set in which he bad once shone. To the women he had grown bo the men mellowed,ro he was a “ success,” and the accepted lion of every well-regu-lated drawing-room. But while b.e graced these friendly gatherings with his delightful presence and conversation, the demon of unrest still beat at bis heart’s doors, and made his brain bhrpb in agonised remorse. Then the desire for work seized him, and once more he disappeared from the club and the dining-table, and shut himself up along with his easel and palette. In his trouble an inspiration had filled his mind with its glory, and with trembling fingers and knitted brow, he grasped his pencil and set to work. His subject was that of a child —a little street child—holuing in its hands a bunch of withered roses. Forlorn and bewildered the child stood on a doorstep, gazing helplessly round in an endeavour to discover a way to its home, through the mass of humanity streaming down the crazy street. The idea had taken bis fancy and he worked at it almost with a frenzy, and as day by days, and night by night found him at his easel, the picture grew apace, and presently it was finished. friend brought it under the notice of a connoisseur, and in a few days “The Lost Flowers” became the wonder, and the artist the talk of the pity. In a paroxysm of semi-madness he had created for himsejf a fame that seemed undying, add fortune and honour were henceforth his alone ! And still the hunger of his soul was unappeased, The adulations of the public sickened him ; the praise of friends became repulsive to him > the honeyed words of fame were as the jargon of the vulgar in his eais. The desire for work satisfied, lie w'as tatsn up of ennui, The clamour of the city beat back on his brain as it had when he had paced the streets wondering how long it wouldbe be*

fore madness came. It would not be long ?ioio, he thought, with something of a smile on his face.

With no particular object in view he strolled out in the fresh morning air, and forsaking the usually crowded paths, sought a road unfrequented and quiet. His last two months’ experience had had a heavy effect on him—his shoulders were bent, his face had thinned, his eyes had lost their lustre, and as he trod the hard, dusty road swinging his limbs out in an indiflerent, careless manner/ he seemed as one doomed to despair for ever and ever ! The hedgerows on either side of him cast the perfume of their flowers out into the clear, sharp air. It was one of those mornings towards the end of summer which bring with them a suggestion of the season of frost and rain and cold winds. Before noon the sun would be intense in its heat; but at present the air was invigorating, bracing. Over the hills yonder the smoke of a bush fire was lazily floating upward ; in the valley, just handy, the cattle were comfortably grazing, or dipping cheir noses Into the cool, clear pond. A schoolboy, counting his marbles on his way to school, glanced curiously at the heavy-browed, bolemn-lookiog man who had paused in his walk to notice these details. A bird on the bough of a neighbouring tree stopped suddenly in its song as he halted, and seemed startled ; then poising its wings, it flew away; birds had not always been frightened at his approach, he mused, in a childish, pettish way, and with something of a start of surprise. Presently a large clearing lay in front of him, and he stepped off the road on to the soft, green grass. The colour seemed intense and made his eyes ache; he would lie down and close them. Ah ! that was better! There his busy thoughts move themselves into shape, and he seemed as if he was a boy again. He could hear the shouts of bis fellows in a game of football, and felt the excitement quickening the blood in his veins. Then, as a man, he was sketching by a swift, flowing river; a boat came by ; it held a woman, and a woman whose beauty made his heart leap in a paroxysm of passion. He had learned a lesson of love. Then came a day when they wandered among the flowers together ; when he held in his hand the wild Tose. She had worn in her breast—when he had told her the lesson she had taught him. Then ho saw the altar ; then their home and then -a fair-haired child He woke ! And as his eyes wandered wonderingly over the landscape around him, they rested a moment here and there, and the scene seemed familiar ! Then memory came back, and he recognised the spot as being the place where she had given him her life. At his feet was a little frail rose bush, and as he eagerly drew himself to it he saw one delicate blossom hiding, itself away in its leafy nook. The tears, no longer to be kept back, gushed to his eyes and as he tore the tender flower from its parent sprig, he felt with a glow of thankfulness that his reason—his life, and hers - had been saved —saved !

A few hours more, and he was home. Home ! There was music in the word—in whose cadence he recognised the sweet strains of that long ago time. Heentered the bouse noiselessly, and stood concealed in the curtaiiiß of the door of their tiny tea-room. His wife was not there, but on the hearthrug, with the afternoon sunrays all around her, sat the little child. Before her was her doll, propped up in a sitting po-ition by pillows. His heart beat wildly at the child’s words, for he knew they were but the echo of his wife’s own hopes. She, too, was listening now, standing in an opposite doorway, unseen by the child ; but seen by him. He longed to clasp her in his arms and crave her to forget—forget all. But the child’s voice once more spoke in his ears. “ Oh ! I do so hope papa will come home, don’t you, dolly ? Mamma is so sorry, oh ! so sorry, and when papa does come, mamma will tell him to please never to go away again. Papa! please come home !” A wild cry, a sob from his own heart, and the curtains were flung aside, and he was pressing his dear one® to his throbbing breast.

Pr- sently the calmness of their joy came. “ Forgive me, darling, ’’ he said simply. And smiling through the tears which still would come, she answered : “ I have forgotten already !’ : Then with his arm lovingly round her, he placed something in her hand. “ Do you remember?” It was a tiny floweret gathered “ Off the Highway.’