THE INN ON THE BEACH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11539, 26 November 1900, Page 3

THE INN ON THE BEACH.

' ■ I. Boom and roar and crash, and again and again throughout the night boom and roar and crash! The surf charged upon the pebbled beach with the huge wrath of & -monstrous •beast. The screeching wind rushed in from the lost caves beyond the sea, wailing and shrieking against its relentless hunters. A fiercer gale had seldom attacked the little lonely inn on the beach. I r Out in the night, out on the tea, the fishing boat from strango ' lands tossed and tumbled and pitched, grcaning oad creaking, plunging and rolling, no better nor stouter in that storm than a shaving Hunched by a child. . I The three men in it clung helplessly to the epars and rails, shuddering with cold and fear, and, with less and lessi hope as the hours passed, seeking a light in the darkness, 6eeking aid in their extremity.; One lost strength and hope, and, scarcely resisting, was swept overboard with a howl of despair. Another began 1o pray with a foreign tongue, to many saint), but the third held fiercely to the mast and laughed at his neighbour's prayers, and, looking on the storm, cursed it and defied it. Mrs. Hollo way could not rest in her snuggery in the inn. _ She rose from her own special rocking-chair and went to the windows, drawing aside the warn curtains to peep out at the* storm. One might have believed, so fixed was her gaze upon the impenetrable night, that she Rally could see through the storm, could see icross the roaring. racing waves, and advanct her spirit further than man's ken to meet halfway that thing which was approaching. i From the parlour music rame, and the commingling of voices. A mans voice blended ■with a woman's so harmonioutly as to assure the hearer of something more than frequent practice by the singers, of ai' entire unison of soul and sentiment.

To Mrs. Holloway the song meant far more than to them. As her diughter's music emote her ears, and the lover's voice joined in, she suddenly left the vindow and sat down again in her rocker. She hid her face with her hands and wept. ! The singing ceased abruptly. In a moment there came into the sniggery from the adjoining parlour a young woman, fair-faced, and with eyes that were wich with love. She kneeled at her mother's feet aud drew the hiding hands from the thin ace.

" Mother, mother, mother, what does this mean?"

A young man followed, =ailor by dress, sailor by bearing. "Hallo, mother! What's (he matter?" He, too. bent over Mrs. Holloway, and, with a son's regard, placed one rvrm lovingly round her shoulders. ■ «

Crying, mother? Crung this week of all weeks in the long, longyear? O mother, mother! I thought we agreed that there were to be no tears at rry wedding?" "I'm not sick, dears,* she said, "and I think I am very loolisi indeed, because I don't know why lam erring. It's the storm, I suppose." Not so much of 8 gale, mother, and— Jack's not at sea at any rate." '• (>, of course, if Jack's here and safe, it does nor matter how the wind may blow, but still, my clear, there are many boats at sea and many Jacks. I suppose I am nervous, but I seem to .fee the hosts to-night rocking and tumbling, and the men in them cold and hungry and wet, driving on the shore perhaps, and, 0, perhaps net ready for death.. 0, Katey. dear, I shall be so glad when you're married, and the.i I shall give up this inn, and get far, far iway from tho sound of the sea." I

Kate Holloway looked at Jack Beaumont with a worried raising of the eyebrows, and Jack began to whistle softly the" "Lorelei." "Good old mother!" cried Jack. "It's because all your summer boarders have flown, and you feel the house lonely and empty. But, really, you must remember your promise no tears for the wedding next week, only love aid laughing and kisses, »nd then we'll al. live together wherever rou like so long is you are within reach alien I come sailing home to meet my sweetheart and the best little mother in tho world."

Outside the storm howled again, and the spray and sand cashed against the glass, and the rain plunged on the roof. Nearer and nearer to the shore came the fisher's boat, nearer and nearer to death, and one man hung to a rope praying, and one man grasped the mast cursing. A loud knock sounded on the outer door, hut the dancers were too busy to notice it. The piano played merrily on to the accompaniment of Katey's laugh and Jack Beaumont's whistle. Mrs. Holloway, carried away by the cheerful sympathy of the young people, was laughing herself! and forgotting the sad forebodings of , the evening. The sole servant left after the departure of the summer boarders opened the door, ind the wind and rain dashed at once so furiously into the hall that she was borne inside and flattened against the wall by the swing of the door. "Eli! Mr. Guest! Mr. Guest!" she screeched. "Shut to the door. It's more nor I can manage. What a night!" The burly, white-haired visitor turned, panting. He was too breathless to answer at once, but put his shoulder to the door, and with the aid of the woman, closed out the angry storm.

Old Ted Guest solemnly removed his overjoat and hat, shook his shaggy head till the rain scattered from it in a shower, wagged his finger at the woman, and opened the door with a "good evening, ma'am!" which bore down the crash of the piano. "Captain Guest!" cried at the same time Mrs. Holloway and Kate and Jack Beaumont. "Out on such a night! Are you afraid of no weather at all, then?"

"Not to-night, ma'am, nor any night when I've got an appointment. How do you do, Kate, my dear? You're nigh as pretty looking as your mother at your age. Jack, you rascal, what have you been doing to give her them rosy cheeks? Mrs. Holloway, you've been dancing! And it's done you good, you look as young as ever." "They used force, and compelled me, captain," said Mrs. Holloway. "That is my excuse for being so foolish at my age." "Bless 'em," said Ted Guest, beaming >n the youngsters. Leave 'em to their music, ma'am. May I sit in the snuggery with you?" With great respect he handed Mrs. Holloway to a chair, aid planted himself by the stove, with his It, - apart. "Mrs. Holloway," he roared. "I said I'd keep the appointment, and I have. I've come for the answer."

Mrs. Holloway, her fingers nervously toying with her handkerchief, looked up and smilingly shook her head, while a blush so delicately rosy that it would have graced her daughter's cheek and neck stole over her gently wrinkled face. "Don't say it again, ma'am! J'oliy, rr.y dear, don't. It's the fourth year and the fourth time I've asked. There's Kale, nearly as fine a woman as her mother. There's Jack, as good and rising a sailor as ever took the bridge on a liner. They love you, but they love each other better. They're going off to bo married, and you'll be alone. Next week's their marriage, and a merry Christmas week 'twill be for them. But you'll be left in the inn alone, and you can't bear it. I never loved any other girl. Don't stay alone. Come to my house, be my wife. What should stop you ?" " You know, Ted, you know why it can never b". I must wait, be it ever so long." "Wait !" Ted Guest roared as savagely as he could. "Have you not waited long enough ? Twenty years since he left you. He's dead."

"He was alive ten ycai3 ago— " And in prison." "Hush; and five years ago ho was alive—

" Only to beg from you. If he were still alive, Dolly, you would have heard from birn. He would have been writing for assistance. Dolly V" "I can't. Ted; I can't. He is Katey's father, and ho is my husband—still."

"Any woman but you would have got a divorce-—"

" And dragged my name and Katey's down ? Think of Jack Beaumont. If I did what you wished and—hocame home ? What, disgrace for him and Katey." " But if I know he is dead ? I have been hunting for him and can find no trace. If I bring you proof that he can never trouble you again, that he is really dead ? Then, Dolly, woman ?" " 0 Tod, Ted—l— so." The old captain stooped and kissed her hand to seal the compact, but at once jumped erect again, listening. Above the thriek of the wind, above the dash of rain, above the roar of the surf, came a orya loud, long shriek for help from the ocean. Ho darted to the parlour door and burst upon the lovers. "A boat ashore !" he roared. _ "Jack Beaumont, come along! Someone is shouting for assistance !"

In a second they were out in the storm and down on the beach, where already some fishermen had gathered. A smack was being battered on the shore. Two men were ■washed from it, and into the surf. They were cast almost at Tod Guest's feet, bruised and bloody and senseless. _ The skipper was at once on his knees beside them. For an instant he bent over one man, him who had cursed as he clung to the mast, and then the captain got up, white and shaking. "Is he alive ?" cried Jack.

"Yes," said old Ted Guest, "God help her. He is alive."

The i storm had passed. The sea beat heavily ; but wearily on the land, with a tired approach and a spiritless break. Right in front of the inn, ; but a few yards below low-water mark, the wreck of the sloop lay stilh, its ribs already half buried by the wash of the sand. Nothing had come ashore from the hulk to show who the men were. Mrs. Holloway had felt a little indignant. It seemed to her that the proper place to offer as shelter to the unfortunate mariners would have been that place at whose doors Providence had cast them. "Besides," she admonished Ted Guest, '' there is no place whore they could be really comfortable and well attended to except the inn, no place along the beach for miles and miles."

"It is so," said Katey. "I don't know what the fisherfok about will think of us ! Fancy them being carried away from our very door. And they can't be comfortable at Dave Copeland's." "They were not," said old Ted, quietly, " the class of men to bring into such a house as this is." " What, almost drowned ? . Bruised ? Near death '!" . "They'll be all right at Copeland's, said tho captain, with some irritation. Captain Guest got up from his chair and walked abruptly away from the group. He was wondering with a feeling of horror what strango power that man must hare had over his old sweetheart that he could so speak to her spirit across miles of_ roaring ocean and through the volume of night's blackness. He stood for a time motionless, with dry lips and eyes. Jack Beaumont was speaking to Katey about a morning walk. : "We can call and see those poor wrecked men," said Katey. • " Will you take me with you?" Mrs. Holloway asked. "We might be able" to do something more, for them than Mrs. Copeland can." , „ Ted Guest turned sharply. . '" No, no." he cried, his big voice shaking. "No? Why not?" • "I've been to see them. They're a little delirious yet, and they're two bad lots. I think. Don't, go, Katey. Don't go, Mrs. Holloway—at least, not for a day or two. Jack, it would not be a scene to take Katey The lovers went away for their walk. He was alone with Mrs. Holloway. ... Ted," said she, looking at him with her quiet, deepening eyes, "you are worried about these men. Is there any particular reason you did not bring them to the inn? "Yes, ma'aml-\ You were frightened and nervous that night v ;and I would not have you bothered any more." "Ted," she said. "I don't know what I should do without you. It was kind of you to think of it. I was very, very nervous that nicht." Dolly," he said. Do you remember what you said that night? I had'been looking for news of him. If he was dead—if I could prove he was dead—you said you would listen to me." . ~ii " Yes," she said, and again her neck and face were softly red. "But if I find— is alive? " I must know it," she said, earnestly. 1 must help him for Katey's sake. He is Katey's father. You and I know how wayward he always was. I live in continual terror that he docs something— bad. Then it will bo in the newspapers and Katey will learn that her father is alive and a— hunted criminal. Jack Beaumont will feol himself deceived, and their happiness will bo destroyed. I have acted a lie to Katey and Jack. I am never certain but that man will appear and ruin mv child's happiness. If he is alive— and O, surely it is no harm to hope him gone —my only safety is to keep him quiet somewhere. Ho can have a good allowanceany allowance, if only he will not disturb his daughter." . , "I know." said old Guest, with a quiver. "Dollv, you were always good and wise, and know best. If it was your wish I would do anything, whatever it was. But think how hard it is on me, and I vo been—faithful, haven't I?" "O, Ted, so true; so true! He left her, and he looked far older on this bright and sunny morning than he had on the night of the storm. (To be continued.)