A Troubled Night.

Otago Witness, Issue 1160, 21 February 1874, Page 24

A Troubled Night.

BY MRS. PRICE, AUTHOR OF "THE CLERK'S DAUGHTER," ETC., ETC. Chapter I.

Some few autums ago, the rector of a little sea-side parish sat conning his books in the quiet of his own study. It was a wild October evening, the wind twirling and rushing up the short drive that lay between the front door of the house and the gate in the shrubbery which divided the grounds from the high road ; dashes of rain beat against the window ; and underlying all came the faint monotonous break of the wave 3 upon the shore some half mile distant.

Mr. Fergusson was puzzled over his work, bothered by it in fact ; finally, he sought assistance of the inferior order of creation, to wit, his Avife, who sat opposite to him busily knitting children's socks. "Kate !" he ejaculated in an injured tone.

"Well, John?" The knitting needles kept going, though the plier thereof moved to her husband's side, and stooped to glance at what troubled him.

"These accounts are a frightful nuisance. I wish I had never undertaken such a piece of business ; it's no end of work for me, and not half a dozen of the people will thank me for it after all," Mr. Fergusson perfectly revelled in all sorts of parish work. Clubs, schools, " feasts, fasts, and festivals "—nothing came amiaa to him if he thought he saw his flock's welfare furthered thereby ; but he was a man who delighted in a good hearty grumble now and then, and his wife, understanding such moods well, always found it an excellent plan to treat them homoeopathically ; so to-night she proceeded on her usual tactics. "Suppose you shut the books up, John, and let us chat for an hour. You'll be sure to make your head ache, and then you won't sleep properly, if you go on. The people won't be coming up for their money before Thursday or Friday, and this is only Monday." ' ' The people wlil be coming up ft r their money, you most procrastinating woman," answered the husband. " Suppose you were to help me, now, instead of going on with that eternal knitting ; we might manage this between us, and have the gossip you are longing for afterwards. Now, then, who is Simon Green — the one on the common? And did he have his money out in April to buy a pig ? Now we shall get on, perhaps !" The knitting vanished, and the pair were soon immersed in club accounts, j Mrs. Fergusson's capital memory supplementing the rector's rather carelesslykept accounts admirably. An hour's work brought them to the end of their labours ; and Mr. Fergusson, on going to a large old-fashioned desk, and drawing therefrom three canvas bags full of gold and silver, had the satisfaction of finding the sum they contained tallied exactly with what waß required to pay all the depositors in theclub their proper amounts. ' ' I shall be glad when we get rid of it, he said, as he replaced the bags. "I am so unused to having such a sum as .-£7O in the house that I don't feel quite safe with it. Tt's to be hoped we shall never be rich, Kate. I have been accustomed I to £200 a year so long now, that I should feel out of my element with a larger income." His wife laughed, but she sighed too, thinking a little sadly thaUAe could easily dispose of somewhat larger means. All

the careful economy of the household, small ever-recurring acts of self-denial, modest persistent industry, fell to her lot ; and trifling as each separate detail might be, they formed together a tolerably heavy burden for every day wear. But when the day was done, and the two children were asleep, and the husband she esteemed the best of mankind was with her, her troubles slipped lightly from her mind, and she would gather courage and hope to meet the next day and the next. So now once more knitting, close to her husband's chair, they talked of their parish, their church, their home, and their children, and of what a terrible rough night was coining on. ' ' By the bye, was not Sarah to come home to-night ?" asked the husband. " Not till to-morrow ; she wanted one more day to see a sailor-brother who was coming home. I think, if you don't mind, John, I shall not keep Sarah longer than Christmas. I don't like some of her ways." "Then, my dear, it's your duty to try and improve them ; you took the girl out of charity ; don't give her up in a hurry. " "I'm not in a hurry, indeed; it is quite two months since I found her reading a letter of mine, which I left open on the table ; and that's not a pleasant habit for a servant to have, is it ? I talked to her kindly, but I believe she does the same sort of thing still, when she has the chance."

"Then don't give her the chance, Kate. You never find me leaving my letters about " ("0 John !") ; "orif I do, they are such as are not of the least consequence. As a matter of course, servants are inquisitive, women servants particularly ; their mistresses are not half careful enough in guarding against this natural curiosity, and then all the blame falls on the servant. Women are so unreasonable !"

Disregarding the uncivil comment on her sex, Mrs. Fergusson went on, " I did not know so well when I engaged Sarah what a bad character her Family bore : one brother has been in prison twice." " All the more reason for keeping this girl safe from evil influence. I hope she will be home to-morrow. Let me see, she said her mother was ill when she went home on Saturday , didn't she '?" Ah, I'll take her in hand myself when she comes back ! I fancy she has the making of a good servant iv her, in spite of little defects. You shouldn't be too hasty, Kate ; you are a clear little soul, but, like all women, you judge too impulsively, and — Who's that, 1 wonder j" A heavy step passed the window, followed by a ring at the hall bell. Mrs. Fergusson opened the study-door as Jane, their steady elder servant, passed down the stairs, candle in hand. "I've been sitting by Miss Rosie, ma'am ; she seems feverish-like and restless ; and I liked being with her better than sittin' all alone in the kitchen."

' ' I wonder if that's Sarah come home to-night instead of to-morrow," said her mistress.

"Lawk, no, ma'am, not likely," answered Jane ; ' ' but we'll soon see who it is ;" and pulling away the chain from the door, she opened it, disclosing a man's figure without. He was dripping wet, and had to hold his hat on with one hand, or the wind would have carried it far away ; the other hand he extended with a large damp yellow envelope therein. " A telegraft !" cried Jane, taking the missive from him and passing it on to her mistress, who in her turn carried it to her husband, and watched his face anxiously as he opened and read it. A grave perplexed look came over his features as he handed it back.

The message was from his brother at Fordham, a place forty miles distant, and ran thus :

" Come immediately — a third bad fit— my father anxiously expects you." "No help for it, Kate," said Mr. Fergusson, answering his wife's appealing look. "So much may depend on my seeing him once more, that I dare not choose but to go. How am Ito get to the station though in time for the ten o'clock mail, I wonder ? It's nearly nine now, and five miles on such a night as this would take me more than an hour to walk !" And, as if to corroborate his words, the rain came pelting down, rattling against the windows and down the water-pipes by the corner of the house. "Walk you cannot, John," answered hia wife, diverted easily from her first feeling of personal vexation by the dilemma her husband was placed in. "I know," uhe added quickly ; "the man who brought this message must go back past Mr. Holland's ; I will write a note, asking him to send Arnold and their dog-cart up for you. Anything is better than walking. I know he will do it for you." Mr. Holland was the clergyman's churchwarden and very good friend in all Sarish matters, and was always ready to o his rector a service, even to the extent of. (sending out his horeo and man on a

wet night for a drive of ten miles. Mrs. Fergusson wrote her note hurriedly, while her husband spoke to the telegraph official, who promised to "go to Mr. Holland's at once. When he was gone, Jane stood looking blankly from master to mistress, and then she said dolefully, " And please, sir, what's to become of us ?" " Become of you ! Why, you will stop and take care of the house, to be sure," said her master rather shortly. " Just take my thickest greatcoat and air it by the kitchen fire, please ; and bring me back my boots ; we shall have the horse up bofore I am ready if you don't look brisk." Then, closing the study -door upon himself and his wife, he added, " But 1 don't half like leaving yoxi at such a time, and with only one servant too, and all that money in the house. How awkwardly things happen sometimes !" - He was so heartily concerned, so evidently uneasy, that, as a matter of course, his wife cheered him up by assuming a bright courage that she was far from feeling. She fetched his coat and helped him on with it, and even made him take some supper — a hurried stand-up affair — but anything, she said, was better than going hungry on a journey ; then she found a big umbrella and winter gloves and a thick rug, which, if they got soaked with rain, could come back in the dogcart ; and, all these preparations made, she lighted a candle and held out her hand. He understood the gesture.

" God bless them !" ho said, and followed her up-stairs to where their children slept, to give their little sleeping faces a farewell kiss.

As he stood by their bed he heard the horse coining up to the door — the halfhour had passed too quickly ; but another thought struck him at the last moment.

" Don't leave that money down-stairs all night, Kate ; put it in my dressingroom ; or, stay, put it yonder " — and he pointed to a door partly overhung with a curtain — " that's the safest room in the house. Good-bye, my darling ; I will telegraph in the morning in time for the post-man to bring the message. If I'm not back to-morrow, get Allen and his wife to sleep in the house. God bless you, good-bye !" Another moment and he was gone, and Jane and her mistress looked two very lonely and deserted females indeed, as they stood peering out into the darkness, listening to the receding wheels. "Come, Jane, this will never do," said her mistress at last, wiping some raindrops and drops of another nature from her face. ' ' Let us see that all the doors and windows are fast ; then you had better get your supper, and we will make haste to bed."

But Jane liked a grievance occasionally, and being a little bit of a coward, she felt bound to make the most of her present situation. She declared if it were not for leaving her mistress alone, she would go then and there and fetch Mr. Allen, the schoolmaster, up to come and protect them during the night ; "for 0, the awfullest things she had read in the paper only the week before, of lone houses being robbed, and the master beat, and the maid's mouth tied up !" At this her mistress began to laugh. "I do think, Jane, Imusttieyowrmouth, or you will make me nervous. Get your supper, and come and tell me when you are ready for bed." Then she herself re-entered the study, and sat down to collect her thoughts somewhat after the hurry and turmoil of the last half-ho\ir.

This illness of her father-in-law ; wotild he relent at the last, and let her husband share his property with his other children ? Differences arising out of John Fergusson's marriage with a clowerless woman, fomented by petty family jealousies, strengthened by the independent attitude the young man had assumed — such differences had been, after all, the heaviest grief of Mrs. Fergussoii's married life. And now she wondered and pondered on them, till the clock on the chimney-piece struck the hour of ten and startled her out of her meditations. "This is the night," she thought, " for winding that timepiece xvp ;" and she sought among the ornaments for the key. In her search she found something she had not expected — this letter, not in an envelope, slipped behind the time-piece most likely as soon as read :

' ' Dear Sir— The sum you name in your letter of the 6th, i.e. £70. will be remitted to you in the form you request on Monday the 10th inst. The receipt of Mr. Holland will be quite sufficient. — We beg to remain yours obediently, "William and Fredk. Mathers, Managers of tbo Forcllwm Savjngs-Bank "

"Oh, John, you careless man!" murmured hia wife, "and yet you say you never leave anything about ! This is the 10th, bo that's been lying there three days, I suppose, I'm very

glad Sarah has been out most of the time ! "

"If you please, 'm, I'm going up-stairs now as soon as I've cleared those things away," said Jane, entering with a respectfully aggrieved air ; " and glad I shall be to get to bed ; for what with the night being so rough, and master his goin' off so suddint, I feel all queer-like, as if I had the cold shivers runnin' down the spine of my back. "

When the servant left the room, Mrs. Fergusson remembered her husband's injunction ; took the bags of money from the desk, and carried them to the room he had desired ; there locking them securely in a small closet or safe.

This done, she went and stole her youngest born, Ruth, from her little cot and carried her off to her own bed. A lingering good-night over her darling Rosie, the six-year-old daughter, whose sweet tender young face looked wonderfully like her mother's, and soon Kate Fergusson was sleeping by her child, her husband's likeness under her pillow, and a prayer for his quick return filling even her sleeping thoughts.