FICTION IN BRIEF. DAUNTLESS KITTY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2462, 24 June 1893, Page 4

FICTION IN BRIEF. DAUNTLESS KITTY.

1 BY JAMES PAYK

J^thOr" of " Lost Sir Massingberd," " for Cash Only," " By Proxy," &c, Sec. [All Rights Reserved.] In those good old times when EngU&tjl wis-Merry England and May fell later, ami admitted of dancing in the open air, there was a great deficiency o_f roads ; they were, few in number and bad of their kind, besidjl? being infested with highwaymen. In theSs diys we have' roads in plenty, and no footpads ; but also no footpaths, ,of which our, ancestors had an abundance. Not only n|jss London and other, large towns, but aU'%& land Over the pedestrian is being more ancfc 1 more shut outlronithe fields, by hi(3f6 / Bw with "Trespassers beware" VPWi th^m.and constrained like cat tie to keep ttiMjit? dusty highway. The placards wUfdoublwte be swept away (with much else better%drgr keeping) at a no distant date (or so it seernt? to those who read the signs of the times'^ but in the meantime the. WalMst (as our American consin calls him) suffers. Even in the lake country the nuisance is growings and the very mountains are getting a ring fence put round them, as if in sign of the union of selfishness and shortsight in their proprietors. Thus i( happens that the country, for him who loves it, has begun to signify only those parts of England in which he can move with the old freedom ; where one can still go by footpaths from" Church spire to Church spire, through the purple clover or the golden wheat, with no other obstruction .than the stile, itself a place of rest, with room for two upon it, which is the right number for company. This -was one of the reasons which (besides Health and Youth) made Marlstone such a charming spot to me years ago, when I was reading there for — well,, for something I never got — with my private' tutor. The whole district was full'df footpaths, and there was a short cut to everywhere, which was always longer than the long way round, because one dawdled so dprer its beauties. There were roads, of; course, and one a turnpike one, but with thatexception even these were very different from the bare broad .highways on which' cyclists now-a-days beat other cyclists' ,'4 records.' 1 They were lanes with wildi 'luxuriant hedgerows, or leafy walks that met above one's head, with sudden glimpses over lichened gates of all the country round; .and bordered in noble extravagance with tufted grass, where the travelling tinker's hobbled. horse fed, or the gipsies pitched their tents, and the pretty ones told your fortune— if you looked as if you had one to speak of, and crossed their palms' with ".In winter) »it is true, they were muddy, not to say boggy, and there being no arrangement for lighting them inthe evening there were incidents in night travel that foolish .townsfolk would perhaps have magnified into accidents : in the country, concussion df the brain hardly makes any difference to the inhabitants ; and the breaking of a collar bone is less than a shirt button coming off (especially at the back of the neck) to the Londoner. We were not always studying at the Vicarage, and indeed had plenty of time for r paging the acquaintance of our neighbours; though croquet had not been born, nor lawn tennis thought of, there were opportunities of meeting offered to young people of which my tutor's pupils frequently availed themselves. We fell in love pretty, constantly with the young ladies of the country, though not very far, nor so as to hurt.ourselves much ; for falling m love (especially in youth) is a very different thing from falling in battle ;but whomsoever we loved of these highborn damsels, there was always a- corner in our hearts left for Kitty Carol, who was no " young lady" at all. It was a most innocent proceeding —as for my part I am prepared with my hand upon my heart, to swear — and only the natural outcome of. the tenderness of our years, and the chivalry of our hearts ; and at all events we could not help it. SKght as a fairy, and very little bigger ; graceful as a fawn; beautiful as a houri (only much more modest than they are represented by the Prophet), and wearing all that weight of learning (for though but nineteen she was the village school-mistress) like a flower, she erithraHed us all. Perb'aps if some of our mammas had known of her existence they would have been as' interested" in her as we were, though in another way. They would have marked her ' "dangerous* I—like.the1 — like. the place in the pond where the "springs rose and always made our ice unsafe— and drawn our tutor's attention to her; but it would have been a superfluous act, inasmuch as (I) it was already there, for • he paid her very particular attention, and (II) she had a lover of her Own, to whom it is my conviction she would have been true and fejtfiful, even if Castleton, our only lord, nor which he suffered at our hands) had laid at her feet his title, his stammer, and all that he had or would have. 1 . .This swain of hers was Geoffery Grim- i shaw, son of the wealthy yeoman of that name, but better known amongst us as" Old j Gam." The old farnjer was not indeed, either in appearance or address, an agreeable person, especially if he found us on his land with a gun in our hands, ' or even.a fishing rod, as he often did. " Perhaps," he wonld sky with a fine irony, on such occasions, " you thinks because you are young gentle'ineaj'that the law of Trespass— aye and agm a&ootin', very like, without a licencewas fiever meant for such as you ; but Giles Grimshaw will teach you different. And as for yorilqrdling, 1 ; (for we tried Castleton's rank on him, which we had found useful on similar occasions), " I don't care' one snap for his, title;" why, his feyther I hear, has got as many mortgages on his estate as 'he has Christian names, and don't know where to turn for a guinea." __ • 'This frankness, though it always sent us into fits of laughter, was of coarse far from polite, and since he treated comparative strangers in that way, one may guess how bis, only son fared, who was entirely dependent onhim. None of our mammas, indeed, would have been more horrified at the idea & of our marrying portionless Kitty Carol than he would have been at that of her becoming Mrs. Geoffrey Grimshaw; and poor Jeff as we called him (for we all liked the handsome young fellow, who took the prizes for back Sword and cudgel play throughout the ntyrhbourhood) had to carry on his love affair with thcutmost secrecy and caution. It was Qnly because the old farmer thought so much pi himself a'mj.his wealth, and that Jeff wquld never venture'to fall in love with any woman without his permission, that the thing was kept from him ; a v very just punishment for has egotism and greed. But we were ail in the secret of Jeffs love affair, and many a laugh had we at Kitty's expense about it,, though she protested that for her part she did not know what we (neant and knew no more of the young man Save what she had seen of him at "the sports," and from the gallery in Church. For Kitty was organist (if a ten pound harmonium can be called an organ) as well as schoolmistress, and had a better view of me congregation than even the Vicar himself, and often had I seen her bright eyes glance at the Grimshaw pew to be reflected bjr<another glance (not from old Grim 's eyes, wliicja were generally closed in slumber) like tQe tunupon a window. It wag-curious how a girl so quiet and ■ample, a«(L a young fellow frank and vpnest as 'JhfiLcould manage mattes* so Cleverly as .ratjLto excite suspicion in a quarter which would hay« been fatal to their success; but Jeff 'slather knew little about her, certainly not hoVlovely she was, >vhich ' showed how very old Old Grim was getting — except that she had forty, pounds a year from the Parish, which he thought and said wasr twenty pounds too much. Besides this little income, she had the school-house to live in rent free, which was Of cour.se an to object her, though not one gurl ont of ten would have dared to take advantage of it. For the school-house was some little, distance from the village, and stood quitenby itself, and in the winter nights Itmnst bavejseemeda lonesome place enough to her. was but one living-room ■nd Jjed-chamlfe above the school-room/ so t that she could not, have kept a servant eren if she could.nfcvp afforded it ; and Kitty was anjaonsto^ave "every penny against the day when Old prim should discover their secret arid, tumjeff out of doors into her anas.

'Nothing, she was justly persuaded, would ever persuade Jeff to give her up, but in the tiSßantime the young couple waited in the greatest patience, each putting by what they could,. and if dear Kitty — being human | after all— had a vague hope that perhaps ;her father-in-law infuturo might be mercifully removed from this troublesome world, she said little about it to anybody, and least of all to her sweetheart. He had no serious rival, though of course we should all have liked to be in his shoes, but at one time, young as she was, she had had her admirers before Jeff had declared himself. One ci them had been Dick Tarlton, the apothecary's son, who had gone to the bad, as sore ■ fools said, in consequence of 5u r nesrlectin.; him, which, considering he was a diunkarc" before, and not wholly unconnected with sheep-stealing, (though he u'ii on an alibi) seemed to the last degree i.nprobable Nowadays, when ever}- blackguard '•s whitewashed by some theor\ c i another, connected with his birth or brii.^iu,^ up, and nobody is bad of himself but only made so, Dick would doubtless have been less harshly judged, but opinion in Marlstone in my time respecting him was that he \vn- a scoundrel ; •and we pitied his poor fath r in le-.d of laying the blame on bin for living begotten him. He loafed about the place, and cook everything out of the u .'jii-.ccaty he could lay his funds on, e - o % it tf'i • drugs, though a little prufsic a ti i\.,i!d have •;uited his case, to a nicety, and been a satisfaction to everybody. ©ne winter's night I was' we'^e out of my sleep at the Vicarage by the l-cu i.i of a great bell, and huddling on a few c'<>' '.)••--, ronsed upthevicar. "There must bc.c i;l<i<rratton, sir, somewhere," I cried excit'c'y, " tor the fire-bell is going." My. tutor, who piqued himself on his logical faculties, pushed up his night-cap over his forehead. ?i-. he sit up n bed, and began to deinonstnie thai I was .abouring under a delusiou because there was no fire-bell in the parish. " Well, it's not the church bell, sir," " I hope not indeed, at such an hour as this," he answered, for he wss a stickler for ilfs ecclesiastical privileges, "it is only asingjng in your ears, which a blue pill-—" But here he heard the clanging of the bell himself.* " Good heavens," he cried, "it is from the school-house," and he was out of bed in a second. > In five minutes we were all flying down the road in our great coats (and little else) to Kitty's rescue. The vicar hr.d told her if ever she was in trouble to rin? the school cell, and there was no doubt tlvu something was amiss with her. As we pnssed Grimshaw's farm, we saw noliqht in the windows, which seemed strange, for althrv ;h we knew 1 ofd Grim had gone away for a day or two, it was amazing that Jeff had not be^n loused by the bell ; as it was still r.r. J',./. ae could 70t nave preceded us Howev - there was jo time for speculation, fo; we were all running our hardest, C^tleton leading, Because his lordship ha-1 the longest legs The moon was at its full, at:d around the school-house it was rlmost as l.Jit as day. On the ground in front of it, wh.te with frost, 'ay a man and a ladupr ; l'. <s latter with nost of its -lings smashed znd the former with his leg broken. They must both have nad a nasty fall. The man was Mr. Richard Tarlton, v.iiite and speechless "Whit the deu — deu — ciencs are you 3oing here, you bl — bl— black^au d," stammered his lordship : but not a word did the other say ; and still the great bf 1! jangled *way in its belfry. "What is it, Kitty?" cried -rny tutor, banging at the door with the thick cudgel with which he had provided himself ; "it is the Vicar — we are all your H'iends, here, ;ome down." Then pretty Kitty came do a n n- d unlocked thedoor, very pale and trembling, but looking lovelier than ever in -her wir'er dressing gown. As soon as she caught M<;ht of the prostrate figure in the road she set up a little scream : — ■ " - " Oh the poor man," she said, " I am sare he has hurthimsslf mostdieadlully. It was his screams that frightened me so. "It was something else frightened you first? though, my poor girl," said the Vicar pitifully. "It is clear enough that this scoundrel was going to rob the house, and would, have done it, but for you pushing him and his ladder backwards. You're a brave girl, a dauntless girl, Kitty, and you would have nothing to be ashamed of if you had broken his neck instead of his leg. You cowardly hound to attack a poor girl livim. all alone;" this last remark was, of course made to Dick, who had opened his eyes and feebly asked to be taken h<t>me. This was obviously the best thing to be done with him, because his father was an apothecary, which is almost as good as a doctor. " You shall go there in the meantime," said the Vicar, with stern significance, by way of indicating that the arrangement would be but temporary, and the gaol would be his goal eventually. So Kitty lent us her own little mattress, and four of us volunteered to carry the wretch, while the Vicar superintended the proceedings as ambulance inspector. As I was the fifth man, and not wanted, I offered to stay with poor Kitty, in case she might be frightened again, but my tutor, with some irritation (he called my benevolent proposition " a pretty thing, indeed," but obviously in no complimentary sense), forbade it, and bade me come along with the rest. "Pray be careful with the poor man," were the tender-hearted •" girl's last words, " I am afraid he is very badly hurt." The school house was so far from the village that its alarm-bell had aroused no one but . ourselves. Even Jeff Grimshaw, who had come home late from market (indeed not long before the burglary had been attempted), and dog-tired, had not had his slumbers broken by it ; but the next morning all Marlstone knew what Tiad happened, and could»talk of nothing else but Dauntless Kitty. There could be no question as to the cirenmstauces of the case. Kitty's salary had been paid her that very afternoon, being quarter day, and Dick had thought to make prize of her ten pounds without difficulty. Some said he had put crape on his face that she might not know him, but the more received" version of the story was that the i audacious reprobate had used no concealment, but trusted to her promise not to betray him if be spared her life. But instead of being beholden to his mercy, .no sooner bad the courageous little creature heard the ladder grate on hei window-sill, than she had thrown up the sash, and before his ugly mug cquld present itself, had grasped a rung ! or two, and thrown both thief and ladder backwards. It was wonderful how such little wrists and fairy hands could have performed such a feat, but there was the broken ladder, and Dick with his broken leg, and a I rural policeman watching him to prove it. i Next Saturday the whole affair was in the I county paper, from which it was copied into the London ones, and " ran the round of the I press." Not since Grace Darling's magnificent exploit had any heroine been made so much of by the public as Kitty Carol ; her courage .vas extolled to the skies, and what I believe pleased .her much more (for she \vas a sen sible girl) not only Was a testimonial pre sented to her by the neighbourhood on vellum, but a purse of 50 guineas! Even old Grimshaw expressed his opinior. o his son that " that ere young schoolmistress must be a good plucked one," to which Jeff replied with his usual caution upon that delicate subject, that " he thought she must be so if what the newspapers said 01 the young woman was correct." As for my tutor's pupils, if we had all been smitten with Kitty before, 'we were now quite wild about her, and in some cases even driven to poetry, in which Kitty,, made a not ,verj 'allowable rhyme" with "pretty," and another with " witty, '" which was perfec. inough so far as the rhyme went, but ab •olutely without foundation in fact. Fo'. •Citty, admirable as she was in so man\ ways, was not brilliant ; she could write and cipher beautifully of course, and was, as 1 nave said, musical ; but otherwise she wa» .iot an' accomplished girl ; with so muco oeauty, and good sense and courage, she did jot need accomplishments ; nor would sb* .lave suited Jeff if she had jjossebsed them. tie too, like herself, was all naiuralness an., .implicity, and truthful as the day It was no slurupon Kitty's truth, but ••ather an illustration of her magnanimity and tenderness of heart, that a stranger thing now occurred (though it by no meaugave the same public satisfaction), than eve-> the incident that' had made her famou.Notwithstanding the: .wrong that had beerdone her, and which might have ende: 1 disastrously indeed, Kitty declined to prose iute. She not only declared bhe had no recognised Dick, which wquld have been. c<

little consequence, since lie Uaa oeen loun by us almost in the very act of burglary, bm protested that she was not prej\ii trt to swear any such crime had been attcnnic J SU° ,iad no recollection, bhe said, p! h.v. iiu i.cc 1 him on the l^ddei, or of pusihin^ v i>acl» wards, though &he had heard the'crr.sh o( it in the road, and the cries o. tin- •.>. > j.ndec! mfiian. Sac eve a added thdt v > , solely for his sake and not on her n\u -iccount hat had raus-ed ncr to hold on '..- . c school oell, and ini<; it as it had cc, d,'\ never oeen run^ before. This lnttn state'-nent was corrol.Oi?.ted (i)ne couid <-all it I> *.uch r nu ■•, > lien it vas ob\ .cii} n <-•(■>;" t>,. , v \i2 was ..lingins tc !■ I),; I,' w, t v >,<-• >■" ore (as le could sneer :<. ■*■ ■', , i.iU mi; .nunk K as usuaN he ' ;\<< ' ! l •< . ' > -. t':e ladder, just opposite tl.» >n', 1,(1 >- \ ,;, , ihat in ■hat brittle v\l' i :1 ■ !• ci "'^'coneto ,>ieces. And lie.c > . n ■ \> is backed to .ome small eic ' • ■ • , 'o>- tho ladder, vhich belo;ij <cl i'> • , l-<r, hr d been used )f late for cut t in i ■ i. 1 •-< <-, ..M he was 'not prepaid m . <t. 11 .k ;t hid not oeen left out ihat n , n mt!) a position as to have oli'"i,i.i., il c f'>"in vi' Now it \\ t u. Il,• ■i! t'i it 1111 "s 'aiher, the apothecaty, })?d c.'Kc v,, .. \i , iho mornincj after the occm ;*■.<. ■ .j.«l wh.it \,a. moru 'ikely than ihnt he h<\<! \ 1 availed on her not .0 give evidence .■/ an>si hi , nod -(,ji -nothing son ; and of conr.se Jtli uoulu h<\\ c said «uiy.hing that 1 ntj bnde hi.v , -,o ihi-, story jf hers was belie 1d by nobody Ihe best that could be sani vi n was that she \\ai so alarmed and e\citod by the attemp.ed outrage that aftei hei noble instincts had preserved her in the manner Jt v. a^> clear they .lad* done, she lerr.e^.be.'-d ab?olutely nothing of what had buippur.eii Still, without her testimony, there was nothing to oppose Dick's c > planation of the a fair, and as my tutor e\prc;sed it (who was a magistrate and desirous d 'Hstinjuii-hing hin.seif in that line), it was clear that theie would be " an infamou. "nscarriage ol justice " And so in pj;nt of fact theie ~.vn* Every engine was set to v.oik to bieak down poor Kitty's resolution (her " mlemalobstinacy, ' old Grim called it), but without success , so angry my tutor was with her (and even with Jeff for not pressing the same ar,uments on her; he only said, " Yv'ell, 1 know nothin' about it"), and so haishly was she treated by "the author.ties" that a leaction set in in her favour, and Dauntless Kitty became more popular accou.is. o{ her magnanimity) than ever. When 1 quitted the Vicarage for the University, I left a new set of pupils behind n;ee\en n.OIO devoted to her than the old encs ; for the story of her achievement had beco.iie K;cnd. and round her always becoming Kttle bonnet there was a halo, not indeed of a Su.nu (though she was that too so fai as propiiety could make one), but of a hcioinc. Many, many jpiis aftei >\ aids I revisited Maristone at tho imit itioii of ,ny old tutor. At first, we had corresponded a lit* le, but as time went on our communications had gradually ceased , and I Knew no more of what had happened in the interval in the place that for two happy jeais had been my home, than a stranger Aly youu^ companions were scattered far and wide, Castleton had become somebody else, having succeeded to his father's peerage ; another \va s a colonial bishop ; another (the brightest of us), had peiish^d in battle, another, alas! had "gone under under far sadder circumstances, in disaster and disgrace We had plenty to talk about of w hat concerned us more nearly before I inquired, " And what has become of pretty Kitty Carol ?" " Well, she has long become Kitty Grimshaw." "So I expected, of course. Did old Grim give his consent'?" " Only by silence," said the Vicar ; " the silence of the grave He died rather suddenly, and then of course the young people — for they were still young — went their own way." " Well, they deserved it," I said, " a more patient pair I never knew." The Vicar coughed a little drily I thought. "Jeff was such a fine, frank fellow," I continued, warmiDg with my recollection of him. " Deceit seemed so impossible to him, that I always wondered how he could have kept his lo.ve for Kitty a secret from his father, and she too, how simple — " "Not so simple as you think, and as I used to think," interrupted the Vicar. "Ah, but you could never forgive her for refusing to prosecute that scoundrel Dick Tarlton," said I smiling. "Did you ever learn the rights of that story, by-the-way ?" " I learnt the story — but there was not much rights in it," returned my companion still more grimly. "I am sorry to destroy an allusion of youth, my dear fellow, but that young woman made fools of us all in that matt«r." '•What? Dauntless Kitty <} Oh, do let me hear all about it !" " Well, briefly, this is what occurred. Jeff and she were not such a patient couple, for taking advantage of a month's visit that Kitty paid with my housekeeper, and he with his father, to see the World's Fair in London — the first exhibiton you know — they got married there, and were married when you knew them." j {To be concluded.) '