Short Story.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 700, 3 November 1909, Page 7

Short Story.

By Ethel M. Lone.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGE? T ENT.] THE SPIRIT OF MAN.

CHAPTF.R I.—DREAxMS OF THE PAST.

It was Ute at night in midsummer, and haraiy a breath stirred in the sweet-scented jasmme that grew closely arcund the open windows of the smoking-room; yet the man within shivered. The little clock on the mantelpiece struck half-past eleven, and the man rose from the shabby armchair he had occupied, and walked restlessly to the window. He drew the curtains apart, and a flood of moonlight lit vp the untidy yet homelike room, with its numberless evidence of masculine occupation. Two half-smoked pipes were on the table. and one was in the rack on the wall, the prop-rty of Frank, the only tidy member of the family. A newly-cut number of the "Lancet" lay >on the floor, beside the evening paper, and an overturned ash-tray was on top of both. The man himself, Lionel Frayne.. with his long limbs and unhappy face. looked strangely out of tone with the atmosphere of this cosy room, and yet he was, if indeed anyone was in this strangely ordered demesne, master of the house. He felt about the mantel-piece in the half-light, and, finding his pipe, filled and lit it, and sat down once more. A broad band of moolight penetrated a corner of the room, and rested upon a wide-open and somewhat untidy work-basket, on top «of which lay i a half-mended football jersey, and the thing worried Frayne so that he changed his position and moved the old armchair to the window, then he lay back and watched the smoke curl upwards from his briar. The pipe was an old friend, and tonight its magic worked wonders. The man's face lost its look of worry, and the lines of his forehead vanished, as a series of pictures grouped themselves in the midst of his tobacco smoke. The first scene was enacted in this very room nearly twenty years ago, but in those days its occupants had not learnt the necessity of a smokeroom, and the place was a nursery. The day was very cold, Frayne remembered, and a miserable group had i gathered around the blazing fire that the kindly old housekeeper had remembered in the confusion to light. There were four boys in the room, ranging from himself, then sixteen, to five-year-old Biilie. and one little girl. It was the future of the girl that the four were discussing. :i I don't see how we can keep her," Frank said in a voice that told of many tears, "but I know this —if she's going to be sent away I go too." He pulled his sleeve and displayed a thin brJwn arm. "I'm thirteen," he said, "and i reckon I can earn something." •>U work, too," Cliff said, in a pride tof ten years. "Bronz minor was only nine when he ran away." "What would you do " sneered Frank, longing to say something that would break the stillness. "Work sums for a living—six and six make ten?" Arithmetic was a tender subject with Cliff, and his slower lip began to tremble when the baby created a diversion by faling out of her low chair and landing, with a loud bump, upon her head on the floor. Lionel rated Biilie for not holding her, and Frank, whose affection for the baby amounted to a passion, picked her up and gave her such a ride on h-s foot as to drive all thoughts of a fall out of her head, and leave room only for delighted gurgles of laughter. All eyes were turned towards the baby, and Lionel felt a strange twinge of pain go through his body as he surveyed the rough little mop of curls that had been the pride Of the mother they had buried yesterday. "Here!" he said, speaking gruffly to subdue the. lump in his throat, "somebody better brush her hair. Muz wouldn't think so much of it like that." He bit his lip and walked quickly to the window, to turn again, in an instant, as Biilie raised his voice in a heartbroken wail. Cliff hauled him up from the hearthrug, with a truly heroic decision not to do the same himself. "Go and get the hair brush, Bill there's a good kid," he said, "the one with the silver thing on the back —she always used that one—it's softest." And then the thought of life as it was a fortnight ago filled his young soul with dismay, and he. too, buried his teeth in his lower lip and fell to playing with the baby's feet, to hide the tears that he held to be unmanly at ten. The brush was brought, and, with the gentlest fingers in the world, Frank brushed out the fascinating brown curls that grew so thickly on Phils baby head. She laughed again irresistibly, and caught at the brush each time the boy attacked the front curls so that Cliff had to hold her hands down. Then one of the blue bows on her fluffy shoes came undone and Biilie made a ludicrous attempt to tie. He ended by pulling the ribbon off, and only the baby's laugh cut short another howl. Even little stuttering Biilie wondered who would"sew it on atrain. Lionel had stood for some time with his hands in his pockets surveying the group, and now, kicking an obstructing hassock across the room, he spoke. He was very tall and thin for his age. and the fact that he'd been earning enough to keep himself for nearly two years gave him an air of responsibility that would not have disgraced a man of twentv-five. "Look here, boys," "he said, "she simply can't go, and that's all about it. ' "'"'Rah." shouted Biilie. and hit the baby s foot in his joy. "Well I'm goin' 'to work anyway," said Frrink decidedly. "Uncle Haril take me in his office, and then I '•an do lessons at nights." "Oh. don't be a fathead!" Lionel said, not ungraciously. He had always cherished a strange feeling of love for Frank, but would not for worlds have shown it. "You're not a Hercules, my fine youngster, and you d better learn to spe'l a bit before ycu startle Uncle Harrv's office." "Fathead yourself!" answered Frank hotly. "I'm going to work, so you can do what you like about it I m in the seventh form, and I reckon my spelling 3 !! wait a while if it's not

good enough now. I can do Euclid and arithmetic better than you< can ,and you know it, and I wouldn't have white shirts and patent leathers to pay for out of my earnings!" he concluded, wounding what he knew to be immaculate Lionel's weakest spot. "Oh, very well, then, do as you like," the eldest boy said roughly "Uncle Harry's coming over to-mor-row, and he said if we decided what we were going to do he would see about every thing. Father left the house to mother, so that's secure, and there"s enough money in the bank to keep us with mine added. I don't see how Mrs Harris is to be paid, but if we're going to keep Phil she'll have to be kept too." "Why will she?" demanded Frank jealously. "'We can do everything for Phil. J bathed her this morning and dressed her, and she don't look any the worse for it. She laughed the whole blessed time she was in the bath, even when Biilie put the soap in her mouth."

'Didn't:" said Biilie, stolidly. "She [>ut it in herself," but nobody was listening.

Frank was making elaborate plans, with his eager eyes fixed on his brother's face "I tell you what we could do," he said, "I could see to her before I left in the morning, then Cliff could stay home from school and look after her all day, and she'd be in bed all night!" he said, triumphantly. ''How's that for a plan?"

'•Rotten I" Lionel said. "You're rnad, boy, and what if anything happened—suppose she rut herself or the house caught fire? What then?" Frank was quiet.

"No, we'll have to keep somebody to look after things," Lionel said, "though I don't see how it's to be done. Uncle Harry is sure to have some plan."

And so it was decided that Phil should stay. The next picture that the blue mist showed was an incident that occurred ten years later, when Phil was twelve,, and as much a boy as constant companionship with four boys could make her.

Lionel coming in for tea one night was startled by sounds of most discordant whistling coming from a small room known as the medicine room. Even Phil whistled very musically, and Lionel went at once towards the sound. He found his sister standing in the middle of the room trying to bind up her right arm, the sleeve of which was shaking in blood. Her face was very white, and her smile as Lionel entered the room was a somewhat ghastly pretence. "What's wrong, old man?" Lionel asked quickly, but Phil's composure would not stand the strain of answering, and without a word she went on binding the arm, the blood appearing through each fold as she laid it on. She hated Lionel for coming in at that moment, and yet she wished she could ask him for a drink, and then lie down in his kind, rough arms. Lionel was a god to twelve-year-old Phil. "Look here, youngster," it's no use binding that up till you tuck your sleeve up, "the brother said, as quietly as if gashes were every-day affairs with him. He turned the sleeve up and brought to view a long, ugly cut half filled with gravel. Phil winced as he touched her arm, then laughed unsteadily. "Spurts pretty much, doesn't it?" she said, forcing herself to look. "Does that mean it's an artery or a vein?" But the merciful unconsciousness took possession of her, and she lay back, white and limp, in the arm Lionel had put around her. Frank came in just then, and together the two washed and bound up the wound. Phil was lying on the rickety smok-ing-room sofa when she regained consciousness, and her first action was to sit up and look round quickly. Both watchers had moved away as she opened her eyes, and were now apparently reading. "Lion!" she called shakily, and Lionel went to her. "Put your head down," she said, and as he bent over her she whispered, "Did Biilie see — where is he?" "He's not home yet," Lionel said shortly. "What's up womany?" Then his face darkened. "How did you get that cut?" he asked, but, apparently relieved. Phil had lain back on the pillows again. "If Biilie did it I shall thrash him," he said, and the girl's eyes flew open. "I say. Lion," she said gently, both eyes on her broiler's face, "did I faint?" Lionel nodded dumbly. He had never seen a girl faint before, and tin memory of Phil's face was somewhat unmanning. She pulled his head down with h,.-r uninjured arm. "Promise me, on your honour," she demanded, " that you'll never, never tell Biilie " "That depends on what Biilie has to do with it," said Lionel, grimly. "He doesn't know anything about it," the girl said, triumphantly. "That little fiend Trench Thompson set a trap for Biilie, and I stepped on it—that's a'l." Lionel regarding her with surprised eyes. "On purpose?" he asked, and Phil nodded. "Promise," she said, and her brother promised. "All the same I'll half kill that young brute v " he said, and departed to fulfil his threat. CHAPTER lI.—LOVE'S SAD TALES. And then the pictures changed, and he saw Phi! as she was to-day—tall and graceful, with the form of that sweet dream-woman, his mother, and the fearless brown eyes of his long dead father. And Phil was in love. Phil whom he, at thirty-five, still thought the best girl in the world. Phil whose womanliness was as continual a joy to him as her boyishness was to Biilie. Phil, with her slim brown hands, her shapely feet, her innate daintiness, was in iove, and with a man that Lionel would rather see her dead than married to. "Ay," he said to himself, coming back to the present with a start, as his pipe went out, "there are worse things than death for girls like Phil." And just then the smoking-room door opened and Phil entered with a tiay. which she put silently on the table. Her hair hung down in a long plait past her waist, and she held up her dressing-gown as she walked. "There are some sandwiches there for the boys, when they come in," she said, and turned to go, but Lionel called her softly. "Phil," he said. She turned but did not answer, and he saw that her face was even as trou'bled as his own. "I say, hd said gently, "haven't you anything to say to a fellow? It's no use bottling things up, you know, girlie, and besides —it isn't much like you. If you were any other girl I should say you were being childish." (To be continued.)