CHAPTER V.—(Continued.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1970, 21 February 1885, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHAPTER V.— (Continued.)

"My God ! " murmured that wretched being, as he got up und went away past the growling dog, " purely my punishment is too great 1 " The children both rose and stood looking after the priest's retreating form. Neither of them had heard his despairing ejaculation, but they could see from the unfortunate being's gestures that he was in great pain of some kind. "He must bo very 111," the gentle little girl said. "Is that a clergyman ? " asked Daniel, with a heavy frown over his fine, and yet angry eyes. " I think so. He is called Father James, you know Daniel, and don't you see his dress ? " " I know nothing about his dress ; I never saw a priest before, but I know one thing, and that is that whoever that man is he is a bad one." "Oh dear, how can you tell? he was a little rude I think, but he looks ill, and sickness makes people short-tempered, mama ■ays." They resumed their work on the grave, and were silent for some moments, and it was Daniel who broke the silence by the abrupt question. " Resignation, did you ever see a picture of Dan Lyons ? ", "Oh nol why do you ask that?" the child asked, as she again lifted her eyes and rested them on the boy's face. " Because I ■boold like to know exactly what he was like ; you know something about it, don't you? I've often asked mother to de«cribe him to me, but she only turns her face away from me when I do. What was he like Resignation? What kind of face had he ?" " Mama has told me," was the reply in a low voice, as the little girl glanced around with a shudder ; " and I often dream that I am looking in his bad face. He was a tall, ■tout man, with a fat, red face, and great coarse hands and feet. He used to drink awfully too, and was always bad, even before he killed my poor, darling papa." # "Of course he was," Daniel observed decidedly," and Dan Lyons was big and fat— eh?" " Yes." " I wonder what became of him ; the police nerer got on his track." "Oh no, I hope he in dead." " I hope he is not I I hope I shall see him die by inches ! " Resignation shook her head. Daniel's face was flushed with paasion, hia hands were clenched, and his grand dark eyes seemed to scintillate. " It is so strange that you should feel it fo," the girl declared, " Mama often remarks that if it had been your own father who was killed you could not have hated his murderer more." " That is true, I could not." Again there was a short silence, again broken by the lad. "Resignation tell me about a sensitive plant ; what is it ?" "A sensitive plant I Oh, it is a plant whose leaves shrink and close at the slightest touch. Why, Daniel ?" "I winh we could get one and plant it here," replied the boy, laying his hund just over where the heart of the dead man had once rested, " and then if Dan Lyonß dared to put his foot near this, the leaves would tell us." " I'm afraid they could not do that, Daniel," Resignation said with a little sigh, " but God will tell us, some day." "Aye, child, God will tell you some day, . but it will be so near the moment when you ■hall see your father's face for the first time that the horror of the knowledge shall be overwhelmed for ever in the brightness of an everlasting heaven." And that wretched being, who had rußhed away from the grave, with his hands clenched and an awful horror in his eyes, opened the gate and went outside the fence of the en closure. Where was he going ? He did not know himself at the moment ; anywhere, anywhero away from the presence of those children, and the vicinity of that grave. He sat down when be had gone a little way down the hillside, and bent his white face into hia hands ; but that did not hide from his hidden eyes those staring black letters on the white ■tone — " Vengeance is Mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord." There was the rustle of leaves and grass around him, and the twitter of birds ofer his head, but he heard only the words Resignation St. Herrick had repeated as her mother's : "As surely as God's sun ■bines in the sky, God's vengeance will overtake Dan Lyons, the murderer." Father James sat there for some time, and then he suddenly lifted his head and looked up at the pure, pale-blue, sun-flooded sky above him. Was he thinking of the Great Firat Cause, whose dwelling our human veneration located high above the clouds, whether they float above the far East or the far West ; the icy North or the frozen South ? Was he doubtirjg the possibility of a prayer reaching the foot of the Great White Throne through that pelluoid ether that was as brass to the prayers of the unrepentant sinner? Who may tell? But he got up as suddenly as he had seated him■elf, and drained a little flask he had in his pocket ere he went on his way with a determined step. He muttered to himself as he went, strange words that but hinted wildly at the secret he carried. " I will be a coward no longer ; it is the only chance or hope," were some of the words that dropped from his pale, drawn lips. " I have come all these miles to do it, and now that lam here I dread to speak. Nonsense, ■he is but a woman after all, and if she denies me I cannot be worse than I am." It was toward a pretty cottage at the very outskirts of the township that his stepi were

turned. It lay in the midst of encircling verdure, and faced the creek. When one crossed the little bridge that crossed lloban Creek they stood at the gate of the cottage, on the very threshold, as it were, of the garden in front of it. This cottage was the one Mr. Pollard had built for the widow of Colonel St. Herrick, and he had done all that was possible to give brightneis to the home of the poor lady whom all pitied ; but he had failed. How is it that there is a something always visible in even the outside of a house to hint at the feelings indulged by those who inhabit it ? The garden of the cottage was neatly kept, for Eesignation and her rough friend Daniel Griffiths spent much of their time in it, but the very flowers were chosen for their subdued tints. There were no flaunting colors there among the green freshness. Perhaps the principal reason that glaring and gaudy colors were avoided was the fact that every* thing at the cottage was cultivated with the one idea that at some time or other, in blossom or plant, must go to decorate that stored grave of the husband and father. In no garden round Marranga were seen such lovely white and yellow and pale blush roses. May and jasmine and honeysuckle, and great pale passion-flowers made beautiful the trelliswork of the summer-house and drooped from the verandah. In their season tall, white Easter lilies stood sentinel over the beds as did that white atone in the cemetery over the breast of the murdered man, and the Guelder roses, big balls of clustering blossom, floated in a sea of green leaves near the pale blossoming lilac. Into this garden of pale, pure flowers stepped that black-robed man with the hollow eyes that we know as Father James. If his heart beat hard and painfully there was no outward evidence of it as he knocked at the door under the shadowed verandah. There was no sound to tell of life in that still house. The windows in front were hung with dark colors, and there was no floating-breeze-blown lace to give lightness and grace to the rooms within. When Mrs. St. Herriok's great trouble fell upon her life she accepted it as full and complete as though no sun ever shone on God's other gifts, at least, for her. I When she opened the door to that knock, Father James's eyes rested on a woman as white-faced as himself, and with robes as hopelessly black. She was young, at least comparatively so, thirty- two or three years old perhaps, and she might have been beautiful once, but in her features there was no trace of gentle Resignation's sweet features or expression. Mrs. St. Herricks hair was dark and her eyes grey, but every feature was hard and cold and bitter, for she had never forgiven Fate for the cruel blow that had stricken her life's idol from her side. If I dared to say it I would hint thai she had never forgiven the God who had afflicted her, and yet, strange anomaly, she had borne sweet, patient Resignation St. Herrick. When she stood before the man it was with a hard questioning face that did not change until she grasped his errand. " I am Father James Brady, the new tenant of St. Herricks, and have some business with Mrs. St. Herrick." " I am she," was the reply ; but flhe made no movement to admit him. " I have come on an errand of suoh moment that I am sure I need not apologise for requesting an interview; I have come to you at the request of that unhappy man, Dan Lyons." "What?" "It is true, madam; I have come from him." " Oh, heaven 1 has the time come at last 1 Shall I see my darling avenged at last, at last I" She had seized bis arm with no gentle hand, and was dragging the priest into the sitting-room while she was speaking. "He has been caught ? He has given himself up? He has confessed? He is condemned? He will die? Come in and tell me all — all 1" He fell rather than sat down upon a chair rear the door, and lifted his hat for a moment, only however as if to relieve himself of an intolerable burden for one moment, for he replaced it instantly. Mrs. St. Herriok had, however, seen the tonsure, and it was to her a confirmation of her dearest hopes. " Yes, you are a priest," she added excitedly, "you have seen the monster, and he has confessed to you, and you bring me the glorious tidings." "It is a mistake," the visitor replied in a low tone, as his eyes remained riveted on the carpet at his feet. "It is true that Dan Lyons has confessed to me, but he is far away in another land, and is not a prisoner." " Not a prisoner I You. know of his crime, yet the murderer is free. You then are an accomplice— a villain of as deep a dye as Ban the accursed himself 1 " " I am a priest," the man replied, in a voice that trembled in spite of him, " and I received the confession of the man under the sacred seal of the confessional. lam here with the words that unhappy man has put in my mouth to speak to you. Will you listen to them ? " " Yes, I will listen." Mrs. St. HerrickS sat down opposite Father James with her eyes full of the strong determination that was a prominent point in her character, and her heart was beating with a wild hope. Oh yes, she would listen, and with such acute ears that not one clue that might trap the spiller of blood should escape them I " I must tell you his story — tell it to you from the moment when he fled from Marranga." " From the moment that he knew my poor husband had written, denouncing him with fingers that were stiffening in darkness and death ! Go on!" " Well, he fled. He had means, for in the very instant the falling earth in the claim shut in St. Herricks face, he saw gold in shining pieces in the soil around him, and secured enough to take him far away from the scene of his crime, nor was it exhausted When he came a repentant man, to the monastery of whose order I was a brother. " 'Where was it ? ' the widow asked, as her breath came thick. "It does not matter. It was on the Continent, and Dan Lyons gave the brothers his gold, and became one of the brotherhood. For years he lived an incarcerated and selfdenying life in that monastery, only to grow thinner and whiter, and more bony and haggard with each day, for he had not confessed his orime, and his sin lay like lead on his soul. "At last he pluoked up courage, and he confessed — " "• To you ? ' interrupted Mrs. St. Herrick. 11 Yes, it was to me, and oh, the tale he told was awful enough to soften the hardest heart — even you, against whom his sin was greatest, would have pitied the wretched being, had you heard the story of his suffersufferings. "11l pity Dan Lyons 1 " s She actually laughed as she stared in the priest's face, a laugh that was as wild as was a laugh within the cell of a maniac. "Yes you would," he cried angrily, and then she noted for the first time the smouldering fire in his deep-set eyes, " you are not a rock or a stone, you are a woman, and you must feel 1 " 11 Yes, I feel," Mrs. St. Herrick exclaimed, " feel that if I could save Dan Lyons from eternal torture by lifting up my finger I should out it off, lest I should lift it in my sleep.

Who are you who asks a woman to pity her husband's murderer ? " " Listen yet," the priest went on, but both his pallor and the fire in hia eye 3 were intensified as he saw the unforgiving passion in the widow's face, " you know the man's sin but you do not know its punishment. There is not a living being but the man who speaks to you now that knows what were the last words your husband spoke. Shall I tell them to you?" " Yes, tell them." " They were these : ' If you leave me here to-day, as you see my face now, you will see it at this hour every night until you die yourpelf, and your own death will be worse than mme — aye a hundred times.' " 11 My husband said that ? " " Yes, and the curse has been fulfilled. It was after sundown when Dan Lyons left him there to die alone in the collapsed claim, and he did not die until after midnight." "How do you know? Oh, my God, how do you know that my darliDg suffered so long ? " " Because from sunset to midnight for nearly twelve awful years Colonel St. Herricks face is before Dan Lyons' eyes. No matter where he goes, or how he hides, it is there, always there. Seas have been between him and the dead man's grave, but that face is clear and fresh as though the real face had not mouldered to dust years ago. Oh, think of that wretched man's misery and pity him now." Father James might have been pleading for himself so earnest, so craving, so pleading was his trembling tones. With his thin white fingers clasped as in prayer, he bent forward, and, with great tears in his awful eyes, begged for pity on the far distant man who had blood on hia hands I " Was it my pity he sent you all those thousands of miles to ask ? " the widow said with a sneer. " No, it was for your forgiveness', andjin the name of that Christ we both worship give it to him I " " Never ; if my own salvation was the forfeit I should not forgive Dan Lyona 1 Go man, you are mocking me 1 How dare you ask a widow to forgive the murderer of her husband." One moment yet, oh listen yet. A holy man has told that wretched man that the moment he receives your forgiveness he will cease to be a haunted man— oh, for the mercy and charity and pity ol Almighty God, forgive him 1 " " You are mad 1 " she cried, as she rose and pointed to the door ; " you are a madman and lam a lone woman — go ! I heard that you were ill and I am sorry for you, but I did not know you were a lunatio or I would not have admitted you. I shall tell no one of this absurd visit, so you see I am merciful, though I would not forgive a monster." He rose and faced her. "I am not mad," he said, "and I have only delivered Dan Lyons' message. Once more is your answer no — you will not forgive as you hope for forgiveness ? " " Never 1 Have I not said it? I am a woman, but I could see Dan Lyons tortured to death and rejoice in the eyes that enabled

me to ccc it I " Father James looked steadily into the excited woman's flashing eyes, a look that she never forgot and that punished her for her hard heart until the light of life left her own eyes. " I have heard your answer, and now listen to Dan Lyon's words. 'If she refuses, tell her that what she has suffered in the past ah»ll be as nothing to what she shall suffer in the future— that I swear before high heaven I ' " If Dan had been swearing himself he oould not have looked more terrible than that blackrobed man I As he lifted his thin hand up with the oath, Mrs. St. Herriok fell back on her seat scathed by the terrible look in his eyes, and Father James went out alone, brushing the pale flowers of the garden with the skirts of his black coat and wiping his feet on the threshold as one who leaves a curse behind him.