LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5062, 24 July 1884, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOME, SWEET HOME. ! [By Joaquin Miller,] (Continued.) Chapter IV. AFTER NINETEEN TEABB. The water rattled down over the great, mossy old mill wheel, and customers went and came, and Charley Osborne measured wheat, back among the barrels and bags. The old Miller's wife sat at the door of the dusty mill mending a little girl's frock, while the little one, shorn of her outer garment, ran hither and yon among the bags and bins around the old man, as with measure in hand, he went about taking toll, and testing the quality of his grain, and muttering to himself, as very old men will. " Weel, you see, mother, I didn't like Jamie simply because he was a cannie Scot, though they do say we Scotch are powerful clanish when we get awa from hame ; but I love Jamie best, because he was a whole nion, mother. It's nineteen years now, and had he lived he could come home now*" said the old man, pausing in his work. " He's gone to his better hame, Sonnie ; don't feel so bad, Sonnie. We'll see him there ; it won't be for long, now." And the old lady laid down her pipe and let fall her two hands and the little, red dress in her lap, while the child, who had found a bushel of wheat poured out dh the floor to dry, had sat square down in it, and was rolling the wheat up about its naked legs and burying them there with great delight. " It broke his heart, mother — it clean broke his heart. He died that same year, ye know. And ye know, mother, how he used to talk about how he would sit under the trees when he and Nettie were old like us, and then how, when very, very old, he would sit by his hearthstone and smoke his pipe, an' — an' dandle his grandchildren — Ah, you little tow-headed rouge, yer spilling me wheat on the floor, ye are ! But there, go ahead ! Spill it ! Spill it, if it pleases ye ; spill it every bit—But now to think of it, mother, after all, he weren't even buried there." " Ah, Sonnie dear, never nioind, it ain't for long till we all be together again." The old woman had risen up and approached the old man very tenderly. " I guess if s the sunset that gets in me eyes ; and then I'm getting a little old, mother, I feel." " Why, I hadn't noticed it, Sonnie ! " " And ye hadn't noticed I was getting a little auld P God bleBS yo, God bless ye!" And the old man hobbled up to her, for she had turned and taken up her work, and kissed her tenderly on her brown and wrinkled old brow, and then took up his measure and turned to his wheat. He sighed as he did so, and said back over his shoulder : " Ah, Jamie, Jamie ! And such a brave, rousing good mon as he was, mother ! " As he finished speaking the tall, thin Daniel Webster Smith, the orator and leader of the Republican party, tho man who had gone out West to grow up with the country, entered the mill. Poor Smith looked as if he felt the full weight of the past 20 years on his thin shoulders. 'He was thm all round. His hair was thin, his voice was thin, and even the clothes on his back were thin. They seemed to be the same ones he had worn nearly 20 years before ; only they were so very thin. Yet he smiled the same, smirked the 6ame, and had tho same lofty resolution to save the country that inspired him of old. " Ah, Auntie Miller ! Ah, Miller, it does me good to see you still hale and hearty, and still at your work ! So long as this boundless expanse of freedom, this refuge of tho down - trodden of evory land " " See here," interrupted Peggy, his wife, " them ghosts has been down to tho old house again. There was only one at first, the woman, then there was a man that they said was a man walking in his sleep. I Well, now there is another, an old, old I man. Yes, the house is haunted, thicks

o*H*g****-y.-»-i-*-*BB*»w.gf3*^^ •with 'em *, and to-night they're going to ! watch, and I'll bo there with 'em, too. If ] it ain't ghosts, I'll know what they bo, that's all." " Weel, now, I could understand the twa ghosts ; that was tho mon that was killed, and then the mon that killed him* no woman, Peggy, no woman ; but the other, the auld mon ! Ah, no ! but there is ghosts there and no wonder of that ! If ever the dead came back, they should come there. For that hearth has been wet with tears." The little girl crouched close with fear as she spoke. " Weel, now, I don't quite believe in ghosts. See ! you are skeering the kid to death ; but I'll be there, and I've come to ask you to be there both of you. But I don't believe in it." " Peggy, in the auld <^ mntry there's ghosts, there's boggles, an' a' the like o' that. No, I can't say that lor mother or any of us ever see them. But there is f 'hosts and witches always. Ain't the Bible ull of 'em ?" " Look here," said Peggy, jerking herself together ; " I don't believe in ghosts, but I'll tell you where the woman ghost comes from — It's Nettie ! yes, it is. Maybe she ctyd it; and maybe Mie's waiting for the one that did the murder." " Well, there is something wrong. Shoo ! Listen ! No, don't be frightened, baby ; nothing can come where Peggy and old Auntie is. But black Sam, as cleans lawyer Hogen's boots, says they are always muddy — yes, allers*" and Peggy draws the child close to her and looks about, half frightened. "Weel, there is witches that ride horses. You can see their stirrups in the horse's manes, any mornin* ; yeß, and in any mon's ~ stable." "Sam says he cleans the boots, puts them by the door, and when he comes there of a morning, the boots are muddy to the knee. Yes, and there lies the master fast asleep, pale and tired." " Thar be ghosts, Peggy,"; and old Sonnie shakes a little as he says it, standing between the two women and looking right and left. " Yes, there "be ghosts ; and there's them witches as rides things, and then, Peggy, there are boggles, and a' that, Peggy." " We'll see to-night," said Peggy, snapping her fingers high over her head and whirling away over to her husband. As Auntie petted the child, whose eyes were wild with wonder and alarm, and adjusted its red frock, an old man, leaning oh a staff, entered slowly. He was too wearied to notice any one or anything; he went straight ahead and setting heavily down on a bin, began to look at, and arrange his tattered shoes, mow and then looking up and shrinking baok a little from the others, as if he was all the time afraid some one would tell him to move on. Seeing at last that he was not noticed or disturbed, he drew a sigh of relief, and reaching out his long, bony fingers let them rest acroßS his tattered knees. At this juncture IHogen ; approached, elegantly dressed, and carrying a gold- ! headed cane. From his pockets peeped many legal documents, and in all respects this man looked the picture 4>i prosperity. It is true he was a bit nervous, and had a carious habit of looking suddenly behind him as if he was all the time expecting something or some one. He started baok a little when he saw General Jones wipehis glasses and adjust them to his noße.; 'but it was not until his eye rested on the old stranger crouching away in the corner that he really started so as to be observed. Recovering himself, he, with the air of one in authority, approached the man measuring out wheat, and said : " I have come, Mr Osborne, about pull- | ing down the -old— -the old " and, in spite of himself, -his eyes wandered back to • Ihe old man 'in the corner. Then, with some resolution, he added : " The old— you know— the old M'Cloud house." The lawyeragain looked behind him and then at the old man in 'the corner. The long silence was embarrassing, almost painful. He cleared his -throat and went on: " I might burn • down tiie old barracks. -That would be cheaper ami -better. But it would ruin thetrees, and then the town is built so close^about that iti is hardly safe. So I will give yon. fifty itdollars to pull -down the old M'Clotfd house, and you must begin to-morrow. What did you say — I — I—," and the (lawyer tottered up close to the stranger. " Nothing, (nothing ! I * said nothing ! I said nothing ftaye, mori/'ianswered he, as the lawyer fell -back. Hogen had been talking to Osborne, but in • spite of himself he was looking straight -at the old man who seemed to hold him >as the Ancient Mariner held the v wedding guest with his glittering eje.;. and yet this old man had not spoken art all. He had been sitting doubled up, with his: long bony fingers clasping each knee all- the time,, and it was only at the mention.. of the old.M'Cloud house that be lifted hia hands fona second and seemed to comprehend. Then, when the lawyer spoked the trees, andthetown, and burnisg -the house .down, he again seemed feebly conscious of what was going on. He lifted his e*fes straight and full ou Hogen, and ibds;lips>moye'd,.'and he seemed about to start-up and confront him, yet he spoke not one word. lit was; the conscience of Hogen that -spoke, -not the old man. " I will be ion hand/ said Osborne to the lawyer, ac Ihe -turned : io- him fronvihe old man. Then he muttered to himself, "Though I .fiortlt llike -the job at iSll. Jamie's house V* — " Very good-.* I -willteapjieefcyyQu." "Ah, Mr Hogen, ye , mast be ahapgrr mon, a town aH your own*a deacon of the chußch, and money. out. everywhere." " I am,. lam a happy mac 1" . The nervous man jerked ShlmsefiaKß»idand looked , at the silent old man;- ";L il .-am . a . happy ! . man, or at least lifcry to be. -As , you know, '< Auntie, I have founded a grammar school, I have given freely itovthe chnrch, and j, •even though I am ,» lawyer, jLdo.no man wrong." (To be (floatinucdi)