ROSEMARY GOES BEGGING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3348, 15 May 1918, Page 58

ROSEMARY GOES BEGGING.

By Mahgahet E. jMubpht.

It is most disconcerting to have a sixfoot man, with the stern-set face proper to a hero, telling you that he does not wish to marry you. Rosemary says so, and she knows, because Donald Maclise, to whom she had been engaged practically from the time they had played marbles on the way home from school, showed a marked disinclination to fulfil his early promise. Rosemary Lane could do better than marry a cripple, he said, quite regardless of Eqsemary's belief that she could not do better.

The Maclise farm ran boundaries with Lane's land, and had been part of Lane's original holding before that dilLetarite farmer broke ft up as a short cut to fortune. "We were engaged when you went away. Don and I never freed you from' your promise." "There was that letter," said he tentatively. "Oh, that!" eaid Rosemary airily. "I just wrote that to cheer you up while 3"ou were in hospital, and if you read it over again you will see that 1 only put off deciding until you came home." This calm assumption that he treasured her letters took Donald off his guard. "I'll read it over again and see," said he.

" Do, dear," smiled Rosemary sweetly. Had Rosemary been acquainted with " Man and Superman" or " Ann Veronica" she would have known how to pursue her advantage. Rosemary was oldfashioned, like you and me, and believed that a man should do his own wooing. Possibly she would not have considered Ann Whitfield and Ann Veronica quite nice. At their country's call Willie Lane, the onlv son of his house, and four sturdy young Maclises had joined up and sailed away to do their duty. The end of three years' fighting saw Willie Lane and Johnnie Maclise, inseparable in life, as in death, " killed in action," Donald and Roger, minus a leg and an arm respectively, "invalided home"; Ben Maclise still in the fighting-line, with Jerry, the youngest of the family, on his way over to take his stand in the trenches. So does the European war exact stern tribute in Ferndale.

Donald Maclise took his maiming bitterly. A strong man, in all the pride of hi 3 manhood, he could not accept the fact that he must walk haltingly for all the days of his life with a smile. On the returning transport other crippled men had joked about their " gammy" legs, comparing the clever mechanism of their artificial limbs with a bright-heartedness quite beyond Donald. Upon landing some vague, if chivalrous, idea that Rosemary could do better than marry a cripple- had prompted him to avoid Rosemary and Sunnymead. Sunnymead, the Lane homestead, was a white-painted, red-roofed, many-windowed house, made beautiful bv sheltering English trees grown to a great size—oaks, firs, beeches poplars, willows, laurels, and hawthorns —pink and white were all there. Joe Dent, odd-job man, stayed on year after year, and kept the garden in a kind of order. Other men came and went, but Joe, secretive and sardonic, remained. At intervals he would disappear for a week or more, to return to the shelter of his hut beneath the biggest poplar/ looking white and shaken as though the world had dealt hardly with him. "Lord, Dent, what a fool you are!" Lane had burst out on the prodigal's latest reappearance.

"Yes, Boss," admitted Joe as he attacked some weeds in a pansy bed. He had a strange fancy for pansies, and their bright, elfish faces peered at Rosemary from all manner of unexpected places like gnomes in velvet. Presently William Lane relented. "I'm a fool, too, Toe, but of another sort." "Yes, boss." said Joe aa he went on weeding. Of an easy, genial temperament, Lane liked a cood horse, a gun, and 1 a couplo of dogs to run at his heels. Given these and a pipe and a book on wet days he pursued his pleasant way, untroubled by fluctuating markets and the income tax. Sunnymead had shrunk in acreage from a large run to a moderate-sized farm, and under the charge of a succession of "men" seemed likely to shrink down to the ploughman's cottage. " I like the old boss well as any man," said old Ben Maclise in the privacy of his own kitchen; " but in his haverin', dilly-dallvin' ways he'll have Sunnymead in the market, and no hae the price o' a pipe o' tobacco left to himsel'." " Ye are right,. Ben," agreed his housekeeper and sister Mary. '' Its fair aggravatin' the way Donald is goin' on, he that might be master there. "A master is sair_ needed. It's just a whimsy o' the laddies. He takes his

loss bitter hard, and we must gie him time to come till himsel'." Ben Maclise used old Doric and colonial English in a way of his own. However, an emphatic way easily understood, as Donald found. " It's fair nonsense, lad. I mind when Rosemary got the news of you're wounded out o' the paper, for we were upset wi' the loss o' Johnnie and one thing an' another, and didna think to send her Avord. Over she come runnin', the tears in her pretty eyes. 'lt's Donnie, Daddy Maclise,' says she. ' Will he get better? Hae ye had word.' I turned her over to Aunt Mary; that wis nae a man's job. Ye are my job, Donal', and am nae gaein' tae see ye tak' the wrang road if I can help it. I ken how ye're feelin', lad, used up and done for; but 'twill pass. Hae ye seen hoo the boss is failin'. Willie's gone, and nane but ye could tak' his place and save bonnie Sunnymead from the bankrupt's court. Yon's the pettiest bit o' land in all Ferndale. It's been a sort o' Natboth's vineyard tame, I'm no denyin*. You're little savin's and what I'll pit tae it wull start ye wi' stock an' crops. Ye're head and hands wull be worth more to Willyum Lane than his land has ever been. The lassie has put her lovin' trust in ye, Donal', and ye canna—ye darena—be fause to it. It's not so. I've taught my sons to treat a wumman. Let yere heart speak, lad, and follow it, as 1 did, and ye'll never regret it. What vers mother was to me it's ony mo 'at knows.''

Having shown the soundness and goodness of the heart that was in him, like very man, Daddie Maclise instantly sought to cover it up again. " Gin I were twenty years younger, my lad, sae pretty a lass wudna gang beggin' Ise warrant ye," said he pawkily. " I—l didn't think of it at all just that way, dad," said Donald somewhat shakily. Taking up his hat, Donald went out. It was a clear, still autumn day, when the air is like wine, when the reddened apples are falling from the trees, and the velvet-petalled dahlias are glowing crimsonly from every garden. There were a few faintily-coloured, out-of-time blossoms on the apple tree by the gate. "■ Sort of apologv for having so few apples on you. Still, there is a fine one. Rosemary always liked these," thought Donald. He stood, apple in hand, for he had had no intention of going to Rosemary immediately, but he slipped it into his pocket and went on. Beneath his feet a new growth of grass was springing under the summer-whitened straws, for there is promise as well as fulfilment in our autumns. He crossed the flax-edged creek where tiny rainbowed trout live, and eels. How Rosemary had hated eels 1 He wondered if—but went on away up the rise to a hilltop that commanded a view of Ferndale for miles around. Behind him the hills swept gradually upwards, merging into the bush-clad Tinakori Ranges, over which towered the white-peaked Tokomarus. On the right Sunnymead was shining white against its trees. To the left his father's home nestled close to a belt of firs. Before him, as far as eye could see, spread a broad track of farmland, broken by gently-rising, low hills. Many tree-shadowed homesteads stood in bold outline against the neutral-tinted background. Donald Maclise was idly wondering what changes had taken place during his absence, who had come or gone. Standing there his vision cleared. Where he had seen darkly, as through a mist, he now saw distinctly, and in right perspective. All the horror and smoke of battle; all the bewilderment of that had clouded his physical and mental vision cleared. He saw the goodly and pleasant land for which he had been fighting; knew that he belonged to it, was of it; every inch and acre of it was dear to him —the smoke-wreaths, the clusters of grain stacks —his father's neatly and firmly thatched, Lane's leaning away and propped up with poles. He smiled at that; it was so like Lane's very oat stacks to need propping up. The grazing stock in the paddock made bright spots of colour. He liked those black-and-white cattle; and there was Roger teaching the new boy to plough —brave old Roger with his one arm. He had not whined, but had gone to work, all racked with pain and shock as he was. The sounds, too, pleased him —the voices of children playing on _the roads and of men shouting to their teams in the paddocks. The rumbling of Hay's waggon going downhill grain-laden came pleasantly from the distance. It was the birds' quiet time, and there were only a few cheeky sparrows abroad. In his receptive, reflective mood he saw that Rosemary, through all the years of their companionship, had become woven into his verv life. Every sight and sound recalled her in laughing or in pensive mood, and as happy child and growing girl. She was the theme that illumined the pastorale of his days. Rosemary was the centre of everything. He would go and tell her so.

He found her under the white hawthorn tree, the one that bore flowers like tiny roses. On the seat on which they had carved their initials with a brand-new pocket-knife Bosemarv had been crying. He felt like punching somebody's head. At school he had punched fellows' heads for less. It was queer how memories came rushing in at sight of her—happy, sad, funny, tragic, absurd. They overwhelmed him.

" Rosemary," he cried, and, again, "Rosemary !" Quick as a homing bird to its nest she flew to the shelter of his arms.

"Donnie! Oh, Donniel I've been so miserable."

" You never will be again, dear—not any misery that I can shield you from shall touch you if you can forget the few weeks and marry me." " It's like last winter's snow, dear—gone forever, and I —l always did mean to marry you." , " Even when I " "Yes; even when you didn't."

"Good for you, girlie; but what were you crying for? ISTot—not that?" " It's father, Don. Things are going badly with him, and he talks of selling Sunnymead."

'Selling Sunny mead?" Yes, and I could not live anywhere else. The roots of me go right down into the soil, deep, deep." Donald, heart-quickened from his moment on the hill-lop, understood that feeling of being rooted to the soil. "I know where the very first primrose comes —under that pink thorn, and where the goldfinches have their nests, and the nicest plum tree, and the way the wind sings in the trees. Nobody could know it and love it like I do. And my big sunny room! Oh, Donnie ! Let us go and tell father he need not leave Sunnymead ever while he lives." "Where is he?" i

" On the verandah, smoking a pipe he has not lighted, and reading Dickens upside down."