SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3030, 10 April 1912, Page 89

SHORT STORIES.

[All Br#HT« Reserved.] DEED FOR DEED. THE ROMANCE OF A HOLIDAY. By W. W. Fenn. "The Anchor Inn, Malt Regis, "Taxminster, Devon, August 25. "Rain, rain, nothing but rain and wind, any dear Celia; and this is the fourth day since the wreck, which happened, -as I told you in my last, the very evening we arrived. George is becoming desperate. Ho declares he would return to London tonight if there wero any sort of conveyance at hand by which he could, in such, weather, get to the station. I don't know how to pacify hini. He is pacing the loom like a wild anima.l, alternately flattening his nose against the little bowwindow of our sitting room, flinging himself on to the hard horsehair sofa in despair, smoking innumerable pipes, and uttering strong language. "Of course, I rcfram from twitting him with the absurdity of this idea of his for spending his holiday in a rural fishing village, 14 miles from any railway, instead of going, like a rational creature, to a pleasant, cheerful watering-place, where there would be something to see and people to talk to. It would be mean of me to take advantage of the opportunity the bad weather gives me of laying any stress now upon the folly of his proceeding; it must be sufficiently plain to him without any words of mine. So, like an affectionate wife, I hold my tongue. He wanted quiet, and he has it. "By a stroke of good fortune I have hit upon an occupation for him since writing the above, and he is now hpppy and amused. " 'Why don't you read one of these novels?' said I. 'l'here's a large choice in .this box we brought from Mudie's.' " 'PuOh !' he replied. 'I hate novels! Parcel of bouh; the invention of a lot of fictitious people and events, which one is asked to interest oneself in as if they were real! I'd as lieve try to write a story as read one. In fact, I'd a deuced deal rather, if I could.' " 'Why don't you try?' " 'Because I've no fancy or imagination or invention. I never know what to say, even in a letter (except upon business), now that I've done writing love-nonsense to you.' " 'Weill, but you need not invent. A plain statement of facts sometimes is a story in itself; and allow me, sir, to say that there are quite as many romantic facts, if one has but the wit to set them down, going on constantly all around us as are to be found in the wildest scrjbbiings of the novelist. Record, for instance, what you saw during the first 24 hours of our arrival here, and you have, at anyrate, the opening of a good story.' " 'Done with you, then! Upon my life, it was the most stirring scene I ever assisted at! I really will try and perpetuate it with the pen,' And down he sat at the table. " 'Good boy!' said L 'Mind, no exaggeration ; simply what came under your own eyes.' "Briefly, this is the sort of conversation, much abridged, which resulted ill George's writoing the enclosed. Take it as the postscript to my letter; and certainly in this case it will prove the truth of the adage which says that in that afterthought lies the pith of a woman's correspondence. Let me near soon what you think of it, and all news, and, believe me, your affectionate friend, L . "Postscript. "No sooner had we been welcomed by the landlord of the one decent inn at Malt Reds, where I liad secured rooms, that he urged me to ascend the steep path at the rear of the house to the top of the cliffs, where, some way along, a curious cleft in their edge formed a sort of natural lookout. Hastily telling me that a brig had within the last two hours, gone ashore, and that he was anxious to know how it fared with her and the crew, he said, Yonder, at Monkey's Grip, we can see what's going on. Gome with me, sir, I'll show you the way." "I followed, of course, only too glad that, since the wreck had happened, I, at anyrate, was in time to witness it, A quarter of an hour of steep clijnbing up the western side of the valley in which the village lay brought us to the spot indicated. "A wild scene of boiling breakers lies before us. The white spray, as it is hurled high into the air at every moment from nit an ugiy reef of rock, mingles with the leaden grey of the tearing _ storm - clouds, which, in conjunction with the fieri e wind, pro luces, until the eve h comes accustomed to it, the effect of a veil or gauze curtain ; such as, on the stage, is often lowered when supernatural or mysterious appearances are represented. Then, after long staring, the dazed 6ight descries some details. An iron-bound coast —iron in colour, savage in form —grim and menacing cliffs and jutting headlands right and left— the fir.st impression one of exceeding dreariness if not of terror, hardly attractive to a confirmed Londoner seeking a pleasant seaside retreat. " The hour is that of sunset, as is indicated by a lurid tone which, penetrating the leaden pall of the sky, gives additional weirdness to the outlook. But, viewed from the cliffs on which I stand, the sentiment of terror referred to is derived from the human element in the scene. " A little crowd of men and women—the whole population of the village, I imagine—is gathered on the sL'jtf* below. Great excitement prevails amongst them as they eagerly regard what has hitherto escaped my notice. At the end of the spit or reef of rocks I can at length dis-

tinguist, by steady watching, part of a mast and cross-trees, and, lashed or clingm<r to it, a human figure. " Scarcely another remnant of the wreck is visible, only here and there patches of it drifting to leeward. The mast, however, is jammed under a sort of pinnacle of rock, of which there are several similar ones at intervals of a few yards all along the reef, and which, jutting high above the rough plain from which they orise, have the appearance of a jagged row of monstrous teeth. In all the distance from the land to the outermost point is under 200 yards; but the excessive ruggedness of the reef, and the swirling of the waves as they break and crash across it, preclude the idea of any passage along the irregular surface being possible for the lonely creature upon the mast. " He is clear above the sea, and only now and then when an access of water drives over the rocks, is he completely cut off from the mainland. Yet, exhausted as he probably is, although he ever and anon waves his arm encouragingly, he dares not, evidently, relinquish his position and trust to tibe perilous foothold by which alone he might, with good luck, be able to reach the land. My guide, the landlord, explains this situation to me, otherwise I might not cleaTly take it in, new as I am to such experiences; but now I do thoroughly, and, therefore, when I see a sturdy fisher-fellow, without his hat and clad only in his tightfitting blue jersey and trousers, emerging from the crowd and begin to scramble forward over the nearest masses of rock, and when I see that a rope is attached to his waist, I know that it is his intention to try to rescue the man on the mast.

" Intense excitement prevails in the little knot of people, as, cat-like, he creeps along the jagged ridge, sheltering himself now and again from the weltering waters under each succeeding pinnacle, and making desperate dashes from one to the other, as the recoiling of the waves leaves the intervals comparatively clear. At length he has reached the last but one; there is a terrible mass of spray now surging over all at this point, and for several minutes his success seems very doubtful; nay, it is impossible, except by glimpses, to distinguish him at all. " What I really see of the act after this is next to nothing; the man has disappeared from the mast, and only am I sure that the two hsvD not been washed away together when I behold the one, carrying the other, emerging from under the lee of a pinnacle more than halfway back to the shore. The danger is not over, however, even here, for the ugliest dip in the line of rock has yet to be passed, and terrible evidently is the anxiety among the crowd as, for a time, which seems interminable, the two wait and - wait for an opportunity to cross it. " It is done at last, however, and amidst a rush forward to meet them and a murmuring cheer, which I hear rising above the din of sea and wind, the rescuer and the rescued stand safe amidst the people on the beach." "Malt Regis, " September 1. "My dear Celia, —Although I have had no answer to my letter, written about 10 days ago, I can't resist scribbling to you again, for the strangest continuation that I could have imagined possible of that story—the beginning of which formed George's postscript—lias been going on under my very eyes. " Whether there will be a conclusion to it, whilst we are staving at this out-of-the-way place, I know not; but hitherto the events have succeeded each other eo coherently, and are of so romantic a character, that it really seems as if I had been reading them in one of Mr Mudie's volumes, and that George and myself had become novelists and readers at one and the same time. "It was very pi-ovoking, but no sooner had the weather moderated a little, and only four days after George had. seen the rescue, he got a telegram from that horrid office, recalling him to town for at least a week on unexpected business. " Of course, we shared ths excitement the gallant deed had caused. The poor man who was saved at such imminent peril proved to be a Spanish-American—■ a native of Cuba, I believe, and one of the handsomest fellows that I ever .beheld. It was only on the following morning that I could realise this, for when he

■was brought, Half-drowned, £& ©ur little irnn, it was nearly dark, anu he was so eurrounded by the population that he was , hidden from my view as I watched the l crowd from the bow-window of our sitting room. j " When George, the next day, pointed him out, slowly walking down to the , beach, he was still an object of great interest, especially amongst tb», wives and daughters of the fishermen, * little knot of whom weft* talking with him and seem- j ingly anxious to reader him eveiry assist- | anmce, for he was evidently still weak and exhausted from long exposure to wet and cold. One of the most attentive was a j firl who, from her exceeding good looks, j have noticed more than once about the place. Now, there was something in her | behaviour towards the man that, from the : first moment I saw them together, gave j me an idea instinctively that she was, j as the old women say, setting her cap at bim. You know how quick our sex is to jump to these sorts of conclusions, and how right we often prove. I was in this case, for three days later, when I was taking a stroll by myself after George's departure, I saw them walking alone to- | gether, arm in arm, on the top of the cliff, and this morning I have been the unintentional witness of a scene which leaves no doubt on the question. I will . try to describe it. " You may guess that, being quite alone here is not the most exciting thing in the world; and so, to shorten the time as much as possible, I have taken up my old fancy for sketching, and though I am no great hand at it, it helps one through tne day. The outline of the cliffs here is very beautiful, and from just beyond that part of the beach where the fishing boats are hauled up there is a good view of them. So there I settled myself, this morning, under the shelter of a sort of old boathouse, or workshop, where the fishermen store their nets and so forth. The doors, facing seawards, were open, and just within sat a man quietly mending his net. As I passed he looked up, and I recognised the face of the brave fellow who had gone out along the reef of rocks at the risk of his own life and saved the young American. I had never seen him so close before, and when the sound of my footstep on the loose shingle caused him to raise his eyes eagerly, the idea crossed my mind that he was expecting somebody, and was disappointed at seeing a stranger. I should have liked to talk to him a little, for, naturally, he was an object of equal interest now with the man he had saved; but there was that auout his manner, as he re-applied himself to his netting, and over which he had paused as I approached, that forbade my addressing him. So I went to the farther side of the shed, sitting with my back against it, and began my sketch. " I can hardly say how long I had been drawing, but certainly not an hour, when I found myself overhearing a conversation that was going on just inside the died. Something in the tone of the speakers, rather than in the words, it was that first attracted my attention, and irresistibly held it. I had no intention of playing the eavesdropper, and I could scarcely expect that anything very confidential was about to take place. " As near as possible, however, this is what I overheard, as I gradually became conscious that I was listening—the voice, deen and melodious, of a man saying, ' I'd been hoping you might a' coom'd down to me, girl, all the morning. Knowing I'd be so busy, I thought mother might ha' got ye to bring me a snack to save my going home; but I 'spectcd ye an hour ago, and now you come empty-handed.' ' ' I'd no thought o' coming at all,' was the answer, in tones I immediately recognised as those of the rustic beauty above referred to. ' I was going away to father's boat yonder to fetch his knife for him, whicli he left in the locker last night when he came ashore, but, as you beckoned me, and seemed to have somethins: to say, I oame this little bit out of my road, but now, as you only seem inclined to scold me I'll bid ye good-bye!' " ' Nay, I'm not for scolding of * ye, §irl; it's not for that! Ye might know y this time as I'd never scold ye. I was only a-hoping " There was a pause. "'Well! you was hoping what? That I should sit down by you, for- you to sit and stare at me in that strange way you do. and say never a word forever so long? I like for a man to talk to me when he's looking, and tell me something to make me laugh; but you. Joe, you're always as grave as the minister!' "That may be because I'm a-mostly thinking of you, and because I'm sorry sometimes for to see how ye take up wi'> chaps; how you've took up now with him as I went and picked off the mast. Belike he's a good man enough, but you don't know nothing at all about him,"although he does say he was the skipper, and will make it worth all our whiles for to have saved him. But there! when I think of a-seeing you with him walking on the tops yonder, Nance, it made me feel that cruel and wicked that I wished I'd let him bide and be drownded.' " 'Well, that is a nice thing to say, surely,' responded the girl ; ' and you, too, who make such a talk about wishing folks well, and going to chapel, and all that. The man is nothing to me —or if he is, it's no business of your.;;.' " 'No business of mine, girl ? When I as have seen yo grow up to the bright, winsome queen you be, and would many a time before now have asked ye to be my wife, if I c'd ha' thought . ' But there! —I say, N;inee !'—and I could tell the speaker rose, and that the two Mere now standing on the threshold of the shed—' I say, Nance, I can't stave it off no longer—t can't bear for to see you along o' that chap, and I just put it to ye for the first and last time. Will ye ha' me for a husband? Ye might ha' know'd I'd loved ye these years past, and only my fear of your "No" kept me silent. Now the 'Merican forces me to speak once for all. Will ye have me?' "There was no answer. I rose from

my sketching seat, good feeling forbade my hearing more. ""In the anxiety to get out of ear-shot, and hardly knowing which way to go, I went hastily round by the back to the other side of the shed, and where, running higher on to the beach, was a group of fishing boats, and from the shelter of which I could get almost the same view of my subject as from the spot I had just left. "To my surprise, I was no sooner resettled than I discovered that the tender interview had had another auditor besides myself; nay, was still not only being overheard, but watched, for who should be standing looking through the gap which the large open door of the shed made at its hinges, but the American. He was evidentlv deeply absorbed, and, after a minute or" two, he suddenly turned on his heel, made an angry gesture to himself, as it were, with his raised fist, and passed up towards the village within a few paces of where I sat, but apparently utterly unconscious of my presence, for his eyes were bent modily upon the ground. "How he came to be playing the eavesdropper signifies little; but my private opinion is that it was as in the case of myself, accidental. There is something too noble and straightforward in the aspect of the man to warrant any other conclusion. I believe he was simply following the girl, whom he had seen going towards her father's boat, and was arrested on the threshold of the shed as he was passing by, seeing that she had turned in there, and by the voices he had chanced to hear within. Likewise it matters little how much more he had heard or seen than I. Quite enough had certainly taken place to sow the seeds of a profound jealousy between him and his preserver. "I am prevented from writing more by George's return. The dogcart that has brought him from the station is slowly descendirig the steep village street. I shall tell him the progress his story has made, and get him to write any continuation of it that may happen henceforth; and I will take are that you shall have it to read. Meanwhile, I am always, — " Your affectionate friend, "After what my wife told me, I determined on my return to Malt Regis, to keep a sharp eye on events. For days and days, however, nothing occurred to help my story-telling powers.; but I spent some of my idle time in finding out a little about the characters concerned. The American, to wit, I had a long talk to. He, by name Luiz Lopez, was, as represented, the master of the brig that had, with all hands save himself, been lost. "'You,, see, sir,' said he, when I first spoke to him in the taproom of our little inn, where he had been staying since the wreck, ' I have wired the whole affair to my owners' agents at Bristol from your town of Taxininster. They do not reply; but, as luckily it has coincided that I had ray ready dollars about me on that awkwaru evening, I ain't so hard up as might be, and I shall not conclude to go hence uil I get orders.' " I thought this sufficiently absurd. For a man in his position not to make straight away to the port to which he was originally bound was against all precedent in such emergencies; yet, after what my wife told me, was there not an explanation for his excuse? And, although I had never chanced upon him in company with the object that was undoubtedly inducing him to linger in these parts, I did see him, three or four evenings ago, waiting very suspiciously at the stile on the cliff path, where my wife had met him more than once walking with the girl Nancy Bearing. " That same night, too, after having exchanged a word or two with him, I strolled a long distance up the valley inland, and the moon was shining nearly as bright as day by the time I was returning along the high road from Taxminster. About a mile out of Malt Regis I overtook two figures walking under the shadow of one of the tall hedges, so consoicuous a feature of these Devonshire lanes. Quite suddenly they emerged into the light at my approach: one was Nancy, the other not the American, but his pre server, Joseph Masters. "'A fast-and-loose game it is that this young person is playing,' thought I; 'but I suppose so remarkable a beauty as hers deman's some latitude; she will not waste al uis sweetness in one quarter.' A very pretty girl, certainly —tall, shapely, her small head poised exquisitely on her shoulders, and with a carriage like a duchess—like a Spanish duchess, shall I say ? for she has the complexion which Shakespeare calls ' the sable livery of the burnished sun.' Dark hair in great profusion, eyes darker still, with a deptli and yet a coquettishness in them, unmistakable in its import. Her mouth, too, forever disclosing brilliant teeth, indicates, by its curve of proud satisfaction as one looks admiringly at her, that such glances are as necessary to her existence as the air she breathes. Seldom to bo met with as such rare qualities are amidst a purely agricultural and fishing popidation, they perhaps strike one the more on that account, and exercise an equal effect generally on the neighbouring swains. Not wonderful, then, that the heads of Joseph Masters and the American were turned, ine wonder was that the heads of all the male population had not been well-nigh twisted off, or, at any rate, that one hail not been thrust into the noose irrevocably. How such a girl had remained unmarried was astonishing. Joe seemed, however, to mean business now, and I felt glad teat so fine and brave a fellow should —at least, as far as looks went—find so comely a mate. Yet, as to her disposition and character—well, there might be 'doubts on that head. " When I reached the turning into tho clul path, which made a short cut down to the village, I paused, looked back, and saw the two following on in the moonlight. Having gained the stile, actually at the edge of the cliff, where two hours betore 1 had left Lopez, I paused again,

and rested on it. Somewhat to my disturbance, in a minute I discovered him lving down on the grass within a few feet of me, evidently still waiting. ' Very awkward, indeed, this,' I thought, ' if they come along here together, instead of going by the road.' But there at the turning, after a little parley, fortunately they parted, Masters keeping to the road, and the girl coming along the path to the stile. I moved aside to let her get over it, and, as I watched her tripping lightly down the cliff-side, Lopez rose and hastily Tollowed her. I, too, descended the same way to the inn, but without seeing them again that night; for it was late, and the whole village was well-nigh abed. " Fifteen days later, the first of "ctober, indeed, and the old bad weather has returned. I am glad that another week brings my holiday to an end—the last, too, I ever mean to spend in this ?dsmon. I wanted quiet, certainly; but I did not mean to be forced by sheer ennui Into this sort of penmanship. "Josepn. Masters is out at sea trawling with his three partners in the boat, and it has come on to blow furiously and suddenly. Many other boats are out, and, as the day closes, there is some anxiety for their safety. " Little groups of the women, the old men, and children begin to cluster at every vantage point of outlook. Master Lopez is still at Malt Regis, and I find him, in comrany with-two old fishermen and a little girl, sheltering from the wind in the cleft on the top of the cliffs, called 'Monkey's Grin/ the identical spot whence I had beheld his rescue six weeks back. " Scene, weather, light very much as they were then, and, save that the days axe shorter by an hour and a-half, it might -■a the same evening. I join the little party; they are watching the boats, which one by one are rounding the western headland and that fatal reef, and are getting beached, after the usual rope, horse, and windlass method of the place. " ' There bean't no more to coom now, 'cept my nephew, Joe Masters,' said the old man, who held the little girl by the hand. ' I'd like to see him, I reckon, pretty soon now, else he wun't save the daylight; and the ijord knows what'll become of him such a night as this if he don't!' " ' Are you sure that he's the only one due at this moment?' asked the American, with a peculiar expression in his voice and eye; ' are you sure, positive, that he has not come in ?' " ' Why, bless my heart alive! d'ye think I've lived here, man and boy, 70 years, and don't know the cut of eveay boat as well at sea as on the beach? I tell 'ee he have not come.' "'Humph!' said Lopez with a shrug, and with the same queer expression; 'then I guess he'll find it awkward, p'raps, when he does.' "'Ay, man! that he will,' interposed the other fisherman, in a lower tone, and pfuckuig at the sleeve of the last speaker; ' but you han't no call to talk of it in that way. It's a matter o' life and death with they poor chaps. Don't ye see,' he went on, jerking his thumb towards the old man and the child, who had moved a pace or two forward as they gazed eagerly seawards —' don't ye see little Bess is fit to cry her eyes out because she can't see her uncle's boat? He's been better nor a father to her since she lost her'n, off them reefs; and the old man—old Tom we call him—is fit to pipe his eye, too, at the thoughts of what may came.' " 'Wal, I'm sorry foT their feelings,' was the American's answer; ' but facts are facts, and I was only speaking to them. The facts are just what I say: Joseph Masters will find it awkward if he does not rounu that point before dark.' " ' My friend,' said T, breaking in here, 'you do seem to talk too lightly of this matter. You seem to forget that if it had not been for Joe Masters you would not be standing here at this moment.' "Luis Lopez turned his dark handsome' face upon me with such a look as I don't wish often to evoke from any man, as he replied : " ' No, sir, I do not forget that fact, whatever I may seem to do. No, sir, that is another fact I am prepared to speak to ! and it may be lucky for some people that I am so prepared. I wish I was not—that's the difficulty. I wish I oould wipe it out.' Ana in a minute or two he walked slowly away from us along the cliff. ""'Such is jealousy,' thought I, 'raising a wiid fury in that man's breast against his preserver. I suppose none but the verv highest natures can override such impulses.' " 1 lingered with the two old men about the .spot for another half hour, until nearly all the light had faded out of the wild sky. No other boat had hove in sight. "We returned in silence to the village street, where it debouched upon the beach. A heavy grief was over us—upon me as well as those more nearly concerned. " I had re-entered our quarters, was chatting with my wife on the sadness of the circumstance, and giving vent to no very friendly thoughts about the American, when a shouting and commotion in the street below our window made me go out again. "There was a rush of everyone towards the beach, and to that part of it where I had seen the whole population gathered on my nrs t arrival at Malt Regis—the land end of the reef of rocks, whence the people had been watching the ' man upon the mast.' ' The cry now went up that they had made out Jce Masters's boat, but that, deceived in distance by the approach of darkness, he had not given himself searoom enough, and was in imminent peril of striking on the rocks. I could barely discern through the dim twilight anything but weltering waves and surf at the furtuermost point. But the trained eyes saw more, and I knew by the gasps and mutierlnss, and, finally, by the awe-stricken shouts of the men and the wailing screams o! ine women, the progress of events and their termination. The worst hud come; the boat had been seen to dash herself

upon the jagged ridge, to lift herself once or twice farther on to it, and then heel over and disappear. '' 'A long, light rape, light and stout!' shouted a voice wnich I recognised, rising above the din of crowd, and wind, and sea. 'I know the way—no man better—and 'll go; he did it for me, and I'll be even with him, c'eed for deed. Yes, sir, I'll wipe it Out now,' said the American, turning fiercely upon, me as he pushed past in the crowd, the crowd half urging him on, half dissuading; some entreating for the contemplated deed, and seme against it. ''He went, and he achieved his purpose ; picked Joe Masters out of the boiling surf upon the end of the reef, where, clinging to the mast and remnants of the boat aa it had temporarily jammed under the lee of the outermost pinnacles of rock, the young fisherman was dimly discerned lying in precisely similar peril to thai from which he had himeelf rescued the man who, by a strange coincidence, wa-3 now to rescue him. Almost identically, step by step, was the feat accomplished, the same danger incurred, the sami doubts, ht>pes, and fears expressing themselves amidst the onlookers, the same shelter; rags under the pinnacles, the same runs from one to the other, as the swirling of the boiling waves to and fro gave opportunities ; and, finally, the same shouts of congratulation when the two men, with merely their relative positrons changed, stood safe upon rhe beach again. " 'Who can ever doubt,' thought I after this, 'that history repeats herself?" and when, in the course of the next half-hour, I was talking of the American to my wife, it- was with very different feelings front those I had lately expressed. Still, I felt that the climax had yet to be reached : this double service of one towards the other, wliich ought to hold two men, if anything would, in an indestructible bond of friendship, would go for nothing all the while the question of woman was at issue between them. Therefore, to my thinking, Lopez had not saved his rival to befriend bim. I thought I saw in the deed merely a sort of swaggering pride, a desire to wipe out an obligation and to pay back life with life, and then dispute to the death for the possession of the girl.

"An interval of a few days set matters outwardly in their hunidrum. state again at Malt Regis. The recent events were much talked of, of course, and much grief prevailed for the t\\t> poor fellows who were out with Joe and were lost. My wlife and I had by this time so mixed ourselves up with the interests of these honest fisherfolk that I oftentimes knew more of their affairs than met the eye. And thus it fell out that I came to be in a position to do some service to the two men whose deeds had formed the 'Roimance of Our Holiday.' " 'You see, mate, I shouldn't like the whole of our village for to know as wo two was angered with one another; it wouldn't seem natural-like for two men as have done by each other what we have to be having high words; and if you want to parley any more about this here question, why, you'd best come up to Monkey's Grip this evening about 6 o'clock. I shall be coming back from Dardale Bay along the tops when I've seen to my lobster pots; and nobody won't know nothing about what we say up there.' " 'Good!' was the reply. 'Done with ou But I guess you don't mistake me. What I've done I've done for the sake o' fair play, nothin" else. We can consider ourselves equals now, which being so, it's for the best man to win. The difficulty could be soon wiped out if we was in my country : a brace V>f six-shoot ' " 'Don't threaten, mate; I bean't used to that; and whether we are in one country or t'other, I reckon if ye mean for to settle it so. we should be as ready here as there, tho', mabe, we are more used to fists than knives and that like. You've done fair by me all through, and I bean't going to doubt ye now. So, up yonder this evening I'll stand face to face with ye, no fear! But don't say no more about 'it now; they'll be overhearing of us.' "One. at least, had already overheard—that one was I—had overheard enough to leave no doubt of what had passed before I chanced upon the two men. They were alone in the little taproom, the door of which stood ajar at the foot of the back stab's of our inn. "I often went out that way, and had been arrested on this occasion by the voices in altercatkn. I had paused for a minute on the lower stair involuntarily, and as the men came forth into the passage, with the last words on their lips, I hastily retreated upstairs again, making known immediately to my wife the suspicion which the scrap of conversation had aroused. " 'We must prevent that meeting,' said she, 'or sad work will follow'; and when I answered, 'Yes, but how?' I confess my heart misgave me. "Six was the time; it would be nearly dark. If I waa to avert the impending mischief I must be on the spot before the men could meet. Judge, then, of my distress when I say that at five minutes to 6 that evening nearly half a mile of steep down lay between me and Monkey's "No matter at present what had kept ttne back; I must hurry forward at the top of my speed, and save two brayehearted human beings from acting like savage wild animals. " up the narrow, winding lane from the rear of the village then I flew; between tue hiah edges and over the deep-rutted ground" to where the lane became a track and the track a sheep-path. Across the t U r{ I sprang as if I were a boy again at ' hare and hounds,' sometimes taking at a bound interrupting gorse-bushes, and sometimes scrambling through them, regardless of all save the agony of anxiety to reach the place. I dreaded to think what I might see as it_ came in sight! I dread even more to think that I might see nothing; for, being hard upon the edge of the cliff, if a struggle took place there, it would be but too likely that

both antagonists would topple headlong over. " Some sunset was lingering in the west as 1 gained the uppermost ridge of land, and then at last, clear before me, at not more than 100 paces off, coming clear out against the evening light, were two forms swaying backwards and forwards, horribly close to the cliff-edge. Half a minute more, and I was upon them, as, with their hands at each other's throats, and with mad and furious glances in their eyes, tae one was endeavouring to hurl the other to the ground, to the beach beneath, to death, by some means. ' Fools! I cried, seizing hold of their arms, and striving to pull them away from that perilous edge, 'do you know what you are fighting for ? Listen to me—listen to me, I implore you!' But I might as well have implored the dull earth, which was resounding with the heavy thuds of their feet, as these men, blinded as they were by the brutal fury of their jealousy —these two men, God help them! of all others, at such a pass ! " For many moments they appeared quite unconscious of my presence; and as I clung to them-, forever beseeching them to listen, I likewise was swayed, more than once, perilously near the abyss; and it is a marvel, as I think back at the glimpses I had several times of the shore below, that we did not all three go over the cliff. <( At length I contrived, by getting a harm into the breast of the American's jacket, and by a desperate wrench, to pull them both to the ground, falling also myself, but managing to regain my balance in time to kneel between them ere they had recovered from the shock; and then I oried out, as I partly held them down, 'Do you know, you madmen, that this woman who has turned you into fiends has gone—has run away this very morning with the man they call the Squire's son, young Baines? that she cares for neither of you? that she is utterly unworthy of your thoughts'? Will you believe mo if I tell you,' I went on in a calmer tone, seeing that I had partly gained their attention—' will you believe me that, after playing fast" and loose with both of you, she cared for neither? that even this ijnorning, after she had spent an hour and more with you, Luis Lopez, and after telling you, as I have no doubt she did that she caTed nothing for this man, Masters, that she went straight off to him at His boathouse, and probably told the same tale there, and then, finally, she met Baines, who was waiting for her in a fly by the foot of the new bridge, and tliat they both then drove to the station, anu went together by the afternoon tTain to London? Yes,' I continued rapidly, 'in consequence of something my wife had heard, 1 was enabled to trace her step by step; and I can bring half a dozen people to prove what I say. I have but just now got back from Taxminster, where I learned the whole story, and where either of you may hear the same. " There was a pause. We were all on our feet again now, bandying many words of explanation and inquiry. '' The truth of what I said was in the main believed; and at length I had the satisfaction of making the men shake hands then and there; had the satisfaction later on of knowing that I had changed those bitter foes into fast friends, and that thus my trip to Malt Regis had not been quite an idle one." [The End.]