UNDER A CLOUD

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6308, 19 November 1891, Page 4

UNDER A CLOUD

|BY JEAN KA.TE LUDLUM.J

CHAPTER XVII,

THE CWNK IK TDK WINDOW,

John King made no special remark when informed by his master that he would continue in his present position, the reference obtained having no flaw in it. He was called into the kitchen where Hardinan ami his niece were sitting more over than bctore the fire, after a short supper; and tins newe, imparted in as few words as were necessary to impress upon the hearer the concession granted him by their ever accepting him upon any terms sf any one's recommendation, the old farmer, with his long, bony fingers clasped around a tumbler of cider upon the bare pine table beside him as he talked, his wary eyes showing that he feared even that scant luxury might be tuken from him did he not retain hold of it.

Certainly not a pleasant or reassuring Bight this, but the man summoned into their presence might have been blind for all notice he took of it. He heard hie master's mess»gt> ■with a stolid face, and when he had done, nodded carelessly, as though it were of little moment to him whether he remained or not, though there was a gleam of satisfaction in the keen eyes turned upon the scant face oefore him that belied his manner. Then he went from the room, as he was bidden to do, and back to the room over the stables, where the hired men were expected to make themselves as comfortable or uncomfortable ac oircumatances would permit. " Re's disposed of," said the woman, sententiously, when John King was gone, her charD eyes upon the old man's face. She rattier resented this habit of his to indulge himself in the luxnryjof even a glass of cider over the fire of an evening, for ehe was a saving woman, was old Hardmau's niece. "Mighty glad to get it, too, I think. Can't al'ays get a place like this. The old man nodded several times, as though in this way he conveyed a good deal of intelligence to the watching woman. Words were often such useless things. He raised the glass to his shrunken lips, his hand trembling somewhat. The woman's eyes were sharp to note this weakness. A gleam appeared in them. The old man was very old, and when he died this place would be hers by rights ; she worked hard enough for it ; she sold her soul even to retain her hold upon it; and when this trembling, mumbling old man died it should be hers. His dead daughter left no children, and the husband could claim nothing unless there ehould be a will; and she made sure of there being no will not long after she entered the household and bent her energies to holding and increasing what was already hoarded by her uncle in his grasping life. "An' you made sure from Julian that he was all right, did you ?" she asked, by and by, after a long silence, during which the old man drank his cider with childish de-

light, and his niece could have found it in her heart to knock the glass from his hold and dash it into fragments if so she might break up this habit of his that must end in some harm to them, for when a man iw under the influence of liquor, be it only cider and strong enough, he will say and do many things, she believed, that at another time torture could not wring from him.

The old man nodded again and muttered •• Tea" in a low voice, with a shrinking glance behind him. Then he sat with his fingers around the glass, watching greedily the last few drops it contained. "It's the best way!" retorted the woman, with a short laugh, shruggiDg her shoulders. " Make sure of 'em, you know !"

The old man lifted his eyes to her face and then let them drop again quickly as though he dared not or was powerless to meet her eyes. The yellowish pallor habitual to his face deepened for the moment to a ghaetly hue. Then he, too, laughed in a harsh, broken, stealthy manner. " Yes, it's al'ays best, Jane—it's al'ays best to make sure !" he said, shaking with his uncanny mirth. "We ain't got much here —we ain't got much ; but what we has wo want to keep." " fie wanted to see you when he corned first," said the woman when all signs of this mirth died away. They had a habit of continuing conversation in this abrupt way. Hours might elapse between such short bits of talk, but they understood each other. That was one of tbeir ties. "He said't ho would see you. I said he couldn't an' he didn't." Grim satisfaction in tliif piece of shrewdness. "There ain't never no tellin' what folks want, comin' on one BO." The wood in the stove burned down lower and lower, until only a dead bed of ashes was left to warm the two sitting before it. The candle—lor candles are cheaper ana safer than oil—sputtered and fizzled and flared wanly, making the bare room more desolate and dreary than daylight showed it to be, and it was dreary enough then Outside, the wind whistled shrilly through the twisted tree boughs close to the house, even tapping now and then ngaiust the boards, as though some hand were knocking warningly to thoee two sitting over the dying file. |t" An , there's things as happens," said the woman leaning forward, her sharp eyes, never moving from the shrivelled face opposite her, one rough band held out, one long fiDger emphasizing every word, as though, perhaps, the old man's memory were poor—"there's things as happens

unbeknown sometimes in these lonly places ■you know. " It's al'ays best to be sure." The old man shivered. The fire was almost out, and the wind was sharp for finding out cracks, he muttered, vaguely. His face wore once more that livid hue that was more ghastly than his usual pallor. He thrust out his two bony hands toward his companion, as though he would silence the words upon her lips. Since that murder in the woods so near his house, he was wild with terror upon such mad nights as this.

" It's so lonely, you know," repeated the ■woman, as though she took some horrible pleasure in torturing the man with what she knew he feared. •• An' there's them as has no fearo , justice in their greed."

The old man made no answer, but he was a, pitiable eight, as he shrank closer ovtr the stove from which the fire was gone utterly out. He withdrew his hands from reaching out to the woman, and stretched them upon the very steve itself to gain some heat. It was deadly cold that night, he mumbled under his breath, as though he were intoxicated by the glass of cider. He scowled and his bushy brows sank down startiuglj over the email eyes. Horribly cold thai night!

The woman seemed satisfied with her conversation, for she ioee and 6tood up considerably above him in stature, as though to prove to him how weak ho was beside her, and, with a harsh laugh upon her lipH, took down a euridle from the shelf- behind the stove and lighting it at the scrap of candle in fho candlestick upon the table, turned away and left tho room without further words. There waa never any endearments between these two. It would have been ouc of human possibility.

When she was gone the old man seemed to sink into a state of semi-unconscious-ness, staring at the stove, his hands still upon it, cold though it was slowly growing under them. Then, when midnight was over the world and scarcely a spark -wae left in the cundlestick beside him, he rose with a shiver, his thin form bent as though grown remarkably o;d dui~.ng that one night, and making the dying candle last him, that he might save even that, he made certain the windows and door were secure, and groped his way from the room to the one just above, where he slept; the faint spark of his candle looking like an emblem of the life in his shrivelled, scrickon figuro stumbling noiselessly along the narrow stairs.

But which of thof'O two would havo dreamed—if ever they dreamed at all— that the blustering night of storm hid veiy near to them a stealthy form that lingered closo —very close to tho chink in one of tinwindows, where a ray of light struck upon the darkness, and through which n sharp eye could, if very intent, note what v/au passing within. Which of those two, each striving to outdo the other in shrewdness, could have guessed that every word that was uttered that night, while the wind whistled so uncannily and the tvuo-bough* tapped warningly against the boards, was overheard by another than themselves, fastened in securely, as they believed themselves to bo!

Would the old man havo stolen bo noiselessly up to bed with that spark of light tracing his way, with even his little peace of mind, had he known ? Would the woman havo laughed so easily when she turned from the only person to whom she waH attached by the tics of blood in all the wide world?

]_TO Mi CONTINUED. J