THE NOVELIST JOURNEY’S END.

Otago Witness, Issue 3911, 26 February 1929, Page 74

THE NOVELIST JOURNEY’S END.

By

JOYCE WEST.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witite&l

CHAPTER- XII.—THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF. Sunshine hung warmly over the rainwashed valley. The range stood clear and blue. The wintry poplars of “ Mataeri ” were etched against a sailing sky. Sullenly the river churned and twisted over its silt-washed shingle. A week it was since the earthly remains of Evan Selwyn had been laid to rest in the white-railed grave-yard where rested the Selwyns of a by-gone day and age. Helen was home, quiet and pale, with Derry. Derry’s arm was irr a sling, but his eyes sparkled with suppressed spirits. They were waiting for a telegram that morning, but when it came, it was not what they had waited for. Yet there was no repining, for “My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord.” The telegram was simply worded— Barnett, Mataeri, The operation was successful but Kay.never rallied, and passed away at 11 a.m. Please-tell Milt. Thank you for all you have done for us. Nada.

Milt came in, his face white with excitement, his eyes shining. ‘‘ Have you got a telegram? Is Kay better? Is she going to walk? ” "'* Yes, son,” Barnett said abruptly, “ she is going to be better than she has ever been before—better and stronger and happier than any of us.” Milt, stared at him and understood. His eager, young face turned white, and his lips quivered oddly. Shannon got up from the table where he was checking columns in Barnett’s illegible scribble. He put his arm through Milt’s, and guided the boy’s stumbling footsteps out.

Half an hour Later, on the porch steps, Shirley encountered Lance Shannon. She was coming out and the sun was making a golden glory of her hair. Lance Shannon looked up at her, and his grave eyes burned disconcertingly blue. Shirley found herself seizied with a queer terror, and as she drew back, her foot slipped on the step. Only a little thing—a trivial accident—but next instant she found herself in Lance Shannon’s arms. ‘‘ Shirley—l love you—” For the space of a minute she was held there, her cheek against the rough flannel of his shirt. Then he released her. His bronzed face burned furiously red, and then all the colour died out, leaving it white, hard, set in lines of agony. “ Shirley, I’m sorry—you will believe —won’t you— that I meant no insult? I’m sorry. I’ve always loved you, you see, and 1 sometimes forget that I am in no position to speak of marriage to a woman.” ‘‘Not to a —governess? ” Shirley gasped. She put out a hand to steady herself. Barnett’s mercilessly gentle words were ringing in her ears. A queer smile twitched Shannon’s white lips.'" “ The governess you speak of is a lady; and she has been accustomed to comfort—even to mild luxury. She can have no conception of what it would mean. She might even be affronted by a shepherd’s love.” “ -ot if she loved—you.” Shirley saw the man start, as though she had dealt him a physical blow. The tide of red came back to his face, and hig eyes burned deeply, vividly into her own. “ Girl, did you mean that?” “ Yes—Lance—” Shirley whispered, and reached out blindly in sweet, complete surrender. But Shannon put her from him, almost roughly, and stumbled away, his lean, bronzed face grey and drawn with suffering; Shirley—,” it was Barnett’s voice from the kitchen, ** are you anywhere around? ” Shirley went to him. He was holding his left wrist in his right hand, and driprun? blood all over Helen’s clean kitchen floor. “ Caught my hand in that dam slasher. Tie it up for me, there’s a good girl. I dunno where Helen’s got to. I must say we are a bright family for casualties! ” Shirley brought the lint, and a roll of bandage that Helen kept for the boys. Barnett stooped to look into her face. “ Are you faint. Shirley?” “ No, thanks.” Shirley said mechanically. “ Put your hand over the basin, Jack. Is it badly cut? ” “ Plenty of gore, but nothing serious. Sure you’re all right. Shirley?” Shirley was unrolling bandages, and her face was hidden from Barnett’s keen eyes. Helen came in the back door just then, and distracted his attention. ” Why. Jack—”

“ A mere scratch.” her husband assured her. feigning abject terror, “ a mere ■cratch, m’dear.”

But how did you do it, Jack? ” “On the slasher, dear. Is there any (nail if or me! ”

The slasher is fairly clean,” Helen murmered. “Did you say mail, Jack? lhere are three bills for you, and the ‘ Otago Witness.' I have just sent the mail down to the men. There is a letter from Nada to Milt, and a very legallooking envelope for Lance.” <( Helen of Troy! ” Barnett gasped. Talk about an inquisitive woman! ” ‘‘lf you had sent the mail down, wouldn’t you have looked at the addresses, and, perhaps, the postmarks? ” Helen demanded sweetly. Yes, but 1 wouldn’t have admitted the fact, Barnett allowed candidly. “ Thanks, Shirley, you’re a capital little doctor.”

At that moment there was a step on - e stone-flagged walk, and Lance Shannon entered. He sank into a chair opposite the stove. He looked very pale. " Jack,’ he said with great solemnity, “I do not know exactly what has happened to me. Would you kindly read the enclosed aloud to me so that 1 mav find out? My brain is a little bit upset.” Barnett eyed the thing Shannon had thrust into hands—a legal-looking envelope. Then he turned it upside down, and shook out the enclosures.

Davis & Davis, Solicitors, Gisborne. Mr Lance Shannon, Dear Sir, Enclosed is a copy of the will which the late Mr Selwyn drew up on the day of his death—’ ’

Barnett picked up the second enclosure without finishing the letter. The silence in the kitchen might have been felt as he fumbled clumsily with bandaged fingers at the stiff folded paper. “ The Last Will and Testament of Evan Selwyn—” his voice shook a little, and he skipped the legal phraseology—- “ To James Sherrill, my employee, all my horses, including my thoroughbred stock. To Lawrence Shannon, the'son of the man I wronged—all that land, sheep, cattle, and buildings included in the run known as ' Journey’s End ’ —” Barnett broke off abruptly, and laid down the stiff sheets.

“Well, he did the decent thing, anyway. Of course the run really belonged to Lance, but by right of descent it would have gone to Leslie’s boy.” There was silence. The- Persian cat mewed imperiously, to draw public attention, and climbed on Lance’s knee. Shirley slipped away, quietly. Tlie sun was setting in a blaze of palegold mist. Shafts of yellow haze streamed up from the crests of the ranges to fall in misty glory on t! purple tim-be-ed foothills. The river ’’owed brown an£ l turgid against its waste of shingle. Shirley sat alone on the steps below the porch.

Far in the evening silence carried the ring of a trotting horse’s shoes. A rider pulled up with a scattering of gravel at the gate, threw a leg over the pommel of, the saddle, and dismounted. Slowly he came up the white-flagged path—a picturesque figure with his spur-clinking step, the gait of a man unused to walking—Jimmie Sherrill.

The worn leather wristband, the soiled white handkerchief knotted at his throat-, the stiff creased oilskin thigh-leggings would have revealed Sherrill to anyone W’ho did not know the bronzed impassive face, the hard-shut mouth, the suspicious, far-seeing grey eyes. He was bare-headed, and he was twisting his hat in his hands. “ ‘Evening, Miss MacDonald. This belc-iged to Evan—l reckon it ought to be yours.”

Shirley thanked him, and accepted the thing he gave her—a small brown-paper package. She noticed then that he had a pack before his saddle. ‘‘Are you going away?” she asked him hesitatingly. s o,n! < to be married,” Jimmie Sherrill stated, with a furious tide of red beneath his bronze, “I’ve got a job farther up the coast, and I’m going to take Nada with me. I’ve waited five years for her, and I’m goinor to marry her now.” r '

Shirley put out both hands impulsively. “ Oh—l do hope you’ll be happy! I’v e never seen Nada, but please give her my love.”

An intangible shade of warmth changed Sherrill’s impassive face. ’ Gravely he wrung Shirley’s hand, gravelv he turned and went down the path to his horse. Shirley watched him ride away into the evening—a knif’t in oilskin leggings' and jaunty Stetson—a knight who had waited five years for the lady he loved.

Then she broke the string of the package he had brought her. A small leatherbound book slipped out, and she opened it, hesitatingly. The pages were covered in Evan’s clear hasty writing. She turned the pages slowly, and her fingers were not quite steady. For the most part it was a methodical entry of the weather and his work. Her own namecaught her eye, end she paused to read.

“ To-day I met the one woman I have ever wanted to marry. She is Jack Barnett’s Ward, Miss Shirley MacDonald.” After this amazing entry came a brief statement of the prices at the sheepsale he had attended. A few pages farther on were the lines —

“ I met Miss MacDonald again to-day. Rode over to ‘ Mataeri ’ for a belated call upon my beloved sister. Miss MacDonald is the sort of girl that makes a fellow wish he hadn’t been such a philanderer. Jack eyed me none too hospitably. I could see he was thinking—‘ Wonder what your game is. Shirley, eh? Well she’s my ward, so betake yourself to Heligoland 1 ’ Miss MacDonald, by the way, has taken over the pleasant task of teaching the Barnett cubs. I offered her the little pony ‘ Babs ’ —sent it over by Jimmie—but nothing doing. 1 suppose Jack didn’t like the idea. ,

“ Jimmie reports she is riding Lance Shannon’s grey. I wonder just what that means. Lance Shannon’s horse—”

Shirley turned a page. “ I have discovered this much anyway. Lance is in love with his employer’s ward. (That was spite. A natural outcropping of .my spiteful nature). The fool!

“ I have been out a great part of to-day, mustering lambs. The weather is glorious—blazing sunshine—brown hills —white dust —I do hate winter. I wish it could always be summer. “ I sometimes wish my conscience was a bit clearer. I allow—to myself— that my appropriation of ‘ Journey’s End ’ was a dirty trick. But I wanted it. My father’s grandfather was the pioneer Selwyn, and my mother’s father was Daredevil Wylie. From the one I fear 1 inherited a reprehensible leaning after the family estate, and I am afraid that the blood of Daredevil Wylie in my veins does not make my passions the more easily controlled. However I have heard that heredity is a weak man’s excuse, so I won’t make it mine. The pages fluttered in Shirley’s fingers. “ I engaged a new hand to-day in place of that fool I sacked last week. The new boy appears to be a good worker. He is tne brother of Jimmie’s sweetheart, Nada. Jimmie was non-commital, but I fancy he was pleased at Milt’s getting the job. “ I met Shirley out riding to-day. Shirley—Shirley—and I had a crazy impulse to say— ‘ Shirley I love you. Marry you I will, whether you say ‘ Yea ’ or ‘ Nay ’, and catch her up on Flame’s saddle and ride away. “ Can you imagine Jack’s face? Though a more tempestuous wooing than his could scarcely be imagined. Well I remember him—a shining-eyed young fool in brand-new khaki, and the way he came in to me and said— ‘ Evan, I’m going to marry your sister.’ Nell was never beautiful, but there was something about her then —there is something about her now—l don’t know , what it is, but Jack feels it dimly when he calls her , ‘ Helen of Troy ’. “ 1 remember their wedding-day, too. They were married from ‘ Journey’s Enjd ’. Lance was best man—a gangling young fool of seventeen. And I had to give the bride away—l, a sullen puppy of nineteen, smarting from the humiliation of being turned down as unfit for active service! And Jack—Jack with his brand-new khaki, and his painfully slicked hair, and the dull red of miserable embarassment in his face! Jack —and as he made bis stammering vows, he turned and looked down at Helen, and 1 forgot his uniform, and his slick hair, and his awkwardness, and only remembered the light on his face — a light that made me think of a picture in my old ‘ Stories of the Round Table ’ —a picture of a dark faced young knight and nis glimpse of the Holy Grail—- “ M y—! Is that what people call love? ”

The tears were "last dropping on the pages as Shirley turned them—- “ To-day has been a queer day. I’ve pulied off three squabbles. To begin with, young Milt called me a liar, and I’m afraid I thrashed him rather unmercifully. He looked rather sick when I was through with him anyway. After I had cleared him out, I felt a bit sorry, b’t that’s the trouble with me. I am never sorry till it’s too late to do anyone any good. I suppose if I wanted to be particularly frank with myself I would admit that I am rather ashamed of my sorrow when it does eventuate.

" Then I met Shirley, and rode home with her. Jack got a bit heated about it, and gave me a hint that my absence was preferable to my presence. I consigned him to a place hotter than Sahara, and he slapped my face. Helen interfered, however, and spoiled our little scrap. Women, as Jack himself would say, are the very dickens. “ Then when I got home, round the corner of the stables I ran across Jimmie. He came across to take the mare from me. I allow she was in a pretty bad state. Her sides were wreathed with foam; she was steaming and shivering and catching her breath queerly. Jimmie ran his hand down her neck, and gentled her. and got the saddle off. He rubbed Lis hand along her flank, and his palm was stained with blood.

“ ‘ She’s a balky brute! ’ I said pretty hotly. ‘ and I gave her what she deserved.’

“ ‘ Don’t fool yourself, Evan,’ Jimmie said low and hard, ‘you were in a temper, and you took it out of the mare.’ “ I was staggered for a minute, and then I began to think that Jimmie had summed up the situation correctly. I was trying to think what to say. when Jimmie went on with grim eloquence. ‘ And I am going to tell you a little bit of truth, Evan Selwyn. You’ve got the temper of a spoiled bov! Let anything go wrong, and you take your temper out on the thing that’s nearest you. It may be a dumb animal, it may be a boy, or it may be a man of your own size. Look at you with young Milt

this morning! I reckon you were downright unjust and brutal. You think a whole heap of your courage, Evan Selwyn, but I reckon it’s downright cowardly to bring in a horse as you’ve brought in the mare to-night. You were spoiled “as a child, and you’re a spoiled, selfish, uncontrolled man. Listen here, Evan, for you’ve got this coming to you, some day, some time, you’ll want something bad, and it’ll not be coming to you. I reckon the experience will be good for you.’ “It was the longest speech I ever heard Jimmie make ; and I’ve never been so angry since the day Lance thrashed me, years ago. I’m not sure' exactly what happened, but I think I must have raised my hand to strike Jimmie, for he reached over, took me by. the collar, and shook me as I’ve never been shaken before.

“ Then he dropped me, and walked off leading Flame. And I —l sat in a dizzy and ridiculous heap, restraining a perfectly natural desire to shout after Jimmie —‘ You’re sacked! Get out of here ! ’

“ I didn’t do anything so foolish of course. I rose and made my dizzy way to the house to prepare tea. “ And as I write, there comes to me the unavoidable conviction that most of what he said is true—”

There was a long gap in the diary here, filled merely with impersonal reflections on the weather, and work with the dheep. Then came the last entry. “ Helen came round this afternoon and brought Shirley. I hadn’t seen Shirley for a month—four long weeks. I might I ve made an opportunity to meet her,, but I didn’t. I hoped she was missing me too. —‘ We never prize the violet—’ “ It seemed queer to see Shirley sitting here in this old hall. I watched her and thought about the days when she would belong here. For I have never doubted, since the day I first met her, that she would, in the time to come, be mistress of ‘ Journey’s End.’ The day I brought her from the Cross Roads, she told me she had never really lived anywhere, her I-fe had been all wanderings and journeyings. And I reckoned I knew where her journey’s end would be—- “ Of such stuff do dreams consist!

“ Then Jack rang me up, and asked me to inform Helen that her second son had sustained a tumble from his pony. Nell took Jimmie’s horse and shot off home.

“ Shirley and 1 were left alone. “We washed the dishes, and I pretended she was already Mrs Selwyn, only engaged in her rightful occupation. Jimmie couldn’t find the horses, and a storm was coming on. We sat there in the hall, and I could see that Shirley was afraid I wanted to tell her of my. love—to hold her fast—to know her kisses. But I delayed. I tasted to the full the joy of anticipation. When 1 told her I loved her, she shrank from me—she was afraid of me—she roused a devil in me.

“ My recollections after that are somewhat hazy. I remember waking up to find myself full-length on the Selwyn ancestral hearth rug, with Lance Shannon looking down on me.

“ And I remember the look in Shirley’s eyes when Lance turned to her. “My—! She loves him—she loves Lance Shannon —that big-footed, tonguetied idiot—that muscular fool—that lovesick shepherd!

“ 1 wonder if this is jealousy. Is jealousy a feeling that turns your hands cold, and your head hot, and your heart so sore that you can’t bear it? “ —Anyway I suppose Jimmie would say it was good for me—” There was a gap of some lines and then the handwriting was clearer, less scribbled.

“ It is the hour of dawn, and I am writing these lines by the aid of one flickering candle. It was hot and I couldn’t sleep. My head ached from the civilities of Lance Shannon, and my feelings were topsy-turvy. I crept out quietly, so as not to wake my tyrant Jimmie. The night was cool. I had a peep at Flame with my pocket torch. Jimmie had stabled and rugged and dosed her, and she looked as fit as ever.

“ Somehow my aimless steps led me to the new-cut bay-field. The scent of fresh hay stubble was comforting, and in the sky above me the blurred stars were paling in the hush of the coming dawn.

“ I love Shirley, and since she doesn’t love me, I will never marry. This is not one of my many flirtations; it is love—the only unselfish affection I have ever known. lam fond of Helen, of course, but she’s—just Helen. And Jimmie—but only because he is useful to me and because he stands up to me. If I die without an heir, the run will go to Leslie’s son. I would like to will ‘ Journey’s End ’ to Shirley as a gift, but I am afraid it would not bring her happiness. I know Lande—and the Selwyn pride—enough to know he would never marry Shirley while he is only a shepherd—with not even the proverbial cottage to offer, and if she owned a rich sheep run, it would but be an additional barrier.

“ So I am going to the Cross Roads to-day. to draw up a will leaving ‘Journey’s End ’ to its rightful possessor.

“ I had reached that decision when the first, birds of morning began to whistle. I am sitting on the steps, now, and I have blown out the candle. Stars are pale, and the ranges are like grey velvet in the grey light of dawn. A tui ripples in the puriris. and the scent of hnv—stubble reaches me even here. The popla-s are losing their leaves, and the birches are etched in faint tracery against the brightening sky. The whole air seems charged with the mournful promise of coming winter. “Yet as I sit here there comes to me the unshakable conviction that, dawn must follow darkness, bird-songs, silence, and forgiveness hate. I can’t explain it,

but I feel it, and I feel that after winter must come spring—the springing of sap on the earth, and the eternal spring which is the resurrection

“ I have just picked up my pencil to write it once more—only once —I love you, Shirley—l love you ” Shirley sat still in the darkening twilight. Over the rim of the western hills was swinging a pale, slender crescent moon. From the river so far below came a sullen sigh that rose and fell on the wind in strange cadences, and died into silence. “ Shirley!” It was Lance Shannon s voice—clear, confident, steadfast.

“ I am coming.” She laid aside the leather-bound book. Sometime—not now—she would show it to him. He stood at the foot of the steps, bare-headed, the night breeze in his dark, uncovered hair. “ Come here, dear.”

Coquetry was not part of Shirley’s nature. She went down the steps, slowly, yet without hesitation.

“ I came to bring you—this.” The dying light of the evening drew gleams of fire from the ruby’s perfect heart. The slender hoop of gold flashed dully. “ Lance ”

“It was my mother’s. And before that it belonged to the bride of Lawrence Selwyn—so many years ago. I thought you would rather have it than a new one.”

“ Rather than all the new rings in the world,” Shirley said softly. The slender hoop, worn and thin and beautiful, slipped on to Shirley’s finger. Slowly Lance Shannon drew her into his arms, slowly he waited for her upturned lips. No lawless wooing this, as Evan Selwyn’s, but the clean intense passion of a strong man who has waited long for the woman he loves. Slowly he bent his head to hers, his lips met hers—firm, cool, clean, yet intense with the strength and purity of a shepherd s love. (To be concluded).