FICTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1217, 28 June 1895, Page 29

FICTION.

(NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.;

TRANSPORTED! THE MANCSE OF ft GOWVICT SHIP.

By W. CLAEK EUSSELL,

Author of ' The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' ' The Lady Maud,' 'A Sailor's Sweetheart,' &c, &c.

(All Bights Reserved.)

(Continued.)

CHAPTER VII. SHE PARTS WITH HER SWEETHEART

Well, the following week my sweetheart went to Sunderland, and I felt as widowed as though I had been his wife and he had died. He crossed from Sunderland to Liverpool and was absent a fortnight. From Liverpool he wrote to tell me that he was very well satisfied with the Arab Chief, and had agreed with her ..owners, who did business in Liverpool, to take command of her and purchase a share to the value of three thousand pounds.

The influence of his love was very strong upon me while he-was away. He had hinted, but gently, that hVthought my aunt right in objecting to my old love of rambling) I mean to the excursions I used to make down the river and to other parts, often sleeping but for a night or two at a time as you have heard; and during his absence 1 went nowhere-, save to My aunt*s, Or to the houses of some of my particular friends. Meanwhile, you will not suppose that I saw nothing of Mr Stanford. We lived in the same house, and were therefore bound to meet, not, indeed, in our separate apartments; but upon the staircase or in the passages. When Tom bad been gone about a week, my stepfather knocked upon my door one morning as I sat at breakfast; I bade him enter and he sat down at the table. ' I met Mrs Johnstone yesterday,' said he, 'and she gave me a piece of news. Allow me to congratulate you,' and he inclined his head.

I bowed slightly in return, keeping silence. ' I am aware that I have no claim upon you, Miss Johnstone,' said he.

' None whatever,' I cried. 4 But I am your step-father, and as a matter of courtesy, not to say more, you should, I have favoured me from your own lips with the news of your engagement.' { My affairs have nothing to do with you, Mr Stanford.'

' Miss Marian, J am not here to quarrel, but to oongratula/beyou,' said he. ' Our relations have long been uncomfortable. I should have quitted this house some time ago, but for the difficulty I find in meeting with one equally suitable. My practice is of the utmost importance to me, Uot for my sake only ; it is mv duty to make a provision for your mother's child.' ' She is your child,' I cried hotly.

* '1 do not need to be told that, Miss Marian. It is very painful to me to reflect that your antipathy should have no other basis than your lamented mother's love for me. Your mother, I hope and trust, was dear to you, Miss Marian, and it is most regrettable that there is nothing in her memory to soften your violent prejudice.' 'I beg you will not speak to me of my mother.'

He eyed me askant; he had a way of looking- at yon with his head half turned. I-am here primarily to congratulate you,' said he. 'lt is your pleasure to be reticent and I will therefore not trouble you wilh any questions about your fiance. But one inquiry you will forgive—it is a matter of business. When, pray, are you to be married?' ' I don't know.' ' You will probably settle in this house with your husband ?' ' When he is my husband he shall live where he pleases, and I'll live with him.' ' This end of London is not to everybody's taste,' said he, with an acid smile. 'lt has occurred to me that your husband.might wish to live in the west of the town. If so, I should be glad to arrange with him or with you to take this house off your hands.' I answered coldly that I had no intention of parting with the house. It had belonged to my father, and whatever belonged to my father I held in veneration, and this I said with so much bitterness that he ro?e without another word and left the room. I was glad to see his back. I cannot tell you how I hated the man.

Tom returned at about the expiration of a fortnight, and now I was one of the happiest of women. We were together day after day. We visited many old-fashioned resorts in the neighbourhood of London, not one of which is probably now in existence. His influence did me a world of good. It was the most shaping, elevating, I had almost said ennobling influence any girl could have come under. The power of his love over me was a God-send to such a character as mine. I had lived so uncontrolled a life, I was by nature so defiant, quick-tempered, and contemptuous of the opinion of others, that in many directions I did not really know the right thing to do. No mother could have more wisely directed her child than Tom governed me. ' You are a rich garden,' he would say, ' but overrun; the sweets are too crowded, Marian, and here and there, my love, is a bit of a snake-like habit that needs to be uncoiled from the beautiful plant it has got foul of.' I well remember soon after he returned from Liverpool that he saw me to my. house ; it was six o'clock in the evening ; I asked him to walk in.

' No, dear,' said he. ' No, dear ! Why not, Tom ? You are tired and lam alone. Come in.'

' It is because you are alone that I will not come in.'

'I am always alone here,' said I. ' I live alone. You know that.' ' Yes, I know that.' ' And lam never to see you at my house because I am alone !'

'Dearest, I will fetch you to-morrow at eleven, and then we will have a talk on the subject of men's visits to their sweethearts who live alone.' He pressed my hand and left me.

Next day he talked to me as he had promised. I listened with love and interest, though I secretly thought it no more than a sort of hair-splitting on the part of society to insist that a girl should not receive her sweetheart alone in her own house. I was alone with Tom now. I had been alone with him at the Brunswick Hotel. What was the difference between my being alone in the streets with him, and my being with him at my rooms at hom© ? Yet he said there was a difference, aud of course he was right. I listened to him

deferentially, with my head hung._ Had it been my aunt who uttered the opinions he delivered I should have argued with her, flashed my most spirited looks upon her, flung from her, and. had.it been possible, proved nipelf right by doing the very tiling wHitih she declared the world thought improper.

Friends who had known me earlier would have believed that love had taken the spirib out of me ; but the truth was, in Tom I had found my master; his control over me was a delight. We were constantly together. Scarcely a day passed while he was in London without our meeting. I made him sit to a painter of miniature portraits in Regent street; and the same artist took my likeness for my sweetheart to carry away to sea with him. They were both choice, beautiful little pictures. My eyes seemed to glow out of the ivory, and Tom's face'was to the life, happy, careless, loving.

It was settled by this time that we were to be married on his return. He hoped that he might not have to go to sea again after his next voyage; if he went he would take me with him. The scheme provided for my being at his side as his wife in any case. But he owned that though he had recommended a sea voyage to me, and though he had said he would take me as his wife to sea with him, he had far rather that I kept on dry ground. The sea was noplace for a woman. It, was hurdled with perils ; it was a ceaseless jump of risks from one port to another. Here, then; was one reason tor our not being married until he returned.

But another and more controlling one, though he liever betrayed it in words, was his desire that 1 should have pleiity df leisure, td reflect upoii the step t had cdrisented to take, 'I- coUld hot how but see 'things as he did; arid indeed I hope I could tierer have been so unmaidenly as to give the smallest expression to" my secret wishes ;,but in my heart of hearts I was more vexed than I could express by this delay 5 which 1 attributed largely to my uncle's influence with Tdm;

When two people are dri love and are to be married there will be irdpatience. Whether the man or the woman is or should be the more impatient I don't know. I own that deep in my heart I was bitterly impatient. Tom would not sail till August; we had plenty of time to get married in ; several months must pass before he could return; and like a child I wanted my toy at once. I wanted to feel that he belonged to me, that, though he was absent'an indivisible bond united us. I was jealous of him. I said to myself, at the place he is sailing to he may meet with aome woman whom he will, think fairer and discover to be richer than I; are not sailors faithless ? All the songs and stories about them represent them so. Then I thought of my father, and abhorred myself for being visited with such thoughts, and cried like a fool to think how mean was my heart, that loving, nay, I may say adoring my Tom as I did, 1 could yet suppose when out of sight he would forget me. "''.-:':;.;•: •....

Well, the time came round when the Arab Chief was nearly ready, and when my sweetheart must go to Sunderland to carry her to the Mersey, there to load for Rio Janeiro. I never could understand business, least of all the business Of the sea, and would listen to him while he talked about his venture, vainly endeavouring to grasp his meaning in the full. But I gathered from his conversation with my uncle that he was very sanguine, and that in any case there could be no risks, as he had taken care to insure considerably: in excess of his stake. 1 recollect on one occasion when we were _ dining at my aunt's, my uncle, in talking with Tom about his venture, suggested that he erred by insuring so high above the value of the risk. 'By why?' said Tom. 'At all events I pay handsomely for the privilege of protecting myself up to the hilt.' ' True,' said the lawyer; ' but always in case of loss there is something in over-insur-ance that vitiates —perhaps to one's prejudice only, mind—the well-seeming of this act of self-protection.' ' The underwriters have it in their power to satisfy themselves,' said Tom.; ' What are your firms ?' asked my uncle. ' The Alliance, and the General Maritime Insuranc e.'

' That's cover enough, captain,' said my uncle, laughing. ' Yes, and I mean to go to the Neptune for a policy on the freight. I have a considerable share in the barque, and I intend that my proportion of the freight shall be safe. lam not of those who believe in keeping their money in a purse. I carry mine in my pockets. If the purse is lost all is gone. Who's to assure me of the solvency of any insurance office? I mean that this voyage shall enable me to stay at home with my wife,' said he, looking fondly at me. ' Let another take charge of the barque next time. I'll make enough to own the half of her.' 'You shall own her all if you will, Tom,' said I.

' That's as your trustees may decide,' said my uncle. ' My money is my own, and I shall do what I please with it,' I answered. 'Yes, and with your knowledge of business, Marian, you shall go into partnership with yaur husband as a shipowner, and land the firm in the Fleet.'

Here Tom sang 'All in the Downs the Fleet Lay Moored,' and so with a laugh changed the subject. It was toward the close of the month of August when my sweetheart bade me farewell on his departure to Liverpool to take command of the Arab Chief. I had passionately desired to go with him ; but my aunt would not accompany me, and I was without a friend of my own sex able just then to leave home. My wish was overruled by my uncle and aunt. Tom himself did not favour it, though his longing for me to be with him to the last was as keen as mine, and so I took my farewell of him in my uncle's home. Ho held me in his arms while I cried till I thought my heart would break. He kissed me again and again, bade me keep up my spirits, to consider that that day a year I should have been his wife some months ; he begged me to remain faithful to him, and told me there never would be a minute when I should be out of his thoughts, and solemnly asking God to look down upon me, to guard my against all evil and sickness, to look down upon him, to protect him and bring him back in safety to me ; he pressed a last lingering •kiss upon my lips and left me alone with my fears and my memories. I received several letters from him while he was at Liverpool. He wrote in good spirits, called his ship a beauty, and said that of her kind she was the most admired of anything that had been seen in the Mersey for years. There was but one drawback ; the mate of the barque was a Mr Samuel Rotch. Tom had met this man some five or six years before in South America and had had an unpleasantness with him there ; he did not tell me what that trouble was. Afterward Botch had served under him and there was a further difficulty.

Mr Rotch, he said, was a man of his own age, soured by professional disappointments, but a shrewd, intelligent person, and an excellent seaman. He had rather that the owners had appointed any other man as mate ; but he believed that there was some sort of distant relationship between Rotch and one of the firm, and as tile iflafi had mieo before got into trouble in consequence of ws rS Fr£-; sentations, and was poor, with a wife and two children to support, he had resolved to leave matters as he found them. I showed this letter to my uncle and asked him if he thought that Mr Rotch had it in his power to make Tom unhappy or the voyage uncomfortable. He laughed and answered : ' Your Tom will have gone to sea with irons and bilboes, depend on it. Do you know that the power of the shipmaster when at sea is greater than that of any despot in the world, from the Czar down to the shirtmaker's sweater? I have always contended that legally the master mariner is much too much empowered. H can flog, he can hang, he can starve, he can iron the devils under him, and justify any atrocity by an entry in the logbook and the testimony of one or two witnesses who would poison their mothers for a bottle of rum. How, then, should this Mr Samuel Rotch be able to disturb the peace of your sweetheart? Tour anxiety puts the boot dh the wrong" legj my deal-. It is for Mrs Rotch td be iteeasy/ This comforted riie, and I let the subject drop out of my mind. I'he next letter I received from Tom was dated at sea, a few leagues from the Sicily Islands. He had brought his topsail to _ the mast, he wrote, to send his letter by a little coasting schdoner that was inward bound. He blessed, me* arid sent nie many messages Of love; and wrote iri high spirits df Mis ship and crew. Botch was' Very civil arid alert, he saidj his crew as willing arid active a body of men as ever he had had charge of, arid his barque was a clipper, the swiftest fabric that was ever bowed by a breeze of wind. I don't mean to spare her, he wrote, and she knows it. If there's virtue in sailcloth, my beloved, she shall walk. She shall whiten old ocean for ydur sake, my darling, though it should come to my holding on with my royals when we ought to be under double reefs. I laughed when I read his sea terms, for I understood them, yet I pouted, too, for I was fool enough to feel jealous of his admiration of his barque. He ought to admire nothing living or dead but me, I thought to myself. He may go and fall.in love with his ship, and think her mistress enough for him; and then I kissed his letter and read it again and yet again, and counted how many days had gone since he left me and how many weeks must pass before he would return. Much about this time, aunt received a letter from her son Will. This; too, was addressed from sea. We had heard from him from Plymouth—a few brief lines—and not since. He wrote that they had met with fearful weather in the Channel, and he believed that he had mistaken his calling. He would swap all his fine notions of starting on a career and seeing the world for one hour of the comfortable parlour near the Tower and a good dinner of roast beef and ca.uliflower. ' It's a dog's life,' said he. ' The captain is stern and like a sentry —you mustn't speak to him ; the second mate is a bit of a bully—big, strong and noisy; you never saw such beef as they serve out in all your life ; the oldest sailor on board swears he never recollects worse pork ; and they say that before we're up with the Cape the bread for ship's use will be all alive—oh !'

' All first voyagers write like that,' said my uncle, returning the letter to his wife. ' Before Will is a fortnight at home he'll be making our. lives a burden with his regrets and lamentations that his ship don't sail sooner.'

CHAPTER VIII. SHE RECEIVES DREADFUL NEWS

The weeks went by. Day after day I eagerly expected to receive a letter from Tom, making sure that he would grasp every chance to send me his love and blessing and all the news about himself from those high seas on which he was still afloat. But no letter reached me ' simply because,' Mr Johnstone explained, 'your Tom has not been fortunate enough to fg.ll in with a homewardbound ship. You may often sail for many days upon the sea, so I've heard your father say, without sighting a vessel. When you hear from Tom it will be from Bio.' But how I missed him ! We had been incessantly together for nearly four months ; the weeks might roll by ; but there was no magic in the time they, contained to weaken my sense of loss. I lived very quietly, was much in my own home, where I sought to pass the hours by reading and drawing ; I took a kind of dislike vo company, and refused a number of invitations to quadrille and card parties and the like ; it was my delight to shape my conduct and habits by the fancy of such wishes as I knew my sweetheart would express were he with me. My memory of him, my love for him, lay in a spirit of control upon my heart ;\all impulse, all desire, was governed by the many gentle, noble counsels he had wrapped up in our long, sweet, quiet talks together, when we rambled in the outskirts or took oars upon the river. Never was a man more truly loved than was Tom. My aunt particularly noticed the change in me and said that Tom's courtship had done me a very great deal of good. ' You no longer roll your eyes,' said she, ' when you argue, and redden and strut and heave up your breast when I venture to object to your views. You have become thoroughly genteel, my dear, in your tastes arid habits. Your captain will have a treasure in you. And it is very well that you did not marry him before he sailed, for I am certain that his influence as a husband would not have been so considerable as it has proved as a lover. Both he and you are now having plenty of leisure for thought, and when you come together at the altar you will know exactly what you are doing.' In the month ot November my little stepsister died of peritonitis. I offered to nurse her when it reached my ears that she was ill in bed ; Mr Stanford thanked me ; and while I nursed her I learned to love the poor little delicate creature, and my heart reproached me for the unconquerable coldness I had ever felt toward her, when I stooped and kissed her white face in death and beheld a faint copy of my mother there. I cannot tell to what degree Mr Stanford was affected by his loss ; his colourless countenance betrayed but little of what might pass in his mind. Had I found his grief very great, then the loneliness of his state would have pleaded, and I might have forced myself into some show of civility. But there was nothing in his behaviour after his child's death to appeal, and we speedily passed again into our old, cold relations of separate existence and fixed dislike of him on my side as a fellow who had impudently thrust himself into my father's place. The nursing of the poor child, however,

I together with my grief at h'er death and my secret fretting over not hearing' from' Tom, \ made me look ill, if I did not feel so - my aunt was concerned and insisted upon my seeing her medical adviser, who recommended her, spite of its being winter, to take me to the seaside. It was tho month of February ; hard, cold weather. My aunt knew and liked Ramsgate, and proposed that town. TMtlier- we went and took lodgings in.Wellington 1 Orient,- a, pleasant row of buildings immediately' overlooking the English Channel. After Ave had been in Rah?s'g'ate. & few days I felt so poorly that I was obliged to 1 keep nly bed. My aunt called in a doctor who ss*d that I was ' out.' He sent me physic, which I did not take, and told me to keep my bed till I felt equal to rising. My bed was so situated that when my blind was up I saw the ocean. If the day was clear I could faintly spy afar upon the horizon the delicate golden thread of the Goodwin Sands. I'd watch the ships slowly floating past this side of the thin line like little clouds of powder smoke gliding ball-shaped from the mouths of cannon, and listen to the faint thunder of the surf combing the beach under the chalk cliffs, and find a meaning for the voice, of the wind as it shrilled with \ hissing of steam past the casement of sang in the interstices or muttered in the chimney- The sight of the sea brddght Tom very close to me, closer than ever he could lie upon my heart at home amid streets and the rattle of coaches and carts. O/rie morning, while I was confined to my bed, my' aunt did not come to my room as was her tidstom 1 after breakfast. I enquired of the servant how slid was, and was told that she was pretty well, but she had passed an uneasy night. I asked if there were ah'y r letters, for I was always expecting to hear from" Tom under cover from my maid, whom I had left at home. Tho girl replied that Mrs Johnstone had received one letter, and that £he're vvas 1 none for me. It was not until after 1 twelve that my aunt came to see me. She looked ill,- and there was a peculiar expression of distress 1 on' her face. She came to the foot of my bed and g&Zed at me earnestly, and asked me how I felt. I said that I felt better, and hoped to find \ strength to rise for a few hours towards evening. ' Ydu are not looking well, aunt.' ' I am not feolitig well, Marian.' ~ I hope you have riot received bad news from home ?' ■ , ■ ' I have had a broken night,' she said, turning away and going to the window and speaking with her back toward me. ' Have you any news of Will ?' ' No,, no,' she cried, quickly, still with her back turned. ' There is no news of Will. I believe you are better, my dear.' And then she asked me what I could fancy 1 for dinner, and so changed the subject with a readiness Which quieted the misgiving her looks had excited. She came and went during the day as she had heretofore done; but she was more silent, more reserved than usual, and often her eye rested Upon me, though she shifted her gaze when I looked tut her. I rose in the afternoon, but in a few' hours was glad to get to bed again. Next day I felt docidedly better and stronger. It was a bright, still day, cloudless, and the sun lay warm upon the land, and the sea stretched like a polished plate of steel, full of gleams of different shades of blue. I went down to the pier in an old-fashioned ricketty chair, and my aunt walked by my side. The harbour was gay with the red canvas of smacks ; a number of ships Of many rigs lay close in against the wall, and their white canvas hung motionless in festoons, drying after the rain or dew of the night. The gweot, ..salt, still atmosphere was refreshing to 1 the very innermost life of one. All sounds came in a sort of music from the town, and I heard a gay ringing Of church bells, as for a marriage; the tones, silvered to the ear by distance, mingled pleasantly with the noise of the foaming of the strong tide, racing off the rounded base of the pier. I said to aunt: ' When Tom and I are married we shall often come to Ramsgate, and perhaps live here. Ido not wonder that you like place.' In silence she stepped to the side of the pier, and seemed to look earnestly at the figure of a smack that had dropped her anchor about a mile off, her brown sails hoisted, and the image under her as perfect as a mirror could reflect it. When she returned to my side she spoke of the beauty of the day, and the difference between the airs of Stepney and of Ramsgate, and we then leisurely returned to our lodgings. I was sure that some trouble weighed upon her mind, but as my questions seemed to make her peevish, as her worry might relate to something which she would wish to conceal from me, I forbore further inquiry. That day passed, and next day I was well enough to rise after breakfast, and go into the drawing room, where I sat upon a sofa wheeled close to the window. I was reading a novel Which my aunt had borrowed from the Marino Library, and had wholly forgotten myself in the interest of the story. My aunt had beon absent for at least an hour ; I believed she was out shopping. She entered without her bonnet, and coming to the sofa sat down, took me by the hand and looked me in the face. The tears gushed into her eyes suddenly, and for a few moments she moved her lips in a vain effort to speak. She then said : ' I dare not conceal it longer from you, Marian. But oh, what news it is ! How am I to break it to you ?' I threw the book down. The neck of my dress seemed to strangle me ; mechanically I ! removed my brooch and eased the tension ol ) the heck with my finger while I looked at her. ' It concerns Tom,' she said. 'ls he dead ?' said I, speaking with a heightened note in my voice that carried it outof recognition of my own hearing. 'No.' c Is it very bad news ?' ' Marian,' she said, beginning to cry again, 'it is shocking bad news. It is incredible. It may all come right, but it is not the less terrible.' I drew in several deep breaths and said : ' Why will you not tell mo this dreadful news of Tom ?' ' He is in London.' 'ln London!' I shrieked, springing to my feet. , , She pulled me gently to the sofa, and putting her hand in her pocket, drew forth a letter. ' Your health would not allow me to speak to you before,' said she in a broken voice ; 'even now I fear that I am in too great a hurry. But what am I to do ? You would not thank me for any longer concealing the truth. Tom is in prison, Marian.' I stared at her and shivered. ' You uncle's letter,' she continued, opening it with hands that trembled excessively, will better explain what has happened than I can. Will you read i t ?' I took it; the handwriting reeled; I re-

turned 1 the letter to her and said, ' Read it to

me, aunt;' She did 1 so. Jt was to this effect; after all these years I an* -suable to give it you word or word: —

' I have a terrible pices of news to convey to poor Maiian through you. Captain Butler has arrived in London, having sent home by the British Consvd at Rio in H.M.S-Cru-sader. He is charged by the mate and carpenter of the Arab Chief vrith attempting tc* scuttle' her. These two men., together with two sailofS belonging to the crew of the Arab Chief, are landed with him from the Crusader. He instantly sent for me, but I wish there were not so many witnesses against him. That he is absolutely innocent, and that he is the victim of an atrocious conspiracy, I have not a shadW of a doubt. He will be charged at Bow street ott Monday, and will be advised to reserve his defence. He will be committed, of course, to take his trial at the Old Baftey., and we must hope to come off with flying colours. But I say again I cotclcil wish there were fewer witnesses. Four to one are fearful odds.'

My aunt had read thus far when- a Sash cC lightning seemed to pass over my eyes and L remembered no more. I recovered from a fit rather than a swoon % I had been for above an hour unconscious, and found myself on my bed with the doctor on ono hand of me and my aunt on the other. The doctor went away soon after I had regained my mind. Memory was slow in coming. It rushed in upon me on a sudden with its burthen of horror.

" What are you going to do, Marian ?' ' I am going to London.' ' Lie still, my dear child. You ca.nnot go> to London to-day. I'll book by the coach tomorrow morning. I'll write to your, uncle,and send the letter to Canterbury to catch the Hover mail «oach. He will be ready to receive us and give ti© all the news.' And, indeed, I should have found myselit too weak in body to carry out- my resolution' to go at once to London. The railway to. Ramsgate was not then made. Ido not knoiv that it was even in contemplation. A eoach. left early for London from Ramsgate* every morning. It carried the mails, I think,- and. travelled by way of Canterbury. When my aunt found me somewhat composed, she went to the office to secure placesjj by the coach on the morrow. She left me her husband's letter, and I read it again and again, and every time I read it I rolled my eyes round the room, seeking to realise that I was awake. . # ~,..; There was something shocking and frightful to me in my uncle's speaking of the Old Bailey.- I associated it with Newgate Prison. Living in the city as I did, well did I know +he grim, dark, massive walls of that horrid! g-iol. Wouid Tom be locked up in that prison, which I coidd not think of without a sickening fancy of the executions there—of the remorseless human beasts, men and women, white with gin, gaping with the lust 65 blood, gathered together to witness the sight; of the filthy tenements round about, every window pale with the eager faces of cowards and devils, the grimy roofs littered with sightseers? What was Tom charged with ? What was the meaning of scuttling a ship ? What punishment was the act visited with ? Was a man hanged for scuttling ? I paced about the room in the agony of my mind till I sank with exhaustion into a chair. I dug the nails of my fingers into my palms till the blood sprang. Tom in prison . r The gentlest, the tenderest, the truest, the most honourable of men, charged with a dreadful crime—a hanging crime, perhaps! O God ! and locked up in a gaol! (To be continued.)