A CONFESSION.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10248, 18 January 1899, Page 2

A CONFESSION.

Bt A. W. H. Barcett.

All! you have come at last, Reverend Father. It is good of you. Why did I ecnd for you? Your sermon last Sunday, you remember! I listened. Here is a man at lust, I said, and now that I am dying I sent for you. I must tell you before I die. I have never regretted, but, Dio! you made mc think! Yes, I will be calm. Listen! you shall hear. We had grown up together from childhood, Pierre Castannare and I; peasants, like the other lads of the little Tuscan village ; and we were friends, as men , are friends when there is nothing to lose by it I was silent and melancholy by nature, and I was disliked. Yet, heaven knows! I was a good enough fellow at heart; but I had strong passions in my breast.and as I grew up, and found myself tall and strong, and saw the smiles and glances of the women all for others, I grew savage and hard, perhaps fierce, who knows. As time wont on my name became bad in the village. It was "Carlos the Savage," "Carlos the Brute." and even those that midlife liave been friendly were afraid. But in spite of all this Pierre stood by mc, and was my friend. Gay and handsome, he could lave*had his pick of the girls, but he cared for none o? them. The years passed on. and I was loved at last; I, Carlos the Savage! Why she loved mc, who knows! For she did love mc in those days. A pale, slender, child, with gentJe eyes. One day as we came back together from the fields arm in arm—for we were to be married soon—we met Pierre. . . . Well, what did she want with mc then, mc. "the Savasc." He was her kind. He was gentle, and good; and friendly with the priests, and her heart went frt>m mc to him. Not that she jilted mc: only she found her heart out in the lie, and came and told mc so, with tears in her solemn eyes." She loved Pierre. You can tell what it meant to mc. Mc! that a woman had never looked at before. I wouldn't let her go. I trifled with her. We were all three poor, as peasants are, and I told her there would bo time enough to talk of marriage in the years to come. If I couldn't win her back to mc. then she might many Pierre, but as yet I wouldn't release her from her word. Bending to my will in her timid way, she dried her ©yes, and we were fsiends again— all three of us—waiting to sea which should win her. Bah! ifc wouldn't work, how could it. They loved each other, and I could never have got her love back. And she grew palo and sad. B" and by I lost my work, and took to the mountains, and rrrew noorer and "oorer. Still, I couldn't let her go. I knew Pierre Avould never take her. I did him justice in these days. He was honest, but in his nlace, I would have climbed "her window, though it had bean a thousand feet high and all Hell between us, and off we'd have gone! They weren't made like that, Pierre and she . . . One day in my wanderings in the mountains I cau"-' <+ a bear-cub—a little she-cub that struggled and bit me—and dragged it it back with mc to the village to tame. That was m- sort! I could bs brutaJ, and the cub knew it, and fawned on mc; and as she grew I taught her to dance and do tjricks— with an iron bar across her snout if she wouldn't, learn quick. I called her Tessa, and what -ames we used to have together! running and wrestling, up and own, round and round, tooth and claw! At lasb she grew too bif to play with, and I bought her a muzzle: and when I saw that money was -growing scarcer, and my last bit of land was gone from mc , , I settled to come to England, your foggy England, and take Tessa, the bear, with mc to dance and make money. I dared not leave Pierre behind with Lisa, my love, and I'we.r.t to him. Times were bad in those days, and be was out of luck, so I got Mm to go with mc, and I paid his passage. Listen! it wae my bear, and my money, and I paid his passage. Well, in Eng>,nd, the lAoney came rolling in, dancing and singing along the English lanes. You' should have seen Tessa, on her hind legs, with musket shouldered—l taught her that. Pierre had a voice like a lark's, and the women liked him. I begged to the people with my hat in my hand. They wouldn't have given coppers to hear mc sing! Pierre cared for none of the women. His heart was with Lisa, my Lisa, and all the money he got meant Lisa soon. But I had my bear. I had found her in my loneliness and tamed her, and I think her love kept mc olive. You see, it was all I had. And, curse her! curse her! she was like her sex! I tamed her, I fed her, and she grew to love Pierre better than mc. Yes, Father, listen! He took my Lisa's heart, and then he stole Tessa's! Only a bear! Gc«d! do you know what she meant to mc. And she grew to love him more than her master. Hate him! hadn't he taken all I had, even my bear-cub! and left mc nothing. After that I swore I would kill him, and night after night I searched in my mind for a way to do it. He wouldn't fight, the fool with his baby face! I knew that, for he had promised Lisa, and it had got to be foully done. I knew your English ways too. What would it be to your judges that he had done so much to mc. And sp I waited, and lie never guessed, though I lay awake at night and watched him, and day by day wondered how to kill him. It came to mc at last, one night as we lay in a barn, he and I and Tessa, the bear.. An eye for an eye—a tooth for a tooth; By tliat thing he had stolen from mc, by that he should die. Not Lisa's baby hands, but Tessa's iron claws. Mad, perhaps I was, but oh! if he'd only left mc my bear-cub I might have pardoned him for Lisa. Do you know what a wild beast is, Father? A beast that's been trapped wild .and free m its native lair, and tamed. Tamed! ha- , , 1 "*! I knew Tessa well enough, for hadn t J tamed her. Lions are tame in cages aren t they? Go into the cage with Wood on your hand, and where's your "tamed!" - Tessa knew what blood was, and Pierre trusted her. He, with hie gentle ways, petting her like a woman. Well, like a woman she should pay him back! He'd better have used the iron .bar like mc! I was patient, and his day came at last. She wrote to him, my Lisa, and I found the letter and read.it- She was Btih in Tuscany. She was keeping her word, and would never coll him back, but her strength was but the strength of:"a" ffirl, and besides she was ill. She never" mentioned mc. Well, he meant to go back to her. I saw it in fiis face. . » We lay that night in a little shed—he and I and Tessa—and I hod it in my heert that he was going to -er, to Lisa, on the morrow. We had lain silent some time, and I could hear his breathing, and Tessa's as they slept, tired with the long day's march. I got up quietly and looked at him. He lay with -is arm under his head. It was barely dork, and I could see how handsome he looked, and he was going back to Lisa, I knew, and Lisa loved him. • I took a cord and the cloth that coveted mc, ever so gently. and went back to him. "Pierre, old fellow, you are cold," I said softly to "him, "let mc cover you , ." and he never woke. I watched him for a minute. He was smiling in his sleep, for Lisa's arms were waiting for him over there in sunny Italy, and he was going to her unless. .... Then I bound him, stopping his cries with the cloth. He struggled, but what wm hie strength to mine, that Lie* should love him so. I hardly felt him writhe. And Tessa awoke and stared at us v Then I uncovered his chest; and turning so tliat Tessa shouldn't see mc, I took my knife and cut into my arm, and the blood spurted out. Pierre was staring at mc now, with terror in his eyes. He thought mc mad; but I met his look and lSughed, and flung the blood over him. ? ' " * Then I ywent and lay down, in my corner again* and watched Teesa rousing herself. He saw what I meant at last, the fool! and struggled as if he could break knot* that I had tied. He was only playing my game, and Tessa arose and looked at mm. I could read her thought*. The present was fading from her brute mind, and the pact—her wild free past—was coming back to btc. Blood! Blood! tkt Imm was over bar.

She was again in her native woods and prey was waiting for her —there on the ground before her. But it would escape —it was escaping .. . it was struggling ... I watched the red light come into her eyes as the hair rose in bristles on her back, and she crept towards Pierre. Fool! I thought, as I watched, why does he struggle so? and still the brute crept on, and he had fainted—fainted with Lisa's arms waiting for him. . . . and Tessa rose up on her hind-legs to make her spring, and I fled out into the night.