KATE HOWARTH’S DEVOTION.

Northland Age, Volume VIII, Issue 26, 16 February 1912, Page 7

KATE HOWARTH’S DEVOTION.

Copyright.

By the Author of "The Heroine of the Mill,” Etc. PART 10. CHAPTER XII. A LETTER FROM HOBART TOWN. When four years hud passed Freddie had been promoted from the position of page to he companion to the Hon. Ferdinand Hoghton. The tall landsome youth came over to Halsbaw Moor to tell the news to his humble parents. He met pretty Kaey on the threshold and caught her to his heart, saying : “Ah. my sweet factory lass, I’ve brought you good news f Lady Sort hen den says I am to be a gen- : tleman after all." Of course Katey was pleased and so were John and Nelly in a silent sort of way. Their brightening hopes, howeveri, were turned to hitter grief j when the news reached them that old Mr. Wogan, the butler, ami Freddie Howarth, the under footman, were in custody for systematic and continuous robbery of jewellery, money and plate from Lord and Lady Northenlen. Their trial came off at the assizes held at Salford. The proofs were tomplete. Many servants for a long oeriod had been suspected and turned away. At length Mr. Wogan was discharged. The following 'morning it was found he had prevailed upon the boy to go with him. This aroused suspicion and a constable was called In, when the boxes of both were searched. Spoons, silver forks, a gold drinking cup, and other things were foupd in the box of the elder prisoner, together with a mass of pawnbrokers’ tickets. A gold chain, two rings, a bracelet and a few duplicates were discovered in the boy’s trunk. So when the assistants of various pawnbrokers came down from London and positively recognised the boy as the person who had pledged the numerous articles of minor value,’the Case was virtually at an end, and Mr. Wogan was sentenced to ten years’ and Freddie—poor little innocent Freddie—to five years. Whin the latter sentence was pronounced, Nellie Howarth uttered a rrcat cry of anguish, and fainted ar;qy Katey was too overwhelmed to do anything but sit and moan. Twenty minutes later, when the poor woman was surrounded by her friends outside the court, Lady Voithenden’B carriage drew up to them. “ Allow me, Mrs. Howarth," began the peeress, “ to say how I feel for you. I am sure it breaks my heart when I think what I have endeavoured to do for that ungrateful toy— ’’ “ Hold your tongue, you cunning woman !” cried Nelly Howarth, with % suvlden accession of anger. " Woman ! Insolent !” said the Peeress. “Yon are a woman, and I fear a 'ad one,” proceeded Nelly, like one suddenly inspired. “ You are no bett'-r than I am, and from what has happened, I fancy not half so good." Then she went on, very deliberately : “ You—lady as you may be—have brought about this hoy’s destruction —but he’ll prove his innocence yet, and return safe and sound to confound you and all his enemies." And Nelly, after speaking to her as an equal, with eyes flashing lire before which the large orbs of the other fell abashed, walked away firmly, glad of having spoken her mind. They were poor people, and not educated as their class is nowadays. They saw dimly, as through a glass, that this woman from the beginning desired the society of the lad. And now. through her devilish machination.--. he was doomed to a living death in his fifteenth year !

“My sweet factory lass as Fr*dd:e had playfully called Katev, life supposed sister—had a very hard time of it for a long period. Her fati-er never completely recovered his robuet health, and so mother and daughter toiled cheerfully at the mill, that they might, keep a roof over their heads and procure the other necessaries of life. Dun, the dyes; was of fo confiding a nature that he soon ruined his already crippled bußineee b 7 consenting to a system of indiscriminate •rodit. He had to leave his premise* in Kadcliffc. and go to a small cottage in the vicinity. Ultimately he realised all thr» money he could, and leaving a sum for the sustenance of “ granny " and Aunt ’Liza h® went off to America to “ make bis fortune.” After four years of “ roughing ” if. in the Far W< st--chiefly in California —he returned home as poor nn an when he left ; hut being of a cheerful disposition he set to work at oa‘-c, not at his old trade, but as a miner, just as the coal trade began to be a profitable one through the introduction of railways. He was particularly fond of "Nilly’s lass,” as he called Katey and he bad reason. was far the prettiest girl in th** whole country and proved as good a s she vos beautiful. We nave more than once hinted that the brothers Howarth were ejc< pliona.ly handsome men, and that Nellj wan an exceptionally charmiDg It cannot be wondered at that Katey grew trp a n. -c dess woman. In her worst* 7 • ’.re she was simply c*pt ira&fe*. Her small head would have done credit to a Greek statue, being poised upon a rounded neck of ala! aster purity rising from a fullydev> loped bust and chest.

She was tall, with exquisitely moulded limbs and feet aud her arms necessarily bare to the shoulder for the work she was engaged upon—would have been the envy of many a Court beauty could they have seen her. “ I tell you what it is, Jack,” Dan said one day talking of Katey. “ There’s something in that lass’s eyes that fairly caps me. They're'not sharp and impudent or anything of that sort, but you 'kind of feel that she can see right down into your soul like. Do you follow me, lad?’’ “ Ay,” answered John. “ I’ve seen that ever since poor Fred got sent away. It wasn’t so much at first as after mother thought it right to tell her that the hoy was neither kith or kin of ours. Seems to me as if she was always thinking of him and when she talks about the lad, her voice begins to get low-like and as if there were the low notes of a throstle’s song in it." Do not imagine that we believe in perfect woman. To be true to nature there must always be some faults, and Katey was not free from them. If aroused by injustice in business, she could say scathing things with that usually silent tongue ; hut tlie very womanliness of her faults added to the beauty of her nature and therefore made a theme of geueral admiration.

To say that she had suitors or lo- b; vers is simply to make a statement h which included every male creature t from hobbledehoy hood to obi age in ir the vicinity as in the neighbouring towns. Old aud young made love to rr her and proposed marriage to her ; cj and hundreds not only came to the ?( old church to gaze at her but they t! used to stand in line on each side of ti the door at the close of morning and tl evening service until she passed, likte “ a humble queen, with a sweet expres- si sion on her heaven-lit face, that l spoke more of unconsciousness than of pride. f( When she went to Bury fair or Rad- n clifie races, whole troops of admirers tl followed in her wak,e. They never molested her. She was too unlike h the majority of her sex for that ; u and besides John or Dan were always 0 with her, and so she enjoyed herself t in a quiet, thoughtful way. j During these five years her thoughts 0 were always with the banished boy. S( He never grew in her thoughts, and g when she approached womanhood, she j forgot that he was two years her j] senior at least. She could only realise the lad as he appeared—pale- t faced and horror-stricken—before the p mighty be-wigged and begowned judge v to receive the most cruel &nd unjust t sentence ever pronounced. |« Brooding over the handsome boy, U led to her resolving to seek, him out c when the time came to set him free, n The idea was a wild one and almost a appalled her when it first came to her. One of her Uncle Dan’s presents t to her was a wonderful book of ad- d ventures, in which young men were “ constantly undergoing all kinds of J dangers to rescue unhappy maidens t from fierce uncles and selfish old g guardians, clad in complete steel. One story in this book pleased her J more than all the rest. Places were \\ changed here. The lady did the heroic business, and by dint of dis- f guises and cunning plans, ultimately c succeeded in freeing bar lover from death. t This was the role she aspired to f] play when the fulness of time came, a Everything was against her, of c course. In the first place she was a not a lady, had no wealth, and f therefore was not in a position to g bribe obnoxious gaolers, who, being p human, had their prices. She had no v robust handmaiden to succour her in hours of supreme trial, yet she re- e solved when the time came, to rescue f her boy from whatever dangers I might environ him. However slowly time may seem to v pass, a longed-for moment comes at t last. There was not only joy but v intense excitement, in the little house f of the Howarths one day on the receipt of a letter—a long kind letter c from Freddie, bearing the Australian jpost mark. It was written from Ho- j bart Town, where he had been with a r good master. He had earned suffi- j cient money to pay for a passage j home by the packet “ Taymouth f Castle,” and on his return he was confident that he should be able to } prove how innocent he was of the v charge preferred against him, anil for which he had suffered so much, j At all events he would try his best j towards that end, and if be failed, then be must bow his head to the decrees of n mysterious but certain- .. ly all-wise Providence. He was confident that his father y and mother would not believe him j guilty : hut Le had no intention to r bring disgrace upon them by visiting :he old home. “ Ily-and-bye,” he concluded, “when 1 have made a little money, as I <*hall if there is an s thing in hard \ .ri:. we will make arrangements to where we are not known. It I breads my heart when I think of this i •trrible thing that haa come between ’ tia, and I fancy I ran see the tears 1 •landing at this moment in the dear s dark eves of my sweet factory lass 1 when she realises it perhaps for the < first time." Dan ceased reading to look at Ka- i tey. The tears were there, and a strange Look that might be called one i of terror but for a gleam of light— j the fire of hope—that shone through : or above it. s The Howarth® were not the kind of people to consent to a prolonged separation from their boy. They wrote and told him that their home was his home, and whatever the world or neighbours might say l , nothing would come between them. When the epistle was complete they remembered the ship would have sailed for home before this had left England, so they laid it aside for his perusal at some other time. Dan’s American experience had

smartened him up a bit. He wrote to the owfiers of the “ Taymouth Castle," and discovered that the vessel was due at Southampton "early in February ; and so it was resolved that someone would be there to meet him.

Katey pleaded hard to be permitted to go, but the idea of a young woman proceeding on such an errand received no encouragement, and so the gentle and obedient maiden began to hoard more of her savings than ever and work more overtime than usual, with some unconfessed purpose n view.

Just then Dan and two friends had clubbed their money together and became purchasers of a small property that made them what is called “butty colliers.” When the time came for meeting the ship he was possessed of so much money that it was resolved he should go and welcome Fred. Katey wept in her white little nest if a room because her slender purse would not permit per to go to such an unheard-of expense, j Three days after Dan’s departure .they saw in a paper that the “ Tuy- ' a ith Castle ” had reached South-

ampton and landed her passengers safely. They did not believe that Dan could yet have reached that town. Four days later they received a strangely brief fitter from him to the effect that he was on his journey back to London, and would soon be home. But not a word did it contain of Freddie, and a great fear rose in the heart of Katey. A fortnight elapsed before Dan made his appearance, and then he came alone. He had reached the seaport on the evening of the day that saw the entrance of the ship into the docks. Two men had been there to meet Frederick Howarth—

“a returned lag,” the purser of the ship said—and they had started for London at once.

Dan had a lively recollection of a former journey to the great metropolis, but did not hesitate to proceed there to search for the poor lad. “ It’s like seeking for a needle in a haystack,” he said. ” It’s no use. If you get lost there, lad,” Ire went on, “ you get lost, and no mistake. There was our Kate, you k.now, Jack— Ah, but it’s no use speaking of that, although it made my heart sore every night I slept in London. Eh, I spent a mint of money, lad—’’

“ You mustn’t be the loser of that, Dan," said John, moodily. “If you speak another word in that strain I’ll leave you,” cried Dan. “ I only told you because I was forced to come home sooner than T wished. I put a notice in ‘ Times ’ newspaper as cost me sixteen shillings, and then a Manchester chap, as I foregathered with he takes me to Bow Street police office, aud I asked of Fred’e directions there, and ■ detective came out with us two or three times and we had to have drinks, you know. Well, when 'beans' went, I had to come home,

Jack, sore-hearted at being without the lad. But then my partners were grumbling and what could I do ?” “ You did your best, Dan,” said Jack, rising, “ and I thank you for it.”

Thqn, after pacing the floor for a few moments he suddenly stopped and cried :

“ I tell you what it is, mother, I tell you what-it is Dan . That lad’s friends—that’s ourselves—are poor, and well nigh helpless. The young chap’s got enemies, and they’re rich and powerful, and of course, successful. It’s always the same,” he groaned, bitter in spirit. “ The poor man has always to go to the wall."

“ Then I’m dashed if we shall !’’ cried Dan with sudden vigour. “I’ll find that lad yet, or my name’s not Dan Howarth.”

Katey went silently and sorrowfully up to her room without a light, repeating her uncle's last words. They would not get out of her mind or from her lips. When a mind is prostrate or nearly distraught, it often seizes and holds on to a certain sentence or phrase which may in the new connection be utterly meaningless. After lying dressed on her bed for hours until it was bitterly cold, she got up still repeating the sentence alluded to. “ I’ll find that lad yet, or my name’s not Dan Howarth —Dan Howarth !” she repeated. Then, with a .sudden leap back to intelligence and reason, she cried aloud, but not loud enough to wake the sleepers in the next room : “ I’ll find that lad yet, or my name’s hot Kate Howarth.” And there was a genuine ring afiout the exclamation which struck her own ear even as an unalterable resolution. CHAPTER XIII. THE WHITE-WING ED HAND AND THE GOLDEN CROSS. Tbt. communications with the police bud no effe *, and the ad vertisement i i the ‘ Tim-s ’ was equally fruitless. The months passed away, but no news came of the lost one. Budding spring brought no joy to this household. beautiful summer had lost its chains, and seasonable pastimes were neglected. The russet tints of autumn were no longer gratefully welcomed by these true lovers of mother ear h, because their souls ( were wrapped up in this missing boy and his un’ riown fate was a fruitful 1 source of terror to them every day. Katey Howarth had formed a plan, and* it-was no part of that plan, we regret to say, to consult her parents in regard to it or its wisdom! She loved her absent brother—she never stopped to ask herself if his love was other than brotherly, and she determined unaided to £o out into the world and seek for him. She knew f ha : *. in the event of asking permis- ‘ . n to do this thing, obstacles ’ o ,l be placed in her way and con-&e-t never obtained. The search

came to be looked upon by her as an object pre-eminent among all other earthly ones. She had a kind of pretentiment that she wiouid be successful —or was it a belief founded upon the too often fallacious promptings of hope ? and so the matter grew upon her until work, amusement, dress, household affairs seemed unreal aud mechanically accomplished, in the face of this one great purpose of life.

Her parents and friends wondered that she no longer spent a part of her earnings in little maidenly luxuries, as had been her habit ; that the usual summer frock and autumn shawl were not bought ; and that .she had added to her wages by attending to three looms instead of two, as was the habit of the place. When remonstrated with for neglecting and overworking herself, she simply smiled sweetly and said :

“ Who can think of dress when Freddie’s fate is a mystery ? We will want money some day to help find him."

One night in the early winter she was particularly silent and thoughtful ; this was by all on hearing what followed. It was dark at five o’clock. After tea she pulled her working clothes off and put on her best woollen gown.

“ Where are you off, lass ?’’ asked her father.

“To Bowton,"'she answered, “for a book that I want." She returned before nine o’clock | with a small brown parcel. At sup- | per time she was more cheerful than ! psual and when her father kissed her i she kissed him twice iff return 'and ! murmured ;

j “You’ll never be angry with me, | will you ?’’ I “You are the apple of my eye,my ( lass. How could I be angry with .you ?” i When she kissed her mother, she said, “My own kind beautiful mother, you mustn’t think hard of me." | “ Why should I think hard of the I wench ?” the amazed Nelly asked, apostrophisingly.

I She would .have known later if she ! had seen her dutiful and silent i daughter, poring, fully dressed-, over the little book she had ordered some time ago and gone to Bolton for that night. It was a pocket atlas | of the United Kingdom, with all the j principal roadways lined in red. \ Round the edge of the map she was now studying were small, clear en--1 gravings of different cities and I towns. She gazed lons* and curiously, and witii no little awe, at that of London, with its hundreds of ! spires, magnificent river, numerous bridges and looming above all the colossal dome of St. Paul’s. | She had rt solved to walk to London and seek for Freddie and was about to start on the journey in a few hours. At the time we write of this resolution alone was heroic for , the poorer people looked upon the j great and to them unknown city a s a : den of iniquity—a perfect pandemonium.

| Satisfied with her route and her object she went to bed. It is needless to speculate upon the nature of her dreams. Opinions always differed upon the subject, and we fancy the most truthful conclusion to be that some are merely idle and nonsensical nocturnal reflections of daily experiences while others are full of significance or pregnant with supernatural meaning. | It is unnecessary to add that Kate Howarth had never been in London. She had seen sketches of the city often, just as she had seen one this evening on the edge of the map in the atlas. It remains a certain fact however it may be accounted for, that she dreamt of the mighty town that night, and it had an appearance, entirely different from anything she could have imagined from the pictures seen. She found herself in the opaque atmosphere of the night. Great tracts of cc “ry stretched out on every hand, flat and undulating ; deep hollows and mountains of terrible dimensions ; while at irregular distances sparks of light glimmered and shivered in the most fitful manner.

Figures of people moved about but without breaking the awful silence w'hich reigned over all. A long, pale pathway could just be distinguished stretching ahead, and small points of pale fire throbbed in a firmament that might be described us being of a somewhat light Indian inky hue. Painfully conscious of the loneliness she, however, ! courageously pushed forward upon the path mentioned, and presently found herself repeating v.-ordn that seemed to be very familiar, and yet sire could not think •of the source from which they were derived. Afterwards she remembered that these were texts and passages from the best of all books—selections made doubly familiar to her from long repetitions in Sunday-schools and on the pasteboard cards awarded scholars there.

Finding herself in a devout frame of mind her fears began to va lish, and then she became conscious that something light was forming in the dark sky overhead. She kept her eyes fixed upon this thing until it had assumed the form of a hand—a human hand, large enough to cover a great part of the heavens. It became clearer and clearer until it was perfectly wffiite and opaquely luminous. Then two wings of silver ro.-e from the wrist, while a brilliant light seemed to be held between the fingers. From the moment of the appearance of this colossal hand all fear fled. She kept her eyes fixed upon it, and it remained id front and above her no matter how she moved ahead. There was always the ivory white hand, with silver wings and sunlike light ; and yet the sky, the earth, and the stars changed not

their appearance, aithougn eacn appeared more clearly defined. At length she halted upon a gentle hill, and a wonderful sight disclosed itself. At her feet stretched a mighty city, which seemed to have no t limits, and the silence here was broken by a dull, far-distant kind of sound resembling the. moaning of the sea as she had once heard it on a visit to Fleetwood. Myriads of lights sparkled and burned steadily everywhere, while numerous straight lines of light stretched out in every direction.

Curved lines of light crossed something black, which presently she recognised as a great river, and on its bank there towered a mighty black shadow which seemed like a sentinel watching over the sleeping city.

The great white hand ncjw stopped over the mighty Metropolis—for such she knew it instantly to be—when a great cross of gold, rising from a gigantic globe of the same precious metal, broke out of the darkness on the summit of the dark shadow which proved to be St. Paul’s. The rays of the electric light borne by the mysterious but beneficent hand, had fajjen upon the sacred edifice and called the holy cross out of obscurity ; and immediately afterwards all the thousands upon thousands of lights were concentrated on the river, showing up its inky hideousness, and exposing to her view nothing but a grated window through which the pale face of a man peered despairingly, and she saw that the face was the face of her brother Fred.

A great pity fell upon her soul ; but on the instant the myriads of lights disappeared as if by magic ; the cross upon the great basilica remained luminous ; and then an the white colossal hand began to fade away, although the light it bore remained behind, the darkness faded gradually, leaving the wide-stretching forest of houses bathed in the glorious rays of the sun himself. The rounded dome of the cathedral the gilded vanes of a thousand spires the countless multitudes in the busy streets, the miles of shipping on the river and in the docks , bathed as they were in a flood of sunlight, drew a cry of delight to the dreamer’s lips with which she awoke, to find the pale, cold grey dawn peeping through the white dimity curtains of her little window.

Without a moment’s hesitation she arose, but the memory of the dream began to fail immediately—all hut the great white hand with the background of darkness, and the pale sad' face at the barred window on the river.

She never knew how she loved her father and mother until now she was about to leave them —deniesl : nely. She had already tied up in a bundle all she intended to take with her in the way of clothing. She put on her 1 thickest boots, counted oer her | small fund of monej—four pounds j and a few shillings—and then she sat ; down to pen the few lines she ; thought necessary to break, or ! lighten, the blow she was about to . inflict upon poor heart-stricken John and Nelly Howarth, “Do not think me mad or fool- j ish,” she wrote, “ dearest and best j of parents. Heaven will protect me I in my search for Freddie, and also lead me to the place where he is to be 1 found. Do not fret my darlings, ' and do not trouble to send in search | of me. I have a plan, which, if I j succeed in it, will enable me to write 1 —to return to you soon. Pray for give me for going without your permission, for I knew I should never I receive that, and so determined to go to seek our lost one. Heaven only, I feel sure, has put it in my heart. I can write no more—my tears blind me. Farewell ! Heaven bless you ! Pray for me !” Her warm woollen dress was very comfortable and her boots were fit for the Toughest of weather. She would not wear the dainty gipsy hat of last summer, or the coal-scuttle bonnet of the winter before. Wrapping her best plaid shawl in Lancashire fashion over her head, she took up her bundle and crept softly from her room. Passing the door of her father and mother, she listened, and knew by their breathing that they still slept. She gazed for a moment tearfully upon them from the half-open door and then with a deep sob she descended the narrow wopden stairway as lightly as she had done that night, when, as a child, she set out to seek . the boy for whom she was now going to encounter terrible, because . unknown, difficulties. Looking round the long, familiar room, she lit the fire, and set the breakfast things, as was her habit every morning. Filling the kettle, she placed, it on the fire, madly kisHng the inanimate cups and spoons as the full sense of her deserting her ; deac ones came upon her. Mutely she raised her beautiful eyes heavenwards and the white hand was above her, winged and holding aloft the comforting light. Down upon her knees at the threshold she begged for a last and lasting blessing upon the house and its inmates ; then, opening the door softly, £he hurried out into the raw :old air, of a winter’s morning. To be Continued.

The Champion Milch cow of the world is now supposed to be Chief Josephine, the prize cow of the University of Missouri. Eight months ago the keepers of the animal began a race for the record for one year. In the time that has elapsed since the start her milk yield has been greater by 2,1001 b. than that of any other cow that has ever lived. Josephine’s daily yield has been 891 b. Pier best record for a single day is 110.&b. The cost of feeding her is about Is. Bd. a day.