A SLEEP-WALKER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 3 (Supplement)

A SLEEP-WALKER.

by PAUL H. GERHARD, CHAPTER XVll.—(Continued.) , Mellodew having gone to town with • pactions to search for the missing boy, g,"j Wrigley, M.P., returned to Clematis Villa and his waiting tea. His wife alone traced the tea-table. Tho boys were off to " cricket- match, and the girls had invited s . in aives to tea with Mi ab Barth House. 1 '« \ud so," said Wrigley, receiving his « -t cup of tea from the hand of his spouse, "Lady Bidebank is finding out how foolish ■t i« to adopt stray lads. That boy Rupert if hers lias run away, leaving a note to tell he is never coming back. Ib is supposed hi own father has come across him and taken him off to sea." "Oh! Oh!" shrieked Mrs. Wrigley. „ And Lady Bidebank was so fond of him ! Ah! Ah!" "Fond! More fool she 1" growled \Vri"ley, feverishly washing down all his i,tcst lies with tea. " Fond ! So she was. Why Mellodew tolls me shu had him up there' making her will yesterday, and left all her property to that boy I*' "Gone! ('One cried Mrs. Wrigley, wildlv. "Oh, me! Oh, me! I'm so sorrv And she burst into tears. "Sorry ! Why, woman, what an idiot you "are ! Sorry! Hotween us two, you ou"ht to be glad ! I am ! Myra was gettlivr a deal too fond of the little rascal. She plainly preferred him to our boys, and the was proposing, if her ladyship died, to take hi in to live at Barth—in our boy's place, mind you !" " Live at Barth 1" moaned' Mrs. Wrigley, hysterically. "I wish he did live at Barth!" '• You're mad 1" shouted her husband. "She would have found plenty of ways to spend money on the young upstart! A pretty mother you are, willing to seo a stranger in your own son's proper place !" '• Yes. I am a mother," wailed Mrs. Wrigley, "and I've gob girls as well as boys, and 1 must think for all of them. It is you that is the fool now, Wrigley, and as blind as any bat, not to sec that that boy was a born match for our Mi. Why, Lady Bidebank will live years and years, likely. Why not ? And those two could have married young ami lived at Bidebank Hall, and Mi would have come in for all Lady Bidebank's jewels ami those costly laces and no end of elegant things, and Rupert with thirty thousand pounds to start in life on." " What are you talking about?" cried the amazed Wrigley. " Why, about Rupert and Mi. And if he'd only stayed where he was well off, they might grow up to be married. He is no end fond of the child. In his childish way lie has always said—said it fifty times if he ha? once—that he would marry our Mi when lie got big. Quito genteel ib would be, indeed. And you ask me, Wrigley," cried Mrs. Wrigiey, with indignation "you ask me to be glad he's gone, when them two children was just made for each other, and loved each other like a pair of cherubs, and played at housekeeping just like a pair of blessed angels !" Wrigley uttered nob a word. .His jaw fell. His eyes emitted a green light. Ho rose from the table. He went into the garden. He stood by an acacia tree. He whistled from beginning to end the " Dead March in Saul." It entered his mind that it was just barely possible that he had been overreaching himself. Mrs. Wrigley, meanwhile, put on her bonnet and repaired to Barth House. There she sat and cried and lamented, her three daughters weeping in chorus around her, until little Mi had to be carried to bed, quite exhausted. With the other two In her train, Mrs. Wrigley sec out in the monnlight to inquire for news at Bidebank Hall and to mention the topic of the day at Bidebank Lodge to the contessa and her daughter. Natolie 1,1 ria was too proud to weep publicly for this very naughty little boy, bub she went; to her bed and cried all night. Meanwhile, the desperate truant, cause of so much woe, slept uneasily in his fustian suit, his head cropped, his feet blistered, tramps judiciously stretched around him, and dreamed frightful dreams under the silent stars, CHAPTER XVIII. THE STORY 0? A YEAR. Fancy the fashion of tramp which Sir ilupert, reared in luxury, became. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he revolted from the life that he had chosen. But he was too proud to go back—and indeed, the arrow shot by Doctor Wrigley, his concealed foe, was rankling in his ardent soul. Tony had tempted him to set out to pursue greatness, to make a splendid fellow or himself; but even his enthusiasm could not make this seem tho high road to fame ; this tramping about the country, eyed with suspicion, sleeping out-of-doors or in penny lodgings ; watched by small shop-keepers ; warned on by policemen or rustic magistrates—a boy selling tins, a woman selling baskets, men exhibiting monkey shows. Coming away from home, Rupert had put into his bundle a comb and a toothbrush ; but not being accustomed to provide for himself, he forgot soap and towels. On his very first morning out he asked Mrs. Pettigrew lor these needful articles. Mrs. Pettigrew, with a begrimed face, was getting breakfast, while her unwashed oeir was lying in the dirt. Mrs. Pettigrew turned angrily at Sir Rupert's petition and reluctantly produced a bit of brown, shrivelled soap. 11 In a few minute® came the demand for a towel—a demand made in a lordly tone, too. and Mrs. Pettigrcw's fury burst forth into speech : "Soap and towels, sez you ! Soap and towels ! My land, but you are a pretty poppy-show for a wayside traveller ! Here you've been and used up nigh all the soap I've got—and then it's towels Towels!" shrieked Mrs. Pettigrew—the word seeming to excite her ire. "What for? .Is your face wet? Rub it off on your jacket sleeve! When I want to wipe my face or hands I pick up the tail o' my gown, and gooa enough—" Rupert fled as the dame continued her rhapsody. But he had in his pocket-case two pounds, and he concluded to purchase things which he considered indispensable to a wandering life. He bought a little hammock, two towels, a pocket-cup, a fork and so on, spending a pound. Mrs. Tony Pettigrew saw the new impediments and drew her own deductions : Purchases ? Therefore money. Money? Therefore on his person. ior .Mistress Tony Pettigrew had rantanked his bundle. Money in his possession ? fhen must Mrs. T. P. find and secure it. -To do this required some caution and a little time. Meanwhile Rupert dragged out his doleful days. .Sometimes his spirit rose as the sun rose, and the laverocks tilted toward the sky. But they declined as the day declined and the birds grew mute, and sought their nests. He was sitting by the smouldering campre one night; his keepers—for so really )ft 'o other tramps were—lying smoking and gabbling about him. Rupert was Rloomily considering that he seemed to be vfl a down grade, and not an up grade, i.'i- hiit credit was he in the way of gaining ? •as this the path to fortune? Lady Bideank would weep at sight of hiim. Miss , art " would consider him a reprobate. nt ' Natolie, adored Natolie, would turn up her lovely little nose at him. . .\ ou look down in the mouth, brother," aid Tony, who always addressed him miliarly. "You chirk up. It may be " rroW| or it may be next day, that r,. U meet that happy chance to make a fi eat man o' yerself. Who knows bub you 11 rescue some juke's daughter from this e dancing bear or other annymull. Then k'° es , on easy, an' just like a story in a heiress'' read ' a " t ' 0U marros 10 i u^e ' B savagely"' 6 Wanb her refcorted ® !r Ru P erb > an nn!?' >ou c * oll ' 1 '• Why, then, ib must be behin , o!ninon had case o' ' the girl I left brother "W * nd .y°' ve *° b it „ hard Th i 8 0 nice —worry nice ? temper anter ' S tone roused Rupert's hob than\nv,? he 18 nice '" he shouted "nicer " anyone ever you saw."

" Oh 1" says Tony, whose move was now to appease. " Well, brother, to be crossed in love is a »? thing, and the * pangs of unrequited fection,' as says the poic, is f?£ ful P an ß a - 1 knovt's all about 'em." tartly you do!" cried Mrs. Ton tartly. " "There's no tellin'," continued Mr. rettigrew, ignoring his wife's sceptical inrejection, "what I might 'a' been if I'd loved wisely and not too well " "Nothin'," asserted Mrs. T. P., with great energy, " would hev made you less nor the wagebone you are." "I might," said Mr. Pettigrew, with increasing solemnity, '«been a butler if I'd married a lud'a housekeeper. I might 'a' been a greengrocer man if I'd married a greengrocer woman. I mighb 'a' been a juke if I'd married a jukess. I might 'a' been a king, like Albert o' Saxe-Gotha, if id married a queen, like ho did. I won't say as ladies in all these lines of life hasn't looked agreeable at me. All I do say is, take warning by me. I'm a wreck all along °, bad choice. I'm a ruined man, all along ® fribterin' away my young affections. nab can you, my brother, suspect of a j man who is married to a woman as sells baskets, willow baskets, and other sich ?" But the end of Mrs. Tony's patience had arrived, and with ib arrived the coffee pot at Mr. Tony's head ; said pot went whizzing past Sir Rupert, and, well projected by the vigorous hand that dealt in willow waire, ib crashed upon Tony'a countenance, and nob only blacked his nose, and bruised his forehead, but sprinkled him with cold coffee and about half a pound of damp grounds. Thus Tony had grounds of complaint, and he rose up and filled the air with his vociferations against the wife of his bosom. The pair were still raging at each other when Sir Rupert sought a convenient spot for swinging his hammock. When he carefully burned into that hanging couch the owner of the bear found it to his interest to lie down under it, while the monkey man camped on the right, and the harp man on the left. Thus the "free and unfettered" Sir Rupert was a prisoner at large, and this was his guard of honour. The strollers had passed the Chiltern Hills and the Ouso and camped upon the upper waters of the Non. Tony and the rest of the men, with the boy, clad in tins, adjourned to one of the little hamlets of that district to collect coppers from the rustics. It had been proposed that Sir Rupert and Mrs. Pettigrew should go with thsm, bub Mrs. Pettigrew said she must spend the afternoon in washing tho clothes ; and Rupert said he was too tired, and " did not like that business," so he cast himself down by the riverside. "Now, see here, old gal," said Tony to his wife, " what I tell you is nob to let that young swell slip away from you. Keep your eye on him. If he chucks hisself into the river, or hangs hisself, that's all right ; we ain't to blame for that, and least said, soonest mended. But he can't be lob to run away." " All right,"said Mrs. Tony. " I'll watch him." No sooner had all the band departed than Mrs. Tony confided to Rupert that; they were a dirty, disreputable sot, and she was sick to death of them. Now they were off, she would have some good of her life, and she and Rupert—or Royal, as she called himcould have a "a decent meal's victuals." Mrs. Tony then heated some water, took soap and scoured her dishes and her coffee-pot, and, with an elaborate show of neatness, made, before Rupert's eyes, coffee. She fried eggs and bacon and made buttered toast. Ib was a more reasonable and better prepared meal than he had seen for a long while, and Rupert addressed himself to it with energy. Mrs. T. P. pressed him to eat, and poured out coffee with a liberal hand. "It's bitter coffee, ain't it now?" she said, tasting it; " but I'll put in pleny o' sugar." So she made a great show of sipping and relishing the compound, and when Sir Rupert was not looking she emptied her cup on the sod, and so filled again. After dinner, Mrs. Pettigrew advised Sir Rupert to " lie down on the bank and have a nap, and rest hisself in peace." Rupert, feeling uncommonly drowsy, adopted the suggestion, and as Mrs. Tony washed the dishes and set about the clothes, she perceived that he was sleeping heavily. " I wonder what would happen if he never woke up ?" she said to herself. " Would we have to call tho coroner and have a inkwich? That might be bad for us. P'raps Tony could slip him underground and say nothing to nobody." After a time, as the boy's sleep was very deep, she went to him and began cautiously 1 searching his clothing. After some little time she found the purple morroco case in an inside pocket of his blue-flannel shirt. Looking eagerly about to see if sho were observed, Mrs. Pettigrew examined the case. "Gold," she said, of chain and clasp. "What lots of nonsense these quality do buy ! I could get five shillin' for it in Lun'on. Bub there. I s'pose this fancy fixin' here means her ladyship's name, an' if 1 sells it I'll get into quod. What's in it ? Let's hare a look." She opened it carefully and found a pound note. "So much for me," said Mrs. Pettigrew, and then searched further, and opened the pocket where Rupert had not looked. There she found the letter of Lady Bidebank, superscribed, "For Rupert, to be read after my death." Mrs. Pettigrew was bub a poor scholar, and ib took her a long while to mako out these words. " We'll see what she's going to say after she's dead," finally said Mrs. Pettigrew, adjourning to her tea-kettle, and holding the sealed envelope close to the steam. Presently the edges fell apart. With another look at her sleeping victim, and another glance along the country side, Mrs. Tony addressed herself to this document. Intense eagerness and anxious wonderment on her face slowly began to give way to high delight. Tho grimy finger tracing the letters spelled out: " ' T-h-e,' and 'ore's a ' h-L' and 'ere's a ' T,' an' 'ere's another 4 T,' an' 'ere's 'er name—' Bidebank.' I can guess the last half o' that word from the first." At this point Mrs. Tony in her joy rose up and executed a hornpipe, and whooped in her delight like a schoolboy just set free. Then sho recollected herself, looked about, and resumed the study of the document. Two hodrs passed before it was all read. Then another hour sufficed to read t and re-read it again. Then she nearly had the contents by heart. " Here's luck to me," said Mrs. Pettigrew, "and now I'll seal this up, and I'll put it in the very case, and I'll wrap it good in paper and in rags, for folks should alius be right careful of things they find, that some day may be of use to. their owners. And I'll take care of this as if it was diamonds," continued Mrs. Pettigrew, " and I hope that young chap won't die. I wonder if he could sleep himself away ?" She hid the case as she proposed, making it safe from the investigation of Mr. Pettigrew or any of her companions. She concealed the pound note also upon her person, and these important affairs being attended to, she again bethought herself of the lesser matter of the boy's physical state. She bent over him. His nose looked blue and pinched, so did his lips, and his eyes were sunken, with dark rings around them. Still his pulse was strong, his flesh warm, his breathing regular, though deep, and Mrs. Pettigrew, without any especial anxiety, assured herself that "he'd come out all right." She then hurried about her work, and | prepared supper for her comrades. After supper the woman said to her husband : "Tony, go look at that boy, how he sleeps." They went together. "D'ye think he'll die?" asked Mrs. Pettigrew, anxiously. " No —wish he would." " Bub think o' the crowner and the p'lice, Tony." " Yes—them's to be considered," said Mr. Pettigrew, stooping close over Rupert. Then he looked up. " I smell laudanum." " No, you don't," said his wife. "Yes, I do, you jade! You've been up to tricks, have you ?" "'No, I haven't,''said Mrs. Tony, stoutly. " No, Tony, 'pon my soul and honour." " Moot 1" said Tony. " I don't believe you've gob any soul; and as to your honour, 't ain't worth a counterfeit farthin'.' When the rest of her company had fallen asleop, stretched here and there under the little tent or by the dying embers of the fire, Mrs. Tony, who had covered Rupert from the dew, sab, with her knees drawn ud and her arms clasped aboub them, in a deep muse. Sho was looking far into tho

future. Finally she rose, lib some twigs and made a cupful of very strong, clear coffee. This she administered to Rupert, a tablespoonful at a time. He swallowed it, to her great contentment, withoub waking up. After a time his respiration grew less profound and his slumber more natural. hen tho sun was well up and the camp in a bustle, Rupert opened his eyes. His long sleep had nob refreshed him. Hie head ached. He was giddy, feverish, and nauseated.

For two days the tramps were obliged to delay on his account. Mrs. Tony, who was for the mos'li part left alone with him, changed her (tactics and exerted herself bo be amiable. She cooked as nicely as she knew how for him, and addressed him with respect. Rupert began to forget her previous rudeness and bo regard her as his only friend. They had been on the march through the Leicester Highlands for some days before Ruperb discovered the loss of his morocco case. He concluded at once that) ib had been taken from him while ho was asleep so profoundly. He spoke of ib first to Mrs. Tony. " Well, don't for your life menton ib to Pebbigrew," she said. "He'd be that wi'leutyour life wouldn't be safe. Whab's done can't be undone." "I'm nob a sheep," retorted Ruperb, " bo be robbed and say nothing." So he attacked Tony aboub the case. The tramp ruffled wonderfully. "Wot does you take us for? A pound, sez you And a case clasped with gold? I don't believe a word of ib. Ain'b we gentlemen ? If wo wasn't, would highflyers with gold cases and pound notes live with us?" The same said all of tho crew, vowing that Rupert, if he had lost anything, must have lost ib on the road. They all suspected Mrs. Tony, and on separate occa--Bious every man of them ransacked her entire luggage, hoping to socure the plunder for himself. Bub all quite fruitlessly. On and on went the strollers until short November days saw them in one of the dismal wynds of Glasgow. There they spent the winter. Poor Rupert was too ragged and too miserable in his free and unfettered soarch after glory and fortune to try and better himself. He had been roared in a way that rendered independent exerton difficult. Tho little Etonian was helpless in his present degradation. He felt his degradation so keenly that ho could not venture to ask a helping hand to pull him out of the slough. _ That he did not become corrupt and vicious, as well as miserable, must have been owing to a providential interposition. Probably the spirits of those two loving mothers, Elizabeth Barth, and tho nob loss tender Jane Porter, watched over the child on whom they had doted, and warned of the approach of the spirits of evil. James Wrigley had warned Tony Pettigrew to go to Ireland from Scotland, and nover to bring back Sir Rupert to English soil. But Tony wanted more money from his patron, and he could force it from him by going back near Loudon. So in early May they started, and in June --it was the twentieth day— this precious company of rascals was encamped twelve miles from Barth and Bidebank, in a little glen. Anxiety was written on their faces, and each was making preparations to fall away from his fellows. Half a mile from their camp, near tho side of aby road, was was a stone hut. In that very Juno, Mr. Timmy Titlow had been notified chat an uncle in Hertford had left him one hundred pounds. Timmy got leave of absence, went to the funeral, got his money, and being, like Mrs. Gilpin, "of a frugal mind," was walking homeward. On this very 20th of June his way lay past this old stone hut, and as he passed, a voice cried wildly : "Timmy ! Timmy Titlow ! Speak all the truth !" "That's what I lays out to do," cried Timmy, promptly; "but who's a charging me that way ?" There was a little window opening in the hub, and into that Timmy looked. His big head and shoulders filling up the opening, he saw nothing but darkness, heard nothing but silence. " Who called me so unexpected?" cried Timmy. Silence. " Save us all !" cried Mr. Titlow. " Once I see a ghost, now I hears one! Timmy, what's wrong with you ?" "Natolie! Natolie Idria, speak to me!" screamed a voice in the darkness. " Now, Timmy," exhorted Mr. Titlow, "in there you goes to investigate. Do your duty like a man, and if you dies, Timmy, you falls on the field o' honour." He pushed open the heavy wooden door, and as his eyes accustomed themselves to the faint light ho saw a heap of straw and on it a human figure. That figure, burnt with fever, wasted away from its boyish strength, Timmy Titlow carried to the light of the outside day. The dark curls were matted over the handsome head again, and in this raving fever patient Timmy Titlow recognised Lady Bidebank's lost boy. Never stopped honest Timmy to wonder or to cry out; to get the boy home was his one idea, and on he strodo carrying him. But within a mile he met the blessed reality of a spring cart, loaded with clover, and driven by a boy. "I'll give you five pun'," said Timmy, lifting his burden upon tho clover, "if you'll drive mo lively to Bidebank Hall. Up and away ! " Lady Bidebank and Myra and the Contessa Idria and another friend or two were sitting in a pavilion on the front terrace of the Hall, when up strode Timmy Titlow, flushed with speed, and bearing a most desolate-looking figure. "My lady, and ladies all," said Timmy, "I've found and brought back a little gentleman as you are all fond of, and tho sooner you puts him into bed and sends for a doctor, may I be bold to say, tho better. For accidents will happen in tho best regulated families." As Timmy Titlow drew near to tho hut whence ho heard issue the voice, Tony, his reprobate cousin, interviewed Sir J. Wrigley, M.P., at Clematis Villa. Tony was tipsy and mysterious. " Sir —your lordly honour— wants ten pound, to bury thab boy, sir." "What! Is ho dead?" " Aye, sir ; he be." " When did he die? Where did he die? How did ho die Thus pushed into close quarters, Tony hesitated. " Well, sir, he gob took with fever typhoid, it are—and—he—wasn't just dead when I left him ; but he will bo when I gets back. He are in a hub out yon." "I think i _ Is my duty to go and seo him," said the cautious Wrigley, relieved to think that finally this part of his troubles could be buried. " You go on, Tony, and I '11 meet you at the Ox Fall Stile." Tony having mot his patron at the ap pointed place, the two reached the hub an hour after Timmy had left ib with his burden. "In here, sir. Here he lies. No noise from he, sir. I make no doubt ho 'a dead." And bonding in the gloom to feel bho body on the straw, Tony fcund nothing ! He gave a loud cry. " Sir, he's gone !" " Gone ! He was never here, you lying villain ! I'd like to break your neck for you ! He has escaped, and this is the way you undertook to hocus me !" And flinging Tony against the wall, Wrigley strode off, leaving his employee overwhelmed with surprise and poor whisky. Going to Barth House before he went home, Wrigley met his daughter Mi, her eyes shining with joy. "Oh, father! Ain'b you glad? Lady Bidebank's Ruperb is found ! He has been brought home ! He is sick; bub surely bhey'will cure him ! Ain'b you glad !" [To be continued.]