Chapter XXXI.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6832, 21 April 1890, Page 1

Chapter XXXI.

—(Continued.)

All the objects in Fadiham's shop, one after another caught my look, as I reviewed the whole in memory. Suddenly I found myself gazing intently at my image of those two water-colour drawings in neat gilt frames, hanging in a dusky corner by the chimney, — those two drawings which had revived in my mind tho sentiment of the bright, healthy roses in the upper windows.

Suddenly these drawings recurred to me. They stared at me like an old friend neglected. They insisted upon my recognition. There was a personality in them which, gazed at me with a shy and sad reproach, that I had given them only a careless glance, and so passed them by. The drawings stared at me and I at them.

An ancient, many-gabled brick manorhouse, on a fair lawn dotted with stately oaks, — that was the first. Had I not already seen a drawing, the fellow of this? Yes. In Biddulph's hand at Fort Laramie. The same gables, tbe same slope of lawn, the same broad oaks, and one the monarch of them all, — perhaps the very one Wordsworth had rounded into a sonnet.

And the companion drawing that I hardly deciphered in the dimness, — that group of figures and a horse bending over them ?

How blind I was! Fulano!

Fulano surely. He and no other,

And that group?

Ourselves at the Luggernel Springs. Brent lying wounded, while I gave him water, and a lady bound up his wounds.

Can this be so ? Am I not the victim of a fancy ? 13 this indeed my noble horse? Is he again coming forward to tear us along the trail of our lost friend. I stared again at my mental image of the -two drawings. I recalled again every word of my interview with Padiham. The more I looked, the more confident I Became. Short's Cut-off had held such entire possession of mo in the afternoon, that I could oniy observe with eyes, not with volition, could not value the treasure I was grasping ignonmtly. But I had grasped it. This iB Fulano ! Except for Mm, I might doubt. Except for his presence, the other drawing of an old brick manor-house would be a commonplace circumstance. " Now let me see," I thought, pushing aside my letter to Short for a moment, " what are my facts ? ** Mr Clitheroe and his daughter have disappeared, and are probably in London. " I have found — God be thanked ! — a clue, perhaps a clue. Work by the lady's hand.

" And where ? In Padiham's shop. " Padiham is a Lancashire man. So is Mr Clitheroe.

"Padiham has a horror of Mormons. Why was I so hurried as not to pursue the conversation, and discover what special cause He had for his disgust ? " Padiham, in a secluded part of London, keeps a hospital for the poor and the sick.

" There are bright roses in the upper windows. No masculine fingers know how to lure blossoms into being so tenderly. " Bright roses in the rooms above ; able drawings giving refinement to the rusty shop below. " Can it be that they are there, under the very roof of that grim good Samaritan ? " In the three millions have I come upon my two units ? "Going straight forward and minding my own business, have I effected in one day what Brent haa failed in utterly after a search of months ?

"But let me not neglect the counter facts ?

"I did not recognize these pictures when I saw them. Perhaps what I find in theni now ia fancy. My own vivid remembrance of the scene at Luggernel may be doing avtist-work, and dignifying some commonplace illustration of an old ballad. Ours was not the first such group since men were made and horses made for them. Fulano has had no lack of forefathers in heroism.

"And the manor-house? There are, perhaps, in Padibam'3 own County, a hundred such ancient many- gabled brick halla, a hundred lawns fair as the one that falls away gently from Mr Clithetoe's ancestral mansion, scores of oaks as ttately as the one that waa- lucky enough to shadow Wordsworth, and bo cool his head for a sonnet in grateful recompense. "Padiham may have a daughter who draws horse 3 and houses to delude me, — imaginative fellow that I am becoming! *' Or, what do I know ? Suppose these fugitives have taken refuge with Padiham, — it may be to escape pursuit. Poor Mr Clitheroe ! Who knows what poverty may have permitted him to do ? Better to hide in Lamely Court than to be stared at in a prison ! "My facts are slender basis for conclusion,"—so I avowed to mysolf on this review.

" But I would rather have a hope than no hope. . The filmiest clue is kinder than no clue.

"I will finish my letter to old Short, dear hoy, inventor of a well-omened Cut-off ; I will sleep like a top, with no mysterious disappearances to disturb me; I will be with the Dwarf by seven. If that is Fulano in the drawing, he shall carry double again. He shall conduct the Lover and Friend to the Lady."