SWEET NELLY GREY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4832, 4 February 1887, Page 4

SWEET NELLY GREY.

(By Alexander G. Motdoch.)

CHAPTER XVII. THE BETROTHED LOVEBS —THE "WATCHER —ACCUSED !—A STARTLING CONFESSION. ' " Grant Selby, -what can. I say to yon but take her, and God bless you both !" "That's just as I'd like things," responded Grant Selby. "As for the guvnors ire, I'll take that on my own shoulders and stand to the girl of my choice. There's my hand on't, Matt. Your daughter's safe in my hands." "My daughter!" muttered Morrison to himself, as ho turned round to brush away a tear of deep joy. "Ah! if old Jonathan Selby but knew.'' "Well, this afternoon, Matt, at half-past one o'clock—you know the rest. Nelly and I will be there." " God bless both of you," says Matt Morrison, again and again; and, turning short about, the honest engine-keeper (now mi unwilling turn-out with the rest) passed across the road in the direction of Ms lowly home. ***** * * That same evening, as Raymond Rousby was returning home from the delivery of his startling " information " at the district police bar, he diverged from the main road on noticing two figures crossing a grass common in the fading daylight, and with a start of recognition he closely but carefully proceeded to follow them up. The figures were those of a handsome young man and slender girl, just passing into a graceful womanhood. They journeyed a bit, lovingly together, and arm-in-arm. At a distance the Clyde rippled seaward under the silvery moon, while the gentle stars came out one by one, shining down on these two fondly-betrothed souls with benign and sanctifying lustre. It seemed to all but the eyes of the plotting • watcher, Avho had no soul for aught but malice, a bridal of the moon and stars, and was a veritable bridal of two loving and trusting hearts. The lovers sat down on a soft bank of enflowered grass, and the watcher crept stealthily nearer, and nearer, and nearer. "From that divine moment in which I first strained your beloved form to my breast," he overheard the young man lover passionately say, " I felt myself to be another and a higher being. I was thrilled

into holier hopes and aims, and I thank Heaven for the accident of the fire, which made visible the pent-up expression of my love." " Ah! dear Grant," murmured the glad maiden, "it is so very, very sweet and pleasant to hear you talk so; but the fire at the mill was a sad and regretable event." "Perish a hundred J3trathclyde factories if but you are preserved to me, my own darling love, sweeter and dearer to me than all else in the wide world!" and the enraptured lover tenderly took the maiden's fair face between his hands and fondly and lingeringly kissed it. "But, dear Grant, what will Mr Selby say to it all? I very much fear his offended pride." : " I turn my back on every interest in the mills that is likely to be mine if the acceptance of them tears you from my side." " Oh, no, dear, dear Grant!" broke in the trembling girl, "'I must not seek to hold you at so runinous a price. lam unworthy of such love — such exceeding sacrifice. Rather than that, let me wander away from your sight and memory, to find peace at last in forgetful death." " Nelly!" almost shouted the lover, " may the heavens fall on and crush me when I forget my plighted love-troth to you," and once more the fond lover strained with fervent clasp the pure, guileless maiden to bis throbbing breast. " That's a well-played piece of stage acting," said the voice of Raymond Rousby,

" only wants a deeper gloaming, and a bit of idjfhingL juid-dyiiijy nmsie to give it true romantic effect." "You villain!" cried Grant Selby, springing to hie feet with an agile bound; ■ "youmean eaves-dropper ! I know your sneering, evil-omened voice," and but for the pleading restraint of the alarmed maiden by his side he -would have rushed at Bousby's throat without another word. " Oh, I certainly beg your pardon Grant, if I have annoyed you in any serious way ; but I thought you were only doing a bit of idle courtship by way of experimenting in %tat tender line," and he laughed hollowly, raising at onco a flame of resentment in the lover's manly breast. " Get you gone, sir, and at once !" said Grant Selby, his countenance enobled to the beauty of the chisselled marble by the fire of a just and lofty resentment. " Oh, Grant, dear Grant, let us hurry away. Let us leave this place at once," pleaded the trembling maiden. " So, so !" sneered Bousby, " the enginekeeper's foundling daughter again—the beloved relic of the fire !/' } " You heartless hound !" cried Selby, and with one bound he reached Eousby and struck him to the ground, with a blow of Ids clenched fist. Nelly Grey shrieked in nervous fright, but Selby was instantly by her side, his still clenched right hand hanging by his side, and the fire of a just passion flashing from his dark eyes. "Another time and place !" said Eousby, getting up and shaking himself into shape, and with intense malice and revengeful hate working like forked lightning in his evil heart, he dragged his hat low down on his dark-set brows and made instant tracks for Clydebank Villa. "Oh, Grant, Grant, wo are undone ! we are undone?" cried the alarmed maiden, when Eousby had gone, and resting her head on her lover's shoulder, she sobbed out her regret. " Undone, Nelly ? With your love to light and cheer my path I could cheerfully face the darkest road through life. Undone ! Nay, Nelly. If brow-beaten tonight over this affair, I'll own up the truth like a man, let the consequences be what they may. They shall never force me to foreswear you—never unclasp from you the fold of my protecting arms." And for half-an-hour thereafter the lovers sat there, communing with their own blissful thoughts. And the moon silvered the river, and the gentle stars, frescoed in blue infinity, shone on untiringly, and the deep, beautiful gloaming faded into deeper and still more beautiful night, and the loneliness of Nature descended like silent dew on the plains and the sleeping flowers ; but these two plighted hearts had no other sense but that of present bliss, and no sight but that of encircling, all-embracing beauty, for they had mutually exchanged hearts; and Love, in the happy transfer, had touched each with her transforming wand, transmuting the common into the ideal, and restoring to their enraptured senses the aroma of a lost Paradise. Such another pure and beautiful scone has been pictured by Burns, the Virgil of Scottish poetry for all succeeding time:— •• Oh. h»l»py love, where love like thie is found • Oil, heartfelt rapturos, bliss beyond compare! I've wandered o'er this weary mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare. If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other's arms breathe out the tender tale Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the eveniDg gale." 81 Oh, Grant, dear," said the guileless girl, at the tender moment of partino••but for that interruption of Eousby I would feel perfectly, exquisitely happy tonight. - " And I" my darling, am perfectly and exquisitely happy, in spite of it. Goodnight, Nelly, and heaven shed its richest fragrance on your pillow !'' And so the fond pair parted, all unconscious of the baleful cloud of misfortune which was destined to very soon darieea down on their love-robed path. Meantime, Eayinond Eousby had hurrfea home, and anticipated Grant Selby's arrival by nearly an hour. The opportunity was not let slip by Eousby, who found in the incident of the lovers a fresh argument against Grant Selby. Ho sought an audience of Selby senior immediately he set foot in the house, and his revelations were such as to rouse into a perfect fi&mc of wrath the smouldering suspicions which wife and step-son had so assiduously striven to foster, in his disguised mind. It was no surprise, therefore, when Grant Selby, on-returning home an hour later, found himself summoned before Selby senior. '.' What's _ this I hear, sir?" he fumed out. "Is it true that you are keeping company with a low girl-i-a common engine-keeper's daughter '{" " What if I wore ?" frankly answered t*rant Selby, " she is an honest as well m amiable girl. Her poverty is her misfortune, not.hei , crime." r What: you admit it then, you—you— you ungrateful our!". ■■ ' ..■ ■•>.<!;CurJ4>l;aia no cur, sir."

" Why, what is this Morrison fellow but a rascally 'Unionist;' a vagabond who lectured,- am told, my workers into this confounded ruinous ' strike,' the rascal! Aud you consort with his poor, • pick-up' foundling daughter—a waif, whose pedigree nobody knows aught of—a parish foundling, a social castaway, a " "Stop, sir, stay, I cannot, will not stand by and hear an innocent and unoffending girl so unfairly abused. I repudiate your unmerited taunts. The dear girl is a pattern of every admirable virtue, as well as of personal beauty." " Virtue ! beauty !bo hanged! I don't value your penniless virtues tltat ! (snapping his fingers in passion.) You will leave oil this girl's company at once, sir; promise me that, and at once, too ; no excuses !" " I cannot —and if I could, I wouldn't'." i "What! this to my face?" fumed the worthy father. " Say at once, sir, you will leave her off from this night henceforth ; otherwise, I cut you off with a shilling !" ■ " lam married !" "Married?" cried the baffled millowner. " Yes; before heaven, Nelly Gra yis my lawful wife!" [TO BE CONnNDED.J BHHM^________W «_______«M___________