FICTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVII, Issue 2549, 29 June 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

FICTION.

ft PLAY-ACTRESS' CHILD: THE MINISTER'S CHARGE.

A selector reading from tho opening chapters cf "The Piny-Actress/ Uy 8. U. Crocket, author of the ‘Stickit Minister,* ‘The Haiders,' &c. G. P, Putnam's Sons.

It was tbo preacher’s opening prayer. William Grcig, elder, was in his place, and there was nut a scat vacant in all that silent church. The Old Hundred had gone up to the throne of God with a grand rush, swinging from the hearts of these plain Scottish folk like the tramp of armies. William Groig always thought of his dead wife as they sang it, and of sitting by her side when the white cloths were laid in the Hill Kirk for the earthly communion of the saints. Then through the hush come the opening sentences of the prayer of invocation. The voice of the Great Preacher, clear, rich and re* sonant in oratory, takes on a tender and more intimate tone in prayer. There runs through its pathetic fall a vibration, as though the minister’s heart were singing like an iEolian harp as the breath of the Spirit of God blew through its strings. ‘ For the weak and the sinful, O Lord, we pray ; for those who often say to themselves, “ I will make a full end, and the end is not yet ” ; for lonely men with hidden sins gnawing at their hearts, who are compelled to wear a fair front, wo pray. Do Thou have mercy on them.’ And in the corner, by the gallery, an elder bowed his head and said: ‘ Father, forgive, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’ ‘ For the weary and the heavy laden, Lord, wo pray; for those who have none on the earth to whom to tell their grief. Teach them to toll it to 'J hysclf when the nights are long and the morning watches silent.’ ‘ Thom that are young, forget not,’ pleaded the thrilling voice, quivering and throbbing high among the plain beams of the sanctuary, as'though it wore soaring upward, seeking for God among the stars. ‘ Forget them not, ©von when they have forgotten Thee. May they know that the heart of the Father is willing to receive and to forgive. If we that are fathers upon the earth are so ready to forgive, how much more ready art Thou to pardon and receive !’ Deep within him tho Great Preacher was crying out; ‘ Oh, my boy Willie, lad of my love and of tho dead mother’s care, whore art thou ? May tho Lord in His Providence send thco homo after these many years.’ This was his unspoken, perpetual prayer. High in tho dusk of tho gallery, where only two skylights look down, like high-sot peepholes for tho angels to spy out men’s hearts as they sit in the narrow pews, a young woman sat, her head bowed on her hand, and tho tears dripping steadily through her thin fingers. She wore a plain black dross, and a fair-haired little girl sat beside her. ‘ Remember, Lord,’ tho prayer continued, pouring from tho old high-galleriod pulpit, ‘ all those whom others have forgotten —those who have been wronged and trodden upon, whoso burden is heavier than they can bear. Bo Thou near them, groat Bearer of Burdens, Sharer of tho Yoke, Strong Son of the Strong Lord.’

Tho prayer ended in tho rising rustle of tho heart-bowed congregation. The young woman in tho gallery stilled her sobs, dried her tears, as she sat up. Then, low within herself, she said : f Ho is not as I thought to bo. I shall stay and speak to him at the cud. It may bo that ho will yet forgive !’ So tho Groat Preacher finished his sermon in the Kirk of tho Hill. Then there was a solemn pause. Tho collection was now to bo taken, tip from their scats arose the elders —gravo, grey-headed, responsible men, as it became the children of the Covenant oven unto the third and fourth generation. But the collection was a very solemn thing. It was an act of worship. Tho Groat Preacher came down quietly as the kirk scaled, and received in dignified and tender silence, broken only by a word or two of sympathy, tho soft-spoken congratulations of some who remembered him as a youth •, for they wore many who stayed behind in order to grasp him for a moment by the hand. The last worshipper was gone out. Stephen Armstrong was in tho session-house with his elders as they counted the collection. Tho Groat Preacher stood with his hands behind him, still breathing quickly witli the exorcise of the sermon, looking through the doorway over tho prospect of snug homestead and cosy town.

A young woman in black, holding a little girl by the hand, came up the path to speak to him. Gilbert Rutherford withdrew his eyes from the haze of afternoon that lay over the half-dozen, parishes of the seaboard, and lot them rest on the young woman's face. .But she did not offer to shako hands with him, though ho stretched out his hand instinctively towards her. The daughter of one of his former acquaintances in this place, he thought—a sweet-looking lass, better dressed than common. But the young woman looked him very straight in the face, and there was something in her eye to hold his soul attentive.

‘ Can you still do justly and love mercy,’ said the young woman in black, k or have you preached all your righteousness away ?’ It was a strange address. The accent was English of the South, and the words were spoken with an incision and a directness foreign to Galloway. The Great Preacher was arrested. Ho had not been so spoken to since his own father dealt with him after the success of his first day’s preaching. But he recognised tho voice of one faithful and reverent by nature, though tho mouth that spake, being that of a young and not illfavoured Englishwoman, was a most unlikely one from which a rebuke to a preacher of tho Covenanted Kirk of Scotland should proceed. ‘ I trust,’ said the Great Preacher, looking as straightly and simply into the eyes of the young girl as though she had been his equal in years and standing—‘l trust that both before and after preaching tho Word I can do justly and do mercy. No man has accused me in being lacking in either ’ —a swift thought struck him—* though often they have done so,’ ho added, with characteristic self-reproach. * Then,’ said tho young woman, with tho same strange directness, ‘ to-day yon have spoken and prayed about the prodigal. Hero is the prodigal’s child for you to cherish—tho daughter of William Rutherford, your son, who died on tho Island of Jamaica, Before nightfall you can prove your preaching.* Tho Great Preacher was also a groat man, which is not so common. His eyelid did not quiver, though his heart leapt to hear from the lips of this stranger girl that, though there was no new mound beside those down on the green strath by tho Warristoun Water, tho last of his blood and name had passed away from tho earth. Yet oven in that moment ho took tho stroke obediently from the Lord’s hand, as he had taken all the rest.

* You say my son is dead,’ he said at last, very quietly. * Your son is dead,’ replied the girl. 1 Bring you any message from him to me ?’ The girl handed him a letter. It was brief, written on thin paper blurred and wrinkled, and in characters which slanted irregularly aoross the page, heedless of the faint blue rulings. 1 Father,’ the letter began, ‘ I mind mo now in a far country of the prodigal you speak of, but yon one had the bettor of mo. Ho arose and went to his father. I would arise to come to you, but cannot. I lie on my dying bed on the sea-board of this Isle of Jamaica and drink the bitter cup I browed. You would receive your boy Willie, I well know. Even now you would forgive me. Could I'come, I should have no fear of that. I wish I wore just as sure of God. But I’ll e’en have to risk it. There’s a bairn of mine in London. I beseech you, if an opportunity comes, take the child into your home—but never the mother, oven if she be still alive and should ask to be received. Somehow, I want to think that my little lass, that I shall see no more in this world, may hear the noise of the Warristoun Water as it runs past the garden end down to the Grey Town, as I heard when 1 was still your boy, and innocent. Father, take the bairn if she comes to you, for the sake of the boy that played horses with you in the old orchard, among the apple trees! Oh, let her not oat of that bonny garden into the cruel world. Father, pray for mo, oven though I bo dead before this comes to you. The Lord will hear you even if He has me in the deep pit. Pray, father, and for the bit lassie’s sake, and His own Son’s sake, Ho will hoar. Good-night, my father; I must atop. The candle is going out,’ The letter stopped without signature or other farewell, as though the ink had run dry. Gilbert Rutherford did not think of the theology of the last passage, for his tears were running now like rain. His heart told him that hero the candle hod indeed gone out.

The young woman in black had withdrawn herself and stood apart. The little girl was playing with the daisies on the grass under the kirk dike. ‘ Thank God,’ ho said to himself. ‘ I am glad my boy is not a castaway. He trusted mo and be would not have been ashamed,

Should he trust God in vain? God forbid 1 44 If ye, then, being evil,” ’ he quoted, 4 “ how much more shall your Heavenly Father?” The Great Preacher turned to the girl. Within himself ho was persuaded to take the child, but for all that he was a Scot, and cautious.

4 And who arc you that bring my son’s daughter to me?’ he asked kindly. The girl looked him in the face. 4 1 act stage plays in Loudon,* she said, simply. ‘ Are you the mother of the child ?’ cried Gilbert Rutherford, seeing himself suddenly in deep waters. 4 I am sister to her who is/ said the girl. ‘ Then why do you take the young child away from her mother ?’ said the preacher, eyeing the girl with his lids drooped, and only a pencil-dot of light shining steadily under the gray stoop of his drawn brows. ‘ Because the mother, my sister, that was j-our son’s wife, has now no claim on her child. lam not a lawyer, but I shall put you in communication with those who can satisfy you of that.’ * And whore is the mother, my sou’s widow r’

4 Once she was a wife. Now she is neither wife nor widow/ said tho girl, with a certain sternness of justice which was not lost upon that very just man, Gilbert Rutherford. 4 How is that ?’ said he, quickly. ‘He divorced her!’ said the girl, looking away for the first time. 4 For cause ?’ queried Gilbert. ‘How else?’ said tho girl, with a kind of breaking cry that told more than anything the restraint she had put upon herself. ‘ Now/ she said, ‘ I will leave you with your son’s'child. I heard that you were to be in Cairn Edward to-day, and I had friends in the neighbourhood. I love the child more than my life. But she must be brought up away from her mother, from the life in tho city, from everything—and from me/ she added, with a sob.

4 Como back to tho‘Grey Town with us/ said Gilbert Rutherford, impulsively, forgetting for an instant his position, ills heart was strangely moved through all his sixty years by the plain-spoken, clear-eyed girl in black, who acted stage plays in London. 4 And tho elders of the kirk ?’ queried the girl, with wonderful sense for an Englishwoman.

Gilbert Rutherford came to himself in a moment. Ho knew that in this she was right. ‘ You at least aro good and true. You will toll me your name and where I can find you ?* ho said.

‘ i am called Bessie Upton ; but it is bettor that you should not know where to find me, I shall always he able to find you,’ ‘And what will you do?’ ho asked, with some anxiety. 4 1 shall go back to London and support my sister as I have done before/

4 You will allow me to help ’ 4 No/ said the girl, 4 that I cannot. I have brought you all that can have any claim on you.—Ailio !’ she called to the child, suddenly, Tho little girl came running to her. 4 Look, Aunt Bessie, what pretty daisies I have found for you. Take them all from Ailie !’ she cried.

The heart of Gilbert Rutherford gave a great stouud. That was his wife’s name, tho name of tho Ailio that had been his bride and Willie’s mother.

4 How can you give her up ?’ ho said, wondoringly, looking from the one to tho other. Tho actress of stage plays turned on the minister for the first time with a sudden anger. ‘ Oh, what right have you, who are getting all, to make it harder for me than it is V she cried, clasping her white, nervous fingers. 4 You will come to see her ?’ said Rutherford.

‘ It wore bettor not/ she said yieldingly. Ho knew that also to bo true, but in spite of that thought he said again—--4 But you will come ?’ 4 1 will come/ she said.