SCARLET AND GOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11604, 19 March 1901, Page 3

SCARLET AND GOLD.

" NoETHTTiiBEELAND Place" seems to denote a ' pile ; of V lordly palaces fronting '■'• upon an open square where fountains play and. plane trees display their leaves in the bright light of a London summer. Far different, ■• however, is the Northumberland Place I passed this afternoon and, passing,; recalled to' my memory a homely.variant of the ballad of "Auld Robin Gray," though, happily, its issue was quite different. ' ' '

It is a modest little turning off one of the, main arteries of London, just inside the four-mile radius. On one side is a pottery with conical masses of brick pierced near the ground with cabin windows, through which one may see brawny men with bare arms and shirts open to the waist, raking the furnaces that never die; powerful fellows are these, and in the fierce heat and dazzling glare, the sweat stands upon their brows, and breasts, and arms, until they seem like life-sized figures cast in red-hot gold. Upon the other side is a building which would be pretty anywhere, but which, by virtue of the contrast with its opposite neighbour, is worthy of being perpetuated on canvas by some master of the brush instead of being but feebly described to others by the poor medium of my words. It is a small cottage built of white-washed cobb and covered with a steep roof of old tiles; it stands end on to the ". street, and facing the front door is a barn exactly like the cottage save that it has no windows; the intervening garden space is protected by a wooden fence, home-made of odds and ends of timber, so that some of it is of upright planks and some of if of undressed* poles laid horizontally, the whole looking unconsidered and naturally artistic. .< A kissing-gate in the middle of, the fence—l wonder is there such another gate in London ?gives access to the'garden, and the only touch of modern days upon the place is a gas lamp on the cinder footpath, though even that would probably be condemned as too decrepit should any lesser asdile of a vestryman ever stray by misadventure into that old-world corner of the town.

It was in . September, and the westering sun fell upon the place, bringing out all the rich glow in the tiles, tingeing the cobb walls with a rosy flush, and concentrating itself in the scarlet flowers of a hedge of beans and in the reds and yellows of a bank of single dahlias. Already the gas in tho lamp had been lighted, but the flame showed wan and sickly against the clear blues and ambers in the sky. An old man, in a frayed bkek coal, was sitting in a Windsor chair by the open door, a clay pipe in his nervous fingers and a white mug with a blue band round it standing full of beer close by him on the window-sill. And by the gate, with her back to the old man, stood a girl of two or three and twenty listening to what he said, with a sad and tired expression on her face, listening passively, making no reply. She was a superb specimen of young womanhood, full-breasted and upright, with grandly moulded limbs Mid with a head of more than common power borne proudly on the round, white column of her throat and neck; a womanly woman, too, with large eyes curtained by soft lashes, and a mouth of which the sweetness softened the determined squareness of the jaw; in the mellow evening light, which brought out every colour in a marvellous degree, her lilac blouse became a thing of beauty, emphasising the strong and supple roundness of her arms, and falling gently on the soft curves of her bosom. Only the look of apathy marred the perfection of the picture that she made, and when for a moment it vanisho'd at something her grandfather said it was replaced by an expression of disgust, almost of dread.

His voice rose thin and querulous. _ "I'm not driving you to it; I'm not putting any what you might call compulsion on you to do it. I'm only asking why you won't do it, and that's what I want to know."

. He paused, waiting for the answer he did not seem' to expect. " The rent was paid on Friday, and the club was paid to-day, and there's five and ninepence left, and that's the last. 'Tisn't for my sake I'm asking you to do it. S'pose it's only fancy that there's any disgrace in going to the Union; but, fancy or not, the mothei thinks there is, an' she don't want to go. And I don't want her to go. And I can't save her.from going. And you can." The sentences came slowly, punctuated by full stop.l, but the girl did not move, and the old man sucked at his empty, pipe and spoke again. "Seven _ and forty years ago she came here, and it's hard that a woman who's lived so long jn a place can't live in it for the little time left to her to live anywhere. She feels it, does mother. She don't say so, but she feels it, I know." For the first time there was a note of tenderness in the quavering voice. " ' Jess can't bring herself to it,' she said, 'and it's not fair to ask her to try.' That's what she said. But, if she only had seven-and-forty days to spend, she couldn't spend 'em here on five and ninepence. I put it to you; now, could she ?" * The proposition was undeniable, and required no reply. "When a man can't work, he sets to thinking things out; 'tisn't for my sake I'm telling you, Jessie; and I've been thinking of this. ■' If so be as mother and I goes to the Union, you can go into service, and then you needn't do it; but it's an ill kindness transplanting such old trees as we, and I makes out that mother deserves some returns for all she's done for you. And if you do do it, she can 'bide here along until she s carried out for good and all, and there be a bit from Christopher to pay somebody to do the chores for her. He's a man of his word is Christopher, and he told me so; and mother could accept of it from him. 'Twouldn't be charity— so be as you do it." .-.■..'

Relentlessly and pitilessly the old man hammered the phrase into his grandchild's brain; fluency came with the speaking, and he drove on with his argument. _ "An' what is it I'm asking you to do for mother's sake, mind you, not mine ? Marry a man as worships the ground you tread on, and a steady man as'll be a good and faithful husband to you. His business is prospering, too; he've got another man going round with a pram, and bought two more cows only a fortnight ago. It's a sound tiling is milk. I don't say he's a fine figure of a man, and I don't say his face is his fortune, but he loves you true, and he make it all right for mother." Then suddenly a pitiful vibration rang in his voice. "For mother's sake, Jess." 'I hate him." said Jess, and the quiet way in which she said it carried conviction even into her grandfather's mind, but he earned on the struggle, the poor, frail old man for love of his even more frail old wife pleading with tho young woman to sacrifice her love on the altar of pity. , "You'd get used to him soon," he said. He s a steady man is Christopher, and love would come with the children." Then Jess turned round, and looked at him, and the setting sun, or perhaps the thought within Her, dyed her cheeks and throat scarlet.

.- There s James," she said simply, and the name aroused her grandfather's anger so that he forgot the necessity of diplomacy m such a matter as this, and irritation and scorn strung his voice to an even shriller pitch.

"James!" he said, scornfully; "and what's Hie good of James ? You're like all the other girls. Go mad on a worthless soldier man because he's tricked out in scarlet and gold, that's no more use to him than tis to those dahlias by you." " Jem's a good man," said Jess. (" A good man ! And a better lover, I pose. Goes away for throe mortal years, and neve, sends so much as a post-card to say if he's alive or dead ! Pretty sort of lover to my thinking.'' "He'll come back," the girl said wistfully. An' what'll he find ? You gone, the Lord knows where; me in the Union; and mother in the grave. Don't waste j another thought upon him; take a man who loves you and can afford to keep you. Do it, Jess." ,

From sheer weariness Jess seemed to give way. "Go indoors, grand-dad, and I'll think about it You'll get chilled sitting there after sundown. I'll think about it, I promise," and. satisfied fox the moment, the old man shuffled indoors.

The sun went down, and •still Joss stood alone. The rose-tints faded from the whiteI washed walls,'tho colour of the tiles deepened into maddei and brown, and the gaslamp shed a pale light upon tho girl's head, making her look white and ill. One shrinks from trying to picture the suffering she endured, .as great, perhaps, as that of Abraham on his way to offer up Isaac as a sacrifico to the Lord. For half-anhour she must have remained in the same passionless attitude, and then roused herself as firm steps rang from the main road into Northumberland Place. Two firm hands grasped her shoulders and turned her quickly round; two steady brown eyes looked squarely into hers; two lips were pressed upon her unresisting mouth. With a little sob of joy and great relief, she put up her hands and hid her face upon his breast, while, for one moment, the big man was too glad, too moved to speak. "You've waited foi mo, Joss?" ' No word of reproach for his silence fell from he,. Explanations might come'by-and-vbye. It was enough that Jamie was here.

"You're only just in time," she whispered, brokenly, and in answer to- the look of • inquiry upon his face, she said: "They want me to marry ■ Christo Hall, the dairyman, and it would have been the only way to save them from the parish. Grannie's never asked me, ' but : she looks; at mo till I daren't'-. go near her, -and to-night granddad's been begging me again to take him for her sake; he'd have allowanced them, and . to-morrow I'd have said 'yes.' " The man stroked her hair. "You don't love him, dear?" I Her , answer was a passionate caress. : : " And yon love me just as much as you did in all my warpaint?" Jess smiled through her tears. •■_ ' "I love you better without it; it only meant you were the Queen's man then; in these clothes you are mine." She laughed at a recollection. " Grand-dad said just now that the scarlet and gold was as useless to you as it is to these dahlias." ' She snapped two from the bushes and put them in his coat. "Granddad said that, did he?" ; said James. "Well, I'm off scarlet now, but, thank the Lord, there's more gold than there was. Take me in, Jess, and let me ease his mind." , ■ And presently they went indoors together.