SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14855, 5 December 1911, Page 10

SHORT STORY.

IN ASHWORTH DENE. »r WILFRID ALL i (Copyright.) Is- Ash-worth Deno it was beautiful exceedingly. Whether it was at dawn, when tho great strong light of day broko through the silver mists that veiled tho ever-changing tea-face, and tho hills took on a swift and sudden glory, and delicate invisiblo hands began their summer service of painting the heather to brighter pink, tho pale-green corn-lands to dusky gold, tho woodlands to deep and dainty hues, and the treasureladen orchards to temples of delight; or .at noon, when tho heat lay quivering on tho fields, and tho shadows teemed to leave tho land anil gather themselves strangely over the sea; at twilight, when the radiant tskie; and the western world mot in a clasp v>f firo anil dew; or later on, towards dead of night, when tho " forget-me-not of stars" ■was blossoming in tho heavenly meadows, and the solemn moors and tho purple spaces wero washed with mystio moonlight—whatever time you went abroad, beauty waited on you deep and speechless, quickening dull perceptions to a finer sensibility. ■ Wo wero playing in tho hay. From tho next field, which sloped sharply towards our own. the click ot tho mowing machino sounded musically as it wound its toilsome way along tho steep incline, while in > its •wake tho stately grasses bowed their beads and fell like wavelets breaking* noiselessly «ui summer shores. Tho children were making a nest in the hay for the baby. Tho air was full of their merriments"? the strong joy of the sun was ringing in thair voices, dancing in their eyes.,' ' ' Presently thcro-. - was, born© over tho scented fields tho sound ;of tbo horn of tho daily coach as ,it sped along the moorland road that runs- so' high up in the world ;from Prettywood to Nab's "Wife. .As' the ■sliding call 5 rang out and on, Mary Hall, (■working at tbo tar ; end of tho field, turned 4i,nil leant for a moment on her hay-fork, following with her eyes the red splash of The postillion's coat as it glinted at intervals between the larches, until at a sudden sharp bend in tho road tho whole conveyance was lost to sight. And at tho blast of tho horn,T and the glimpse of Mary's fn.ee with its patience, and the beautiful grey ejes that seem to see so far beyond tho tiling they look at, the story with all its pictures unfolded itself over the sunny fields.

It began on a day when tliick mists were sweeping across the moorland, blotting out tin delicate lines which show where land and no and sky melt into ono another; and on tho edge of the moor, the cold caress of the cloud wrapping her round, stood an old woman, leaning on a stick, her thin shawl and flimsy skirt clinging to her, heavy with moisture, her worn faco bravo and bright with expectation. Her eyes wore smarting with long peering through the mist, the fog •warn in her .throat and a chill wind in her face, but nothing could daunt the soft triumph of her expression; all sense of personal discomfort was lost in tho glad cheer at Slier heart. Jamie, her son, was coming home—coming homo for his yearly fortnight's holiday from the desk to which day by day for the other fifty week's his duty claimed him. Ho was caught in tho heart of the vast London whirlpool which sucks in trom the green lanes,, and the tiny hamlets, and the wholepome moors, so many of its victims to whom tho lust of gold is a stronger motive than the tovo of freedom, tho jinglo of the guineas a sweeter sound than the whispering oil the wind among the corn, the tilling of tho ground and tho sowing of the seed a lower labour than that involved in occupations and surroundings so pitifully called " genteel." It as the third year of Jamie's homccominn, and, as on the former occasions, his mother was waiting to meet him by the, clump of juniper bushes that marked the spot where a bypath from their cottage, nearly a mile distant, ran into the high j road liko a streamlet into a broad river, j Presently a muffled sound reached her through: tho fog, and she could distinguish the labouring of four horses up the hill; then, a • little later, she heard the pace .■quickenthey had left the hill behind," and a long level sweep lay before them. In another moment they would be on her, and she waited to 'hear the gallant pace slacken." .Smiles wreathed v themselves ?.-• about . her 'mouth, and welcoming words; were forming Jon her lips, when. ... in a whirl of mist the coach passed on, and 1 left her stand,ing there unnoticed, her thin arms stretched out mechanically to cloud and space. «5 It But she had seen him, and it "sufficed- ? her ,—seen him distinctly, with his bright red : shock of liair, so different from the ordinary commonplace heads of black ; and thrown; sewn him, with his broad unmistakable "back turned to the old -landmark of the juniper' bushes and herself, talking gleefully to at woman in cloak arid hood beside him, hi 3 right arm resting in J semi-protec-tion around hor on ; the back of the seat. ; i She waited still, thinking that there must be some mistake; that every ; moment the coach would pull up and let her treasure down. - She tried Ito call out, ■ but the fog seemed to have strangled her voice entirely; she balanced herself by- one of the bushes— for she was . very lame— waved her stick impotently, aimlessly, #in the air, while the smiles froze slowly j on hor face and tho gladness at her heart. She listened to the coach as it thundered through . the mist, to the ring of impatient hoofs against tho . ground, .and, v/hen ,'lit last. she ; realised that ' waiting would not , biding her what she wanted,'''"she turned licr halting footsteps back acroß3 moor.* . I - -;

In a sad and tender retrospect she went over , the . two former occasions of Jamie's homecoming. The first year there had been but little charge; be had sprung down from the coach to jirJ*eet her in the broad, strong accents of common race, and had. devoured with delight tho honey-scones she had risen spjiftrly to bake for him, in caso ho ..was" huogrr after bis long ride. The second year a different order of things prevailed:, .He?*aa then "My Jamie, what's quite : tho gent'eman," > with his tall J hat, and his frock coat,' ' and his patent leather shoes, and he spoko in a strange, light tone, almost: as refined as the minister himself, and his mother had scarcely known whether to cry heartily or .to break out into awkward admiration over him, and had ended by ■doing first tho one and then, the other,, and so compromising herself hopelessly 4 " for quite a quartet of an hour in Ins filial esteem, i. On this occasion lu> had only taken oil 6 scono from the-little basket, and- ho ato it with a grand negligence, holding it delicately between his thumb and forefinger, appearing, aa his mother reverently reflect to be playing a tune in tho air with tho other .fingers. Now. at tho third homecoming, die had whirled past in the coach, all blind and deaf to her presence there by the; * jumpers;, in the familiar., ;placo of meeting. % •- . v'/'-'V

Shdt limped liojrtowardft, with the *basket of cream iiKi..hbney-«co.rie3. : on her arm. As .she lifted "the latch of the gate that opened on to the old-lushioried garden of mint and rosea, potatoes and currant' bushes, planted all in bright confusion sick» 'by side, . airother woman, yotuig and very comely, ran swiftly down- tllie narrow cobbled path- to moot her. ' " - -, ! " Where —* wliiero'aV, Jamie— hasn't .- he come?" she isliMfWith quickening breath. "Oh, # yes, dear; • Jamie's right enough. I saw him clear and straight is over,l- saw anything in 'ra:i£ltfe.>2He'ft only-'gono right on to the village •with;' the coach. Them mists was that v thick ■ho never saw mo at all, I suppose." 1 • > " But yon saw him?" ' "Mary Hall, don't you go for to think that my Jami.> would . havo v . passed Iris •mother on tli© high road without' so much a-} dropping her a look as he wont. Don't you go for to think no such nonsense "as that, mind!" "Oh, I never did. dear!" broke in the vo-e of Mary. "I was just wondering, that was all. , , "Well, you needn't wonder.. Now I «">» to think of it, thorn juniper 'bushes' has grown so high that maybe they hid me >; ~. right out of si;{ht.", ~. . , Slio was a very bravo old 'woman.' 'Her USfe heart was aching sorely for tho girl bv - her side, Jamb's affianced wife, but when '<7: tho honour of her Eon was at stake she would havo moved mountains to keep' that honour unsullied. 1 *< x ;'v. Towards nightfall he came, tho man ; whom ' two , good women loved, though all the, brightness and constancy of .their love "'. ■was powoitless to save him from the en are .another set for him. Ho covered tho long •delay with, the cheap banter and assurance, ■which tho training of tho town provokes; but ho did noli ask his mother if she had coma Jo.moet, him, or. make any pretence of having missed sight of her in the, fag, Before her V worn 1 sweet • face - and the grave , ores of .his sweetheart ho felt that there , v ; wero limits no effrontery could overstep,. f , «•" After all, tlicro is no placer like home," " ,&« said, smiling on the two who toiled un v Jeasingly, in , order ■ that ho might always have a home to come back to, should other

refugo fail. But he spoke with an odd constraint, and in the clays that followed, boliod his words without sharrio or thought by going off every morning with some poor oixcuee. to tho little watering-place three miles distant, returning at night silout, spiritless, spont. ... Waiting for his sympathetic interests were ,ill tho common homely thing that his mother was wont to lay up _in her memory throughout tho year for his entertainment and delight. There wcro tho bees, with thvir hives constructed on tho latost plan; tho walnut tree bearing fruit, again for tho ftrst timo for years; the new litter of pigs; tho wood for the garden seat ho was to make; the hams in their linen bags, stored up for his use in the winter by tho mother vvlio was convinced that no one in mighty London could euro ■ hams as she could. • But incomprehensibleto some— it may seem, it- was the very homeliness of his homes its .unadorned simplicity, its direct and rugged tenderness, that palled on tho son whose jaamo might have been written largo in t.ho Book of Snobs. Ho would compare th-'> cosy dwelling-room, with its open settle, i'. f s wide hearth, tho red curtain before the latticed window, tho beautiful collection of old brass hanging over the high narrow- chimney-shelf, candlesticks, ladles, sconce:!,, snuffers, and snuffer tray, and the brigln ly-polishcd copper warming pans on either side—a collection as rare and dainty in its way as that on the "silver" table ov ; many an ancient • house, lie would coropa re that homely room, in which toil and •peace seemed wedded to 0110 another, with a room where cheap and gaudy fans were, arranged in meaningless semi-circles over tho mantelpiece; where wonderful plants, unknown to any earthly soil, sprang out. of china elephants and swans; whero flimsy drapinga wero _ festooned indiscriminately round pots, piano, photograph, door, clock, and window; where there was scarcely a chair to sit on without tear of upsetting some enshrouding muslin cloud; whe.rc the presiding genius was a lady with an infinitesimal waist and abnormally high-heeled shoos, whom Jamie, in one of the unguarded moments when ho relapsed into tho vernacular, described as terrible elegant-likes" Then things in that unregarded little sphere moved swiftly on to tho' inevitable climax. The curtain may bo drawn over certain details of tho tragedy in which, as in all tragedies, it is ftho invisiblo elements that are most affected. . , . , Tho evening before Jamie left lie ■went to Mary Hall, whero she was tending a littlo calf in tho byre. She lifted her head proudly, but sho could not hinder the sorrow from shining out of her solemn eyes. She knew lie had come to My a cruel thing definitely, and that he had the grace to find it hard to do. They had loved one another from childhood. , . ~ "Well, ,Tamio! she said, very kindly.

"Mary!" There was an awkward pause; then tho woman took t.ho burden of tho difficulty on herself, as I am told tho way of woman

"You "were coming to say good-bye, Jamie, and maybo to &ay something moro than just that, too. Well, never mind about it. dear. I know, so don't trouble. We can't all of us keep our hearts smgm to the same tune, can wo? I shan't over think hard of you, Jamie, for it, ever, so mind that. Don't say anythin' comfortin', dear, 'cos I won't answer for myself if you do, and I must keep awful cheery-like, for mother's sake. She's that down-hearted when you'vo gone there is no holding her together like." . She sooko lingeringly, as one might who proffers" love's last, gift of long forgiveness, and who knows that the minutes of service for the loved one are drawing swiftly to their bitter end. "And. Jamie, dear,' she added, almost fearfullv, and still more slowly, " next time meet her at. the juniper bushes, won't you? Why, if you only knew it, she's liko to be starting the night before, so as to bo in timo to meet you there."

And now that, the summer days are growshbrter, and the blush is fading off the heather, while tho rough gold deepens on the corn, the time is drawing near when Jamie will be coming home again—Jamie, who wrote with pain and difficulty, not long'since back, a letter that- went near to 'making a man of him again. But this time there will be no mother to wait and watch by the juniper bushes as in days gono by. For in tho white winter time "a little black procession threaded its way to tho lonely burying-ground in tho Jpot) warm heart of tho moors, and there, under the heavy snow, they gently laid Jamie's mother down. ; Though, indeed, because of this, it does not follow that no ono will bo waiting there at all. Jamie's eyes are opening now.