ANDREW WALTER'S CHRISTMAS EVE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1048, 14 May 1869, Page 4

ANDREW WALTER'S CHRISTMAS EVE.

A Sioby in Thbbb Chapiebs. J CHAPTEtt I. (From Christmas Number • London Society.') The whole town said, with scarcely a dissenting voice, that Andrew Walter's misfortunes, and this last misfortune in particular, were a judgment upon him. JPor, as the reader may have noticed, communities have usually much less difficulty in perceiving disasters to be judgments than they have in perceiving prosperity to be a just reward, One might hare been disposed to call the town a village had it not from time immemorial returned a member to parliament. But in the pride of that distinction East Wykeham held itself far above villages. We are sure that the East Wykehamites are yet agreed as to which of tfietr own sins it is that has called down the judgment which has fallen upon them in the loss of their member by the new Reform Bill. In fact the great majority of the pure and incorruptible consider that by tne disfranchisement of their borough a gross injustice has been done them, and that they have sustained a definite and Balcukbifc pecuniary loss for wbioh they have an. equitable claim for. compensation from the state. further^ what manner of place is East ■Wykeham ? we are sorrj we cannot say it is pretty well, or pretty lively, or prettyclean, or indeed pretty anything, unless we say it is pretty nearly the embodiment of dullness and stupidity, i It is a place that has fallen out of the track of modern life and been passed by in the march of modern improvements. When other towns subscribed for railways, East Wykeham petitioned against them, stuck to its canal, and now beholds trith envy the main line that passes at eight miles' distance, and "with disgust its own slimy, weed-grown, deserted wharves. [East Wykeham is trying now to get up a branch line.] When that new-fangled, dangerous explosive called gas was discovered, East Wykeham stuck to oil and candles, by which atone to this night its streets are illuminated. [East Wykeham is negotiating now for a second-hand gasometer, TPgtorts, &c, outgrown at the neighbouring junction.] But it would have to be a very bad light indeed that would not be good enough to exhibit the contents of the High Street windows, or the grass that grows down the middle of the High Street itself. The tradesmen, who are much given to standing at their doors and talking to each other, chuckle and rejoice over the extremely small sum it takes to keep their streets in good repair, and on the whole they don't object to grass. As for society, there are the usual two doctors, two lawyers (one of whom was never known to have a client), the vicar, two or three dissenting preachers, two grocers, two drapers, two tailors, and the rest | in all numbering a population, according to the last census, of we really cannot say precisely how few. At any rate they have never been too few for the development among themselves of every known variety of evil-speaking arid uncharitableness j nor were they, as we began by saying, too many to agree in the case of Andrew Walter that his misfortunes were a judgment upon him, and that to sympathise with him would be little short of impious. If he had not sown the wind, they argued, he would not have reaped the whirlwind. If he had brought up his boy better, as they, for example, had each of them brought up theirs (and as he, having onlyttne boy, surely might have done), he would riot then have been lamenting the lad's loss at sea. It was *n established axiom at East Wykeham that going to sea was about equivalent, to going to penal servitude. And though a bench of magistrates may be found here andr there to give a man three weeks' hard labour for picking up an apple, no one gets penal servitude if he has done absolutely'nothing to deserve it. Andrew Walter, a man living on his own land, had sent his only son to sea, the excuse being that the boy had a liking for it, and had no taste for farming. But East Wykeham knew better than to set any value on such an excuse as this. A lad living in an inland county clearly had no right to have a taste for the sea. To have such a taste showed a natural depravity of character, which a judicious father would have subdued with the proper number of stripes. And as he had not subdued it, it was only in the nature of things that he should hear in due time that the ship, the ' All is Well,' had gone down with, all hands, and should see himself left without the one who should have been the prop of his age, and the help of his motherless young daughters after he should have gone. Neither were the townsfolk pitiful as regarded that matter of the bond. He had much better have never learnt to • write afc all, than shown such fatal facility in writing his name. What matter that it was his own brother for whom he had become bound? Likely enough the brother might have paid his debts, and everybody had their due if he had had his health. v But he had never known what health was for years,— a puny, sickly young man who never ought to have gofc married ; — and as a matter of course he had died, deeply involved at his mill, and leaving wife and family quite unprovided for,— -whom, people did say, Andrew Walter had maintained ever since his brother's death ; which, if true, was clearly reckless extravagance. Could any one wonder, reckoning up the loss he had on his brother's death, the expense ever since of maintaining the family, the cost of his son's vessel, and of the valuable cargo ■with, which, he had freighted her, that all these things together had found the end of his resources ? , The latest report indeed was that he had just failed to effect a further mortgage on his property ; that the present mortgagee, who. had given notice to foreclose at the end of the present quarter, could not be pacified or paid, and that there must be a sale. "And so," concluded Mr. Botley, the grocer, to Mr. Skinner, the .draper (each of whom had a bill of a few shillings against poor Andraw Walter)—" and so it is one makes bad debts, and loses one's money by other folks' fault, as doesn't care to work so hard for it." " Just so;" said Mr. Skinner. " And no doubt we shall have our fine gentleman here in a few days," remarked -Mr. Botley again, "to offer us half a crown in the pound." "And," 'said Skinner, "if he comes I shall be sure to give him a piece of my mind j I ghall be sure to do it." CHAPTEBII. ■ . ; ' .IN TIME OF TEOUBLB. Andrew Walter's house pleasantly overlooked the town, both house and inmates being happily lifted above their neighbours''spite and unfriendliness. Though to be itoo hard upon the town — we will bear in mind that it is nofc always tho people who say the unkindest words, who do/tfie unkindest deeds, and will hope that East r: Wykebam,; too, should Andrew Walfiw evfr have to ask it for bread, will at lew* not B'>e him a stone. j

If, as the winter day closed in, the reader could have walked up the well-kept gravelled path, defended bj choice shrubs, and could have stood at the bright window, whose panes flashed beneath the firelight, i this is what he would have seen inside as snug a room as he could wish to look u P oa " „ First, a man somewhat past the middle age, well knit, and sinewy, with a face kindly and pleasant, though not without lines of care, and at present; full of perplexity. He sits with his elbow on his knee, and his chin upon his hand, looking steadily into the fire, in which he does not seem to read any clear answer to the question he is asking. This is Andrew Walter. Next, a girl of about eighteen, but looking older and as if a premature responsibility had sobered her merry face. She sits at a table which is covered with evergreens, and is busy stitching ivy leaves on strips of cardboard Srhich in a little while will be shaped into letters. This is Maggie, Andrew's eldest daughter. Next, another girl, some four years younger, wonderfully like her sister but more like her father. She, too, is busy constructing, with wire and string to help, a long rope or ropes of leafy green. This is Edith, the second daughter. Last> the Mite ; as Androw often calls her, sa ctty, " the widower's miie." iShe is a wee maiden of only six years old, but y>&?gs&&t>S}i&»Bi&s *)>£, Idd, tit Mesiisr^usf, with, needle and thread, making a necklace of the scarlet holly-berries, Her name is Lucy. The girls, it is to be noticed, are all in black, seemingly of the newest, and deepest ; and there seems to be but little speaking amongst them. One could not look upon the man without feeling that he was a man of strong passions and affections ; nor on the girls without feeling they were all in all to each other and to him. Until within the last year the current of his life had flowed smoothly and prosperously. He had had but one great sorrow — the loss of his wife j and that sorrow having befallen him when his little maid was born, hadbeen softened by time, though not (and not to be) forgotten. Now, however, he was indeed in troubled waters. That town's talk about money matters and animpracticable mortgagee was in the main cdrreefc. He had, in one way or other, lost nearly all he had. And at his time of life it was hard to have to devise'plans of keeping the wolf from the door. t All kinds of pecuniary loss, loss of position, loss of comforts and luxuries, were, nevertheless, but deprivations of things he might hope to win back again ; or, failing that, he could face the want of them with manly fortitude and resignation. The one loss to which he could not bring himself to be submissive (being loss of that which no strength of arm or activity of brain could ever bring him back again), was the loss of his boy. " The sea, indeed, shall give up its dead," he said to himself, " but not to me." He took from his pocket-book and read once more the account, rut out from a Calcutta newspaper, of the great catastrophe in the Hooghly which had bereaved him. It gave, as far as was known, the names of all vessels lost, with the port to which they belonged, the captain's name, and a brief description of the nature of the dam ago in each case. Now his son James had sailed from England not for Calcutta but Hong Kong, and it was clear he must have encountered such terrible weather as had first driven him far out of his course, and, at the last, compelled him to run for the Hooghly, just at the time when that river was a vortex of destruction to every craft that entered it. In addition to the particulars got from the newspapers, he had obtained, through the consular agency, this further information : — The evidence on which the name of the captain had been published as " supposed J. E. Walter" was that, entangled amongst the wreck of the All is Well had been found a portion of a oaptain's coat in the breast-pocket of which had been found several papers, all of which were quite illegible^ except one empty envelope, the address of which had been deciphered as "Captain J. E. Walter, the All is Well, Cape Town." The English post-marks were " East Wykeham," and "London," date illegible. This envelope Andrew Walter had procured to be forwarded to him, and had found the handwriting upon it to be his own. After seeing which he had given up all the faint hope to which ho had clung, and had treasured this old envelope as the last link of communication which he knew to have passed between him and his son. Restoring the piece of newspaper and the envelope to his pocket-book, he lit a candle, left the girls at their work, and went into an adjoining room. Leaning against the wall was a package wrapped in matting, small, but somewhat heavy. The contents, when unwrapped and placed upon the table, proved to be a plain, white marble slab, bearing this inscription : — In remembrance of James Edytaed Waltee (only son of Androw Walter, of this place), who was drowned in the River Hooghly, Bengal, during the great hurricane of 186—. Aped 22 years. Rev. ixi. 1. He had chosen to apend this reference to a text of scripture, rather than the text itself. Those who cared to turn up the passage in their Bibles, as they sat in church, would see that tho comfort he found in it was in keeping before him the thought that though hereafter there should be a new heaven, and a new earth, there should be "no more sea." The father called the girls in for a minute to look at the slab, and they read the inscription silently and tearfully. Then he covered it up again, and they went back. Tne stone had been worked elsewhere and sent home to him that he might himself (as he had wished) superintend its erection over his own pew. Thus he and his daughters had each a duty in church to-morrow; — his, to go early with the mason and put up this stone ; — theirs, to go later and help the vicar's wife to affix the Christmas decorations ; for the morrow was the Eve of Christmas Day. And, moreover, there was one little chaplet of cypress and yew which Maggie and Edith had prepared to hang upon their brother's monument. " I remember," said Andrew, "teaching him all about India, and tho Ganges, and this very Hooghly itself, years and years ago ; little thinking — ah ! little thinking." The girls only shook their heads gently and sighed. "And I doubt and fear it was my teaching him so much geography that filled him full of longing to see the world, and the ways of strange people, and first made him impatient of this dull place." " Impatient of it, but never of us, papa. Let us be thankful for that," said Maggie. "Tired of us P No, indeed," said the father with proud affection. "I have known some sad days, and I doubt there are more in store for all of us ; but the saddest day of all would be that on which I should first think my children were tired of their father or each other." A little hand had stolen into his as he spoke, and a little mouth had been upturned to kiss him, while two other faces had turned to Mm with looks more eloquent than words.

He took the young child upon Ms knee and wound her curls about his rough, strong fingers as he spoke again. " And I won't say that he was wrong to choose the sea. Could any lad have done better at ifc than ho has done P Would not his masters hare made him captain at twentvone of their own vessel if I had not bought him a ship myself, and freighted it ? " And he never once," said Edith, " spent a holiday anywhere but here." " I wonder if it was the name that did it," pondered Andrew, who was not without his superstitions. " I wonder if I tempted Providence when I would call the ship no other name than 'All is Well.' " . " The ships that went down in the storm that day had names of all kinds, said Maggie, " and one name had as little protection in ifc as another." Then, as the outer darkness deepened they sat by the fire and talked. The little one on Andrew's knee. It seemed a transition almost from night to day when they passed from talk of tho lost boy to talk of the mere loss of money, so much had the greater trouble exceeded the less. Bub it was not till Maggie had peeped over her father's arm into the small face and said " she's asleep," that they spoke quite freely of their pecuniary diMoutt'wS. The father had t&k&n his elder girls wholly into his confidence, knowing that he could trust them. And tKey seeing themselves so trusted cheerfully making the husk of all &i£oultiea. The solicitor through whom all Andrew's money transactions had hitherto been arranged was an old schoolfellow of his, whose probity and kindness of heart he had long known. His position was rather that of an intimate and affectionate family friend than a legal adviser. But the letters of this friend, which had of late been many, had, in spite of all his wishes to serve, come to be looked on almost with dread. Their appearance and their prim little seal were well known by all the family. Even little Lucy know so well that these letters were different from other letters, that she had a way of propping them up and lecturing them seriously before they were opened, and sometimes even went the length of whipping them very severely, with a view to impressing upon them that they really must be good and try to please papa when he opened them. A mode of treatment which had as yet produced, to her regret, no salutary effect. Andrew had written to this friend a few days before making some final suggestion towards the renewal of the mortgage ; and though he had but the faintest hope of the reply being such as he could wish his heart sickened that he had got no reply at all. " To-morrow there will surety be a letter," he said; "and if there is I shall quite dread to read it." j?or indeed it depended on this letter whether they should stay in their old home, or 'go out at once into the world and seek another. 11 But now, Maggie," he said, "as this may be the last Christmas we shall have here, we must not keep it quite like a common day, even though we cannot keep it as we used to do. Put on your bonnet and go into the town with me. Poor little Mite, how soundly she sleeps ; see, she has not waked by my putting her on Edie's knee." As the door closed gently on them, however, up sprang little Loo and drew aside the curtain, peeping after them, and laughing. "I've never been asleep a minute, Edie," she said, " only pretending." Whereupon Edie having first assumed what she supposed would be the appropriate manner of a lady of about fourscore, talked down to the young deceiver from that great elevation, in an impressive way, and having rung for Martha, inexo-. rably told that maid to take her off to bed. Then she herself set to work again with busy fingers amongst her holly leaves, her ivy and laurel, until she had got length enough, as she thought, of bright green rope. After which she gave the finishing touches to Maggie's letters, and fixing a white table cover against the piano, pinned them on it, — the sacred monogram iHs to try their effect against the clean white linen of the communion table. Last of all, making haste, she swept away her greenery and had a cheerful, homely supper on the table when father and Maggie came in with the heavy night-rime hanging on them. They made the little purchases for the Christmas Day, buying on a humbler scale than usual, and, as Maggie told her, had sent to the widow's house at tho mill exactly the same as they had bought for themselves, for Andrew s dainties would have had no relish had he thought those who were so near to him, and had been so dear to his dead brother, did not share ia them. (To be continued in our next.)