Chapter 11.

Otago Witness, Issue 2130, 20 December 1894, Page 8

Chapter 11.

A retrospect and an accident.

The two friends, Hawkston and Forsyth, ■were both fine specimens of the English gentleman. The former was a young man of 24 or 25 years of age, of good family, and exceedingly well off ; the latter a oaptain in the army and 35 years of age. Sick and tired of London gaiety and late hours, they determined upon a tour round the world. After visiting Egypt and the Pyrarnidß they bad gone on to Bombay, and through the oold season had inspected a number of places of interest. Together they visited Delhi, and gazed with wonder at its mc-Equeß and minarets; were delighted with the beauties of the majestic Taj at Agra; felt their hearts burn within them by the well at Cawnpore, and had together subdued with fljfficulty the inclination to kick the cringing Brahmins around them until again their anger died awar Into pity, as they viewed

buggy by the driver, sprang up and, stooping forward, cried :

" Listen I Don't yon hear wheels ? " At the moment there was a jolt, and he was jerked out of the trap and between the hor«p'fi heels. Before the horse could be stopped there was a sickening lift of first the fore tnd then the hind wheel of the buggy, and a faint groan was heard.

" Hullo ! " cried a sweet girlish voice from the dark around. " Who ib that 1 Didn't something fall 1 lam bo sorry, but I could neither Ree nor hear you until our wheels touched."

" I am afraid someone is hurt, Miss," answered Bill Jackson, the driver. "A gentleman fell out of the buggy, and the wheel has gone over him." Cjptain Forsyth had at once sprung off the back of the trap, and hastened to the dark form lying on the road, but when he attempted to raise Hawkston In his arms ho groaned and said :

" Don't touch me, old fellow 1 I think a rib or two are broken, and I am afraid my right leg is also broken where the buggy went over it."

" Here, driver," called the captain, "we can't take him on — he is too much hurt for that ! Is there any house near where we can take him, at least until a doctor has set his broken limba 1 "

" Our house is close by," answered the girl's voice again from the dark — "Mr M'Lean's farm ; you have just passed the gate, and if you will turn back I will warrant you a welcome."

" A welcome, indeed I " growled Oaptain Forsyth between bis testh. "It is all owing to you, you young jade, that the trouble has come" ; but " Thank you, young lady ; if you will kindly show the way we will follow," was what he said aloud.

With infinite care poor Hawkston was raised, and the back seat of the buggy being removed, he was laid on the cushions spread on the platform, and then at a walking pace they turned into \h». farmer's pate and up to bis front door. The girl had taken her cart round to tbe back door, and, bitching the horse to a hook, had hastened into the kitchen whero Duncan M'Lean and his son William were smoking their pipes. It. did not take many minutes to inform them of what had taken place. William jumped into the spriDg cart and went for the doctor, whilat old Duncan and the girl hurried round to the front door, for the cold crusts of wind

nurse, were dispensed with, and be reluctantly admitted that the patient could be moved to the hotel, as Oaptain Forsytb wished, but the patient himself strongly objected to this courne ; he stated that, be preferred the quiet country farm, with the banksia reses and honeysuckles noddieig into the windows, and the hum of the beea, the lowing of the cows, and othsr farmyard noises to the rowdy bustle of a Harrowgate hotel. For the next few days Captain Forsyth acted as nurse, but Hawkaton saw he was gettiDg hipped and restless, so one day when he had just returned from a ride into the township, looking remarkably bored, he said : " Look here, Foruytb, old man, I am booked to lie on my back for the next four or five weeks; bat there is no reason why you should not carry out our original programme, and visit Mount Cook and the Otira Gorge."

" Nonsense, Hawkston ; I could not leave you all alone in this hole. Why, I should find you a gibbering idiot by the time I returned."

"Not at all; I should find lots to do pottering about the farm as soon as I could get about, arid in the meantime I see there are lots of books In the room. I wondor what they are ? A pack of rubbish, I suppose, as this is Mies Jess's room."

Forsyth walked over to the pretty bookcase hanging on the wall and began reading the titles of the books.

"'Pendennis,' 'The Newsomeß,' 'Esmond,' one, two, three— five of Dickens ' Romola,' 4 The Mill on th« Floss ' and ' Micldlcmarch,' 'Sartoi Resartus,' 'De Quincey,' Ben Jonson and Maßsenger's plays, Shakespeare 1 llullo I this young woman has a very good idea of what to read. Now what is below— Scott, Moore, Longfellow, Gareth and Lynette, Ruakin's ' Sesame and Lilies.' " " Good heavens 1 " cried Hawkston, " what a jolly lot of books I But how on earth did Jibs Jess get them ? They are all old works, not a modern novel among them. Anyhow there is lote of good reading in them, so you need have no fear of my feeling dull, old man, while you are away." Two days after the above conversation Captain Forsyth started on his broken tour, and for some days Hawkston found himself quite alone. The farmer and his son wore out from early morn till dewy eve, and the house would have been silent as the crave bat for the tuneful notes of Jess in the

you think Mr M'Lean, then, Is my father 1 " and she gave a little laugh. " lent he your father 1 " asked Hawkston. " Surely I have heard you call him so 1 "

" Yes, indeed, and a father he ha* buen to me ; but for him and dear Mrß M'Lean I should have been left to starve ! No, I can never forget hia goodness I " Ab she spoke the poor girl's eyes filled with tears. "Forgive me, please," whispered Hawkston, as he stretched out his hand towards her ; " I did not know, Jesßio ; I am so sorry. Still, I thought there was a difference between you and Mr M'Leaa and his son — your ppeech is different ; you are English, are you not ? Whilst there is no mistaking their broad Doric ; and, forgive me, but you seem better educated."

"My name is not Jessie," she replied, smiling through her tears — " It is Jesßica ; and I am not English, but Irish." " Won't yon tell me all about it 1 " he asked gently—" that is, if you don't mind. I should so like to bear your story." " There is not much to tell," she replied. "My father was Raymond Desmond, a medical man. I know he belonged to a good family, but know no more than that he was tbe youuger of two brothers, the elder of whom came into the family e»tate. For many years my father was the heir, as his brother remained unmarried ; but at last, when quite an old man, he married, and my father came out to New Zaaland with my mother and myself. He settled at Dunedin and obtained a good practice, but — but he was not steady, and lost his patients one by one, until at last he went off to the goldfielda, leaving my mother in Dunedin. I went to school, and then my mother died when I was 14, and I became a boarder at the Girls' High School and remained there until I was 17, when my father wrote to say he could no longer afford to keep me at school, and I was to join him at once up here. Oh, how can I tell you all I went through 1 We lived at an hotel, and I was alone all day, for when without a patient my father lived in the bar. Bat for those books which my mothor left me I shonld have gone mad or died I It did not last long, however. About six months after I arrived my father died, and I was left absolutely friendless and pennilaßß. The day after my father's funeral I eat wondering what I should do. I knew nothing of a servant's duties. Who then would take me? I had not a friend or relation in the world. Whan dear Mr and Mm

M'L9an came in to see me Mrs M'LeaQ caught me to her breast and wept with me, and they offered me a home oa their farm, where I have been ever since\ She taught me all I know of hotmeworfr and cooking, and when she died last year I felt as though I had lost my mother again. Since then I have stayed on, feeling grateful to God that I can now in some soiri of way iepay the kindness they showed the poor orphan. There, that is all my history."

" Poor Jeas 1 " said Hawkaton ; "itis a very sad little history, but better days, I hope, are in store for you." From this time forth they saw a good deal of each other. As the farmer and his son were engaged on the farm all day it was but natural that these two should be drawn to each other. At first Jess would bring her work and *it with the young man, who frequently read plays and poems to her, hifl cultivated ear and refined taste making poems which she had frequently read appear as though in a new garb. As his leg grow stronger he would hobble into the kitchen on his crutches, and still later, when the crutches were discarded for a stick, he would roam around the garden leaning on her arm.

Naturally the young couple learnt to love one another, but happy in the preeent and each other's companionship, they thought not of the future or of the separation bo oloee at band.