CHAPTER XIII.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 157, 19 June 1886, Page 4

CHAPTER XIII.

LOST IN THE MOUNTAINS, "An' so they've gone," said Mary Brady, when the next noon Hans Munn returned with the carriage from the distant railroad station, to -which he bad taken Clarence Ashworth and his mother. " Yes ; I seed 'em off; unt I tole you vot, Maree, dem vos sboost so nice yolks vot I neFer saw," said Hans, as he prepared to eat the dinner the thoughtful cook has kept warm for him. " Faith, I wish, aa they had to go way,' said Mary, "that they'd tuk Mishther Sheerley Bmsin with 'em." "Mr Shirley Benson atnt agoin' to leave Beriaford Manor," said Minnie, who, by virtue of her more frequent association with the people of the parlor, was qui'e an authority with her friends in the kitchen, " How you know all dem dings, Minnie?" a3ked Hans, in the midst of his eating. " Oh," she replied, " I hear a great doal, and then I do a great deal of thinking for myself," " Vel dot's all ride. Yen you a husbant hafe got, Minnie, dot thinkin' by you eaves him mooch drubble." " IE mm didn't have charitable woman to think for them," said Mary, with her shapely arms akimbo, "It's a topsy-turvy world we'd have of it. An' I don't know,

Hans, this blessed day of any man in the wide world that needa a woman to think for him as much as you do." "I dinks so mineselluf," laughed Hanse " unt if you shange your name Mare j Munn, den I leda you do dot pizniz for me. Yot you say. eh ?" " Upon me conscience," replied Mary, with a twinkle in her eyes that told she was not expressing her exact feelings, " if you were the lasht man in the world, an' hu&bants was worth their weight in solid dimeants, I wouldn't have you." "I dinks meppe aiz how you shange yer mint yen I show how I loaf, un you see how much gelt I got in de pank Jaid avay," chuckled Hans, with a wink at Minnie, which Mary affected to treat with lofty indifference. " Let ua have all jokin' aside," said Mary, " an' think of the idea of havin' young Binsin here all the toime. Faith, if that was to bo the case, it's havio't to have another cook at Berk-ford Manor they'd be afther, much as I'd hate to have to lave the kind ould masther an' Miss Miriam." " Unt if you leaf, Maree, den I guess raeppe aiz how some n odder man den tians Muntt make do gaiten unt dakos care dem horses oai- " "They didn't think I heard em," interrupted Minnie, as she glanced about her and approached Mary on tip-toe, "but I was in a corner and couldn't get out of it when them two was talkin'. " " Oh, that's honofit enough/ said Mary Brady. But what two do you mane, Minnie. Is it Mr Aehworth an' hid mother? Suie you nover heard a wrong word fiom their lip 5*5 * ? " No," replied Minnie, in a whisper, accompanied by the samo cautious glances ; "it wns the madame and Mr Benson; they're as thick as two thieves." " And with the same rayson," paid Mary, with characteristic sarcaem. "But if it's no saycrit mobbe ye'd tell us what they sed" '• Well, they hate Mr Clarence Ashworth like— like—" '* Liko the dival hates howly wather," prompted Mary. •' Like pizen," said Minnie, finishing the illustration to suit herself. " VVhy, the madamo hinted right out open that if Mr Clarence Ash worth was to stop long at the Manor thnt he'd cut Mr Benson out — " " Which I'd give tix months wages to see him do," broke in Mary, adding : " Sure Mr A&h worth is a mm an' a gintleman ivery inch ay him ; An' ill wasin the young missoa's placo I'd rather marry him widout a sint than to take youni> Binson if he was rowlin' in goold — v. hich they do say he can do whin his father dies. Heaven forbid that that tnitne should come soon if the raarriage is dopendin" on it." '' Maroe Prady,'' said Hanp, wiping his beard and pushing back from the table, "you vos' mos' dimes putty near always ride ; but I don'd jjan hoar you dalk 'bout marry in' some odder man." Mary Brady, with a dignity that did not seem to disconcert Hans in the least, suggested that as he had finished his dinner he was quite free to go out and attend to his work. ■'An 1 lave us two girls to talk over our little sayciits without any interfareincc from thim that has no right to be lessfcinin' to what's nono ay their busineps " "All ride, Maree ; I led you unt Minnie do all de dalk, unt I drys oop," said Hans, complacently settling back in his chair and preparing to fill his big porcelain pipe. Feeling that ehe had the floor all to herself, Minnie went on to tell what she had overheard between Madame Barron and Shirley Benson. "He said," she added, "that Miss Miriam said she wouldn't leave her father, but that she was willing to marry hitr if he made his home at the Manor ; and then he asked the madame what he should do, for he appeared to be dead set against burying himsel' in these hills." " An' what did the madame say ?" asked Mary, with the manner of a judge putting an important question to a witness. " She told him to insist on having his own way, an' to be sure an' urge the matter sn the doctor, an' he said he would." "Ah!" exclaimed Mary, "1 can see through her game as well as if I was inside of her an' lookin' out through her two wicked black oyes. Sure she wants to have the ould gintleman all to hereel' ; an' whin the lonely feelin' comes to him, as ifc'll euro to do whin his daughter's gone, then she thinks ho may be in the humor to take a second wife." •' Dot, lonely foelin," said Han?, going to the kitchen door, and preparing to light a match, "is vot makes men dake de first wife ; dot s how I feel ; unt if you vos only to feel lonely liko mo, den meppe ve — " A threatened assault from Maiy, which he ran out to avoid, prevented Hans from finishing his s ntonco : but as ho was heard singing a German love eong in thegaiden soon after, it is evident he understood Mary and did not take a discouraging view of her conduct. From the foi-egoing conversation, it will be seen that tue servants at Berisford Manor — like the servants in every other house in the world— took a keon and observant interest in the doinga of their employers. The day after the departure of Clarence Ash worth and his mother, Shirley Benson left Willowemoc, paying he was going to take a run down to Long Branch to see his parents, and that he would be back again in a few days to perfect his arrangoment for his marriage with Miriarr, which he was determined should come off that fall. For the first time in her life, Miriam was glad to be rid of Shirley Benson. There novor once enterod her loyal mind a dream of being false to the pledge ehe had made to thi=> man, yet she could not hide from herself the thought, though she tried to do so, that she had conceived a. positive dislike for him. This dislike was intensified by the eagerness of her father for the marriage, and by the constant and cunning praises of Shirley Benson, which Madame Barron never wearied in sounding. It is eaid that some people can control the thoughts in opposition to tneir feelings, but Mil iam Beriaford was not one of them. She could not help contrasting Shirley Benson with Clarence Ashworth, and ever to the detriment of the former. The scales had fallen from her eyes, and she saw with pain that she was betrothed to a commonplace, vulgar man. She imagined that shs had not been impressed by Clarence Ash worth's handsome, manly person, and that it was only his culture and talenta that effected her so favourably. She never imagined that love for the first time had taken up his abode in her heart, and that hencefoith she was to see no defect in the idol whom she unconsciously worshipped. The feeling Miriam entertained for Shirley Benaon extended to Madame, i Barron, and in her effort to hide it she felt I that she was acting the hypocrite. Before the coming of Clarence Ashworth, Miriam had been, if not positively happy, certainly contented with her lot ; but now, though she never for an instant associated him with tho change, she was positively unhappy. More than ever her father —in whose society she always found pleasure— waa absorbed in hi« musty books and hit fascinat-

ing chemical experiments, so that in her undefined yet none the lees real sorrow Miriam was driven back on herself, as it were. She attributed her changed feeling largely to ill health, though hitherto she had not known a day's sickness^ Resolved to conquer herself till her old contented status was regained, she decided to take long rides on horseback, and to renew her botanical studiep, of which she was very fond. As she had been accustomed to riding out alono, her appearance, golloping unaccompanied above the bills of Willowmoc, attracted no unusual attention from the villagers. Eager, inquiring minds do not like beaten paths. It was with something of the spirit of an original explorer that Miriam took each day longer trips into the mountain?, leaving the roads and beaten trails and plunging into the shadowy depths of the virgin forest, or scaling rocky crests inaccessable to all but a bold rider and a sure-footed horse. Out in these wilds, face to face with nature, Miriam felt a« if the world and all its cares were left behind. Her sense of location was perfect ; she knew every elevation like the form of a lifelong: friend, so that the thought of losing herself never entered her mind. One afternoon she had ridden further than usual, and sho became so absorbed in her own thoughts that it wan not until deep shadows settled on the valleys and heavy clouds dropped down and veiled the hilfs that she straightened up in her saddle and looked about her. Then with a feeling bordering on alarm, though she was by no means nervous, she paw loweiing rain clouds oveihead, while the mountains echoed the deep rumblings of the thunder. She looked at her watch, and it was a quarter to six. In another hour it would be dark, and she was entirely ignorant of the distance to Willowemoc, or of the direction, for the storm clouds had blotted out her friendly landmark.". She gathered up the reins, and patting her horse's glossy neck, she eaid : "Cap, good horse, you mupfe find the way and take me homo as speedily as possible." She was quite right in trusting to the memory and intelligence of her horse, and had there bee'i any trail or sign to direcc him the splendid creature would have taken her through in safety. But a horse, that never forgets a road he hag once taavelled, can be ljpst in a trackless forest quite as well as a man. With free rein the horse started fovward, but he had not gone a mile through the roaring, swaying forest when a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a deafening thunder crash, appeared to unbolt the flood-Rates of the heavens &nd let the loosened rain pour down in torrents. It was not the fin?t time Miriam had been caught in the rain, so that she did not mind the wetting, but the roar of the storm and the dense darkness closing in like a wall on every hand soriously alarmed her. There was nothing left but to keep on, trusting altogether to the instinct of her sure footed horse. The intelligent animal moved with the greatest caution, stopping now and then as if for deliberation, or to wait for the lightnine't 1 flash to reveal the lookout in fiont. Miriam encouiaged herself by trying to recall the circumstances of ladies who had been caught out in etoims, or lost in the woods, but who came out at length without any harm. On and on went the horse at a cautious walk. The torrents of rain had quenched our every ray of light, and it was as impossible to see as if she had been in the deepest recess of the Mammoth Cave without a torch. The lightning, which at other times would have staitled her by its blinding vividness, was now hailed as a friendly visitor, for it enabled Miriam to ccc her surroundings, if not to tell the direction in which she was going. She did not attempt to guide her horse until, after riding for what seemed hours, she discovered that the animal was walking down the bed of a stream, the roaring waters of which camo up within a few inches of the girths. The gleam of lightning that revealed this also showed that on either hand the banks of this torrent rose in precipitous cliffs to an indefinite heightShe tried to turn her horse back, but he took the bic in his teeth and kept persistently on.