KATE HOWARTH'S DEVOTION.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2287, 4 March 1912, Page 2

KATE HOWARTH'S DEVOTION.

Copyright.

By the Author of “The Heroine of the Mill,” Etc. PART 10. CHAPTER XII. A LETTER FROM HOBART TOWN. When four years had passed Freddie had been, promoted from the position of page to be companion to the Hon. Ferdinand Hoghton. The tall handsome youth came over to Halshaw Moor to tell the news to his humble parents. He met pretty Katey on the threshold and caught her to his heart, saying : “ Ah, my sweet factory lass, I’ve brought you good news ! Lady Northonden says I am to be a gentleman after all.” Of course Katey was pleased and so were John and Nelly in a silent sort of way. Their brightening hopes, however, were turned to bitter grief when the news reached them that old Mr. Wogan, the butler, and Freddie Howarth, the under footman, were in custody for systematic and continuous robbery of jewellery, money and plate from Lord and Lady Northenden. Their trial came off at the assizes held at Salford. The proofs were complete. Many servants for a long period had been suspected and turned away. At length Mr. Wogan was discharged. The following morning it was found he had prevailed upon the boy to go with him. This aroused suspicion and a constable was called in, when the boxes of both were searched. Spoons, silver forks, a gold drinking-cup, and other things were found in the box of the elder prisoner, together with a mass of pawnbrokers’ tickets. A gold chain, two rings, a bracelet and a few duplicates were discovered in the boy’s trunk. So when the assistants of various pawnbrokers came down from London and positively recognised the boy as the person who had pledged the numerous articles of minor value, the case was virtually at an end, and Mr. Wogan was sentenced to ten years’ and Freddie-r-poor little innocent Freddie —to five years. When the latter sentence was pronounced, Nellie Howarth uttered a' great cry of anguish, and fainted away. Katey was too overwhelmed to do anything but sit and moan. Twenty minutes later, when the poor woman was surrounded by her friends 'outside the court, Lady Northenden’s carriage drew up to them. ” Allow me, Mrs. Howarth,” began the peeress, ” to say how I feel for you. I am sure it breaks my heart when I think what I have endeavoured to do for that ungrateful boy—” ” Hold your tongue, you cunning woman !” cried Nelly Howarth, with a sudden accession of anger. ” Woman ! Insolent !” said the peeress. ” You are a woman, and I fear a bad one,’’ proceeded Nelly, like one suddenly inspired. ” You are no better than I am, and from what has happened, I fancy not half so good.” Then she went on, very deliberately : ” You—lady as you may be —have brought about this boy’s destruction —but he’ll prove his innocence yet, and return safe and sound to confound you and all his enemies.” And Nelly, after speaking to her as an eiual, with eyes flashing fire before which the large orbs of the other fell abashed, walked away firmly, glad of having spoken her mind. They were poor people, and not educated as their class is nowadays. They saw dimly, as through a glass, that this woman from the beginning desired the society of the lad. And now, through her devilish machinations, he was doomed to i living death in his fifteenth year i * * ♦ ♦ “My sweet factory lass”— as Freddie had playfully called Katey, his supposed sister—had a very hard time of it for a long period. Her father never completely recovered his robust health, and so mother and daughter toiled cheerfully at the mill, that they might keep a roof over their heads and procure the other necessaries of life. Dan, the dyer, was of so confiding a nature that he soon ruined his already crippled business by consenting to s, system of indiscriminate credit. He had to leave his premises in Radcliffe, and go to a small cottage in the vicinity. Ultimately he realised all the money he could, and leaving a sum for the sustenance of ” granny ” and Aunt 'Liza he went off to America to ” make his fortune.” After four years of ” roughing ” it in the Far West —chiefly in California —he returned home as poor a n an as when he left ; but being of a cheerful disposition he set to work at once, not at hie old trade, but as a miner, just as the coal trade began to be a profitable one through the introduction of railways. He was particularly fond of "Nelly’s lass,” as he called Katey and he had reason. She was far the prettiest girl in the whole country and proved as good as she was beautiful. We have more than once hinted that the brothers Howarth wore exnptionally handsome men, and that Nelly wets an exceptionally charming woman. It cannot be wondered at that Katey grew up a matchless woman. In her working attire she was dmply captivating. Her small head would have done credit to a Greek statue, being poised upon a rounded neck of alabaster purity rising from a fullydeveloped bust and chest. She was tall, with exquisitely moulded limbs and feet and her arms necessarily bare to the shoulder fpr the work she > was engaged upon—would have been the envy of many a Court beauty could they have seen her. I tell you what it is, Jack,” Dan

eaid one day talking of Katey. " There's something in that lass's eyes that fairly caps me. They’re not sharp and impudent or anything of that sort, but you kind of feel that she can see right down into your soul like. Do you follow me, lad?” “ Ay,” answered John. ” I’ve seen that ever since poor Fred got sent away. It wasn’t so much at first as after mother thought it right to tell her that the boy was neither kith or kin of ours. Seems to me as if she was always thinking of him and when she talks about the lad, her voice begins to get low-like and as if there were the low notes of a throstle’s song in it.” Do not imagine that we believe in perfect woman. To be true to nature there must always be some faults, and Katey was not free from them. If aroused by injustice in business, she could say scathing things with that usually silent tongue ; but the very womanliness of her faults added to the beauty of her nature and therefore made a theme of general admiration. To say that'she had suitors or lovers is simply to make a statement which included every male creature from hobbledehoyhood to old ago in the vicinity as in the neighbouring towns. Old and young made love to her and proposed marriage to her ; and hundreds not only came to the old church to gaze at her but they used to stand in line on each side of the door at the close of morning and evening service until she passed, lito a humble queen, with a sweet expression on her heaven-lit face, that spoke more of unconsciousness than of pride. When she went to Bury fair or Radclifie races, whole troops of admirers followed in her wake. They never molested her. She was too unlike the majority of her sex for that ’, and besides John or Dan were always with her, and so she enjoyed herself in a quiet, thoughtful way. During these five years her thoughts were always with the banished boy. He never grew in her thoughts, and when she approached w T omanhood, she forgot that he was two years her senior at least. She could only realise the lad as he appeared—palefaced and horror-stricken—before the mighty bc-wigged and begowned judge to receive the most cruel find unjust sentence ever pronounced. Brooding over the handsome boy, led to her resolving to seek, him out when the time came to set him free. The idea was a wild one and almost appalled her when it first came to her. One of her Uncle Dan’s presents to her w T as a wonderful book of adventures, in which young men were constantly undergoing all kinds of dangers to rescue unhappy maidens from fierce uncles and selfish old guardians, cli/id in complete steel. One story in this book pleased her more than all the rest. Places were changed here. The lady did the heroic business, and by dint of disguises and cunning plans, ultimately succeeded in freeing her lover from death.

This was the rule she aspired to play when the fulness of time came. Everything was against her, of course. In the (irst place she was not a lady, had no wealth, and therefore was not in a position to bribe obnoxious gaolers, who, being human, had their prices. She had no robust handmaiden to succour her in hours of supreme trial, yet she resolved when the time came, to rescue her boy from whatever dangers might environ him. However slowly time may seem to pass, a longed-for moment comes at last. There was not only joy but .intense excitement, in the little house of the Howarths one day on the receipt of a letter—a long kind letter from Freddie, bearing the Australian post-mark. It was written from Hobart Town, where he had been with a good master. He had earned sufficient money to pay for a passage home by the packet “ Taymouth Castle,” and on his return he was confident that he should be able to prove how innocent he was of the charge preferred against him, and for which he had suffered so much. At all events he would try his best towards that end, and if ho failed, then ho must bo-w his head to the decrees of a mysterious but certainly all-wise Providence. Pie was confident that his father and mother would not believe him guilty ; but he had no intention to bring disgrace upon them by visiting the old home. “ By-and-bye,” he concluded, "when I have made a little money, as I shall if there is anj thing in hard work, we will make arrangements to meet where we are not known. It breaks my heart when I think of this terrible thing that has come between us, and I fancy I can see the tears standing at this moment in the dear dark eyes of my sweet factory lass when she realises it perhaps for the 1 first time.” Dan ceased reading to look at Katey. The tears were there, and a strange look that might he called one of terror but for a gleam of light—the fire of hope—that shone through or above it. The Howarths' were not the kind of ; people to consent to a prolonged. ' separation from their boy. They wrote and told him that their home was his home, and whatever the world or neighbours might say, nothing would come between them. When the epistle was complete they remembered the ship would have sailed for home before this had left England, so they laid it' aside for his perusal at some other time. ! Dan’s American experience had smartened him up a bit. He wrote to the owners of the ” Taymouth Caartle,” and discovered that the vessel was due at Southampton early in February ; and so it was resolved that someone would be there to meet him. i Katey pleaded hard to be permitted, to go, but the idea of a young woman proceeding on such an errand received no encouragement, and so : the gentle and obedient maiden began to hoard more of her savings than ever and work more overtime than 1 usual, with some unconfessed purpose 'in view.

Just then Dan and two friends had clubbed their money together and became purchasers of a small property that made them what is called “butty colliers.” When the time came for meeting the ship he was possessed of so much money that it was resolved he should go and welcome Fred. Katey wept in her white little nest 'of a room because her slender purse would not permit per to go to such an unheard-of expense. Three days after Dan’s departure they saw in a paper that the “ Taj- ! mouth Castle ” had reached Southampton and landed her passengers safely. They did not believe that Dan could yet have reached that town. Four days later they received , a strangely brief letter from him to the effect that he was on his journey back to London, and would soon be home. But not a word did it contain of Freddie, and a great fear rose in the heart of Katey. A fortnight elapsed before Dan made his appearance, and then be came alone. He had reached the seaport on the evening of the day that saw the entrance of the ship into the docks. Two men had been there to meet Frederick Howarth—“a returned lag,” the purser of the ship said—and they had started for London at once. Dan had a lively recollection of a former journey to the great metropolis, but did not hesitate to proceed there to search for the poor lad. “ It’s like seeking for a needle in a haystack,” he said. ” It’s no use. If you get lost there, lad,” he went on, ” you get lost, and no mistake. There was our Kate, you kinow, Jack— Ah, but it’s no use speaking of that, although it made my heart sore every night I slept in London. Eh, I spent a mint of money, lad—” “ You mustn’t be the loser of that, Dan,” said John, moodily. “If you speak another word in that strain I’ll leave you,” cried Dan. ” I only told you because I was forced to come home sooner than T wished. I put a notice in ‘ Times ’ newspaper as cost me sixteen shillings, and then a Manchester chap, as I foregathered with he takes me to Bow Street police office, and 1 asked of Fred’e directions there, and a detective came out with us two or three times and we had to have drinks, you know. Well, when ‘beans’ went, I had to come homo, Jack, sore-hearted at being without the lad. But then my partners were grumbling and what could I do 7” ” You did your best, Dan,” said Jack, rising, ” and I thank, you for it.” Then, after pacing the floor for a few moments ho suddenly stopped and cried : i "I tell you what it is, mother, I tell you what it Is Dan . That lad’s friends —that’s ourselves —are poor, and well-nigh helpless. The young chap’s got enemies, and they’re rich and powerful, and of course, successful. It’s always the same,” he groaned, bitter in spirit. “ The poor man has always to go to the wall.” ” Then I'm dashed if we shall !” cried Dan with sudden vigour. “ITI find that lad yet, or my name’s not Dan Howarth.” Katey went silently and sorrowfully up to her room without a light, repeating her uncle’s last words. They would not get out of her mind or from her lips. When a mind is prostrate or nea r ly distraught, it often seizes and holds on to a certain sentence or phrase which may in the new connection be utterly meaningless. After lying dressed on her bod for hours until it was bitter-, ly cold, she got up still repeating the sentence alluded to. ” I’ll find that lad yet, or my name’s not Dan Howarth—Dan Howarth !” she repeated. Then, with a sudden leap back to intelligence and reason, she crier] aloud, but not loud enough to wake the sleepers in the next room : ” I’ll find that lad yet, or my name's not Kate Howarth.” 1 And there was a genuine ring a bout the exclamation which struck her own ear even as an unalterable resolution. j CHAPTER XIII. I THE WHITE-WINGED HAND AND i THE GOLDEN CROSS. ! The communications with the police had no effect, and the advertisement : in the ‘ Times ’ was equally fruitless. : The months passed away, but no 1 news came of the lost one. Budding spring brought no joy to this household, beautiful summer had lost its ■ charms, and ' seasonable pastimes were neglected. The russet tints of j autumn were no longer gratefully ; welcomed by these true lovers of ■ mother earth, because their souls j were wrapped up in this missing boy and his unknown fate was a fruitful source of terror to them every day. Katej Howarth had formed a plan, and it was no part of that plan, we regret to say, to consult her parents iin regard to it or its wisdom. She loved her absent brother—she never stopped to ask herself if his love was other than brotherly, and she determined unaided to go out into the world and seek for him. She knew that In the event of asking permisi sion to do this thing, obstacles ■ would be placed in her way and con- | sent never obtained. The search came to be looked upon by her as an object pre-eminent among all other earthly ones. She had a kind of pretentiment that she would be successful —or was it a belief founded upon the too often fallacious promptings of hope ? and so the matter grew upon her until work, amusement, dress, household affairs seemed unreal and mechanically accomplished, in the face of this one great purpose of life. Her parents and friends wondered that she no longer spent a part of her earnings in little maidenly luxuries, as had been her habit ; that the usual summer frock and autumn shawl were not bought ; and that she had added to her wages by attending to three looms instead of two, as was the habit of the place. When remonstrated with for neglecting and overworking herself, she simply smiled sweetly and said :

“ Who can think of dress when Freddie’s fate is a mystery ? We will want money some day to help find him.” One night in the early winter she was particularly silent and thoughtful ; this was remarked by all on hearing what followed. It was dark at five o’clock. After tea she pulled her working clothes off and put on her best woollen gown- ” Where are you off, lass ?” asked her father. “ To Bowton,” she answered, “ for a hook that 1 want.” She returned before nine o’clock with a small brown parcel. At supper time she was more cheerful than usual and when her father kissed her she kissed him twice in return and murmured : ‘‘You’ll never be angry with mo, will you ?” ‘‘You are the apple of my eye,my lass. How could I he angry with you ?” When she kissed her mother, she said, “My own kind beautiful mother, you mustn’t think hard of me.” • ‘ Why should I think hard of the wench 7” the amazed Nelly asked, apostrophisingly. She would have known later if she had seen her dutiful and silent daughter, poring, fully dressed, over the little book she had ordered some time ago and gone to Bolton for that night. It was a pocket atlas of the United Kingdom, with all the principal roadways lined in red. Round the edge of the map she was now studying were small, clear engravings of different cities and towns. She gazed long and curiously, and with no little awe, at that of London, with its hundreds of spires, magnificent river, numerous bridges and looming above all the colossal dome of St. Paul’s. She had resolved to walk to London and seek for Freddie and was about to start on the journey in a few hours. At the time we write of this resolution alone was heroic for the poorer people looked upon the great and to them unknown city as a den of iniquity—a perfect pandemonium. Satisfied with her route and her object she went to bed. It is needless to speculate upon the nature of her dreams. Opinions always differed upon the subject, and we fancy the most truthful conclusion to be that some are merely idle and nonsensical nocturnal reflections of daily experiences while others are full of significance or pregnant with supernatural meaning. It is unnecessary to add that Kate Howarth had never been in London. She had seen sketches of the city often, just as she had seen one this evening on the edge of the map in the atlas. It remains a certain fact however it may be accounted for, that she dreamt of the mighty town that night, and it had an appearance, entirely different from anything she could have imagined from the pictures seen. She found herself in the opaque atmosphere of the night. Great tracts of country stretched out ou every hand, flat and undulating ; deep hollows and mountains of terrible dimensions ; while at irregular distances sparks of light glimmered and shivered in the most fitful manner. Figures of people moved about but without breaking the awful silence which reigned over all. A long, pale Pathway could just be distinguished stretching ahead, and small points of pale fire throbbed in a firmament that might be described as being of a somewhat light Indian inky hue. Painfully conscious of the loneliness she, however, > courageously pushed forward upon the path mentioned, and presently found herself repeating words that seemed to be verj familiar, and yet she could not think of the source from which they were derived. Afterwards she remembered that these wei'e texts and passages from the best of all books —selections made, doubly familiar to her from long repetitions in Sunday-schools and on the pasteboard cards awarded scholars there. Finding herself in a devout frame of mind her fears began to vanish, and then she became conscious that something light was forming m the dark sky overhead. She kept her eyes fixed upon this thing until it bad assumed the form of a hand—a human hand, large enough to cover a great part of the heavens. It became clearer and clearer until it was perfectly white and opaquely luminous. Then two wings of silver rose from the wrist, while a brilliant light seemed to he held betiveen the fingers. From the moment of the appearance of this colossal hand all fear fled. She kept her eyes fixed upon it, and it remained in front, and above her no matter how rapidly she moved ahead. There was always the ivory white hand, with silver wings and sunlike light ; and yet the sky, the earth, and the stars changed not their appearance, although each appeared more clearly defined. At length she halted upon a gentle hill, and a wonderful sight disclosed itself. At her feet stretched a mighty city, which seemed to have no limits, and the silence here was broken by a dull, far.-distant kind of sound resembling the moaning of the sea as she had once heard it on a visit to Fleetwood. Myriads of lights sparkled and burned steadily everywhere, while, numerous straight lines of light stretched out in everj direction. Curved lines of light crossed something black, which presently she recognised as a great river, and on its bank there towered a mighty black shadow which seemed like a sentinel watching over the sleeping city. The great white hand now stopped over the mighty Metropolis—for such she knew it instantly to be —when a great cross of gold, rising from a gigantic globe of the same precious metal, broke out of the darkness on the summit of the dark shadow which proved to be St. Paul’s. The rays of the electric light borne by the mysterious but beneficent hand, had fallen upon the sac-

red edifice and called the holy cross out of obscurity ; and immediately afterwards all the thousands upon thousands of lights were concentrated on the river, showing up its inky hideousness, and exposing to her view nothing but a grated window through which the pale face of a man peered despairingly, and she saw that the face was the face of her brother Fred. A great pity fell upon her soul ; bpt on the instant the myriads of lights disappeared as if by magic ; the cross upon the great basilica remained luminous ; and then as the white colossal hand began to fade away, although the light it bore remained behind, the darkness faded gradually, leaving the wide-stretching forest of houses bathed in the glorious rays of the sun himself. The rounded dome of the cathedral the gilded vanes of a thousand spires the countless multitudes in the busy streets, the miles of shipping on the river and in the docks , bathed as they were in a flood of sunlight, drew a cry of delight to the dreamer’s lips with which she awoke, to find the pale, cold grey dawn peeping through the white dimity curtains of her little window. Without a moment’s hesitation she arose, but the memory of the dream began to fail immediately—all hut the great white hand with the background of darkness, and the pale sad face at the barred window on the river. She never knew 7 how she loved her father and mother, until now she was about to leave them— clandestinely. She had already tied up in a bundle all she intended to take with her in the way of clothing. She put on her thickest boots, counted over her small fund of money—four pounds and a few shillings—and then she sat down to pen the few lines she thought ■ necessary to break, or lighten, the blow she was about to inflict upon poor heart-stricken John and Nelly How r arth. “Do not think me mad or foolish,” she wrote,* ” dearest and best of parents. Heaven will protect me in my search for Freddie, and also lead me to the place where he is to be found. Do not fret my darlings, and do not trouble to send in search of me. I have a plan, which, if I succeed in it, will enable me to w T rite —to return to you soon. Pray for give me for going without your permission, for I knew I should never receive that, and so determined to go to seek our lost one. Heaven only, 1 feel sure, has put it in my heart. I can write no more—my tears blind me. Farew r ell ! Heaven bless you ! Pray for me !” Her warm woollen dress w 7 as very comfortable and her boots were fit for the roughest of weather. She would not wear the dainty gipsy hat of last summer, or the coal-scuttle bonnet of the winter before. Wrapping her best plaid shawl in Lancashire fashion over her head, she took up her bundle and crept softly from her room. Passing the door of her father and mother, she listened, and knew by their breathing that they still slept. She gazed for a moment tearfully upon them from the half-open door and then with a deep sob she descended the narrow wooden stairway as lightly as she had done that night, when, as a child, she set out to seek the boy for whom she was now going to encounter terrible, because unknown, difficulties. Looking round the lonz, familiar room, she lit the tire, and set the breakfast tilings, as was her habit every morning. Filling the kettle, she placed it on the fire, madly kissing the inanimate cups and spoons as the full sense of her deserting her dear ones came upon her. Mutely she raised her beautiful eyes heavenwards and the white hand was above her, winged and holding aloft the Comforting light. Down upon her knees at the threshold she begged for a last and lasting blessing upon the house and its inmates ; then, opening the door softly, she hurried out into the raw cold air, of a winter’s morning. To be Continued.