Chapter IX. A Talk by the Sea.

Otago Witness, Issue 1853, 27 May 1887, Page 33

Chapter IX. A Talk by the Sea.

A soft, balmy evening in summer. The sun sinking slowly towards the sea, tinged with burning, glowing colours ; the clouds in the wesb. The rugged outlines of the cliffs were softened and smoothed by the rich light. A moment more and the sun had sunk ; gradually the clouds changed from crimson to gold, from gold to pale blue and grey ; the haze about the hills deepened, their outlines growing more and more indistinct, and a solitary star, which at first seemed small and far away, grew larger and brighter as the twilight deepened. The tiny waves fell upon the sands with a murmured lapping sound, higher up over the pebbles they laughed and sang, further on still they lashed and shouted against the giant rocks, while from a long, long, long way off came their murmur, like the moan of a human heart in pain. One after another the lights appeared in the cottage windows, casting a long bright streak over the darkening waters. Sitting on an old boat, apparently indifferent to the lapse of time, and watching the changing pictures of the sky, was Bret Huntley. He sat on motionless till the moon rode into the heavens, leaving a path of glory beiiind it on the sea, silvering the waves, and beautifying everything on which its pure beams fell. The moon beams fell full upon Bret's face ; it was a grave, grand face just then, tender with human kindness, and the steelblue eyes had lost for the time their questioning, doubting expression. Presently he rose to his feet, and, with another lingering look at the fair picture before him, turned a nd walked slowly along the shore. " Strange ! " he murmured, " that to-night I should think so long about my mother and m y home life when a boy ! Pooh ! did I come here, as Jack foretold, to grow sentimental by the sea ? Two weeks to-day since arrived, and not bored yet. Pulls upon the bay, eating fruit, carrying the luncheon°asket on walking tours, smoking cigars, a nd turning over the music have constituted pleasures. Bret Huntley, is it you ? No, Mother, 'tis your little boy again." He laughed softly, but not satirically, and J to go in. At the door-way he met kaura, looking very pretty, but rather sad in I the moonlight, J

! "Mr Huntiey," she said impulsively, " I want to' speak to you for a moment:" They stepped out into the garden. " About Jack," she continued' in explanai 1 tion. " You 'remember the first talk we had ! together you asked me if I could trust you sufficiently tb call you friend ? " ' ■ ' " I remember." " Arid we shook hands upon it 1 " "Yes." ' ' ' " Well, Mr Huritly, I knew nothing of you then " "Thank God!" ejaculated he above 'his' breath. ' " ''*'";'( "What did you say?" but receiving no' reply she continued : " I knew nothing of you then, but I trusted you. I know you, now much better, and I trust you much,' more. You are Jack's friend, too, ami 1 he' thinks a great deal of your opinion,"' , She stopped, and he, wondering what was coming, looked hard at her. , Meeting -Kis' gaze she continued : ' ■ ** ' \ " I doD't know if all this seems strange Vo. you, and whether or not young ladies, would all act the same, but my governess< always taught me it was never wrong to do the right ; and it seems to me a very great deal > goes crooked, and gets in a tangle in the 1 world, for want of courage simply to speak out, you know." "I know.", • ■• • "1 -. He was amused and pleased. Seeing' his smile Laura smiled, too — a quick, bright smile ; but, suddenly becoming grave again, continued: ■ < i " You are Jack's^ friend, but- pardon, me if I say not always as' true a friend as you might be." Half afraid of the result of these words ■ she waited for his reply. It came : " Take my arm and come > down to the beach. This wants talking about. Allow me to fold your scarf closer round you 1 ; after the hot day one is apt to take cold. Mind the stones. Well 1 " " It doesn't sound a kind thing to say, I, know, but men very often are enemies to one another in the kindness of their hearts towards each other. If one man has a fault, a weakness — say a leaning towards drink, for instance — his friend, instead of taking the glass away from the man he lqves, offers it to him to show his friendship ; or if not that, appears blind ; or if not that, sees but says nothing." " My dear young lady, the friendship between man and man makes no pretensions, aims at nothing, but is simply a means oftener than not of killing time. „ ,You meet a fellow and you admire him, or he admires you, or perhaps neither admires, simply likes the other. You become chums'; he has his faults, you have your own ; by-and-bye a change of circumstances separates -you. You can't saddle yourself with the responsibility of being your brother's keeper ; he goes his way and you go yours, and' there's, an end of it." " Oh no, not the end of it — not the end of it, Mr Huntley. We leave our mark behind us on every heart we pass through." " And mine " " You shall not say it ! *' she interrupted passionately. " I know by your look that it is nothing good. You make me angry — angry with you. You doubt the sky above your head, the ground beneath your feet ; with life, and strength, 1 and youth,' and talent, with energy and courage— to do nothing, to attempt nothing; because you won't believe in anything. You drag everything down to the ground. I say," she continued, standing off a step or two and looking full at him, " that there is strength and power, self-sacrifice and truth in human love ; and with human beings round you it is a shame for you to. doubt. If I were a man like you, and had a friend like Jack — a trusting, thoughtless, good-natured boy — I wouldn't let him find out bit by bit.-' what folly it was to go through byeways .before he took the main road to manhood I If I -were a man with your bitter experience of .doubt and pain through beginning life wrongly, and called another man my friend, I'd wake him up when he lay down to sleep, and set him right every time I saw him wrong,' whether he resented or no : not leave him alone to arrive scratched and bruised where every true-hearted man must come at last — to his best self." " Experience is the surest teacher." "Must every vessel, then, be wrecked before it steers past the rocks ? .There are beacons, Mr Huntley." . " There are," he answered, his eyes upon her ; •' there are. Girl," he added suddenly, " what do you want me to do ? " " I appeal to you — in the name of the friendship between us, and in the name, of your friendship for Jack — to exercise the power you hold over him for his good." . " But, Miss Howard, in what direction ? I see nothing to reform in your cousin, and if I did, Heaven knows I am the last to' attempt the reformation ! It would be the essence of presumption on my part to turn preacher. Bret Huntley in that capacity would be a consummate hypocrite. But what is wrong? Are you not distressing yourself unnecessarily ? Jack is one of the best fellows in the world ! " - "He isn't ! " exclaimed Laura, with such an amount of energy that Bret turned right round to look at her. "He isn't, and you know he isn't 1 That's just the. way we | flatter ourselves and those we care most for 1 i You asked just now what was wrong. I— rl don't quite know, Mr Huntley ; but something is, something must be." " Reasoned like a . woman," said Bret, 1 laughing. v Something is, something must be." " There must be ! " repeated Laura, "or Jack would have some ambition— some aim in life worthy of a man, and you are the only one in the world I would admit it to ; but he hasn't, and you know he hasn't." " Well, Jack certainly does take naturally to any harmless amusement or diversion, and has the capacity to enjoy it too, Happy Jack I You cannot expect a young fellow, overflowing with good health and spirits,.to look upon life as a chapter of untold woes and sorrowful accidents. Wait till he gets a tumble or two ; he'll get up and maker a wry face for a minute, then mind where he's going afterwards." " But these tumbles. Oh. JMr Huntjey,

how ihe^fclessiyVpu^putiV IFqrgive mci I feel deepiy on this subject. These tumbles soil and ;mar the,.beauty^ of the man, and, drag so often — so very often— the hopes, and' pride, and toil, and joy of others down, too, into the dnst. Yet; the world seems to have grown so used to it that we hear on all, sides' - — « it is natural,' ' it must ' be,' ' it always, is, so.' It need-Tiot be. No life need go all' wrong before ib begins right. Every day wasted in this way is a day lost. I iread, somewhere onee — 'When a man simply allows himself to be carried from place to place without an intention, he • cannot be called a traveller.' See, after a few years' of going on like that, what a long way there is to go back before a man' can make a start in earnest I" ... , ! * '. '-"You were a loss to the pulpit. - With, such an indomitable will and untiring energy you would strain every nerve to keep your flock ahead, of the times. Little girl— little girl — don't trouble your gentle self about 'the big, unprofitable world, and dim your bright eyes with weeping over its sins. ' So much warmth and zeal will make an old woman of you before your time. Cease from grieving, over the trifling omissions and com T missions of others. If Jack, by ' undue temptation,, is induced to 1 transgress, selfreproach and contrition soon follow. 1 ! a bad man is generally the outcome of condensed evil ; Jack evaporates too quickly to' •do .much harm. He will be a fine fellow one day, will Jack." ■ " I know it." . ; "• He was not born to shame ; upon his brow shame 1 is ashamed to sit,' " quoted 1 Bret., "So Shakespeare wrote of Jack ; and Mason says, ♦ 'Tis 'ever thus .with noble minds 'if chance ' they stoop to folly. Remorse stings deeper, and relentless conscience pours more gall into the bitter-cup.' Miss Laura, have patience. It is your scanty 'knowledge of the world that makes you unaware how, difficult it is for a man surrounded with the corrupting influences of. that world. to maintain unimpaired the impressions of his, boyhood. When I was a boy I meant' to carve out a great name, and the world has carved out of me a great cynic, so that now I haven't enough faith to see the use of, aiming very high. In the name of right, hundreds of vile wrongs have, been committedi" he continued, with a passionate earnestness unlike his usual quiet manner. " The devil doesn't go abroad in these days, ' like a roaring lion, but in the mask of God, , seeking whom he may devour.' Girl,- the world teems with reeking rottenness, as you ,will learn, must learn, in passing through. .If you could come to me 20 years hence, and say, 'I still believe in God and man,' I ! should be astonished. I remember an old soldier slapping me on the back one day, and saying, 'Nothing for nothing in this world, and precious little for a shilling, my lad,' and I've found it true — precious little, indeed:" " Don't you know," said Laura, passing through the gate, as he held it open for h^r to go through, " that the best way to get water out of an unwilling pump is to pour a little water in — just you try that for the future. A little faith will bring a lot of truth ; a little trust a lot of joy. You won't warm yourself in the sunshine because you can't find out what the sunbeams are made of, and if you are out in the cold it serves you right ! " and, with a merry nod, she rah away. Bret stood looking after her ; then, when she had vanished, laughed his own peculiar, quiet laugh, and lighting a cigar stood at the gate and smoked. The fragrance of the flowers in the garden was soon rivalled by the fragrance of the cigar. " Penny for your thoughts." Another smoker had come up to the gate, and lolling against the vacant post stood placidly waiting for the answer. It did not come. Bret continued smoking, and betrayed no sign of having either seen or heard his friend. ' > Jack tried him again presently. ; ■ " Composing an ode to the moonlight ? " ' " Comrjosing an ode to a fool ! " " Let's have it." Bret removed his cigar. : " O thou ass ! thou arfc the most consummate ass that ever walked this braying earth." » " Reads pretty ! " interrupted Jack. " Thou comest," continued Bret, " to recreate and refresh thy brain and body by a holiday, and thou gettest in with idiots and sharpers, who fleece thee of thy wool which it has taken thee 12 months to grow. That's the first verse." "Very good. You might give us the second," said Jack with quiet sarcasm. " When thou art at work thou workest like a man, when thou art at play thou playest - like a boy. If thou art not careful, lad, thou wilt repent of this thy folly in sackcloth and ashes, and, thou wilt bring sorrow to gentler hearts than thine, and tears to eyes that never ought to weep." Bret relighted his cigar, and both young men smoked on in silence. "Poems are always open to criticism," said Jack by-and-bye, and my opinion of the man who composed that is that he didn't know what he was talking about, and that for the future he had better leave such compositions alone. Good-night." "Good-night." (To be continued.)