LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4097, 8 June 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

«♦ A DBEADFUL OASE. (Trcm Bilgrama.) (Continued.)

Chapxhb IL I

A Horember morning. The rime upon tree and shrub and the hard, bare earth ia slowly yielding to the rays of a winter sun. I, Jaram Frogg, a frozen-out gardener, have come out into the air to enjoy the sudden bunt of warmth, and to watch the glistening icicles change to dewdrops, as it were, and sparkle, each one, with the glory of the rainbow. There is more to be done, however, than limply enjoying the unwonted sunlight. The easy life 1 have spent during the last month or two haa, notwithstanding my energetic gardening, begun to affect me in a very disagreeable and unexpected manner. I havo been getting fat 1 But I flatter myself that I have peculiar talent for meeting and overcoming difficulties of every kind. The heavy garden roller which I bought on entering Marie Villa would have lain by, gathering the rust of idleness, during the winter months, had not the happy idea entered my brain of employing it in the interests of health. Consequently, every morning, he it wet or be it dry, sees me, for at least half an hour, manfully trotting ronnd the trim gravel paths of my flowery domain, *i*h. the garden roller ■behind me. Crunch, crunch, crunch — tramp, tramp, tramp. The perßpiration stood upon my brow in beads aa I gave myself to my laborious taak thia sunny morning. I had made half a dozen circuits of the garden with my eyea bent upon the earth before me, -when the sound of a voice, trembling aB with age, caused me to stop and look toward our neighbours' garden. "Hi! Good morning to you, sir. "Good in >rning, sir," I replied, bowing to the elderly, infirm-looking man who greeted me. He had a .long beard of snowy whiteness, save round his mouth, where it »as jet black. Hia eyebrow, also, were of tie sama hue. This contrast alone gave him a very sir.rjular look; hut t.ho addition of a hu<_> • sealskin cap with grea'. Hi'? covering his eara, and n long rough ulster ooat, the collar of which waa turned up, would have made his appearance comical in tho extreme, 6ave that tho soft, almost beseeching expreaaion of his dark eyes forbade tlie thought. Thiß old man, plainly an invalid, with a tendency to limpnesß, had arrived in a cab along with our ' suspicious neighbour's wife toward the close of the day on which the house was tenanted. This waa the first time, to my knowledge, that he had stirred out of doors sine- i!ien. He cou^:?d violently for about a minute, and then sail, aa he wiped the moisture from his eyes : . " You are a very young man, but, ana a rather lively young roan, air." " Sixty-one next birthday, sir," I answered, with all the hoastfuluess of youth. "Bless it i soul, sir ! Three years younger than I am :" but you have led a very quiet life, I BUpt-.>- ; and Ihave become saple3B by long exposure io a tropical sun." " A traveller, sir?" "Fort- fhousand miles in India and Persia." " Dearv me, sir ; deary me ! " " But 1 bave made money by it," he said, chuckling feebly. I do not know -whether it waa the whispered tone in which he uttered these last words, or the vacant look in hia eyes, but I began to feel that a tropical sun had enfeebled my new acquaintance mentally as well as physically. I had no opportunity, however, for testing this suspicion of mine, for just then a stout-built, moon-faced German servant, whom our neighbours had brought with them, came from the house, and approached the old gentleman. He submitted to take the arm which tho maid silently proffered him, and be led indoors like an offendiig child. A week j-.aasjd before I again had a chance of meeting our old neighbour. Every morning I had prolonged my garden-roller exercise in the hope of seeing him. My good wife suggested that his nephew (she waa indebted to the thinness of the walls, by the way, for her knowledge of this relationship) had some sinister motive for preventing intercourse between us. I chid her at tbe time for her malevolent thoughts, and she was huffed ; so there the matter dropped. I fancied, though, that old Mr Lea (another fact revealed by the walla) displayed, as it were, something of the spirit of an emancipated schoolboy aa he greeted me. The first half hour of our chat was delightfully pleasant. I talked of flowers ; he of the adventures he bad met during the yeara of his foreign travel. He further showed a generoua admiration for my " tasteful arrangement " — the words were hia own— of phloxes, asters, and chrysanthemums, and sympathised_with my ambition to asaociate the name of -Btogg with that ever-cheerful favourite of both rich and poor, my much-loved geranium. But he did not pr jfe33 to understand those delicate distinctions in flower and leaf which mean so much to the English florist. " Nature delights to work on a bolder aoale in those regions where I have been most familiar with her," he said; "and amid the overpowering magnificence of tropical Bcenery, the quiet beauties of an English garden would solicit us in vain." These words were uttered in a gentle, thoughtful way, that impren?ed me very mu-'h. " But still, sir, you can feel the beauty of our simple floral gems in their proper place?" "Gema!" he exclaimed, the expression of his countenance changing from that of the reflective sage, I was going to say, to one that was almost miserly: "Ah, now you i»11r of something I understand. They are not watching us, are they?" he broke off, looking nervously in the direction of the house. "No, no," aaid I with subdued excitement, wondering what was to happen next. He deliberately unbuttoned his long Ulster coat, shivering in tne cold winter air as hedid so ; then he began to fumble at a belt which he wore. Several diamonds, of great value as I judged, in a moment more sparkled before my astonished eyes. He had apparently drawn them from a little leather pocket, curiously concealed beneath this belt. " Ah! those are gems, if you like, sir," he exclaimed with an exulting chuckle, which brought to my mind the impression created at our first interview, that he was not quite right in hia head. " They are splendid," I said ; " but why do you carry them about with you? Suppose any one, dishonestly inclined, were to learn that an elderly man had property of such ▼alue upon him ! The thought of it makes me tremble, sir." " I am not in the habit of exhibiting the treasures which it has taken my lifetime to amass. I dare not. But I trust you, sir." As a man of business, I thought there waa here another proof of mental weakneaa, in the fact that he should confide in one of whose antecedents he knew nothing, and of whose honesty he had no further proof than a love of nature might suggest But I chanced at that moment to look up at the first-floor window of our neighbour's house ; and there, watching with a strange and, as I thought, scornful smile, stood the tall, sallow man of whom both my wife's and my own impression was so distinctly unfavourable. I motioned to the old man to put away hiß jewels, for the German servant was approaching again ; moat likely sent by her master. My strange acquaintance did not appear in the garden any more.

Chapter ILL

I have an innate horror of eavesdropping ; and, as I have repeatedly j- id to my dear wife, whose feminine' curio?it;' tempts her to attach far too little 'attention to this evil, "Conversation not intended fdr her ears ought to be regarded with the same feelings aa a letter not written for perusal. She would feel deeply insulted did any one suggest that ?he was capable of reading another Eerson's letter simply because the seal appened to be broken, and she could therefore do 83 without fear of del action." But women, alas, are never logical; and she will not eee, or, perhaps, cannot, that her c -nduct is no less culpable when Bhe greedily listens to the private conversation of otherß, just because accident, or carelessness, on their part haß placed her within earshot. I know I have jested s.b»ut the thinness of the wall between ns and our neighbours, Mr and Mrs Maiden, permitting friendly talk or checking scandal Sus. ; but, in sober ernest, I was annoyed with Mrs Frogg that what waß to me a subject for fun was to her a serious and practical means 9 picking up information concerning the tall

man and hi» wife, and that strange being, Mr Lea. Well, a few daya after my interview with the latter, we sat in our cheerful, coaey front pariour (I hate that word "drawing-room" when applied to an apartment sixteen feet square) ; we were sitting, I say, in our cosey parlour ; my wife, with her knitting in her hands, on au ottoman, which was drawn close into a recess by the fireplace ; l, in my good old armchair, by the table in the middle of the room, and reading the last number of the " Gardener's Magazine." The entranoe of Ann with ourcußtomary "nightcap" of weak toddy and thin bread and butter interrupted my study of an article on " Trenching," and caused me to look up at my wife. " Eavesdropping !" I was about to exclaim, when my speech was arrested by observing the strange look of horror on Polly's face. She had dropped her knitting, and sat with hands clasped tightly across her breaat and head presaed closely against the wall. " My dear girl, whatever is the matter with you?" I said. " Oh ! it ia dreadful," ahe whispered, holding her finger to check me. " Pray come and hear what they are saying." Exalted though my principles were about listening, I could not resist the impulse of the moment, but hastily rose from my eeat and placed my ear againßt the wall likewise. Ann Lightbody, too, forgetting our relative positions, dropped the tray of toddy on the table aa if it were a hot coal, and rushed tc the opposite side of the mantelpiece to imitate our example. To any one entering tbe room at tbat moment the scene presented must have been absurd beyond description. But we were earnest enough, for what we heard seemed tb freeze our very blood. "Is he dead yet? we heard Mrs Maiden ask her husband, with a low, muaical laugh that seemed to us like the mirth of a fiend. "Thoroughly," responded he, in a deep voice, which betrayed no sign of remorse or agitation. " Your hint tbat I should dispose of him in his sleep, like Hamlet's uncle did hia troublesome brother, waa capital." " Oh, the wretch ! " exclaimed Ann Lightbody at this point, in a tone so loud that I feltsure it would be heard through the wall, and cause this dreadful man and hiß wife to cease their dialogue. In the excitement of the moment I forgot myself, and I shook my fist at the stupid j servant. " Hold your tongue, woman ! " I i said, in a hoarse whisper. She obeyed, and an the same time motioned toward my wife, who began to show a tendency tt go off into screaming hysterics. I Bhook her thoroughly and whispered : " For heaven's sake, Polly, do command yourBelf, or we Bhall hear nothing more." The possibility of auch a disaster Beemed to be a sufficient restorative ; and, though she trembled violently, she controlled the hysterica, and again we bent our ears to listen. There was silence for several minutes. Then we heard Mrs Maiden aßk, gravely : " What shall you ro with the body ? " "Oh, that is just the difficulty. As the neighbours must, not have their suspicions roused, it must be buried at night and a report put about that the silly old man has gone into the country." " Oh, dear ! There is the property to dispose of, is there not ? " I felt paralysed with horror to think that a young and beautiful woman could talk with such cynical calmness of disposing of the property of a man who had been done to death by her own husband ! I had only seen her once or twice, and if my reading had not told me that the fairest form may sometimes be tenanted by the foulest apirit, I should have thought it utterly impossible for ono ao lovely to participate in the awful deed they were dißcuasing, or for those tender lips of hers to frame Buch a speeoh as the last one. All this flashed through my mind in an instant, and I listened fearfully for her husband's reply. It was what I expected. " Uncut diamonds tell no tale," said this sallow neighbour of mine, in hia deep voice, laughing loudly. " Nothing could have been luckier than my witnesaing that little scene between my uncle and our fat neighbour over the garden wall." In an ordinary moment I should have felt keenly the insult conveyed in thia remark, but my feelings were too highly wrought for it to touch me then. But Polly pressed my hand and murmured, "The "horrid villain." We listened painfully for somo minutes more. We heard Maiden's wife heartre a deep sigh. She waa human, then. I had scarcely thought it. " I can't bear to think — it ia too dreadful," the taid, her voice trembling for the first time during the fearful conversation. Again her huaband laughed loudly, and said, in a theatrical tone, " What, my Lady Macbeth tremblifig ! ' Come, we'll to sleep. We are yet but young in deed.' " In a moment more we heard the door of the apartment closed. We three sat and j looked at each other — blanched and speechless with horror. (To be continued.) ■L - '