SHORT STORY

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 392, 12 November 1903, Page 7

SHORT STORY

• Can it b3 possible, Alice, that yon do not perceive how devoted to you Mr Etheiidge Lb t Love is blind, they t ay. I eappc.se the adage may fairly apply to the careless girl who captures a man's heart and then goes about apparently blind to or oblivious of the fact.* ' Eeally, mother, to be candid, I have never thought at all of the matter. Mr Ethendge is, I am sure, a good man, and a sincere friend, but I do not feel particularly interested in him.' The gentleman in question bad evidently one—if only one—friend at court, for Mrs Norton gave a sigh of meek disappointment, and gazed pensively into the fire, while Alice maintained an obstinate silence. Presently the elder lady resumed the thread of her discourse. 'Surely, my child,' she remonstrated, 'seven yean of mcurning for a sweet heart who is either dead or false ought to be enough for the mot t constant maiden. A wife could hardly be expected to wait longer for an absent husband, and it would make me so happy if you could respond to the evident affection of the Eector, and give the poor man a little encouragement. A feeling at my heart tells ma that I have not much longer to live, I wish to get my house in order, end it would be a coßEolation to me to know at the laet that I was leaving my only child—my Alice—in the charge of an honourable man who adored her.' Alice Norton dearly loved her mother, and the serious heart trouble from which the latter suffered was asourca of constant anxiety to her. She promptly dropped her work and fixed her gaze, remorsefully and tenderly, upon the pale wan face before her, which, despite its lines of cue, still retained some pathetic traces of former beauty. ' Poor mother!' she said. ' Heaven knows how .gladly i would do anything calculated to give you happiness save this. This I cannot do. It would be a sacrilege—a profanation. Ido not believe that Cecil Aldis is dead; nor do I believe that he forgets or is false to the vows that we interchanged when we parted that cold bleak February morning, when the snow lay thick on the ground as it does now, nearly seven years ago. Mother, I have seen him in my dreams. He has adjured me to be faithful; he has promised to return, and that promise he will f keep. He will find me waiting, waiting, ever waiting, with his dear image in my heart, in the old home by the grey Cumbrian Sea.' The girl broke down utterly, and, bowing her head upen her arms, leaned for ward on the table sobbing disconsolately. There are some sorrow* of the deeper c ort whifiry*aTinay bear about with us, as daily companieffc in our heart of hearts without the world being any the wiser} but these, translated into words, inevitably open the floodgates of tears. For many years Mrs Norton, who was a widow with a small annuity, had occupied, with her daughter, the quaint old home known as Solway Villa, which looked across the aea on which the struggling village of Carton was built. There Alice had grown from infancy to fair and gracious girlhood; there she and Cecil Aldis, who was the eon of her mother's friend, a solicitor in the town of Fairhaven, just two miles off, hj»«? glided, by an easy and natural transition, from the shallows of a childish friendship into the deep waters of love, which no earthly plummet baa ever yet sounded; End there her young life had experienced its first great and bitter grief when abe said good-bye to her lover, who, always fond of the sea, had succeeded in obtaining a good berth in the merchant service. They had separated with mutual protestations of undying constancy. How tne Alice was to these pledges we have just seen. What her mother had said was quite true. Nearly seven years—an eternity for the young—had elapsed since Cecil Aldis had sailed away. During the first few months of his absence Alice had received letters from him. Then they suddenly ceased—ceased togetner—and the giil w*B left to fret her heart out with perplexity and gloomy imaginings. It teemed as if her life had become a complete blank; fer hearing from Cecil had been her one poor solitary pleasure. The long unbroken silence was unaccountable, torturing, but, as she loyally and magnanimously determined to believe, must be caused by circumstances over which he had no control. lhus the weary eeaeons had dragged along, and she was now a beautiful wcrran of five-and.twenty, with the pale path eti: face of a Madoana, and a look cf expectancy which sought to be patient and resigned in her large wistful dark eye?, a jensive Cumbrian Mariana in the Moated Grange.

• • ■ i , , Physiologists tell us that the particles ■fihich compose the human frame axe etmpUtely changed every Beven years. Be alterations which the same rericd brings about in a village community are as a rule, juat as radical, and certainly much mere perceptible. Carton had not escaped the operation of the common

Boaefiveyeaiß after Cecil's departure ~"*TH»eVlflffc its old Sector, and the Bev John Etheridge; »s- earnest, thoughtful, and handsome man of thirty, had been duly presented to the living, which waß not a very valuable one, by ita fcx-huntine patron, the Earl of Dunderhead. At the time of which wo write the new parson had been almost two years in [ residence at the rectory, a rambling, eld home is the village street, whose natural glcom waa intensified by two large cycameres which grew on either aide of the gate end cast their shade upon .the front windows. Here, as the gossips correctly fcuxmueed, the clerical bachelor felt at times lonely enough; for hia establiaky meat consisted of but three individuals—f his reverend B«lf, a deaf old housekeeper who rejoiced in the name of Arabella Wilsoi, and, lastly, Smike, an Iri £ h sterner sagacity, who waa ■ L u ,°*"^£^ cnßtant companion and the idol of all Carton gamine. Carton church was pictureeouely situated- at least, so people said in aummer • in winter, doubtless owing to climati'

The Midnight Knock,

considerations, they seemed strangely blind to the natural advantage of its site. It Btood upon a rather lofty hill a littl 8 way out of the shabby village, with it bewildering and torturing cobbles and it 8 perennial mire. In itself a grey, ugly Georgian structure, it commanded superb vie#B. Looking east you could seethe long ranges of the Cumbrian mountains 5 on the west, in clear weather, you could discern the lale of Man, and, still more plainly, the highlands of Kirkcudbright; avd the sunsets, when the broad disc of the luminary of day was sinkiag in the calm Sjlway waters, was an apocalyptic vision of golden and roseate glory in which Turner would ha?e rovolled—a feast of colour wherewith to fortify your soul preparatory to a descent into the disillusion of the grimy little village below. If one did not mind a climb, the most direct route to the church was through a turnstile just beside Sol way Villa, which gave access to tho Btaep, rugged, and z-gz»g path up the hill. Now it was while passing through this identical turnstile that the new Sector first beheld Alice Norton, busied, as was her want, with her beloved flowerß; and it was a curious fact that ever after he invariably choje the narrow and stony ascent* to the very great detriment of his boots, rather than the somewhat longer but much easier road which skirted the bill, whenever his duties cilled him to the sacred edifice. And was there not a cause, quite apart from the religions symbolism, which might have been suggested to a pious mind by the peculiarities of the two roadß P The Eector was not quite an ascetic, and he was still a young man. He had a keen appreciation for a pretty face; and Mrs Norton's feminine acumen had not played her false. The Bev. John Efcheridge had fallen madly in love with the sad, silent, and somewhat disdainful beauty of Solway Villa, whom the rough fishing population of the place —they would have laid down their lives for her to a man—called the Queen of Carton. The Eector .had led a q-iiet, studious life at Oxford and since his ordination. He was not much accustomed to ladies' Bociety aud ladies' ways ; but Love, like Mr Turveydrop, is" a teacher of deportment in addition to his other accomplishments, and the Balliol bookworm became a constant visitor at Solway Villa. If Alice's heart and thoughts had not been so fully preoccupied with another love she could not have failed to notice—as her mother had done—the adoration expressed in his manner, his looks, nay, the very inflections of his voice, when he addressed her. The short, gloomy days which precede Christmas had accentuated the dreariness of the rectory and his own loneliness, and aa Mr Ethendge sat in bis study on tb9 evening of our story, absorbed in the bitter-sweet meditations wbioh are the lot of every lover who knows not yet his fate, he adopted a notable resolution. Ha would 'put it to the touch' the very next day; he would offer his hand and heart to the lovely Alice. Could ne only have witnessed the scene which we have described as transpiring at Solway Villa, scarcely a quarter of an mile up the read, he would have learnt how vain were his hopes.

We left Alice in a state of great tribu lation. For a while she wept on without check. Then a reaction Bet in, and she began to take herself severely to task. Why should she grieve her mother, who was delicate and depressed enough already, with sorrows peculiarly her own P It was now Monday; Wednesday would be Christmas Day, with all its mingled associations of tears and triumph. Was it well done on her part to inaugurate the holy season of pece and goodwill by a display of supreme selfishness ? She eat up, dried her eyee, and tried hard to smile.

'Dearest mother/ she cried, as she threw her arms round her mother's neck, * patient, kind, and unselfish, as you are, can you forgiva me?' For answer her mother gathered her fondly to her besom. *My poor, Rensitive Alice,' she murmured, 'any lover might be pround of a heart like yours, ' tender and true' as that of any Douglas of them alL'

In the midst of their mutual endearments they were startled by a sound, which at that hour—it was jnst midnight—waa sufficiently alarming, and utterly unprecedented in the calm routine of their daily life—a loud, imperious knock at the hall door.

The ladies were in a quandary. What was to be done ? The servant had long gone to bed, and was probably sow in the land of dreams. Tramps were about, and it would hardly be safe to open the door, for the houee was detached, and the neighbours at some distance off.

Mrs Norton, closely followed by Alice, stole up to a window overlooking the front garden, which was carpeted with deep snow, in order to reconnoitre fa)m that point of vantage. Gazing furtively forth, they saw in the moonlight a- tall young man of stalwart build, bearded like a pard, and of a decidedly nautical appearance. The gentleman ac the door must have been possessed of the orbs of a lynx or the ears of the 'freak' who heard the grass growing, or, perhaps, a pleasing combination of both, for he looked up and eang cut in cheery tones, «No need for alarm, Mrs Norton, although it is an unseasonable hour! 'lis a friend, I assure yon,j At the sound of the voice, Alice, trembling all over with excitement, the ice which had so long surrounded her heart thawed by the sheer delight of the moment, exclaimed, 'Oh, mother, it is Cecil!—my Cecil, come back at last, I knew he would! My prayers have been answered.'

The woman flew down the stairs, unlocked and unchained the door, and admitted the wanderer.

The next moment Alice was clasped in her lover's arms. «You must have wondered,' eaid Cecil, when the ecftasy of the first greetings was over, and loving hands had forced him into a seat before a blazing fire;"'you must have wondered what had become of me. VVell, if I were not tolerably contact with my nnme, I might fairly well assume that of Smbad the Sailor, lor I have been knocking about the waste cf waters ever since I saw you, titer tho fashien of that old Eastern worthy. 1 can only give you a sample of my adventures now. I will reel them all off in time.

f «Well, to begin ■with, the Capua, my first ab ip, was wrecked in a terrific | cyclop * off as ieland of the Solomon group, quite out of the track of ocean i steamers. All hands were lost, with the ; solitary exception of your humble servant. The natives received- me with open arms —not open mcuthe, as I had feared—and fed me up like a fighting-cock on tarj, coccanuts, and fowls, crowning mo with garlands of scarlet hibiscuß, and supplementing the deficiencies of my scanty wardrobe with the huge leaves of the dracrana. I fancy they considered me a god, and honoured me accordingly ; but I was always haunted by an uneasy suspicion that they might sometime convert their divinity into a comestible. And so I was glad enough one fine day, when I had been about two years, as I reekoned, with those yellow beggara, to give them the slip, and swim off to & steamer I had sighted in the offing, * I was now, of course, quite penniless. I urn a bit croud, I suppose, and I could not bear to write heme a dismal yarn; nor, indeed, had I mis; opportunities for correspondence j and, for the matter of that, I felt pretty easy in my mind, knowing that my Alica would be true to me whatever might betide. And so I kept putting off and putting on, as sailors will, working ail the while likß a blackamoor, and saving the dollars. ' Fortune favoured ma, and here I am, home in time for Christuna, not much the worse for wear, and ' with my pockets fall of money.' . . . By Jove, it is late! I must ba off. I have left all my traps, and engaged a bed, at the village inn. Goodnight, Mrs. Norton. One more kiss, Alice. I shall be up here first thing in the morning.'

Early in tho New Tear Cecil Aldis and AH 2e Norton were married at Carton church, and the ceremony was actually performed by the Eector, who, like the good and brave man he was, had struggled against and eorqaered lis passion for the girl who loved, and always had loved, a sailor,