A FISHER'S LASS'S LOVE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16606, 18 July 1914, Page 5

A FISHER'S LASS'S LOVE.

(By JOHN RANKINE.) [All Rights Reserved.] Eric Nevison wasn't feeling any better. . He had come from America to England because his doctor said the trip would put him right. The trip had not. On sea, life had been bearable; on land, his symptoms had returned reinforced. Eric had the average mans abhorrence of the consulting-room. But ono day he found himself in Harley Street in the presence of a distinguished consultant. "I am Eric Nevison. American financier. Ago twenty-eight. Health and heredity excellent. Have worked en the money market at high pressure for .seven years. Six months ago I felt tired. Tried to shake it off. Couldn t. Swooned one day. I saw a doctor. He reported me run down and recommended a sail to England Guaranteed the rest and sea air would brace me. They" did, while I was getting them, ■ I wish your opinion and advice." , .• For fifteen minutes the specialist silently subjected Eric Nevison s body to exhaustive scrutiny. Then he spoke. "Your -doctor's diagnosis was correct, his remedy was inadequate. You are organically sound, but you have been overdrawing on your vital capital. You must stop, or Nature will knock you bankrupt. Take threo months holiday. Live the lotus life near the sea. But not at a fashionable water-ing-place- Piers and pierrots, bands and boarding-houses are not for you. Put every possible mile between you and such abominations. Fulfil these conditions, and three months will do; neglect them, and three years will scarce avail later." | Eric withdrew annoyed. Give up three months! He could as easily give up a limb. He was engaged in the great game of dollar hunting. He had won ranch, but was eager for more. .Bodily absence meant financial jeo- ' pardy. He wouldn't do it- . i Even as he vowed a sweat broke out upon him, his surroundings revolved, he saved himself from falling by clutching at a railing. Nature was endorsing the physician's verdict. Eric gave

Tn his hotel he procured a gazetteer, j The volume opened by chance at a sur- i vey map of Cornwall. Eric shut his eyes, held his pencil in the air, then slowly brought it down. A tiny mark was made on Kinvorn. . . "Kismet!" said Eric, opening his eyes to look. " Three months in Kinvorn! Whatever is Kinvorn nice r No one could tell him, though he freely inquired. Even the mhns booking clerk was puzzled next moving. But research disclosed a branc? lending to a station four miles from Eric's destination. It was the best they could do for him. Tn the late nfternoon a solitary fiffnre stood on Beldown Hill and looked down in astonishment. Eric Nevison had walked four miles, h» ■pinfa sinking with every stop. We. }f*™ hidden everything from his sight. JNow, k a moment, it had ryrodeAj* secret. The traveller's feeling surged into joy at his first glance oi: tne Picturesque village, and inanK Godl" broke gratefully from bis hp*. Well it might. Before him stretched boundless sea. Into it the red ™« seemed to be descending. * ne Cl ™ T atmosphere annihilated distance, the . silence was broken only by tho scream of a seamew gambolling, in the golden l»ght. ~.. ... I .Slowly he descended the, hiU until

an event. Nevison's arrival agitated the entire house. "You'll bear with us, Bir," said honest John Wesber, apologetically. " Our visitors are few, but we try to make them happy while they are here." , , The Mermaid was immaculately clean. Eric smilingly regarded tho cubic capacity of his bedroom, and gladly noted that its single window overlooked the little harbour.

"Three months of this may prove more tolerable than I thought," ho muttered.

It was in the twilight that Nevison met a girl on Beldown Hill. Tht> graceful figure instantly attracted him. He glanced at the clear complexion, the perfectly moulded features, then into tho sweetest pair of eyes he had ever seen. Eric gave her " good-evening." In refined accents she returned the cour tesy and passed on. A moment had completed it. But in that moment much had happened. The passing of the fisher-lass had transformed the life of the American financier. "I met a girl up the hill, John," said Eric to his host.

" Ay, sir, Hester Lea. I saw her go by a minute since. A queer lass, Hester.", " Oh?" The monosyllable expressed interrogation and encouragement. " Ay, Hester was an only child. Since her parents died she has lived with her aunt. Two-and-twenty is Hester, and unmarried. Yet she might have been married at seventeen. These five years every lad in Kinvorn has asked her. But Hester knows them all and 'no's' them all, though there are likely enough lads among them. Hester's proud and ambitious. She's clever-handed and kind-hearted. But she reads too much, and I don't hold with it at all. It has made Hester different from our other girl 3. Kinvorn would die out in a generation if everyone was like Hester." Kinvorn is a primitive place. Its social code is not rigid. Eric Nevison was already on friendly terms with half the village. Why not with Hester Lea?

On moor and shore, on harbour and hill-top he continued to meet her. The days "passed, his interest deepened. Hester Lea was an ever-fresh wonder. The beauty of her features was equalled by the richness of her mind. With all his educational advantagos he had much to learn from the lass who had been taught her letters in that ramshackle schoolhouse by tho harbour. Eric Nevison wondered and admired. Days of it, weeks of it. No spot on earth was now so precious to him as this quaint fishing village. He reviewed the women of his acquaintance. Many were pretty, all were wealthy, yet not one of them was worthy to be matched with this beautiful fisher-lass of Kinvorn. " But it would never do," he muttered. Tho remark revealed the thought. "No. It wouldn't do. Ask her to give up all this peace and beauty tor the artificial life of Banson Squaro, New York! She would laugh m my face. Curse my money-grubbing life, ho continued passionately. WBW nave I got out of itP Broken heaitn, and never an hour's happiness. I have a good mind to-, " He pausfid, astounded at the au- ! dacity of bis own thought. ~... . I "But why shouldn't I do it? .he resumed. " Other men have done similar things. I shall a*k Hester Lea to be my wife and offer to settle wltn ( her tn Kinvorn " . That night. Bilenee like a benediction w»*<od on Kouvorn shore. The sea

seemed motionless, no zephyr stirred, while, amid the deep summer twilight, a man and a woman mado terms witn destiny. "1 love you, Hester. I have told yon ot my life. 1 was reluctant to come to Kinvorn. Now 1 am reluctant to leavo it. For, one day, I met a girl on Beld iwn Hill. Since then I have had but one wish, to merge that woman's life with mine. Shall ■it be, Hester? For your sake, 1 am ready to give up my life's plans. You are a child of Kinvorn- I do not ask you to leave it. But I will gladly sacrifice. I will break with my old life if you, Hester, will form part of the new. I will realiso everything in New York and come and settle in Kinvorn. I shall be poor, compared with what I might have been, but I sliall bo the richest man in *-V.s village, and glad to be so only in so far as my wealth ministers to the haopiness of tho woman I long to call wife."

She looked steadfastly out over the sea. The silence maddened tho man beside her. l\cr quivering lips tempted him. He yielded to tho temptation. He displayed the courage that, with woman, is always wisdom. Hester Lea was caught in his arms and pasto his breast. When Eric began to renew his whispers of love and sacrifice, Hester Lea stirred within his embrace and surprised him with a cry as of agony. _" Speak not of sacrifice, Eric. That will bo unnecessary. I have a strange thing to ask of you. Take me away from Kinvorn." "Away from Kinvorn! Don't you lovo ft?" " 1 am long since weary of it. My life is crushingly narrow. My spirit has fretted for years. I have lived in my books and in my imaginings more really than in Kinvorn. I am sick to death of sky and sea, of dullnrss and drudgery. Oh, how I hate it I Let yours, Eric, be the hand to open my cage nnd set me free. Wh.it use are ambitions and dreams, ihe magic of books, and ihe call of your own heart, when your world consists of no more than of tho few fisherhids with whom you romped at school? The dreariness and weariness of it all are more than 1 can beat. "Will you take me away from it, Eric?" Eric Ncvison listened in amazement. He realised that, she had just voiced the deepest longing of her soul. He i sympathised with her desire for the larger life, for the greater liberty. He i was ready to gratify it, but he knew she had' caught a glimpse of a mirage. Ho must warn her that it would inevitably lure her to disappointment. " You feel yourself a prisoner, deir. But think not that all others are free. You are a prisoner of space. There are slave 1 ? of convention and fashion. They endure ty ran ires more intolerable than yours because more contemptible. You see them from afar and envy them. If you knew them better you would pity them. In this lovely spot you ought to be happy." " Thon lam not. I shall never

Eric Nevison smiled. He recognise'! woman's insatiable longing for a wider stage. . . "Well, Hester, your destiny is :n your own hands. I will givo you your heart's desire, I will take you away. It is the supreme luck of my life that 1 came to Kinvorn and discovered you." . It was threo years since Eric Nevison had brought home his bride to Banson Square. At first ho had trembled. To transplant a fisher-lass from Kinvorn to the fashionable centres of New \ork was hazardous. Hester was- unconscious of what was before her, Eric was not. Her every word and action would te scrutinised for proofs of her mean ol ßut Hester confounded her enemies. She left Kinvorn behind socially as well as geographically An untried fisher-girl quitted England,, a woman of tho world landed in America. Banson Square had sniggered when it heard of the Kinvorn fisher maiden. Some women, whose. matrimonial hopes 'had centred in Eric Nevison determined to hate Hester Lea. All won™ prepared to despise her. They had visions of an Amazon redolent of'brine and with the vocabulary of a fish vendor. They were intensely curious to Se They" saw her, and experienced .the surprise of their lives. Hester Nevison ,aave her husband cause to be proud of her. He watched her triumph with elaclever, tactful, the young bride forced Society to open its gates to her. Its joys dawned upon her. She lited the chalice of pleasure timorously. Soon sho was draining it fever1Sl Unconsciously but steadily the ways ,of husband and wife -dtvided Euc Nevison gathered wealth, Hester Km i--1 son scattered it. Tho one sought pleasure in toil,.the other toiled at pleasure. It was a costly business. Expenses mounted alarmingly. But haw only set his teeth more determinedly and speculated more daringly. Uveiything was concealed .from the woman 1 he loved. Her happiness must not be CU lt a was'in the dusk of an early spring evening when two prominent Wall Street brokers rode home together, in Penville Avenue the automobile overtook a man walking on the pavement. Brief but familiar signs of recognition were exchanged. Tho car passed on; its occupants looked at each other. " That is Nevison, poor fellow. lie seems far from well. Is there anything troubling him, do you know? . " Not positively- But I think he is suffering from an act of folly perpetrated three years ago—an injudicious mar,?lnjudicious marriaget Surely not. Mrs Nevison is the most beautiful woman in the city." ~< ... " No doubt. But domestio happiness is not built up on beauty alone.. "Well, if it needs money also, Eric Nevison's domestic happiness is in i grave danger. I heard to-day that he is on the verge of a terrible smash. And I don't wonder. Ho has become most reckless. Formerly he had one i of the shrewdest brains in Wall Street. ' Now ho is girlishly nervous. Let's go ' when he should hold, holds when lie should let go. Ho is mixed up with every wild cat venture floated. He has been hit hard and often. He j seems to have parted company with his 1 business instincts." I "Then, take it from me. the root cause is Mrs Nevison. She doesn't i mean it and ho doesn't dream it. But , it is true. She is a wife, and, worse : luck, she is not a mother. Motherhood would jprobably have saved her from being the social butterfly she is. Though Nevison abhors society, he is J proud to see her in it. But the pace I is too fast. She is sailing with the i millionaire set. And Nevison is. a ' good bit short of that yet. Sho lives at fever pitch, she rotates from gaiety 1 to gaiety, and has no time for her husband. His function is to supply money. In his frantic. endeavour to do so Eric Nevison is going to pieces." "AVell, it is sad that a promising young man should be dragged down by a pleasure-loving jade. Eric would have been wiser had he married a girl ' in his own set. He is paying for his experiment." The speaker had reached his destination; he dismounted and the car went on. Meantime, the man who had been the thenio of conversation, had arrived home. , , . " Is you mistress inP" he asked of a maid. " No, sir." Eric nodded and passed in to dine I alone. A companionless meal was a familiar experience. When it was endad he sought his own room. . Ho was troubled in mind and sick at ; heart. He was -in need of woman's [ sympathy. And the woman was not there. He know not where stlfl WIUS.

The multiplicity of her social engagements contused him. They were ne- I cessary to her happiness. Evidently he wasn't. The thought struck him with brutal force. He sat down to think it out. He had been three years married. Back in thought he went to that hour on Beldown Hill in which his love for Hester Lea had awakened. Sweet had been the reality, sweet still was the memory. But* the happiness he had known in Kinvorn was his no more. He had reached the blackest hour of his life. "This constant worry is wearing me," he muttered. " I ought to curb her, but I cannot. I promised she should have happiness. And she shall. Poverty is just ahead. I may be hammered and beggared any day. She must not share the humiliation. Wealthier men envy me my wife. Hester would get a wide choice of them if I were out of the way. Some other man will fufil the fino promises with I which I wiled her away from her Kin- j vorn. I have failed her. But I still ] love her sufficiently to sacrifice my all for her happiness, even though that all include my life. A bullet will be the cleanest and quickest way. A bullet shall be the end." He proceeded with the calmness of a man whose mind is made up. He sat at his desk writing hard till the hour was late and the house was still. At last he rose and slipped to the room where his old guncase stood. From it ho removed a tiny revolver, which he always kept loaded. With it he returned to his room. _ Erie Nevison was nearing the end. Ho had fully counted the cost, and was about to pay it. He gave a final glance through his papers. Everything was complete. A second and all would be over. There was a faint sound at the door. Swiftly he threw some papers over the shining revolver. The door slowly opemed. His wife stood looking at him. She had evidently been preparing to retire. Her fair hair hung in rich luxuriance over her shoulders. Her dressins-gown, in its artistic looseness, disclosed her smooth, white throat and heaving breast. Eric Nevison had never seen his beautiful wife more beautiful. But nover was her presence more inopportune "I didn't know you were in, dear," he said. " I came in hours ago." "Where were you?" "At the Mac Neal reception. But T loft early." "Wb"P" " Beeauso I wished to speak to you." " Surely there are opportunities enough to speak to me without curtailing your pleasure." "It, is about the pleasure I wish to speak." " Then why have you waited hours before coming in?" " I was afraid." , "Of what?" " Of you." Eric Nevison regarded his wife curiously. " I cannot understand you, Hester. What does it mean?"

She sank penitent-like to her knees and quivered with deep sobs. He gently stroked the soft hair, and silently waited. She looked up at last through brimming eyes But there was in them a look Eric Nevison thrilled to ;ee. It was a look reminiscent of Beldown Hill. "As you are able, darlin- tell me what the trouble is." ,T Eric," she began in broken accents, " before you kneels the most penitent woman in all the world. I aui unhappy, ar, I deserve to be. On Kinvorn shore you asked me to be your wife. And I became your wife—but not because I loved you 1 I wanted to see the world. I wanted what riches, could? buy. Not for love, but for liberty: not for domestic bliss, but for social ambition I answered you ' Yes.' In doing so 1 sinned against Heaven and agndnst the noblest man outside of it I came here with you in name what I have never been in reality—your wife. All that my husband's love could suggest, more than my husband's wealth could provide. I have had. Yet I am unsatisfied, unhappy. For three years I have tried to overtake happiness. But the more determinedly followed the more persistently it fled. T began to hate everything, myself included. Last night my misery culminated. A dreadful thought possessed me. I had been an unworthy wife to the man who had raised me from the gutter. I would be so no longer. T slipped to your guncase, took out your revolver, and carried it to my room. Self-destruction was in my mind. But, ere I sinned, I dedicated some moments of prayer to the husband I was about to disgrace. And God's angels used ray husband's love as a loophole of my escape. The thought of your kindness shot through my despair like a gleam of gold. With gladness I remembered that you were my husband still, ay, and that my husband loved me still. And in that same moment I became conscious that I passionately loved my husband. It is a strange thing for a wife to say years after her- wedding. But the happiness 1 have been so eagerly seeking I found the moment my own love was awakened. And I asked myself, could I not make better atonement to my husband than by leaving him r Should I not rather strive to make myself more worthy of his loveP With that thought I replaced the revolver. Hut I vowed that, as penance, I would make a full confession to you. keeping back no part of the price. It has not been easy. But I have fulfilled my vow. I know that I have wilfully drifted out of your life. Intent on my own happiness, I have given no thought to yours. Never a word of refusal or reproach have you uttered throughout it all. But, tell me, Eric, have you regretted making the fisher-girl your bride? Have you been happy, or, has your life been as wretched as mineP" He answered her never a word. Silently he drew aside the papers. The revolver lay revealed. In an instant Hester Nevison understood. Her face wont ashen white, her eyes filled with tears. She realised the tragedy she had caused, yet, by Heaven's grace, averted. With trembling hand she drew the papers back over the hateful thing, then twined her arms lovingly round her husband's neck.

" Tho sin I contemplated you were about to commit, Eric?" " Yes. An hour ago I had no desire to live." "But nowP" "It was worth suffering through these empty years for the joy of this hour alone." "Then you and I, Eric, will begin life afresh. But not here. I have been worshipping false gods. I wish to break up the old altars. I should like to build a new one—in Kinvornl" Eric Nevison regarded his wiro incredulously. "You once offered to give up all and settle in Kinvorn for my sake, Eric," she continued. " Will you make that offer once morcP My life's happiness, my soul's safety depends on ray breaking for ever with this life. lam weary of it. I have found out how hollow it is. I have had my lesson and have paid dearly for it. My one desire is to be back at Kinvorn. Never a night have I gone to sleep in this grand city mansion without seeing in dreams tho cluster of white-walled cottages on Beldown Hill. I want to be back among my own people. Will you go with mo, Eric?"

" For my wife's lore I would gladly go to the ends of the earth," answered Eric Nevison, as he kissed tho contrite lips. Next day Nevison's conduct puzzled his business friends. They could not

think what he was driving at. And Eric did not explain. But he sold out with feverish haste. Though it was not done to be shrewd, it proved shrewdness. Nevison realised, preserved his financial stability, and had a bit over. Everyone said Mrs Nevhon would melt it in a few months. And what then? The critics worried themselves unnecessarily. One day Eric Nevison deserted her coteries. And while the curious were busy wondering what it meant, Erio and Hester Nevison were embarking on an England-bound finer. ' , .», , At the stern they together watched the gathering night slowly shroud the coast-line from sight. As the> stood silent and reflective, Eric drew something from his pocket and held it out for bis wile to see. It was a revolver. She took it from his hand, held it a moment in air, then dropped it into the swift swallowing waves. , . , . „ " All unhappy memories go witn it. she whispered, confidently, as her nusband and she turned their smiling faces towards the East and England.

On Beldown Hill, near the spot where Eric Nevison first saw his wife, a pretty cottage stands. Its mistress is Hester Nevison. And Hester Nevison is perfectly happy. - ' Since her return to Kinvorn she has been invested with the crown of motherhood. When, as ministering angel, she visits the cottages of old friends she has a sturdy boy and winsome girl for escort. And there is a restfulness in Hester Nevison's eyes now that none of her gay and wealthy friends ever saw there. ,-,.,, On many a summer eve the fisherfolk of Kinvotn see her standing with her husband on the cliff ciest. To husband and wife it is a hallowed spot. They look oil the old familiar scene, they wntch the sun go down in the west, and they think of the land that lie; there. But neither heart regrets leaving it, neither heart longs to return to it.