NOVELETTE

Lake County Press, Issue 2159, 7 March 1907, Page 2

NOVELETTE

THE SAVING OP TOM CHAPEL. JflffiKHE following strange events T, §K|flM Rov. Reginald Randolph, cur•HBI ate of the Parish Church of St. James, Ilochester, desire to set down in writing whilo tho memory of them is yet fresh within me. It w»b about ten o'clock one Monday evening. I had returned about a quarter of an hour previously from some parochial engagement, and wao sitting in my room awaiting the arrival of my landlady with the supper tray. Tho night wan cold; and I sat brooding over the fire. . The memory of some painful scenes of which 1 had just been a witness in a house of sickness was in-j my mind, and I was iu no happy mood. While I thus waited, there came a loud ring at tho front door bell; and presently thereafter Mrs. Rogers entered, though without the welcome tray. 4 If yon ploase, sir,' she said, standing in tho doorway, 4 a young boy wishes to eee you.' I gave a gesture of impatience, for I wao tired. • Tell him to como up,' I said. Mrs. Rogerß retired, and I heard her high-pitched voico exhorting soineouo, in no vory amiable strain, tc wipe his boots and to walk carefully. 1 rose from my chair, stood with vny back to tho fire, and waited. 1 hoard tho sound of feet on tho hall floor ; then i o stairs creaked as the footsteps can » nearer, and last thnro was a timid knock at my door. 4 Como in l* I cried. Tlio door opened, and a boy about twelve years old stood on the threshold, lie was dressed in clothes that had beon persistently patched, but ho was clean and neat, and a broad white collar was round his neck. 31 o stood looking at me with largo blue eyce. 4 Come in, my lad,' I said. * Sit down on that chair and tell me what tou want.' He camo a step into the room. 4 Oh, sir!' he said, in a piteous voice (and then it was that I saw his eyes wore heavy with weeping), 4 do come to mother. She's that bad, as never was. I think she's going to die, like father did last year. She's been asking to see you.' Tho pastoral instinct got tho better of my weariness. 4 All right, my lad,' I said cheorily. • I'll como with you now. You shall tell mo as we go all about your mother. Come along V I got my hat and coat, and we went out together. The boy led me to a noisy, smokobegrimed street not far from my coins; and, opening tho door of a \ ottige, motioned me to enter. * Mother,' ho said, 4 parson's come I looked round. We stood in the collage kitchen, and a shaded lamp which stood on a baro deal table in the centro of the room shed a subdued light on the simple arrangements of the place. Furniture there was little ; but what littlo thore was was of a style a-nd workmanship which ono wou'd hardly havo expected to find in so poor a house. A large bed filled ono side of the room, r.nd an improvised cereon protected it from the draughts of tho door. On the bed lay an elderly woman': her face drawn and pale, her hair tinged with grey, dishcvolled with her restless tossings on tho tumbled pillow. I drew a chair to tho side of the bed and sat down. •You wished to see me?' I caid. Sho lifted herself on her elbow and looked at me closely a minute. Thon 6ho sank back on the bed with a little moan. 4 Yes,' she said. ' Yeß. Listen,' Jlcr voice was tense and anxious. 4 My eon—he's in the greatest danger.' I supposed she was delirious, and hockoned the little boy to my side. 4 No,' I Baid, in a soothing tone ; •Don't bo afraid. See, your son is here quite safe and well.' She shook her head with a sort of ead petulance. 4 No, no,' she said, 4 not him. Long before him there was another—my own first boy—tho son of my first ; hj unhand—my own Tom, Tom, eo Juadeonie and strong and loving, but ' She stopped, panting for breath. 4 For ye&;B, sye, years, he's been away. He never writc3. He is as one dead. But this afternoon, as I lay rere with the evening gloom c»ming on, I saw him I I tell you, s ; r,' sho continued, her thin bonds clutching the bedclothen, her feverbright eyes fixed on my face, ' I saw bim. I saw a long quiet country road. The moon shone upon it. Tho wind moaned across it. Thore was a houee —a large white house standing in a largo old-fashioned garden. There waa no light in the house. But suddenly tho door opened. The moonlight shone full upon tke place; mid through the door stopped Tom— Torn, my own long lost boy, but Mb face was whiter than this bed, except where there were dark stains upon it. Th»y were the stains of Woo-11 . . . Sir, I knew that road, thai houso—knew them as I know thi> street I live in. 1 knew them, I> U » I ?ov k ""t the nams end where thoj crew. But to-nigh, it came to me.' She pau?9tl) tW> aid qimtfy &'•>•'' deliberately: 'KotU. TTouae, RoClcu fComraon. I started. She ha. 1 . C-kuew jtfll--* bouse torn* lea mile,

out of the 6ow#. ' I know,' she a».:d, ' tiafc vision has made me know that ho is there, that he is in danger to-night.' She sat up in bed and laid her lean hand on my shoulder. 4 Tell mo,' she continued, in a voice «hich was hardly louder than a whisper, 4 that you will go and cave him. Tell him that his mother is dyi •>■.■■; and would see him before she yet-". But that danger is there I know? . . . Tom Chapel—that ia hi 3 name ; and this is he.' She put her hand under her pillow and drew forth a cabinet photograph in a frame. It was the photograph of a handsome lad of some nineteen year 3. The woman's eyes were fixed upon me. 4 You will go ?' she said. And I promised. It seemed Quixotic enough. But there were reasons not a few which made me give that promise. Anything in tho nature of an adventure in a monotonous life ia seized upon with eagerness, for we all love the abnormal. But Roden House. Roden Common I That was where that old misanthrope Treadgold lived, alone with his fair daughter, who was always so sympathetic in tho affairs of St. James's Church. And—yea, I would go. Ten milea' ride on that moonlight nigh* waa more a pleasure than a toil, and it would satisfy the poor woman in lier last hour. I went back to my rooms, had a hasty oupper, told Mrs. Rogera as much of the facta of the case aa ] deemed necessary, pumped up the tyros of my bicycle, lighted my lamp, and set forth. The murky streets of the great manufacturing town were soon "bohind mo, and I waa spinning along the country roads. The deep 'whirr' of the machine, tho cool breeze upon my face, and tho sonse of being ongaged upon a tiny adventure were exhilarating. The country elopt ghost-like in the moonlight. I sped through two sleeping villages, and Roden Common rose bleak on either hand. Another mile, and I saw the square, white, substantial mass of Roden House. Roden House outwardly waa not picturesque. Its bare harsh outlinos were unrelieved by anything. But it stood in a large garden in which tho advantages of nature had been matured by the do-vicoa of art. Gardening waa old Threndgold's hobby. I rode up to tho large iron gate and paused. The absurdity of tho errand upon which I had come struck me with considerable force. lie w could I go up tho drive and prowl round the houso liko some auspicious character, in order to find a delirious woman's long loot eon ? Still less, how could I ring the front door bol), and inquire for Tom Chapel. j Smiling at the futility of the ad venture, I wheeled my machine beside tho thick hedge which screened tho old garden, and stood looking at tho houso. Maybe I waa thinking—for the moonlight has a way of making the most prosaic of men romantic—that somewhere within that ungainly pile tho fair Miss Treadgold lay asloop. I had come to a partial gap in the hedge, and was peering through. Beforo mo was a broad lawn, and, opening on to it, the French windows of the drawing-room. Suddenly, as I watched, a shadow pasted across the moonlight and a man, walking stealthily, crept fiom tho dark cover of eomo bushes. Slowly, cautiously noiselessly, ho walked across tho lawn. He looked up at tho house. No light shone there. He moved deliberately to the long French window and Btoppod. 1 saw him draw nomething from hi» pocket. Then I caught, barol.s caught, the sound of the friction of eomo instrument against metal. I waited no longer. I scrambled through tho gap. Silently, my heart thumping, I crossed tho lawn. Suddenly the man turned aud faced mo. I etaggered back a pace. For the faco which lookod at mo, though pinched with want, could not be mistaken. Tho discovery gave me a strange boldness. 4 Tom Chanel,' I cried, * what are

you doing here?' I eaw the white face grow whiter, the lipa more tightly compressed, j There was a gleam in the hunted i eyes. He sprang upon mej and I went down before him on the soft grass aB though I had been a child. I felt tho grip of his fingers at my throat, his hot breath on my cheek. ' How do you know mo ?' ho whispered. ' Shall I kill you like a dog, or will you live and be silent about to-night?' 4 Nay,' I cried. 'Hear me! The voice of the dying calls you. Your mother ' 4 Ah !' he cried, with a sort of sob, and tho hand at my throat relaxed. 4 Sent me to you. Sho saw you here—saw you, I know not how —iu delirium, in vision, who can tell? The love of a mother is all powerful. She saw this road, this house, and you—in danger. She sent me to save you—to bring you to her.* I told him all tho story of the night, watching the changing expression of his face tho while. When I had finished, there fell between us long silonce. He roie, and allowed me to rise also. 1 At last he spoke, and bio voico | was sh-angsly gentle. V ' Gu-.'nor,' he said, ' there's eomo--1- v vusrhty powerful, t\a you nay, jiu a, !Uo. - '=i love. I'm ready. Tak« i mo to her V

|aZ6>-rf> b 'MS tr'it'i Tom Cfl»|* )! *] pushed my mucniiio alov, *jid ho, j hia head bent, walked l>y my side. J He told me a atory of defeated hopes, decaying fortu"o, and final abject want, and the fierce temptation t-> seek by other means what he could not gain by honest work. * I've been in prison,' he said, doggedly ; • and when a man has been in prison the only way for him to live is to get there again. But the mother ! I'll come and aee her, and then ' I said nothing, for I still believed in tho power of the mother's love. And thus we reached tho town. The man by my eido becume strangely quiet as we passed places which lie must have known from childhood. Only when we wore about to turn into the dismal quarter where hia mother livod did he stop abruptly and turn to me. 1 Not there,' he said ; 4 she doesn't live there in that foul place, with no pure air to breathe and nevor anything to cheer her eyes but the long hideous streets I Does ahe live there ?' 4 Sho lives there,' I answered. 4 My mother!' he moaned, and quickened his pace. Wo reached the cottage door. Tlio night was waning fast, but the dim light Ntili burnt within. 4 Wait here,' 1 said. 'lt ia woll that J. should warn her first that you hare come. Tho ebock else might kill her; for, remember, she is very weak.' J. knocked at tho door. The little boy, half dressed, his eyes heavy with watching, opened it. I motioned him to bo still, and wont in. The woman lay quite quiet on the bed ; it was plain eho had become much weaker than when I left her. 1 took her hand, and she looked up, recognising me. 'Well,' ebe aaked, 'you found it as I said ?' ' I found it ns you paid,' I replied. 1 I found your son—in danger. The , good Lord saved him, and I have brought your boy to you.' ' Let me see him,' she whwperod. 1 went to the door aiid called him in. 110 went up (o lb a bed, and threw himself on his knees beeido it. • Mother l' he cried. 4 My own boy l' Then there was a pause, and they looked in one another's eyes. 4 Tom,' she> said, at last, 4 where have you beon all these weary years ?■ You hava Buffore J, Tom ' —trying to auiccUi tlio deep furrows on his brow—' tell me all about it.' ' Mother,* hi cried, 4 1 am not worthy to see you, to touch you, or speak to jou i I have beon in the lowest places oC life where all is foul and lilthy and wretched. lam an outcast. Honest men turn from me. I have boon in prison. I can nevor be your boy again.' 4 Suy? she said, and there was a strange nolo of triumph iu her voice. 4 Nothing can alter that. Though all the cruel world turn from you, and despise and halo, you are my boy for over. My poor, naughty boy, but my boy for -sver. Ad much my boy as when I filled your satchel with itH books, anJ put it on your back, and watched you go to school —only the dearer for all the pain, and all those long, long years of waiting !' 4 Jlut I have no home, no money, no means of living,' ho groaned. » Your home,' she said, ' has bean waiting for you since you wont away —that and yoir money, too. 1 knew that you would come. And year by year I waited. Year by year I put aside your portion. It is ready for you. My love will make it a ladder l»y which you may rise to better things—you and litllo Charlie —when I a:n gone where there is no use of money, but whei© love last? and reigns.' Shortly after this I silently left them, for I saw that their time together was not long, and I deeded they should spend it without the presence of a stranger. Tue next morning I went to the cottage betimes. Knocking, and receiving no answer, I pushed tho door, and entered. By the bed stood Tom Chapel with his arm around tho nock of the little lad. They were looUng upon tho dead fuco of tho mother whoso dauntless love had conquered and ■ redeemed her son. ' Yes, sir,' he said, ' sho has gone ; but by tho grace of God I'll meet her again", and take the littlo one, too.'