SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3330, 9 January 1918, Page 58

SHORT STORIES.

THE LITTLE BLUE CANDLESTICK.

By E. M Stout. It was New Year's Eve, and I was visiting old friends in Wellington New Zealand. The day had been delightfully . various. The morning had come in on the wings of the wind; noon had shed ravnbow tears, and the afternoon had exhibited such cloud-forms as might have gladdened Ruskin and inspired Turner The ranges around the city had offered a marvellous display of light and shade effects that had held me fascinated for a glorious hour. The sunset, with its crimson lake streamers, its roseate and purple tints, its luminous greys and opal blues and whites, was with me as I walked up the hills, climbing to the wonderful Seatottn Heights, on my way to call at a friendly bungalow, where the friendliest eyes of "M'Andrew," a Skye terrier, ■were on the lookout for visitors. Shall I ever forget the winding paths among the mountains of this dear New Zealand? The bungalow and houses perched on apparently inaccessible points, and the nimble-footed children, and men and women too, that run down the steep sides of the mountains as easily as though they were on a level section ! The schoolhouse, built pn the heights .on a pinnacle, I had almost said,—and the rush down the steepest hills of the happy, hea....y, brown-faced, brown-footed children, who tear as fast as legs can carry them down to the sea, level to take a dip in the eea, a swim oh the way home, are pictures "come to life,',' that when I am once again in the Old Country I shall love to recall., I have a recollection of a strange New Year's Eve that I spent once in the Midland counties of dear little England. I had been visiting a church-bell foundry, and watching with almost breathless interest the running into moulds of the molten metal that was on its way to become a huge church bell. I had walked through the black sands of the foundry with the proprietors, aftd one of them, being a bell-ringer (an honorary function In England), invited me to spend my New Year's Eve. at the top of an ancient belfry, while the ringers rang a hand-peal. It was a night of intense cold; a mantle of beautiful white snow covered the land, and the town below and around the belfry was picked out by the snow. This wonderful appearance, after the black sand of the foundry, made a sharp contrast, and so impressed itself on my memory.

New Year's Eve in New Zealand is almost as complete a contrast to NeAT Year's Eve at Home as was the white snow to the black sand of the bell foundry. Here it is a time of flowers, of promise well on the way to fulfilment, of the singing of birds, of the carolling of larks, of the magnificence of the new b'jeh. The sapphire sea of Sea,toun, seen from the Heights, is such a sight as memory loves to dwell on arid to recall. From the Heights what bays are visible! What a magnificent panorama of harbour and headland . . . and there . . . out there ... an island .... Somes . . . I looked and I am reminded, as I see that island, silent, unobtrusive, verdure-clad, that war is gripping all the sons and the daughters of the Empire. • But my reflections are at an end for the moment, for here is the house of the friend I have climbed to see. M'Andrew expects me, surely; if not, he behaves as though he did; he almost insists that I shall have tea and cakes. The alert eyes of two hens, not yet roosting, watch me as I walk up the path, and, doubtless, wonder if I am an egg-eating person. Of course, there is honeysxickle near the verandah—"let there be* honeysuckle" is always my petition on approaching so prettv a homestead . . . and I confidentially that there invariably is. The owner of the honeysuckle, the liens, thj dog, and the bungalow came forth from the midst of a flowery bower and greeted me.

I accompanied her into the sitting room and looked about me. "Don't tell me," I said, "and I'll soon tell you if you've anything trash since I was here last*" and I looked all round the room. The furniture stood just where it had stood on my previous visit; the walls were the same colour, the ceilings the same, the pictures the same, and the curtains as I had last seen them. "No . . . yet sureiy that candlestick is . . . new . . . an addition," I said. My friend smiled. -"Quite, quite risht. I have not had it a month," she answered. ' But- " "Yes, it's not new; that rusty epot perforated with the two small holes is where the handle lived 'ones on a time,' " she said. "But " "I know ... it does seem a queer thincr to do to hang it up as though it were an ornament." "Ah . . . but it has a story . . . tell me," I said eagerly: "it has a story?" ''Yes, the poor little bluey-grey candlestick has a story, and it " has" a . . . companion."

So we seat ourselves down; she to tell, I to listen, to the story—the history of this cmaint "ornament." '■'Before I toll yon what I know of this candlestick you have to discover what else there is in the room that was not here last time you came." I pointed straight beforo me at a half sheet of newspaper on the wall, on which was pasted part of a map of Belgium. "Right," said my friend. "That map is the 'companion' of the candlestick." I rose and looked at the map closely. It was an ordinary war map, inscribed -with the name of a London publisher. Small portions of it were missing. "What a pity that it's incomplete," I observed. My friend let the remark pass.

It is barely a month ago since the blue enamel candlestick left my kitchen for the first time since I had bought it, some six years previously. It was a dark night, unusually dark 'for this time of year ; there was no moon, and the sky was covered by thick clouds. A wind blew up now and again, succeeded by an almost strange silence. It was as though Nature breathed heavily once or twice and then/sank into sleep. I was sitting in the kitchen alone, waiting for Jim to come back from the city, and M'Andrew was with me, for company. I was reading Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations," and had just reached that part of the story where the convict is filing off his big irons, when a step outside caused M'Andrew to spring up, and me to wonder who it might be at that time. I expected no visitors, and Jim was not due for another three-quarters of an hour or so. I and, hearing no knock, I went to the window and looked behind the curtain and on Jo the verandah. I could see no one, but the dog was still barking. I opened the door ma looked out; there was no one in sight.

I was closing it again, when a voice came out of the near darkness. "For God's sake, lend me a light!" It was a man who spoke, and his tone was agitated. I quietened the dog, and fetched a candle ... in the blue candlestick. "What is the matter?" I asked,, courageously.

"God knows!" said the voice. "Lend me the candle, will you, please?" "Would you care to step inside a moment?" I said, thinking he was ill. But he was gone. He removed his hat and held it before the candle, skilfully sheltering it from the strange, intermittent winds that sighed and boomed in a dull, ominous way. I stood at the door and watched him. I could see the light slowly travelling down the path yonder. Then its movement stopped,- and the light disappeared.

How I longed for Jim to come home. I felt that something was wrong, but I could not tell what. When the stranger had removed his hat I had noticed in that moment that his hair was silvery white;' his face was that of an old marff but the eyes were those of a child. lam not a coward, yet I could not make up my mind to follow the stranger. I felt that I ought to do so; that possibly he had someone with him who was ill. His distraught manner troubled me. Would Jim be in time? Would he notice the man? I sat down again, but I could not get on with my convict; a silly fear seemed to enfold me. I was glad M'Andrew was with me. "Good dog!" I said, encouragingly, and Mac gave me such a look of understanding that I was partly reassured.

It was with a sense of relief, that I heard Jim's step. I opened the door quickly and welcomsd him almost obtrusively. He was a little : surprised. He looked round inquiringly. "Anything wrong?" he asked.

"That's just what I want to know," I said, and then I told him of the stranger's call and the strange request for the loan of a candle*?

"Was he a tall chap?" Jim asked. "Yes. Did you meet him?" "No; but I fancy it may have been him that I saw sitting on the roadway. You know where that fine karaka tree standi? Well, as I passed, I noticed a man sitting by it. The night is dark, but I saw his outline, and I noticed a newspaper spread out on the ground beside him."

"Let us go together, Jim, and find out what is the matter," I said; "and we will leave Mac to watch the house." Jim agreed, and we set out. Before we arrived at • the karaka bush we espied the faint light as of a candle, but it was extinguished before we gained the bush. At the foot of the tree, slightly sheltered from the road, we made out in the darkness a man, seated on the ground, and there beside him was a newspaper.

"Dark night!" said my husband. There was no answer, so Jim struck a match, and, shading it with one hand, stooped and looked toward the ground. Its light showed the face of the stranger. "You are in trouble?" said Jim to the man. There was no answer, but a slight movement. "Can we help you?" asked Jim.

"My God!" said the stranger. "My God! My God!"

Jim struck a second match, and, stooping down, he lit the candle. The stranger's hat lay on the ground; his silvery hair, long and plentiful, showed conspicuously in the surrounding black of the night. His right hand was clenched tightly on a telegram envelope, and the "newspaper," on nearer inspection, showed that it was a map. My husband knelt down close beside the man. "Are you ill?" he asked. The noor fellow, by determined effort, contrived to answer. "I—am—very—weak he said. The thought leapt into my mind. "y.ou have bad news," I said, 'as I saw the telegram form in his tightly clenched hand.

The tears streamed down his large, soft cheeks, and the innocent blue eyes of a child looked at us throntrh the tears. "Too—havo children?" he asked. He could not know how his artless question tortured me—and saddened Jim.

"No." T said: "we've no children; but yen—vou've lost—a son?"

"Heln mo up. please," he said, "and I will tell von—what T can."

We helned him to rise, and suggested that he should come home with lis, but he waived a negative and said : "Both mv sons are dead. My dear wife died first—then the lads. One of them—the younger—left two sons. When their mother married a second time I took them, and brought them un. In them mv own bovp lived again. At time** T miite forgot that thev were' grandchildren, and thought of them as sons. Thev loved me, as father and mother and grandfather, too.

Thev -were dear to me as water to the parched ground. They wont to school. One boy was clover —oiio was good." Here he .stopped. Fully a minute passed before he whispered: ~ ' "The clever —boy—was shot!" "By a sniper?" asked Jim. "As—a—traitor!" said the man, in a monotone voice. a traitor!" he repeated. I pressed Jim's hand. "Kough on you!" eaid Jim. "The other lad enlisted, a year younger than the prescribed age —ho was so anxious to clear the name." Again a pause. "Sir, do you know what it is to sweat in agony of prayer?" the stranger asked of -Jim. "It is so I've prayed, holding back the heavens, if might be, beseeching that my grandson —my only one—the hope of my' race—might come back to me —alive and whole."

Here the old man pathetically held out the telegram form. "I've had this two days. I knew when I took it from the messenger its news. I know —that—he— 'my only one —is killed! No need for mo to read it. I can't read the confirmation —the words would be as the torture of the raw place. More even; for I prayed, and I said I would take it as a sign from Him that I was an outcast from His grace if he cut off my race—by my lad's death."

Jim and I felt thankful that the blackness of night covered our faces and hid his from us. We were both stricken dumb. I felt impelled to action. I quite believe that Jim thought I had a sudden fit of madness. I seized the right hand of the stranger, took' the telegram from his hand, and, carrying it to the light of the candle, tore-it open and read it. I read it a second time, and yet again. Jim watched, half f : tupefied. The _ old man took no notice of me, but with folded hands and bent head stood still as stone. I-came to him. I took hold of his arm. "Supposing he were not dead? Supposing he. had himself cabled ?"

"You could not mock —a poor old man?" he said.

"No," I said; f "but your own fears mock you —he lives !" My husband seized the telegram from me. and, walking to the light, he read aloud before I could stop him: "Coming home. Have the V.C.— John."

There was a deep sob, a heavy breath; silence, and then the stranger sank on his knees and motioned us away, and we heard the words: "Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."

A day later I went alone to the spot and brought back with me the candlestick and the map of Belgium, torn by the breeze. I gathered.' the pieces, and mounted them as you see. "And the stranger?" "We have never seen him since, but we both expect to meet him and the young soldier some dav."