CHAPTER II.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1860, 7 June 1884, Page 5

CHAPTER 11.

On a lofty, and rather narrow and sloping plateau in the heart of the Wakatipu ranges of New Zealand, five hundred feet above the Shotover river that rushed furiously over its boulder and ehinglo bed in the wild gorge Jbelow, and .shut in on the one hand by the jj£ant glaciers of Mount Earnslaw, and on the other by the enow-Btreaked dome of Mount Pis*, stood on Christmas Day, 1870, a digger's oamp, the furthest inland, and one of the very few that had, in those early days

been constructed in that rugged, romantic, little known, and sooth to say, {dangerous region. .For dangerous ifc was. Not only difficult of access because of rapid rivers to ford, precipitous cliffs to climb, treacherous morasses to cross, and dense forests of heavy timber, thick undergrowth, and intricate Klines to force or cut a way through, but dangerous horn fierce mountain storms, from heavy falls of snow, fiom avalanches of ice caused oy the constant gnawing of the thousands of trickling rills under the glncierß, from sudden land slip 1 ?, hurling millions of tons of rock, and earth, and trees from the nrnmlain sides into the dismal abysses beneath, bearing death and destruction to all in their resistless path. Perched on this narrow plateau, a mere strip or shelf of enow-grass and box scrub covered land, between the yawning gulf of the Shotover gorge on one side, and a densely bushed shoulder of the range on the other, stood a roughly consfcructad house or hut built of the trunks of tree ferns and thatched with flax, and near it two small tents lying back by tho hillside, and well sheltered by thick belts of " lawyer bush." and Veronica, from the tempests that sometimes raged in the valley. As has been said, it wa3 Christmas Day, and in honor of the festival the diggers who had taken their abode on this eyrie had foreborne to work of their sluicing opeiations on the river below. They were iive in number, myrelf, my cousin Jack, George and Harry Bowman, two sturdy Northumbrian brothers!, and Joe Black the cook, or a1?a 1 ? he is called in digger argot, the doctor. We five had been mates for many years. We had come out in the same ship, we had tried our luck at most of the diggings in Victoiia, and although we had had, like many others, rarely done more than make our "tucker," we had stuck together loyally until weary of the rebuifs of fortune in Australia, and of " railing at her in lound terras," wo turned our faces eastward, and, after ti-ying for some three months among the hardy and noisy crew of diggers on the Hats of the lnwer Shotover, with whom Jack Wiis a prime favourite, but with no great snecesa, we adventured into the rocky fastnesses and gloomy gorges of the unknown head waters of the Kawavau. Nor did our patience and indomit?.ble perseverance go unrewarded. We had with infinite toil and hardship, diverted the lower couise of a small ana branch of the main stream into another channel, and had found a 3lnnglc bed in the diied-up gully of a former creek, and from the two had acquired as much gold in a few months as served to make us all fairly rich men for life. And now we sat round our rude table in the hut on a shoulder of the Wakatipu range on the afternoon of Christmas Day, 1870, after dividing our treasure, smoking, and talking of this, that, or the other, and making appointments where to meet in future days, for Jack and myself had partly determined to visit England ; I to see my father, who from letters I had had, was, I learnt, failing ; and my cousin for a reason of which up to then I knesv nothing. We were all in high spirit:-*, except Jack (who usually the lightest-hearted ot us all, seemed singularly depressed and absent-minded), and talked ovex the future with the glee and jubilation of schoolmates discussing the approaching holidays. Alas I alas ! could we only have seen what a few hours would bring forth. The morning had been unusually fine. There was not a brenth of air to stir the leaves A the forest behind us; the atmosphere quivered in the intense heat poured by the sun from the cloudless heaven into the narrow valley ; the diadem of ice that crowned old King Earnslaw sparkled with opalesque tints — blue, greon, purple, delicate pink, and daz/ling while, and through a lift in the trees across the river we could see the sleeping lake Wakatipu dhining like molten silver. It was as if nature had put on her best and richest livery in honor of our farewell. But in those mountain regions, three thousand feet or so above sea level, one never knowd what tne weather will bo from hour to hour. Shortly after noon a grey haze crept up from the westward, a cold moist wind blew up the gorge in low, melancholy soughs and cadences, the sky became obscured, and a fine rain, mingled with softly-falling snow that melted as it fell, darkened the air. We scarcely heeded this at first, so intent wcie we on our own affairs, but after a time, as the sun Bank behind the distant coast ranges, and the twilight rapidly waned, we insenbibly Eub&ided into a kind of half dejection of spirits, a silence that was only broken by the fitful moaning of the wind and the hoarse murmur of the river over the moraine below. " Quite a Quaker's meeting, I declare," said I, witli a lamentably ineffective assumption of cheerfulness. "Let's light the lamp, and have a game of cribbage, or euchre, or something." We played, but without any heart in the game. Wo seemed all to be weighed down with some indefinable foreboding, some premonition of impending ill, we knew not what or whence. Afcer a few games, Jack, who had played carelessly and abstractedly, threw down his cards, saying, " This is all nonsense, we can't play, and none of U 3 want to ; let's go to bed. This sort of things gives me the blues, and I'm stifling in this hut. Come with me, Larry, and talk a walk along the ledge." I rose from the table, lighted my pipe, and joined my cousin outside. " What do you think about our going home ? " he asked. " I hardly know what t© say. We're doing very well here, and it seems almost a pity to leave our luck," I replied. " It is, and yet, and yet — I'll tell you what we'll do ; biing out the lantern and the dice from the tent, and we'll leave it to the hazard of the die. What say you, two dice, under bis we stay, over six we go." " Agreed." A lantern and the dice were soon obtained, and kneeling down by its light we threw on a moss-covered stone. One throw decided the question. Jack threw, and the little cubes each showed up six spots. " That settles the matter," said Jack, " it's a clear case of go, you see." "I'm satisfied," I returned; "when shall we start? " " Soon as ever you like ; the sooner the better," he replied. " Come, let us take a stroll, old man, and talk over things." I replaced the lantern in the tent, and rejoined him outside. "Larry," he said suddenly, as we slowly sauntered up a little declivity that led from owr terrace to another one higher up, " I'm going to make a clean breast of it." " Make a clean breast of it ? " I replied, in surprise ; " what do you mean, old fellow ?" " Let us sit down on the top of this rise, under the shelter of that big rock, and I will read you a page out of the hidden book of my early life. Something I never told to mortal man before, and which I should not now, but that something, I know not what, & dim foreshadowing of evil, danger, death perhaps, impels me to speak." We sat down on a granite boulder, sheltered from the rain by an upright shaft or rock, which, &een from our camp, about a quarter of a mile away, we had christened " The Needle," and I requested him to commence. " My story," ho aaid, " is told in very few words. It is neither strange nor sensational, neither romantic nor uncommon. It is simply a, story of a crushed heart, of two crushed hearts." I looked at him in the dim light in undisguised astonishment. Such an announce-

merit from the usually jovial and high-spirited Jack Butler was, indeed, a new experience. He sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, gazing into the darkness, and went on musingly, and as if communing with himself rather than talkinß to me. " Yes," he said, " of two crushed hearts, of two blighted lives. Did you ever read or hear tho legend of the Spartan boy who concealed the filolen fox under his cloak, and who rather allowed it to gnaw at his vitals, at hia very heart strings, than divulge the thoft ? " " I have," I replied, wonderingly, " but — " " I am that Spait&n boy, or I have been up to now; but this presentiment of something terrible about to happen forces me to apeak, perhaps for the last time, who knows ? Perhaps you ■ Did you hear that ?" he suddenly ejaculated, grasping me by the arm. 1 did hear something which sounded like a low, wailing scream, using from the belt of bush which now lay between us and the gorge. " Yes," I replied, " I heard it ; a gust of wind through the trees, or — " " No," he interrupted, "my friend, my more than brother, do not laugh at me. It is no gust of wind. It id the cry of the Bansheo. It is, I tell you. I heard it last night. It woke me, me alone, while you hlept. Alas I alas ! I know it only too well. We Butlers," he Vint on mournfully, but with a sad, sardonic laugh, " arc a gifted race, as your mother might have told you. From the days cf the fiist Earls of Ormond, when Edward of Caernarvon was murdered in Berkley Castle, and the Butlers look for their motto, " Dcpressus Extollor," 1 and their peerage for helping Isabella to put her son, Edward the Third, on the throne 'of England, we, like the Aylmers, the Trenches, the Nolans, the Bairys, and a score of other old families, have been honored by having a bau«hee of our own, whose scream is heard ■whenever death or disaster is about to fall on one of the house. You English do not belipve in such things. I do, ala 3 ! I must, for I know it to be true." He slopped, and hid his face in his hands wearily. 1 said nothing. I was for the moment awed, and could find nothing to say. After a pause he resumed : " Therefoio is it that I now tell you my heart's secret. It may be that some day you may meet her, may lellher — " and again he hid his face in his hands, and Bobbed convulsively. " Bah !" he went on, " this is childish. Let me finish my ptory. My home was, as you know, in the neighbourhood of Castlecomer, about half way between that and Kilkenny, and had been at one time a fine building, with woods, and gardens, and moorlands, a?d 1,11 the rest of it. But generation after generation of wild, reckless, ami improvident Butlers, to a younger branch of whom it had always belonged, had sa.lly shorn it oi its fair proportions. Most of the timber had bren cut down, and acre after :icjlG of the fair dcraesiie sold, until scarcely anything remained but the ruins of a dismantled house, and a few paltry tenant farms, tho rents of which barely sufficed to keep my impoverished father and his family in food and drink. " But wo were Butler 1 ", and must not doreean our&elves by work. My life you may gue^. The youngest son ot a poor Irish gentleman, brought up id idleness and ignolance. My life, after 1 left school and went home, was spent in fishing, shooting, hunting (whenever I could yet a mount), and sLellmg aimlessly about the country bide. "About twelve months bcfoic 1 came to Australia a -wealthy Englishman, a Wexford merchant, a fellow who had marto a fortune out of butter and eggs, and I know not what, bought an estate near Cfistlecomcr. Part of the land had once belcptd to urf, but, although it had been uold lo ig a,,qo, no one ever thought of inteifering with our shooting or fishing over it. Ho was a hard, purse-proud man, but, being rich and in the commission of the peace, ho was lool.od np to as somebody. I will do him tho justice of saying that when he came lo selrle at Castlecomer he called on us, and expressed a d"&iie to know us a<s neighbours, at the same time saying that he had no wish to close his grounds j against our guns, or his stieann against our rods. It was handsome of him, but lam afraid my father <? ; d not receive him very cordially, and he vent away chilled, and ! vexed with himself for having come. I cared nothing for this, and went on as usual in my carelos, shiftless, happy-go-lucky way. """"But one day, as I was sauntering lazily by the river bank, I suddenly came acro&s a vision of beauty which made my pulse cease to throb, my heart cease to beat. It was that of a young maiden, lovely as ever was any in a poet's dieam, seated sketching the distant towers of Ormond Castle, which peeped through an opening in the trees. A boy of about seven years of age, her brother, was playing round her on the grass. I drew back , noiselessly into the coppice, and gazed in a tumult of admiration at the fair picture. I could not tear myself away. Presently she said to the child, " Come, Maurice dear, it is time we were going home. I will come here and finish the sketch to-morrow." Then she gathered up her pencils and her camp stool, and, taking the little one by the hand, left the spot. I could not move. I was dazed, enchanted, entranced. When I went home they could not make out what ailed me. I gave absurd and unmeaning answers to questions they asked me, and old Sheelah, the family nurse, wiung her hands, ejaculating, " Wir- ( rasthrue 1 Shure Masther Jack has seen one of the good people." " True it was, I had seen a fairy, for that Ava? what she meant by one of the good people, but not such a, fairy as she referred to. My fairy was one of flesh and blood, a fairy fairer than fabled Titania or the dainty Ariel. One who by the witchery of her beauty and grace had enthralled me more deeply than the mythical nymph of the Lurleyberg ever enslaved Sir Bupert the Fearless. I had heard of, read of, and laughed at love as a nambypamby piece of nonsense fit only for schoolgirls and silly boys, and here I was fairly entrapped at first sight. " Need I say that I wa3 at the same spot the following day, anxiously looking for the coming of my goddess — for a goddess she seemed to me. By and bye, it appeared to be hours, she came leisurely along the river walk, tall and stately as Minerva, graceful as Juno, beautiful as Venus. With her was her little brother. I held my breath as she arranged her seat, and commenced to continue her sketch. I devoured her with my eyes. My blood was surging in my veins, my brain was on fire, I was mad with love. Presently the child, playing too near the bank, fell into the water. She rose with a shriek for help. In an instant I had leapt from my hiding place, like a flash of light I had dived into the stream. I knew the place well. Many a time had I fished it, and knew that it was deep there. I could swim like an otter, dive like a shag, and I had learnt to keep my eyes open under water. I saw the child crouched at the bottom, grasping the reeds and grass. With a wrench I tore him away from his fatal clutch, and the next moment I was at the surface and on the bank. She was there, her hands clasped, and her eyes transfixed with terror. I laid the insensible child on the grass, and then I saw her totter as if to fall. In an instant I had caught her in my arms, and her fainting form was clasped to my breast. Oh, heaven ! to my breast 1 I would have kissed her pale lips, but no, that would have been desecration. " Soon she revived, and then the child needed all my care. I lifted him in my strong arms, and bore him to his father's house—

the house of Mr. Walton, for these were the children of our new neighbor. Streaming with wet as I was, Mr. Walton embraced me as the preserver of his child. Then she took my hands in hers, and spoke to me. I knew not what she said, for I was delirious with love, and I tore myself away and fled the spot, unconscious of what reply I made or whether I made any. ____________ " Mr. Walton was graTef ul, deeply grateful lur what I had done, and never wearied of showing his gratitude. He offered to provide for my future, to obtain me a commission, to enable me to study for the bar, for medicine, anything I chose, but my father coldly declined his offers. A Butler must not be under any compliment, save to a Butler. "He invited me to Waltoncouifc, for so he had called his mansion. He would have had me there constantly, for he had no son, but the child of whom I was the saviour. J. went but seldom, for in her presence I dared scarcely trust myself. Still, occasionally I went. We walked, we rode together, for I broke and paced a horse for her, she played and sarg for me. " Once I met her with her father in Kilkenny, and while ho transacted some needful business, he allowed me to escort her over the quaint old town. I Bhowed her the streets paved with marble, the college, the bridge, the ruins of St. John's Abbey, St. Canice, and the Nore, and then I took her over Ormond Castle itself, for I was, although a poor cadet of the family, still a Butler, and as such had, in a certain sense, the same right to come and go as the great Earl himself. I took her over the picture gallery, and showed her the portraits of the grim steel-clad old earl?, the founders of the house, and the much bewigged and silk and velvet bedizened cavaliers of the time of Charles and Queen Anne, down to the " honest men " of later date, most of them no friends to the Hanoverian succession, and of nearly all of whom it was truly said, " And tho rebel rose stuck to the house of Ormond for many a day." "Oh I what an afternoon, all too short, that was ! I was in Elysium, in paradise, in the seventh heaven of delight. "Enough of this. Time wore on, and Beatrice Walton learnt to love me. All 1 thrice blissful time of joy and hope, when the iunocenb maiden first falters forth the rapturous words, ' I love you.' "But I was rudely awakened out of my fools' paradise of dreams by my fathor, who, though improvident and reckless, was a true and honorable gentleman. I had nevor seen him so stern and angry before. " ' What's this I hear from your mother,' said he. (I, in the fulness o£ my heart, had told my sister Kate, who had, thereupon, conveyed the naw& to my mother.) 'Is my son a fool or a sc6undrel ? ' " ' Neither, father, I hope,' I replied. " ' And yet you have been making love to Miss Walton, I hear. You have, a pennile33 adventurer, been making love to a wealthy heiress. She has a father, sir ; what does he say ? ' " I stammered something to the effect tht,t I had not spoken to him on the subject. " ' And is that honorable ? is it the act of a gentlpman, of a Butler ? ' " I attempted to exculpate myself, but he would hear nothing. 'Go,' he said, 'first gain her father's consent, and then you may ask mine. Until you have made the amende of consulting him, I do not wish to see you.' " There was a sting in his woids which touched me to the quick. I had not seen my conduct in that light before ; but now my eyes weie opened and 1 saw that my only cour&e was to declare my love for Beatrix to her father, and ask his permission to pay my court to her. I would go at once. True I was poor, and he was rich,but I was a Butler, and suiely that would cover all the ground. " Poor fool, how little I knew of tho world. I went, and the old gentleman received me cordially. But when I told him my errand, and I told it blunderingly enough, I dare say, I saw an angry flush rise to his cheek and brow, and he paced the room two or three time 3 befwe speaking. When he did it was in a hard and constrained voice : '"Mr. Butler,' he said (he had grown into calling mc John before), ' I am pained and grieved beyond expression at what you tell mo. True, I owe you a deep debt of giatitude, and must therefore treat you with some consideration ; but I ask you, sir, if yon think it was generous, to say the least, to take advancagc of your visits here to make love to my daughter without her father's knowledge? ' " I pleaded my love for her as my excuse. " ' No, sir, that is no excuse, no valid reason. Pray tell me, does your father know of this ? ' " I told him exactly what had occurred. " ' Your father is an honorable man. I thought his son one too, but I—lI — I am disappointed. Enough, there needs no more be said. lat once emphatically, distinctly, and unequivocally forbid this matter to go further. To prevent any mora mischief I shall remove Bea— Miss Walton from hero to-morrow. Until she is gone, I must request your absence from my house and grounds.' " • But may I not hops, sir, that some day ' " ' No, sir, it is hopeless, absolutely, positively hopeless. Good day.' " I sank on a chair thoroughly crushed, and totally unable to speak more than to gasp ' Oh sir I oh air ! ' " He was touched, I could see that, but unmoved in his resolve. He spoke to me kindly but firmly. " • My dear boy,' he said, • for you are my dear boy still, you think me cruel perhaps — I am only cruel to be kind. You are young, you have a future before you, go make your way in the world. I will help you if I can and may. You know that. Go. You will soon forget this foolishness, as she will forget you. Believe me, my dear boy, it is for the best. You have been foolish, wrong, perhaps, but ' " * Oh ! sir,' I moaned in an agonyjof despair, ' how could I see her, and help i loving her?' " 'Perhaps not, my poor boy, perhaps not; but it cannot, must not, be. I have other views for her. She must marry wealth, rank oven. That is my ambition, a pitiful one you may perhaps think, but it has been the dream of my live, and I will not be baulked. Ido not think so meanly of you as to imagine you would woo her for her wealth merely — ' "'Oh! no sir, no.' " ' Hear me out — nor that you would willingly be a pensioner on my bounty — ' " • Oh 1 no sir, no.' " ' Yet, without one or the other, think what you would do. You would drag an innocent girl who has been used all her life to luxury, down to poverty and want. Ido not say this to offend you, but you know you are poor and what else could you do ? ' "I could not answer. It was true, and every word stabbed me like a knife. " ' Therefore you see it cannot be. Forget this folly, my dear boy, promise me that you will forget it.' " « Oh sir ! do not ask me that. I cannot, never shall forget it, and, and her,' I murmured faintly. 'I will go. I see you are right. She must not suffer for my mad infatuation. Yes sir, you are right, but I cannot, heaven help me! I cannot forget her. 1 "I rose and staggered blindly from the room. Was it night, or was it day ? I did not know. I neither saw nor heard aught, but instinctively, and like a wounded anim&l, I sought the shelter of a thick covert, where I might, as I thought, lay me and die. How long I lay, what tears I ehed, I know

not to this day. But well do I know the ' truth of what the old port says. •' A woman may shed tears, perchance 'twill do her good. But when a man sheds tears, his tears are tears of blood." " Next day I was told Mr. Walton had gone \ fco England taking his daughter with him, j and I saw her no moie. But I had one j weet drop in my cup of bitterness. As I < wandered disconsolately by the river side, one | jf the servants at Waltoncourt, came quickly i out from behind a bush, and laying her finger , on her lips, handed me a small parcel, and ; disappeared as quickly. I opened it mechanically. It contained nothing but a small ■ locket, with a braid of dark brown hair in3ide, and on the outside the words ' Treu nnd test.' Treu und fest. See I have it here next to my heart," and Jack took out from his bosom the keepsake, and kissing it murmured " Oh my love 1 my lost, lost love ! " A week after I got your letter, old friend. . [ buried my grief deep in my heart, and until now have never levealed it. I was determined that I would not, as Shakspeave says, ' Wear my heart upon my sleeve Eor daws to peck at,' and I have kept my determination, have I not, Larry ?" To say that I was surprised would be but faintly to expiGas my feelings. I was nonplussed, bewildeied. Here was a revelation, indeed. Tho light-hearted, frolicsome Jack, with ever a joke or a cheery word on his tongue, to have carried this grief about with him ao long and to have felt it so deeply. Truly he was the Spart&n boy indeed. Words I had none to utter. Anything I might have said to solace him or cheer him would have been cold, perhaps impertinent, and I contented myself by clasping his hand and saying, " Poor old Jack ! Come, let us return to the camp." (To Ye continued.)