"Mrs Lorrimer's Folly."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 30 May 1913, Page 2

"Mrs Lorrimer's Folly."

(OUR SfcRIAL

By Charlotte M. Stanley. Vuthor of "Edna's Vow," "His C oufttry Cousin," "How an Oath Was Kept," "A Wo man Wronged."

CHAPTER XVlll.—Continued. 1 Bertha had hoi- way, of J before long Richard had gr wi. so fond of the boy that ho was quite of her way of thinking. Between them they kept tho secret so well that no one in Chelsea—and least of all the boy himself—entertained tho slightest j suspicion of it. He was- tolerably well educated, so far as the branches of a plain, serviceable business education went, and it was Richard Saville's favourite hop© and plan that he should, when old enough, take his p;irt in the management of "Saville's Hotel," now grown quite a thriving house and valuable property, and capable of still further improvement and extension. "It'll all be his when I'm I gone," ho would say to Bertha, "and ; it's my hope to see him well established in'it." But this hope, so natural and reasonable, seemed doomed to disappointment. Will Saville as lie growup, showed no predilection for the qaiet, somewhat hum-drum career of a country hotel keeper. His temperament was romantic, ambitious, adventurous. Ho wanted a life of action, sighed secretly for travel and change. Books of travel and adventure were his favour reading, and he longed to see with' hfs own eyes the wonders of what they told. One way of gratifying v;ich desires alone seemed open to him. He might become a sailor. F,v:■!•;•■ man*must do something to earn his living, ho reflected, and for his part, if his parents could only be brou-'n to consent to it, why should he net go to sea? The idea charmed him. lie set about coaxing Bertha over ;■- once. This was he had turned fourtpen—dating fr,->tn the night Bertha received him. which date he had been taught to consider his birthday—and the question of his shortly leaving school and entering the hotel office to keep the books had been mootqd and discussed in family council. He was an affectionate, amiable boy, and, seeing how Dick Saville's heart was set upon the matter, shrank from dis- j appointing him. He would get j "mother's" consent and approval first, he resolved, and Tost no time in taking Bertha into his confidence. "I don't really like the office, mother," he pleaded to her. "I shall never be contented in such a life. It' s different with father. He was ever so much older than I am when he took to keeping a hotel, and he had you and my little brother that died to j ill ink of and provide for. He had J h.d his fling in the Old Country, and had got married and rossed the seas, and seen what the real world I looked like, and so must I. In. a few years, perhaps —when I've gpne about a bit, and perhaps when I've run across the girl I'd like to marry and ] settle down with —I may bo glad , enough to come home to pretty, quiet Chelsea and be father's head clerk ( and partner; hut not yet. " And I want you to see this, mother, and get. him to see it without disappointing him very much; and then, when he knows how I long for a little excit". ment and change, tell him that 1 should like to go to sea —" But he got no further. Scarcely had the last word left his lips when Bertha, who had been expecting it—long since her motherly instinct had pierced tho secret of his roving fancies and* desires —Bertha with a face as pale as death and a cry that touched his heart, sank breathless into a chair beside him. , "To sea!" she gasped, pale with a horror that he could not comprehend. "!()h, child! would you kill me? Mr.n I lose another son?" and she burst out weeping bitterly. Tho horror of his father's death rose up before hori fancy like a vision. The night —tho kstorm— tho wreck —the ravening waves—the struggling lives sinking down one by one into the black whirlpools made by the raging s'eas. Had she taken this child to her wounded heart, and reared him, and loved him as her own flesh, only to v'f->W. him to a fate like this? All the woman and tho mother in her rose up .agan::-1, -neb a frustration of her hones and pains. She flung her arms around him as ho knelt by her side, quickly touched at sight of her 'distress, and only anxious now to comfort her —for these two loved each other very tenderly. "Will you break my heart?" she asked him. ".Do you think I could' li"e here at home—l, your mother—and you away in the cruel sea ? Oh, child, I wondek at yon! And he . thinks of his father's disappointment, too," she went on, caressing his bright hair, and looking fondly on hi s handsome, eager face, "but hasn't a thought for my anguish! Oh, you hoys!! How soon you forget your mothers! It cm never be, my darling, unless you would break both our hearts. Your father and I have—with but too much cause, alas! —a horhor and terror of the sea." And then she told him why. Told him of the poor young cousin who long years before had perished in a storm it sea. The boy listened —intensely interested —and terrified her with all sort s of eager questions, chiefly about the shipwreck and the storm. "It's so like the story John Brown ! used to tell me!" he cried eagerly. "About a ship that went down in the dead of night, and was lost with every , soul aboard her. She must have struck something," he said, "for there was an awful crash, and then shrieks and screams, and down .she went in the darkness. It couldn't have been a. .rock she struck upon out on tho high seas, John Brown said, and if it had been another vessel something would have been heard of it afterward, so he thinks she must

have crashed into an iceberg. Anyway, she went down to death vnth every soul aboard her. It was an awful wreck, he said; he knew some one, I think, that was aboard her." "He ought to have .been aboard her himself to know s o much about her!" Bertha answered irritably. "If every soul aboard her perished, where does ho get all his information from? Bother John Brown! ,So he has turned up again, has he? I might have guessed as much, and you so full of this sea nonsense. But I'll see Mr Brown this time, and see what he means by coming here turning my child's head with his, sailor stories. Where is he,?" Her child—as she called liim — laughed good-naturedly and kissed her. "Don't scold, mammie," he said, calling her by one of his old pot names for her. "You shall come and see Mr Brown and welcome whenever you like. I'm going down on the beach now and may meet him ; will you come with me?" " But she declined. She wis upset by their late conversation, and scarcely equal to meeting strangers. "Especially this Mr Brown." she said, still a little spitefully, "for I should surely si*)ld him. But find out where he's stopping. Will, darling, ancLthen we can go to him when we please." She stood looking after her boy as ho strolled away toward the beach. "I'll go to John Brown alone," was her secret resolve. "I'll appeal to him. He doeso'i know the mischief he is doing. Who is John Brdwri? And why is it that none of us but Will has ever seen him? But I'll see him and judge for myself to-morrow!" And it never occurred to her to remember the wise counsel a certain proverb gives : "Never put off until to-morrow that which may be done to-day 1" CHAPTER XIX. Meanwhile.' the boy—looking extremely handsome with his flushed, animated face, and eager eyes, and bright, wind-blown hair—went rapidly towards the s hore. It was evening, and the tide was low, and a sunset glare gilded and crimsoned everything. Very few people were about, and the hour had something solemn and-peaceful in it, silent as all was about tho beach, save for tho gently rippling murmur of the still-distant, softly rising waves. At their very i edge a man was walking, slowly, | thoughtfully, with folded arms and head bent, clown, almost as if his earnest ,eyos sought something in the wet and shining s-Mnglo at his feet. '. Will Saville's ca'>:er glance, roving rapidly over the (>: iet scene, speedily fell -upon this thoughtful, solitary figure, and with an exclamation of pleasure and a glad cry of "Heljo, Mr Brown!" the-hoy hurried down to the water's edge to meet him. The man had started at tho call, ] and, pausing in his w'lk, turned . round, and gave young Will a smile and a nod of welcome. Tn doing thif he showed a sun-burned, bearded face and a pair of honest, blue eyes that, hut for.their look of patient melanJ choly, might have matched Will Savi illo's own. ' ' ! (To he Continued.)