POOR PRETTY BOBBY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3052, 6 February 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

POOR PRETTY BOBBY.

A Complete Tale in Four Ghaptcvs. BY RHODA BROUGHTON. CII-VrTEE. IV. Three more weeks pass away; the harvest is garnered, and the puars are growing soft and mellow. Mother's and my outward life goes on in its silent regularity, nor do we talk much to each other of the tumult that rages —of the heartache that burns, within each of us. At the end of *hree weeks, as wo are sitting as usual quietly employed, and buried each in our own thoughts, in the parlour, we hoar wheels approaching the hall door. IVo both run out, as in my dream I had run to the door, and arrive in time to receive my father as he steps out of the carriage that has brought him. Well! at least one of our wanderers has come homo, but where is the other ? Almost before ho has heartily kissed us both—wife and child—father cries out: •' But where is Bobby 'i"

" That is just vhat I was going to ask you," replies mother, quickly. "Is he not here with your" returns he, anxiously. "Not ho," answers mother; "we have not seen or heard anything of him for more than six weeks."

" Groat God !" exclaims he, while his face assumes an expression of the deepest concern; " what can have bocome of him? What can have happened to the poor fellow?" " Has not he been with you, then ? Has not hi; been in the Thunderer ?" asks mother, running her words into one another, in her eagerness to got them out.

"I sent him home three weeks ago in a prize, with a letter to you, and told him to stay with you until I came home, and" what can have become of him since God only knows!" he answers with a look of the profoundest sorrow and anxiety.

There is a moment of forlorn and dreary silence ; then I speak. I have been standing dumbly by, listening, and my heart growing- colder and celdor at every dismal word. "It's all my doing !" I cry passionately, flinging myself down in an of tears on the okl settle in the hall. "It is my fault—no one else's! The very last time I saw him I told him that he would have to thank me for his death, and he laughed at me, but it has como true. If I had not written you father, that accursed letter, we should have had him here now this minute safe and sound, standing in the middle of us—as we never, never, shall have him again! " I stop, literally suffocated with emotion.

Father comes over, and lays his kind brown hand on my bent prone head. "My child," he says, "my dear jhild," (and tears are dimming the clear grey of his own eyes), you are wron? to make up your mind to what is the worst at once. Ido not

diso-uiso from you that there is cause for 3 "-rave anxiety about the dear fellow, but still God is good; He has kept both him and me hitherto ; into His hands we must trust our bay. ' I sit up, and shake away my tears. "It is no use," I say. "Why should I hope? There is no hope I know it for ti certainty ! Ho is dead (looking round at thorn both with a sort of calmness), he died oa the night that I had that dream-mother I told vou so at the time. Oh. my Bobby! I know that you could not leave me for ever without coming to toll me . And so speaking, I fall into strong hysterics and am carried upstairs to bod And so throe or four more lag-o-in"- days crawl by, and still wo hear nothing and remain in the samo state of doubt and uncertainty, which to mo, however, is hardly uncertainty ; so convinced am I, in my own mind, that 111} fiiir-hiiircri lover is away in the laud whence never letter or messenger uomos-tluit ho has reached thcTGreat Silence. So I sit at my frame, working my heart's agony into the tapustry, and feebly trying to say to God that lie lias done well, but I cannot. On the contrary, it seems to me. as my life twils on through the melbw ni'ist of the autumn mornings, through the shortened autumn evenin o-s that, whoever has done it, it is

most evilly done. One night we nre sitting round the little crackling wood fire that one does not yet need for warmth, but that gives a cheerfulness to the room and the furniture, when the butler Stevens enters, and going over to father, whispers to him. I seem to understand in a moment what the purport of his whisper is. "Why does ho whisper?" I cry, irritably. "Why does not he speak out loud ? Why should you try to keep it from mo ? I know that is something about Bobby" Fatherlias already risen, and. is walking towards the door. "I will not let you go until you tell me," I cried wildly, flying after him.

" A sailor has come over from Plymouth," ho answers, hurriedly; "he says he has news. My darling, I will not keep you in. suspense a moment longer than I can help, meanwhile pray—both of you pray for him !" i" sit rigidly still, with my cold hand tightly clasped, during the moments that next elapse. Then father returns. His eyes are full of tears, and there is small need to ask for his message; it is almost plainly .vritten on his features —death, and not life.

" You are right, Phoobe," he says, brokenly, taking hold of my icy hands; "you know best. He is gone ! God has taken him !" My heart dies. I had thought that I had no hope, but I was wrong. I knew it! I say, in a dry, stiff voice. "Did not I tell you so? But you would not believe me—go on ! —tell me how it was—do not think I cannot bear it—make histe !"

And so be tells me all that there is now left for ino to know—after wluifc manner, and on what day, iny darling toolc his leave of this pretty and cruel world. He had had his wish, as I already knew, and had set off blithely home in the last prize they had captured. Father had taken the precaution of having a larger proportion than usual of the Frenchmen ironed, and had also sent a greater number of Englishmen. Biit to what purpose ? They were Hearing port, sailing prosperously along on a smooth blue sea, with a failstrong wind, thinking of no evil, when a great and terrible misfortune overtook them. Some of the Frenchmen who were not ironed got the sailors below and drugged theirgrog ; ironed them, and freed their countrymen. Then one of the officers rushed on deck, and holding a pistol to my Bobby's head bade him surrender the vessel or die. Need I tell you which he choso ? I think not —well (with a sigh) and so they shot my boy—nh me ! how many years ago—and throw him overboard! Yes—threw him overboard —-it makes nm angry and grieved even now to think ot it —into the great and greedy sea, and the vessel escaped to France. There is a silence between us ; I will own to you that I am crying, but the old lady's eyes are dry. " We'll," she says, after a pause, with a sort of triumph in lier tone, they never could say again that Bobby Gerard was afraid !

The tears were running down my father's cheeks, as he told me, she resumes presently, but at thf end he wiped them and said, "It is well! He was as pldasant in God's sight as hn was in ours, and so he has taken

him." And for mo, I was glad that ho had gone to God—none gladder. But you will not wonder that, for myself, I was past speaking sorry. As so the years wont by, and, as you know, I married Hamilton, and lived with him forty years, and was happy in the mirin, as happiness goes; and whim he died I wept much and long, and so I did for each of my sons when in turn they went. But looking back on all my long life, the event that I think stands out most clearly from it is my dream and my boy-lover's death-day. It was an odd dream, was not it ? "