CHAPTER IV.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7928, 17 December 1887, Page 6

CHAPTER IV.

— Last Wobds. j

•100 Mnnsterß returned home after his I Interview with the Rector in a alrangely I agitated condition of mind. But yester I

day he had believed himself to be the legal possessor of the Lee property, and of the old Grange nnd everything in it ! And now — waH he penniless again — a more dependant, as he had been before, on his brother'B bounty ? It was unjust, Joe felt ; he had always thought it unjust that Jack should inherit everything; and it seemed doubly unjust now. He walked home with bent head apd slouching gait. M*dge was busy with her poultry in the yard as he crossed it, but he never looked up. The old woman had pinned a little band of crape round her white cap, by way of mourning for the young master, whom ahe so truly and Badly regretted. And now she glanced after her present master with anything but admiring eyes. " He's a born skinflint," she grumbled, in a low tone, addressing her ducklings for want of other company. " Ay, little ionisye'll be on short-commons enough 'uns, ye may well gobble, for my opinaoon!' The ducklings, not understanding the dismal prospect before them, went on with their meal with their usual liveliness andappetite, while Madge continued freely to comment (though in a low tone) on Joe's meannesß and distrust. What had particularly injured her was that the day before Joe had requested her to return to his keeping two silver forks and two silver spoons ; " for, as poor Jaak is gone, they will not now be required," he had Baid, "and are safer in the plate-chest than lying about the house." " A huge feeling of disdain swelled In Madge's honest heart as she listened to these words. The poor young master' 9 place at home had just bean a week empty, and it was too soon, Madge naturally thought, to make any cftanges. But she took the forks and spoons into the dining-room when she was preparing the table for Joe's solitary dinner, and laid them together on the cloth. " There's the poor master's forks and spoons, Bir," she said, her voice broken with anger against Joe, and grief for Jaok ; " and it's a aair day he'B not here to need them." Joe made no reply to this outburet. He rose with a would-be careless air, and lifted up the silver, and walked out of the room with it, carrying it to his | own bed-room, into which he had the plate-chest moved on the previous day. He had locked tha door and had opened this oheiit, and secretly gloated over its contents. One after the other he had lifted out the pieces of plate, and to. his joy had discovered no less than three silver tea-pots, when he had only oxpeoted to find one ! And all through it was the same thing. There was more than double the quantity of plate Joe had hoped to find. Bridal gifts ; ohristening gifts ; the cups his forefathers had won on turf and field. What were they all to Joe? Merely their weight in Bolid, silver, for he was not a young man .who indulged in sentimental fancies ! He stood there, mentally calculating their value, and then he remembered the forks and spoons down stairs that would be wanted no longer, and he determined to add these to Ms Btore. He thus had bitterly offended Madge j and when the letter reached him from Eotterdam, he had not confided its contents to his old servant, knowing well I that she would instantly insist that the rescued seaman was poor Jack, and probably would insist also upon abstracting the forks and spoons from the platechest in preparation of his return. To her surprise, therefore, he announced he was going to leave home early the next morning, and there was something in his manner as he did this . that aroused the shrewd old woman's suspicions. " Ye've not heard anything of the i young master, have ye 1 " Bhe aaked Bh arply. " No," answered Joe, testily. He hated the subject, and yet some touch o£ nature, perhaps some lingering feeling for the bright young brother cut off in his prime, made him ashamed of his own feelings. But avarice was Joe'a master passion, and everything else really gave way to it. On his passage to Rotterdam he was very ill, and told himself again he had started on a fool's erraud. Why should he go out of his way to look after every shipwrecked seaman that was picked up ? Yet as he approaohed the quaint old city on the Meuae, his uneasy doubts returned, and it was with a sinking heart that he called on the English merchant who had written to him. This gentleman was very civil. He took Joe to the hospital, where the poor seaman lay on whose arm the word Lucy was tattooed, and heard also from this Englishman that the sailor was not expected to live. "I sent to inquire after, him this morning," he told Joo, " and the answer I got was that he was sinking fast. He has partially regained consciousness, I believe." Joe's knees positively shook under him, as he followed his guide down the long wards of the hospital ; passing almost without seeing them the poor victims of pain and sickneas, On a bed at the end of the ward the dying sailor lay, with a curtain, or screen, placed before it, and a nurse sitting on a chair in close attendance This woman rose as they approaohed, and Joe forced himself to look on the sick man's face. With a great gasp of relief he saw it was not Jaok ; but the features were familiar to him. This was, in truth, one of the crew of the illfated Lucy ; and presently, with a reatless moan, the sailor opened his blue eyes, and a gleam of recognition passed over his face as ha did so. ' " How are you, my poor fellow ?" Bald the English merchant kindly, for Joe felt tongue-tied. But the sailor's eyes were fired on Joe's face ! and in a moment or two, in a voice husky with the throes of death, he murmured : — •' Mr Ministers 1" "Yes," faltered Joe. "Your brother," gasped the sailor, " tho captain — was he saved?" " I — know nothing." '• Ho rose after the Bhip sank—he had a lifo-bnoy — we wero close together — till tho sea parted ua !" Each word was a gasp ; the man was d ving, yet he struggled with his grim foe. " Then you think," said the merohant, bending closer, " that Captain Munsters, of the yacht Lucy, may have been sived 1" " He — was alive — when we parted — " They were his last words. A violent trembling seized his whole frame, and with a convulsive gesture he endeavoured to rise. The nurse approached ; they lifted him up, but after a few brief struggles it was all over, and .Too tun el away from the mournful sight with a restless sigh. But he was not thinking of the dead man, nor vaguely speculating on tfac greatest mystery of life. He was thinking could Jack have been saved) Wus it possible, as the poor sailor seemed to have thought ?' " Tour brother may h»ve been picked up also, you know, Mr Munsters," said the merchant, in a consoling voice, putting liis arm through Joe's, and drawing him away. "We may as well go now ; this poor fellow can tell us nothing more, but I would not give up hope." Joe dined with the merchant, but before he did so he telegraphed to Mr King, at Longford Rectory :— "It wax not Jack; the man is dead." And when Mr King received this messago lie carried it to his wife. " It was not Jack," ho Baid in a low tone. " I was quite sura it would not be. Now, my dear, may I have the cheque ?' " Yob," said tho Rector, meekly ; and

Mrs King at once, therefore, commenced her preparations for her daughter's visit to Brighton. At first poor Lacy refused to go. Then, ia her restless misery, any change seemed better than waiting day by day with no hape, for news that never came. Joe Monsters returned to Lee Grange, and the Rector, when he heard this, went up to tell him that if he by chance saw Lucy, not to mention that he had been to Rotterdam, or that one of the crew of the Lucy had been picked up at sea. "My poor girl has grieved very much about the loss of her old friend," said the Rector; "and therefore, Joe, it would only unsettle her to hear one of the poor fallows had been rescued, though in hiß" case it did no good. For my part I lave now given up all hope of poor Jack. We shall hear of him no more." " I am afraid not," said Joe, in rather a husky voice. " Had he been saved by this time we should have heard. If any outward bound ship had picked him up they would have put into some port, and Jack would have telegraphed. No, we have seen the last of poor Jack !" " It seems like it," said Joe. Strange ! He kept the last words of the dying Bailor to himself. Mr King inquired if the man was sensible, and Joe answered that he was just dying when they reached the hospital, and died immediately after they got there. " It's a pity," said tho Rector ; " he might have been able to tell you if Jack was ever seen after the Lucy went down ; but after all it's of no consequence. Poor Jack Is gone ! Well, we all must go!"