THE ATONEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15521, 31 January 1914, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE ATONEMENT.

BY JAMES BLYTH, Author of " A Hazardous Wooing," etc.

A STORY OF MODERN ADVENTURE.

COPYEIGHT. CHAPTER XIV. I COME TO MYSELF AGAIN. Whfn next I opened my eyes to the knowledge of my surroundings I found myself lying in a sunlit little camp-bed beneath the shelf of a diamond-paned, lead-framed window. I was too weak and far too uninterested in life to take

much interest in my surroundings. I saw dimly that my counterpane and sheets were very clean, that the furniture of the little garret was plain, antique, and scanty The roof came down in an angle of fortyfive from the centre of the ceiling till it

was scarce five feet from the floor against the bottle-glass panes. One of the partitions, of the leaded window was open about eighteen inches square, I thought, and was held open by an iron rod, curved like the top of an Adam's stove. Through the open space I could see the top of a hay-stack, and. at a distance, a rise of 1 dense woods, glowing purple in the falling twilight. I tried to move my hand, my legs. But I to my intense surprise I found myself unable to do so. I looked at my wrists to see if they were bound. Then I realised it was sheer weakness which held me motionless. At first I had no recollection of my struggle en the submarine, .of the knockout blow, and my being flung to the Breydon fishes. It was too much trouble to think how I got where I was. I sniffed in" the delicious marsh summer air; and the inhalations brought me strength and partial recollection. I tried to cry aloud. But my throat uttered such a foolish, faint, wheezy whine that I was ashamed to repeat the attempt. 1 could see that my fingers were fleshless, that my forearms were almost those of a skeleton. Then, when I found that I could neither move nor shout. I began to cry feebly, shamefully, sobbing and whimpering like a child of three. I heard a light step come springing up the stairway, as I guessed" it to be, and presently a very lovely girl of not more than seventeen or eighteen at the utmost came hastily into the garret. She clasped her hands at sight of me. " Oh 1" she cried. "Thank God! Thank God! Oh," she added, coming close to me, and taking one of my phantom hands with ineffable tenderness and gentleness, " don't cry. Oh, don't cry. please! I can't bear it." And witn that she, top, fell a-sobbing as though her heart would break. She was dressed in a simple and wellworn and washed print dress of white, spotted with faded pink, the dress of a kitchenmaid, I thought at first. She wore no artificial aide to improve her form or face. They did not need them. Her lovely svelte figure was naturally slimwaisCed. Even I could tell she was unconfined by steel or whalebone. But the lithe, natural lines of her bust and.hips made her waist seem in perfect artistic proportion. She was of about the middle height of woman, perhaps a little over. Her face was oval, her features straight, small, and in exquisite symmetry. Her complexion might, perhaps, have been called coarse by the Pall Mall critic, for it was round and rosy, full of health and the flush of pure blood. Her eyes were huge, and of forget-me-not blue, her hair, lashes and brows of a red wheat gold, which flashed and burned in the sun rays as they poured through the window. Her mouth was the true Cupid bow shape, but a little large, her ears were small, transparent and dainty. Her teeth even and deliciously white, her lips full, and of live vermilion, if my readers know what I mean. Rarely had I seen so fair a maiden of Nature. When I looked at her hands I saw that they were rough-skinned and redy that her wrists were thick-boned and her forearms coarsened and reddened with work. Her face was the face of beauty of all times. Her hands and wrists showed that she belonged to the working or lower farming classes. Her voice was soft and musical, but her accent was the broad vernacular of the Norfolk marshlands. Her soul, her heart, I was to learn, were noble, pure and unselfish. I flattered myself I knew every marsh ->„<,« between the Yare, the cut and the Waveney, but I had never seen this Huaiuea oefore. I couid not have forgotten her if I had. Do not think that I was stirred by any feeling towards Her such as had smitten me to the midriff on my first sight of Ruth. There was no sense of attraction towards her in my heart or thoughts. Yet certainly she was a most fair vision to greet the eyes of a man fresh returned from the, confines of death, who now knew that he had been uncon-' scious for a problematical time. Who was she? Why did she cry to see my tears? And where was I? She patted my hands and petted me as a mother might her sick child, till I ceased my shameful whimpering! "There, there," she soothed me. " You will soon be well. I will nurse you. I promise you I will. No one shall hurt you any more." I choked out thanks to her, petulant, ungrateful thanks, with which only a sick man could insult such a girl. She smiled sadly at me and nodded her head encouragingly. Then she rose from my bedside and went to the door of the garret. "Granny, granny!" she called out. "Master Jack ha' come to hisself. Do pray come up and see if you can do aught for him. He fare right sensible again." Master Jack. So she knew me, though I did not know her. I heard a querulous but strident ancient voice call out something from below, and then the girl came back to nte. " You don't know me," she said gaily. But I remember you." I shook my head. I certainly had no recollection of this radiant vision. "Don't you remember," she said, "when you risked your life on the ice for a little fool of a girl who had fell through, you swam under the ice in the river and fetched her out, though she didn't deserve it. That was six years ago, and that was me. I remembered fishing a little brat out from the river on which (he had ventured rashly one winter. But she was a most un interesting child, I thought Surely shecould not have developed into this rustic beauty! "Where am I?" I asked. "Isthis George mtyman s house then ? But you can't be— Mv voice trailed off into inaudibility. I was still very weak. I could not talk. t The , girl stamped her foot. "Fool* Little beast that I am she cried. "As if granny had not told me that you were ,°n t0 j ry to talk or do anything but lie still and grow strong as soon as you come to yourself! Oh! granny make haste." My lapse into silence had frightened her. It paineo me to see her alarm. I tried to speak, to calm her, to show her that I was all right. And then a hale old crone, very different from June Rivett, came striding into the garret. Ninety-one the old girl was but she walked upright, had all her teeth, her hearing, and her sight and more wisdom than could have been accumulated from others within a radius of five miles I may have forgotten the girl, but I remembered old mother Prettyman. "Why, it's you, mother ri managed to wheeze out! "Now, Rosp, what ha' you been a doin' on?" said the old woman in tones as strident and powerful as though she carried no more than forty years on her shoulders. Din't I tell you he worn't to spake or worrit hisself about nothin' ? Dee you be a going', if you can't behave better 'an that you sha'n't come in no more till he can jump over the bed." Rose burst into tears, and with a look of infinite pleading at me left the little attic "Now you lay still, my maan," said the old woman. "You know ole granny Prettyman and how she can do ye a sight more good than any darctor so long as she only hev wounds and brook heads to cure. I can't mix the bartles o' pink med.mns, nor I wouldn't if I could. Lay you there and don't you fret yar head 'bout nothin'. I'll bring ye up a basin o' broth in half a min't, and then you'll hev another

I sleep.. Arter that p'raps I'll tell ye a bit |o' what a' happened. But I'll tell ye this now. Fred Banhara he was here yisterday arter dark and he tode me to tell you when you come round as all was well and there worn't no hurry." The message at once agonised and relieved me. It brought back all the dangers of the brotherhood to my recollection. But it relieved my fears lest anything had hapfened to Ruth since I was disabled. For had no notion of the length of time I had lain senseless. I only guessed from the sight of my hands and wrists that it must have been many days. "Rose," the old woman called outside the door, not raising her voice to a shriek but making it round and full and musically vibrant. "Rose, bring up a basin full o' broth in the 'arthen cook pot. Master Jack want it." "No," said the old dame, shaking her head at me with a grim smile, so that 1 saw her bristly white moustache gleaming as the sun's rays caught its ends, "you baint to ax' no questions or to speak a word till you .ha' had yar broth and another sleep. Then we'll see about it." I heard light steps flying up the stairs, and Rose, shame-faced because of her scolding, came timidly forward, holding a bowl of old Lowestoft China on a plate of the same clay and pattern, and with a spoon in i*.. "Lor, and if you hain't give him yar Christenin' spune what the squire's lady give ye," said granny, and Rose blushed damask. The old lady seemed to think she had relaxed too much to her greatgrandchild. "And so you ought," she added. "He saved your worthless life. So you ought to." Rose fled from the room with one more appealing and apologetic glance at me. I should have liked to remonstrate with the old woman for her treatment of my kind nurse. But I guessed that any word of mine of that kind might do more harm than good, and would either give rise to some horrible banter or to some entirely unjust suspicions. The old woman held the. basin before me, checked my hand, which I vainly tried to move towards the spoon, and fed me mouthful by mouthful. I did not know the month, but I felt pretty certain it was not later than August, and, from the look of the sky, I doubted if it were later than July! My God! I thought! July! Two months deleted from my life. But that was not the point. The point is that although we were certainly still in summer I tasted marvellous twangs of pheasant, partridge, hare and wild fowl in that broth. It was clear, but as soon as a drop cooled, it congealed on my lips or my spoon like glue. There was the flavour of thyme, mint, onion or leeks, sage, carrot, turnip, marshmallow, and many other herbs of which I did not know the identity. It was the most appetising and strengthening liquid food that had ever passed my lips, I Bucked it down spoonful by spoonful. Before I had finished granny called again, "Rose," she called. "Come you here. I can't allust leave the dairy to feed our gennleman. You come and watch mo do it so as you can help him next time." Rose entered with dancing eyes. "Let me try now, granny," she urged. And the old lady let her. She sat on my bedside and seemed to take it as a favour whenever I swallowed a spdonful of the exquisite brewage. Her eyes danced radiantly. Her ' lips seemed to move in appreciation of my condescension. She seemed upraised with pleasure and delight in ministering to me. Fortunately I was as weak as a kitten, and, when I came to gather strength, I was protected from villainv by a pure love for a noble «rl. But, ah! Rose was sweet, so sweet! I never—but I must not anticipate. . Before I had finished the bowl I felt aweary. When I had swallowed the last spoonful at Rose's pressing request, I felt sleepy. With scarce a word of thanks convalescents are nearly always ungrateful brutes—l fell asleep with the taste of the broth in my mouth. I heard the girl say: "Hush!" to her . grandmother, and the old woman stride out. But I felt that Rose spread soft coverings over, my shoulders, and seated herself beside me and I took comfort in the thought. CHAPTER XV. v FKED NARBATES. . I think that old granny must have mixed a little juice of her white poppies, which I soon saw growing in the marsh garden, with my broth, for I slept nearly twenty-four hours and when I woke I felt a beginning of the return of strength rather than an actual consciousness of its return. , I had gone to sleep with my eyes on tho fair face of Rose, and when I woke I found her eyes gazing into mine. They were lovely eyes, demure, intensely happy at the moment, but a little bovine. They had not the bright intelligence of other eyes I had known and adored. Yet no man could lie weak and helpless, and suffer the gentle ministrations of that devoted and pure-souled girl without feeling a constriction of the heart, a grateful reverence, which, if no other image had encased the heart in proof armour, must turn to love in time. And at that date I do not fancy that Rose had ever heard of Ruth. I learnt afterwards that she had always looked up to me as a Paladin, a kind of Prince Charming, who had vouchsafed to save her life at risk to my own. That she had lurked behind hedges to get a glimpse of me and that as she grew to ripe maidenhood her feelings for me became warmer till she cried herself to. sleep with hopeless longing that one day I might stoop to accept her passionate worship. She had never thought of the practicability of the thing. Romantic naturally, without having had her natural purity spoilt bv the perusal of the penny novelettes which ruin the characters of so many young girls, she had taught herself to imagine the possibility of being my lifelong servant. At, no time, I fancy, had she thought of me as a husband or even as a lover. I was too far above her for that. Poor child, so sweet and so_ devoted! And I, I watched her services, her solicitous ministrations day by day, and I could not help showing my gratitude. I saw a light of wonderful hope springing in her look, and shameful that I was, I did not dare to speak to her as I should have spoken, but let her dream herself into a paradise of absurdity, of a phantasmal happiness with me. Granny, of three generations back, a child of the feudal system, born in days when the droits de signeuris existed in fact, if not in law, never even thought that her grand-daughter could entertain such dreams.

Mv strength grew rapidly. I knew that I was in old Prettyman's marsh farm and before long the old boy, granny's son and Rose's grandfather, came up to "have a njardle " with me, and later his stalwart sons and grandsons came up and talked of the last year's flight shooting, and of the strange fowl that one of them had killed in the river.

Rose seemed jealous of these interviews, and used to " whoosh" out the visitors, telling them that they had tired me, and the jollv giants would slink out apologetically. Not one of them but did me justice in knowing that I would never wrong their roof. Not one of them but was blind as I was to the possibility that I might leave wretchedness behind me if I did not leave shame.

It must have been fully ten days after I first came to my senses that Rose came up, looking a little sullen. "There's a man as want to see ye, Master Jack," she said. " It's that old Fred Banham. I told him you worn't well enow to see him yet. He say he'll come again twalve o'clock noon-time day arter to-morrow. ' I was about to rebuke the girl for putting my old friend off. But I saw her expression, and my heart told me that I might at least be courteous and kind to her if I could be nothing more. Up till then I asked in vain for the day of the week and month. "Never you mind how long you ha' been here," Rose and granny would say. You may be sure you're heartily welcome however long it be and twist as long and all." But when I heard that Fred had been to see me I began to insist on learning the duration of my illness. Rose was hurt by my pertinacity and let me see it. " My dear girl," I said, " I know how kind you all are. But I must know what the date is. I cannot tell you way, but it is of awful importance that I should know how long I have been

unconscious, arid, what has been happening in the world. Do you know if there has been any railway strike yet?" Rose looked at me wonderingly. "Why Master Jack," said she, "how should 1 know? Since you.come I hain't set to market with Tom or old granny. I hain't heard nothin' in the marsh farm! That wouldn't interfere along o' us uns, ye know, railway or no railway. I hate the beastly things Her sweet eyes filled with tears and her hand went out and stroked the coverlet of my bed with pitiable tenderness. " You know what month this is, at all events," I said coaxingly. "Do tell me, Rose, there's a dear girl." Her face flamed as I called her that. She shook in every limb, and ob I her eyes questioned mine with such earnestness that I cursed myself for an unfeeling brute. For now I remembered everything. I remembered the brotherhood and Ruth and the voices on the marsh, the fight on Breydon, and Stafford's treachery. What puzzled me was how I came to be in Prettyman's marsh farmhouse. I was stunned and flung overboard from the submarine. How on earth was I saved ? " How did I come here? " I asked. "That Fred Banham and Bob Baldry carried ye here one night; well, if ye must know ye must, that was six weeks ago and more. They carried ye in at dead of night and said they'd brought ye from the Berney Arms where you'd been look in not knowin' yourself or anyone else, and they axed gran'fa'er if ye might stay here—as if they wanted ta ax! As if anyone on us wouldn't lay down our lives for ye, Master Jack, who never did a bad action in all the willage since you was a boy, and who everyone ha' knowed kindness from. We wanted to let 'em know at the hall, so as your old housekeeper could send ye the things ye might want which we couldn't give ye in this pore place. But Fred and Bob said as it was more an' yar life was wuth to let anybardy know where ye were. So granny went to the hail and only • said as yar wished Mrs. Hallam to know as yar was 'goin' foreign for a month or so, and could not give no address. So here yar ha' laid, and us a prayin' for your life, and outside the farmhouse nobardy 'cepting only old Fred and Bob know where ye be! They said as even the folk at the Berney Arms worn't to be told, or that 'ud be the wuss for you! You hain't been doin' nothin' wrong, hev ye, Master Jack? Do you hev, us uns 'ill see nobardy doan't interfare along o' you. You can see anyone a comin' for miles round, and if the pleece come arter you there's a dozen hidin' places gran'faa'er and the boys know where you could be hid! And I could bring ye wittles and drink." The loyal little darling! I believe nothing would have delighted her more than to hear I was in peril of persecution by the law; so that she and her leal relations might protect me. And how sensible to allay my housekeeper's fears, and prevent her from " making a song " of , my disappearance. I had " cleared out " from all correspondence before Mrs. Hallam would be quite satisfied. "No, child," I said, "I don't think the danger comes from there. But I know what they mean. And listen, child! I must see Fred the moment he comes again. If I knew where he was I'd send for him." "He and Bob are a hidin' at Spider Jinnis's house," whispered Rose, with a knowing nod of her head and wide, wondering eyes. " That's why I thought you must ha been up to some'at with 'em." I reassured her, . but warned her that it might mean death to me and Fred and Bob if our whereabouts were made known to the public at large. Indeed, I realised that Fred meant that I was in peril from Stafford. I shuddered as that awful night "on Breydon came back to my memory, as I saw again the relentless manner in which Stafford had shot down the two preventive men and aimed at the officer. I did not doubt that that poor fellow, had suffered the fate of his subordinates. But I longed for such further particulars as I hoped Fred or Bob would be able to give me. .-.'..,. How was it, too, that Fred and Bob were not at headquarters; how was it they were in hiding, and, what sort of hiding could it be that permitted ; them to call at Prettyman's in daylight Here I was foolish. I might have remembered that on that lonely triangular island no man could be spied upon without seeing that he was observed. Fred owned a fine pair of binoculars, as did Spider Jinnis, presented to him-by an enthusiastic fowler to whom he had shown some sport, and which he used chiefly for looking for parcels of wild fowl in hard weather, so that, if Fred were without his, he could use Spider's. No, Fred and Bob were safe enough so long as they kept to the island and only showed themselves to men of the blood like all these marsh farmers. But what about the railway strike? What about the proposed invasion by Germany ? I must learn what was happening in the world! " Rose," I said, " could ye send a message to ask Fred or Bob to come round to-night ?" She flushed, and looked hurt. "If granny say you fare ' strong enow," she said, reluctantly, " I reckon I am bound to do your biddin'." She'rose from her seat beside my couch of sweet hay and rugs now laid so that I could look down on • the river through the window and see the cockneys passing in their hired tubs, and on which' I could ! rest now that I was gaining strength and ease by rising from bed. " I'll do as you ax," she said again. She almost ran from my garret, and my heart was wrung to see that her shoulders heaved as she went out, and that she; caught her apron to her eyes. Granny was feeding me up now. And never have I lived on such game out of season, such exquisitely cooked freshwater —perch and eels, tench and lamprey— granny knew the value of the lamprey that is usually cut up for —such tit-bits of beef and mutton, such broth, smuggled rum, home-brewed strong ale, as I enjoyed at Prettyman's farm. I knew the farmer's ordinary fare; was cold pork or bacon, with home-made bread, curd cheese pressed in a " box," and pig's fry and sheep's pluck. All very good things, but different from the delicacies which were heaped upon my plate day after day. I would requite these good people when I came into my own again. It would be difficult, for thev would take no money. But first I must find out how the land lay. And then, for the first time, I felt at my throat. The ma?ic bag, fastened to the eel skin, was still there. I wondered if Rose or granny had been puzzled by it. Probably the latter knew it was some mystic talisman, and had taken it as a matter of course. I hoped so.

Dusk had fallen, and the peaceful hour "between the lights" had come. The red legs and their young, now flying strongly, had ceased to whirl and whistle over marsh and river. The hornpipe had schooled their broods, to follow them to salter waters or to the turnip fields, by thk lime. Six weeks and more since I had been brought to the marsh farm! Good God ! what a slice out of a man's life, and how thankful I ought to be that I had come to myself at the end of it.

I heard a soft step on the river wall, and then Fred's voice below stairs. Soon the dear old fellow was up in my garret, Rose preceding him with a candle.

(To be continued on Wednesday next.)