CHAPTER II.—THE CLOUDS THAT CAME.

Otago Witness, Issue 2528, 27 August 1902, Page 60

CHAPTER II.— THE CLOUDS THAT CAME.

pail on, nor fear 'm breast the sea, Dux hearts, our hopes are all with thee. Dur hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tear 3, £hir faith, triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee — are all -with. thee.

This house in Burton's terrace had only Been 10 days of Meg's married life. The first year of it had been passed in as lovely a home as ever bride need wish to be taken to. The young couple began on £650 a year — Alan's private income of '£300, and £350 from his position in an hospital. That pleasant sum gave them a delightful home in the married quarters at the hospital, three well-trained servants who made the domestic wheels run with a emoothness very soothing to Meg after the jars and creaking of Misrule's wheels, pretty frocks, artistic furniture, plenty of margin for holiday trips and the amusements that so pleasantly sprinkle the even ■-road of life.

To go to "Meg's" had been the happiest of excursions to one and all at Misrule. Major Woolcot himsel —the lapse of rears had at last brought him this advancement — had enjoyed the -well-cooked dainty dinners of Meg's excellent cook after the haphazard arrangements at Misrule, Alan's good cigars, the pleasant company the young couple gathered around them. And •Esther liked to go, though once or twice «he had looked wistful. This bride was beginning her life on ways much softer to the tread than she. just as young, had done. There were no six harum-scarum children here to take to, no battered furniture, no wild grounds where the weeds grew on an unblushing quality with the flowers. „ "You are a very lucky girl, Msg. dear, ».he said, when first she saw th« beautiful home. And Nellie, beauty-loving xxellie, it was deep happiness for her to bang the muchbanged "front door of Misrule behind her and go off, bag in hand, for a. week in that dainty home. To be wakened at half-past 7— six was Misrule's usual hour — fey a smiling maid with a silver tray and cup of chocolate; to breakfast at luxurious •half-past 8 in the cosy breakfast room; to go shopping with Meg — to the best shops — and come back lad^n with delicious Itrifles Meg had bought for her— a novel feat-pin, a purse, a lace scarf, a photograph frame, 01 such. ■' To help Meg with a, lunch party — perhaps a Violet Lunch — and mass the delicate flowers and arrange the violet ribbons, 'iind help paint vio>ete on the menu cards, Wnd touch all that might be touched with tie sweet colour. ; -To go calling in the afternoon, or stay at home and be called upon. To " dress ior dinner," a pleasant vanity very dear to Nell's, heart, and afterwards to be borne jog by sister and brother-in-law, wn(> fciiew her tastes, to dress-circte seats at the ariost fashionable piece then running. ' But "an end had come of pleasant places. " Six months after the marriage the failure '©f a mine that had seemed safer than any bank had suddenly deprived the young doctor of his private income of three hundred, and at the some f le stricken so Eevere a blow at his father's — old Mr Courtney's — fortune as to make it impossible for him to receive any help from that iquarter. " Still, three hundred and fifty was quite enough to live upon Meg curtailed her expenses, kept only a cook and laundress, Knd one young housemaid; gave up the »retty pony and governess cart that Alan mad bought her, and still found life flowed ulong a smooth and merry stream. .But then there gathered up on that early toiKQ'iage sky storm clouds, black as they Jiad never thought to see.

Serious eye-trouble threatened Alan ; more than one oculist friend had looked Very grave after examining him.

He struggled on from month to month, refusing to believe anything serious could |>c the matter; the trouble would yield to mild treatment, he persisted. But .every month saw the difficulty increase; 1 Jys eyes began- to blur and fail him at moments critical to his • patient*. There fcame a day when, his scalpel at work over ft delicate operation, he had almost gone It hairbreadth out of hi« course and lost the life they were trusting him to patch.

Then he went home and stared this blank fuin that threatened his life squarely in the face, Meg's hand in his. After the first dark hour passed it was Meg who Xnade the move. They would go to Germany, hhe said. There were men there >vho often performed the--one operation that the oculists here were agreed upon might be successful in this ense, though few of them seemed to care or dare to Venture to do the thing themselves. The hospital appointment was given up, Ihe pretty home sold, money borrowed, and the young couple fared forth to wrest from the wiser Old World what the New One could not give them. Letters came to Misrule from an inexpensive pension in a suburb out of Heidelberg. The great doctors gave little hope ; tven they shrank from the exceeding risk of the great operation, from winch one rose either completely blind or with full vision. Alan, left alone, they said, would ab all events be able to keep some dim Eort of sight for the rest of hij life.

Tha months went on, and the shadows fell heavier and heavier ; Meg's letters to IM'srule grew thinner every mail — her heavy jien refused to fill the pages. Then came a postcript to one ; a new Sector had been found, full of enthusiasm {or the operation ; she, Meg, trembled now &t the thought of it, but Alan was full jbf eagerness. A week went past, and another half-sheet came. The operation .V"as to be performed in three days. Under the far skie3 where the Southern Cross looked down Misrule walked about, knd ate and worked with thoughts and

hearts away all the time across the cruel thousands of miles

"Meg, Meg — oh, don't let it be ; God, don't let it," came bursting softly from Poppet's wet pillow in the little pink and white peaceful bedroom that had been Meg's all her girlhood. And Nellie, moving away in the darkness, had looked up from the window at the same quiet stars that had seen so often Meg's happy eyes upraised to them, and had whispered passionately, "Oh, help her, help her — look where she is now, and help ber!" There were no other letters for two mails, and Misrule's heart, quickened before by the immediate anxiety, began to beat heavily, wearily again. Then a blotted, wild line or two telling of success, success beyond even the enthusiastic doctor's expectation. And Misrule flung up its cap, and danced and shouted, and found if-s river lovely once again, and its skies and stars more glorious than ever, and its world full of kindness.

"Let's let the dogs out," cried Peter, and rushed off to the stables.

"Let's have a picnic in the boats," said Poppet.

The months danced along now, both in the Old World and the New. Time had to be given for the restored eyes to get back tl'eir tone again, but who minded anything now? Meg and Alan laughed and frolicked about in sober Germany for all the world like children out of school. Li.fe that has escaped tragedy by a hairbreadth becomes for the time a picnic.

Btick theycame at last to their own land, and Misrule had work to keep itself from plunging in the harbour and swimming out to meet the unemotional ship, instead of v aiting decorously on the wharf.

The paii* were absolutely ruined financially ; the hospital appointment had long since passed into other hands, and none other was vacant; they were six hundred pounds in debt, for the travelling and such doctoring had been ruinous ; there was a baby of nine weeks to tie Meg's hands.

But they only laughed at Ihings like these, now that the gr^at clouds were ffone.

"As long as I can see what I'm fighting," said Alan, as he got into harness again, "I rather enjoy the feeling of having hit out. Only Id "like things to have been soft for you."

"As long as you can fee what you're fighting,' said Meg stoutly. "I don't care a straw if things are hard as nails — so long as we can keep a soft cushion for Baby." But it hurfc Misrule and the Courtneys, and the old friends of the family, to see rhem struggling. Many advised that they should go still deeper into debt, and start straight away in a good house, entertain, and live generally in the style one expects from a successful doctor.

Bub that terrible £600 debt made them shrink from more ; £400 old Mr Courtney had lent, and was in somewhat straitened circumstances for want of it ; £200 Major Woolcot had advanced, and would be very glad^ to have back again in those evergaping coffers of his. There could be no question, therefore, of buying a practice ; the little money in hand, apart from the hoped-for fees, would have to see them over more than one cold year perhaps. But in that untempting house in that long, monotonous terrace at Redbank a doctor — of a kind — had long lived, and though he had sold his* practice when he left, and the buyer had set up in a handsome hou<^ on the heights of the hill, still, some one starting in the same place might gather perhaps a trifle of practice from the association.

They bought nothing but the absolutely necessary articles of furniture for the rooms — just some plain eqnipments for the consulting room, and Chan's, tables, and beds for their own use.

"There's the first note of the battle," Alan said, when, the second day after their arrival, the clang of tools reached them to tell that the highly-polished brass plate was bein? fastened to the front door. "Hasn't it got a triumphant sound?" Meg answered.

(To be continued.)