"THE BIRTH OF A SOUL."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12662, 16 September 1904, Page 3

"THE BIRTH OF A SOUL."

[by O. T. HAEGBEAVES, IN M.A.P.] Little Janet paused, looked behind her, up the steep grass-covered fields, dotted now with scores of pens, where the lambing owes crouched, sheltered from tin chill em°brace of a February dawn. Narrow drift., of snow lay under the hedges thick with bursting bud, here and there in sunken hollows and dykes it shone like moonbeams. But the grass under Janet's feet was crisp with growing life, and primroses, could she have had time to search for them, were already poking their lemon heads in the country lanes about her. Up amongst the pens lights were twinkling, for the farmer and his men could not yet leave those- gentle new-made mothers, and Janet went on again, a- can in which she had carried the farmhands' coffee still swinging idly in hex hand; but the other arm, the round, perfect dimpled arm of early womanhood, held something close to her bosom, something which stirred and breathed, and poked c stupid head against the divine shelter, a new-born motherless lamb. And then she went on again, panting a little, for the lamb was heavy, and she.had hurried somewhat up the steep hillside. Now she was at the foot of it, now in. the turnpike lane, but between her arid the farm buildings stood a, cottage, weatherstained and old. Janet tip-toed pasi it, for tho country boys had said " Mothei Morris" was a witch." She looked with frightened eyes' at the half-open door. Behind it someone gros.ned. The sound was a sound of pain; it ro«e again, stirring the girl's nerves, rousing in her heart a quick, impulsive pity. After a minute's hesitation, Janet stole tip the path. "Who is it?" she cried in a catchy voice, pausing by the door, yet ready to run at sign of aught uncanny, and now with newborn courage, peeping round it, half frightened to see lying on the floor of the cottage an old, very old woman. Janet had to put down the bleating lamb before she could help widow Morris up to her chair again: Then she stood, flushed and nervous, still wondering whether the old woman would do her an evil or not. "Well," said Granny .Morris, not unkindly, "I won't eat ye." , "Hev you hurt yourself?" Janet asked, picking up the stick which had fallen out of the old woman's hand; "I heered you groanin'." "I reckon you'd groan, me lass, if you'd twisted yor'n leg summat awful," said Mrs. Morris with asperity. _ "Are ye all right now?" hazarded Janet timidly. "I oanna' put me foot down, but I'll soon get some herbs for it. Clear out, my lass, afore I do ye' a mischief; any lad will tell you to be gey frightened at me." "Na, na," said Janet, all at once losing her fear of this grim, gray-locked old body " I'll mak' a bit of fire —and would ye like a oup o' tea?" "I'm very poor," said Granny Morris, suspiciously; "I carina* afford to gie ye's a bit an' sup." "That's all right," laughed the girl, unpinning her shawl; " I've had my breakfast, Granny, if you've tea for yourself." "I've a bit," said the old woman, still sullenly. " Then let me make it for you." ■ "What were ye doin' outside my door?" " I went up the field wi' some coffee, an' I heard you a-groanin' as I came back. I couldn't go past though } were—-'' "Afraid," said the old woman with contempt. ■'»• : "Yes, I were afraid," returned Janet frankly. "No one ever comes ben your house, an' me unole said—"

"I care naught what he or any other man 'said,'" interrupted Granny fiercely;." decking, clocking, _ decking, like a set o' knitting needles, is men. Be ye going to mak' the tea or not?" Her tone was surly in the extreme, but something in the frail, bent, old body roused Janet into.. active sympathy. She went down on her knees and began to blow the kindling firewood, her cheeks puffed out like an infant cherub. "What have you getten on the settle?" said Granny, looking towards the bundle of Janet's shawl.

" Only a wee lammie." " Oh, ay, I'se forgot. 'Tis 'February, sure enough.'' A ourious expression dawned in the sunken eyes. It was fifty years arid more since old Granny's arms had clasped her own wee lambs. Every man's hand against her, her own against the world, knocked about, embittered, living only to herself in the dreary little hut, which":had sheltered her for forty years, this young girl's presence filtered like a ray of sunshiae. She stretched out a thin, claw-like hand and laid it on the heaving bundle. " A poor wee lammie," she repeated slowly, and the bitterness .in hex voice had melted: something tender, human, struggled for birth. ' ' - ' ';.; - "Are ye a daughter o' Farmer. Blake's?" she said, watching Janet with dim a;ad faded eyes. "I'm not > related to him," Janet answered, sighing a little. "He only brought me up out o' charity." "You're a well-favoured lass," said Granny. "I reckon you've got a young man J" ... Janet laughed and nodded. "He's the handsomest, properest lookin' lad you ever saw," sho said with a note of triumph in her voice. "I never thawt much o' men," said Granny, shaking her head. "They be alius lorcliii' it about, and sho win' off. When.be. ye going to wed?" ■■■■.■ i "We've kep' company sin' I were, bo j high," said Janet. He's one o' Farmer Johnson's hands, and lie's saved a matter o' fifteen pounds already. We'se to go to Canada in April." "Canada! Ye eanna' do much i' Canada wi' only fifteen pounds." " Ay, but we're going out with Farmer Johnson, who has a big farm put there; there'll be work for both on. us. We'll only have just our passages to pay,' and he's saved nearly enough for that." "You've courage to go that far wi' a man," said the old woman shortly. "I'd wait until he got a home together." "J'se rather help to make it," said Janet laughing. "'Taint me is afraid o' work, and I never faucied any man but him, you ' see. Now, Granny, I've got everything ready for ye." . I The laughing breezes of spring were abasing filmy clouds across a sky of heaven's own blue. They fluttered amongst the trees, tore over hill and dale, blew softly over the budding daisies and sweet, hawthorn-clad lanes where wild roses ran riot and honeysuckle burst into sunny sweetness. Lambs borr? in the chilly dawn of February frolicked about their mothers now in the late April sunshine, their white bodies and stiff, straight little legs dotted about the fields like animals straight from a gigantic Noah's Ark. There was a. faint lowing of cattle in the silence, the bark of a dog chasing butterflies over the sweet green grass of bounding fields, and the birds sang lustily with right rejoicing pride, for were not sturdy youngsters fluttering in the nests, living evidence of parental care and love ? Dame Nature had tuned her lyre to perfect melody, and her spring song rippled forth. Down the hawthorn-scented lane, striking a discord in this most perfect of Nature's. pictures, came little Janet, her face flushed pink as her cotton bonnet, her eyes swollen with tears, her lips a-quiver, big sobs shaking the rounded bosom. The lamb she had cherished, sturdy now as any of his fellows, faithful, loving as a little dog. trotted on behind, but buried in her grief Janet would have none of him. Her listless feet had wandered to poor Granny Morris' cottage, more perhaps from habit now than any hope of comfort. Through the long weeks of March winds and April sunshine Janet, in the warmth of her girlish sympathy, half ashamed of the big-hearted happiness with which she reviewed her future in comparison to Granny Morris' desolate lot, had done what lay in her power to brighten the old woman's life. Surly frown and bitter taunt had given way to wistful smiles of welcome in the soured' heart, and Granny started up now at the sound of those halting feet.

"What ails ye, my pretty lass?" she said, drawing Janet within the shelter of her little cottage, poor but cleaner now with Janet's faithful ministrations "What ails ye, my lammie!" Her thin fingers stroked those sunburnt, stronger ones, hei voice was full of jealous anger; who had done Janet a mischief would meet with short shrift at Granny 'Morris' hands. ■.:,,: , . Then it till oame out with a flood of sorrowful tears, sobs that shook the girlish voice, and threatened to choke the scarcely uttered words. ' " He's lost half of the money, an' I eanna' go. 1 must wait until he's saved it again," wailed Janet, flinging her- apron over her little head, bright with ruddy curls. "I canna* bear it ! I oanna' bear it!" Then, bit by bit, helped out by Granny's new-born patience, came the pitiful little story. When in Liverpool the previous day, where Richard had gone to book their simple passages to the new land, money had been stolen from him. The gates of Paradise were shut in the faces of Ibis simple Adam and Eve* : . _~

soothingly! " a be fOP . lor *" Baid Gnuuv. ."Ay but it will that," sobbed Janet naifi,z:fw." Ho " ""'" -»• '«* »> How much did ye say he had lost?" ehe went on after a pause. "Nine pounds three and sevenpence ha'penny," said Janet, still tearfully * ' It's a lot o' money." +„'"? ,s sure; he's been years gettin' it together. .'? it's d ° ne now. I'so ha' to stay here." w v«'"? a - int a bright life here for the likes o' " y< Vt * .1? harct man ' Farmer Blake." An the missis is harder," sobbed Janet, J& H« Wa \ nsaku a brave efFort « to choke down he,: grief. - Ay, but its wearynig. J sailed" SUre Uis Whon should J' o ba '

TueSw T* end We wcro to b0 w "d oaundar"wanas " Up for the lasfc «""> St *we J" on fc & et wed now -" AWfe,? UU,I , her sunbonnet, drawing it down to screen her swollen eves Dunnot bother ower-me, yo've enough o your am, Granny," she said kindly and after a minute's pause went out again. For an hour after the door had closed Granny sat stanngmto the dying embers of the fire; but at last she rose, and crept dourly up the, steep, dirty flight of stairs to the one room above which the cottage possessed. A few poor sticks of furniture were littered about, ragged, curtains hung to the window, thick with dust and cobwebs Granny looked about it with dreary eyes. It was not oftea she came np here, for many years now her bed had stood in the chimney corner below, but in this room she had slept as wife and mother and widow. She bent doAn and, moving a bundle of rags, took up a slip of the'boarded floor .Seeing the delicate shape of her wrinkled i>ands now, anyone might know gentle blood ran in Granny's veins. Her fingers rummaged in the dust, and plaster below, then she brought out a little bundle done up in a stocking foot. Slowly she unfolded it, wrap after wrap; at last, right away in a baby's woollen sock, a faded moroci:so case. With fingers that trembled like an aspen leaf, Granny pressed the spring and opened

A snuff box of, solid gold set with crimson stones, like drops of liquid fire, and bearing upon its chased lid a miniature of George 11., gleamed up at her. Gold and precious stones, dirt and squalor, extremes meeting in the shadowed room. "It were my great gran'father's." murmured Granny, as if to an unseen auditor. "He were rich an' powerful i' those days, and V King gave it wi' his own hands. Nobody but Parson knows 1 hev it. I thowt to bury it i' my mother'? grave some night. I'd a' starved afore I sold it. This young lass—if I dumiot help her, she'll ha* to bide here, art' 'aint she the only bit sunshine i' my life? Parson said he'd give ma ten pun any day for it. 'E's a collector o' such, but then—" Her face went down in her arms. The bitter tears of old age scalded the faded lids. "Dear God," she muttered thickly, "I ha' been a bad woman, nobody knows 'ow bad, 'cept Ye. If I do this it's like pullin* my 'eart strings out. Will Ye no' forgi'e me?" There was a long silence in the cheerless room, then hurriedly, as if afraid to test her. courage longer, Granny wrapped the box up in her baby's sock, and thrusting it into the bosom of her. dress, stumbled down the "stair 3, out into the sunlit lane. "She'll ha' her man, my "little Jam»t>" muttered Granny, hurrying- wearily on. " I'se help bei to it if it kills, me." And so in the travail of: her heart was & new soul born. to Granny.