A BOON TO MOTHERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10440, 20 April 1912, Page 3

A BOON TO MOTHERS.

Among all classes of people we find children suffering from, weak kidneys. The intelligent mothers know that this is not a habit and search for a remedy. It is something very hard to relieve, and the family physician tells her that the child will grow out of it in time. Sometimes thoy do and sometimes they do not. In the meantime, annoyanco and embarrassment are the result. If anyone knows a remedy is it not an act of charity, is it not a duty to make it public? Should selfishness and pridekeep it concealed? Mrs 0. P. Scott, of 29, Cottrill Street, Addington, Christchurch, has used Doan!s Backache Kidney Pills in her family, and makes the following statement for the benefit of anxious mothers and the relief of interesting little children:— " A child of mine suffered from weak kidneys and was always dreamy and had no energy, and would wet the bed every night. I tried a good many remedies to cure this complaint, but it was not until I had used a bottle of Doan's Backache Kidney Pills that I noticed any improvement in the child's health. I followed closely the> directions, and it only took six bottles of the pills to completely cure the'weakness. I am very grateful to Doan's Backache Kidney Pills and never miss an opportunity to recommend them. I also have derived great benofit from this medicine." Doan's Backache Kidney Pills are a special medicine for kidneys and blndder, they are for men and women, old and young, and may be taken by all with perfect safety. For sale by all chemists and storekeepers at 3s per bottle (six bottles 16s 6d), or will be posted on receipt of price by FosterM'Clellan Co., 76. Pitt Street. Sydney. But be suro you get DOAN'S. 15

broken, we shall see which will be the stronger, the l»nd or I." "Esther, what are you talking about?" asked the astonished husband. Esther started, and turned upon him a white and tragio face. "My pretty," he said tenderly, "what's tho matter? Time I came home to look after you, evidently." His strong arp stole round her, the beautiful blue eyes she loved so much looked tenderly into hers; again, as ever, she was drawn by the perfect outlines of the face and head, and the crown of crisp golden curls that shimmered even in the dusk. His strength and tenderness and beauty acted like a charm. " I'm tired," she said, and laid her head on his breast. He lifted her up in his arms as if she had been a child, and bore her into the cottage, and laid her on the roomy sofa ho had been at pains to procure for her, and waited on her with a gentleness that was like oil to a wound. Soon afterwards tho baby was born, a boy. It waa after this event that Esther became what the villagers called " queer." Acting upon the local doetor's advice, and somewhat against his own instincts, John sent away the baby to be nursed by a woman in the village. Esther only saw the child during the first few days, and then she was too weak to take him in her arms. She made no protest against his removal from the cottage, and said it was " best so." Hex- state was one of extraordinary apathy. "Try to rouse her," said the doctor. " Perhaps the companionship of some ono of her own class might benefit her, a lady—/.you'll excuse me saying this, Adams, but the situation is serious. How about your employer's wife, wouldn't she come and visit her?"

John's work had brought him for years into constant touch with " good people." He could distinguish between the genuine article and the one. With great dubiousness he asked the " lady " in question to visit his wife and try to rouse her. Mrs Barrington-Jonea came. She brought some jelly in a basket, was very patronising, called Esther "poor thing" every five minutes and stayed an hour. Her voico was strident, she reeked, with scent, the whole time her bracelets jangled, her silks rustled, her stays creaked, and she said just what she ought not to have said. "It must be "a great trial to come down socially," she said, towards the end of her visit. "I don't think I could have married beneath me. But, of course, your husband is unusually intelligent and well-educated for a gardener. And wonderfully handsome. So handsome that you really must bestir yourself to get well and go about with him more in his leisure hours. There are some very pretty girls in the village and of course, he likes chatting with them, girls of his own class, you see, but you mustn't let him have too much of that, or by and by he'll be regretting—»" Suddenly Esther gave a wild scream. Mrs Barrington-Jones asked . her where the pain was. "Everywhere," cried Esther, and subsided again into apathy.

CHAPTER 111. That afternoon when John came home from his work Esther was not to be found. He* sought out the little maid, and made anxious inquiry. She could tell him nothing, except that she found the mistress gone when she went in to lay the tea. John rushed out to search for her. Not until duak did ho obtain news. A hoy had seen her pass.

"She was headin' straight for the hills," he said, " an' she looked mighty queer j a-talkin' fast all to herself she was, an' takin' no notice of me nor nothin'."

Ho pointed out the direction taken. With deep forboding in his heart John turned his steps that way, and made agonising search hour after hour for his lost loved one.

It was a wild country, craggy, split into ravines, with pools beneath high rooks, and grim pines standing like sentinels in tho midst of boulderstrewn stretches of bracken and heather. A brilliant moon hung in tho sky. Thanks to its light John camo at last upon tho wanderer. When he caught sight of her she was creeping into a cave hollowed out in the precipitous side of a quarry, looking over her shoulder furtively as sho went" obviously trying to hide from the husband who pursued. John rushed up to her. "My sweetheart ,'' ho said, and tried to take her into his arms. She fought him scratching at his face like a cat. Her strength was extraordinary. John let her go, overpowered, not by the resistance, but by a sense of appalling disaster.

_ She crept away from him still looking over her shoulder furtively, then crouched down at the back of the cave liko an animal at bay, her eyes fixed upon her husband in* a strange fascinated stare.

Ho approached gently. " Dear heart," he said, "it's John; don't you know John, who loves you. He's como to fetch you home. Won't you come home with your husband?" She made no answer, but watched nun unwinkmgly. _ Again he' made attempt to take her in Ins anus. She hit out savagely at him He persisted, striving to raise her from the ground. He felt it impossible to leave her thus. At all costs he must get her home, even if he had to carry her every step of the way She fought him like a wild beast It was too dreadful, this struggle in the twilight cave with his own "wife He gave it up at last, fearful & hurting her tender body, or of bringing about fatal collapse. In despair he went out into the moonlight, and hung about miserably amidst the bracken and the boulders, wondering how he should get the stricken creature home. In a strange way he seemed to know that she still loved him, but that madness warred in her with love.

After a little time he ventured again into the cave. Sho lay on the ground as though exhausted and her eves were shut, but directly she heard his"footetep

her hands clenched themselves agaiflf and her eyes opened on him with th« same unwinking stare. He saw sin was stringing herself up to renew the strange abnormal resistance.

"1 am not going to touoh you," he said hastily. "I've only come in to say that I'm just going home to fetch you a few things to make you comfortable for tho night here. Then I shall leave you to sleep, and in the morning you can go where you will, where you want to gO, no one shall restrain you, will that please you?" "\'es," she answered, speaking for the first time, " but I am never coming back. 1 have broken my bonds, you understand?"

"Yes, 1 quitewnderstand," Baid the unhappy husband. Then he left her ami rushed back to his desolated home to fetch blankets, food, wine, anything that might save her from suffering in the strange sanctuary she had chosen for herself.

" And afterwards, what am I to dbP, Whatever am I to do?" he kept crying aloud, the tears streaming down Kid cheeks as he ran.

-Then, suddenly, just as his hand waa on the latch,of his cottage door, he saw where the great mistake had been made, and an idea came to him. ':'■

Early nest morning just as the suh was topping the hills, John for tho tiara time in a dozen hours made his way.to the quarry. He carried in his arms a bundle wrapped in a blanket. "Wheat he reached the narrow strip oft grass in front of the cave he placed his burden on the ground; and unrolled the blanket, exposing- to-' full view a babe half olad in a fittle' woollen garment, and so fast asleeg' that ha suggested a recent meal antt perfect well being. This done he with- 1 drew into the background, . ' In the cave Esther lay, resting!. 01* • rugs and pillows her husband llad brought in the night and silently left with her. She had slept for many hours, she lia4 eaten also of food thai had been quietly placed beside her. Tba body was refreshed, the!; mind—who oanj pronounce definitely on tho mind! or know precisely its condition? Not oven the husband, watching in on agony of suspense from behind a Soroen of yel«( lowing bracken, could tell to what ex/ tent reason tottered, or foresee what would be the outcome of his forkm hop* his trump card, on which he was stak* , ing his all. • The baby lay on his side, turned to< wards the cave, his ohubby little arm* stretched straight out in front of him; his legs drawn up into soft curves, his , rosy feet crossing each other. His round cheeks, flushed with sleep, were ' a bright crimson, a silky down soft as the fluff on a gosling's back ooveredhia little head, one hand was slightly open, the dimpled palm showing jxtnk as the inside of a shell.

For a few moments nothing happened. Tlie summer sunshine streamed down on the scene of which the hahy was the centre, and the place was ab-,. solutely still. Then John saw Esther creep from her bed of nigs to the front of tie ca,vo and kneel down there, not five yards away from the child, watching iti The husband held his breath as he watched* every moment seemed an! eternity. Suddenly a moving object appeared on the baby's foot. A wasp, With a violent effort of will John restrained himself from springing forward. . It was a supremo test, but the tension strained him almost to breaking point. He felt vicariously the agony of a thousand stings. Then he gave a gasp of relief. Esther was by the baby's side, fa a second the wasp had been plucked off the soft flesh and flung aside, and she, apparently unhurt, was hanging over the ■ child.

"My baby," she said, and the unmistakable mother-look was ( in her eyes. John rose from his hidmg-pla«ce and canie forward. "Yes, your baby," he said. He took up the child and wrapped him again In the blanket. Tim little one awoke, and looked about him with wide-opened eyes, blue aa the sky. First a white butterfly enchained his attention, then his gaae wandered to Esther. Mother and child, stared fixedly at each • other. The baby crooned* gurgled, his eyes hung on his mother's as though he recognised the meaning of the look he saw there, and knew it was his by right. "Yes," said John speaking to him' and taking no notice of Esther, '■' that's ' , mother. And now we are going homo , to your cradle by her sofa, and mother will follow us when, sb© feels inolined."

Then he strode <away across the heather, carrying the little son with him. His step was firm, hut his heaTt thumped in his breast. Ho knew the scales were trembling in the balance, a, touch might decide the issue unfavourably. Instinct told him he. must not look back, there must be no faintest suggestion of pressure, no slightefi reminder of the existence of a bond. -

Then suddenly an exultant look leapt into his eyes. His trump card had won. The path turned suddenly, and he was able to perceive out of the corner of his eye that she was following. . ' • ■' • F'ivo minutes after ho had laid the baby in the cradle she staggered in through the widely-opened door. From that day the malady of her rnind healed. But perhaps, with her, temperament she. might again have suffered, had not the unexpected happened, restoring to her life in her own sphere. The boy at John's suggestion was given his grandfather's names. An announcement of his birth was sent to the "Time's," with the names "Matthew Hillyard" in brackets; the address of his birthplace was also given. Behind his simple manner John had; a"i astute brain. Ho knew the " Tunes'* was Mr Hillyard's paper, and he was playing, a second time, his trump card.

Two days after the announcement appeared in the paper, Esther received a letter from the old butler, Phmkett. It stated that the squire was ill, and completely crippled by rheumatism. _ He had been much touched and excited by reading of the birth of a grandson. It was plain he was longing to receive and pardon his daughter, hut was too proud to make the first move. "Would -/-vMrs Adams forgive an old servant for suggesting that she should write to her father a letter that would make it easy for him to pardon her. Esther sat down then and there, and wrote a long letter, begging to be forgiven, and expatiating on the beauty of the boy. The next day a telegram arrived. " Break up your home, and come at onco with husband and child to mine."

"You will try and like John, won't you?'' said Esther, standing by her father's bedside, her hand clasped in his..

Matthew Hillyard's eyes followed hem. from the bonnie babe sprawling on the counterpane to the window which commanded a view of the rose garden. John stood in the midst of the roses, quite at his ease, whittling away at dead wood with his pen-knife. "I am beginning to be impressed with John," said the old man with, a slight smile, "judging by what he has already accomplished, my son-in-law will go far. I expect before long we shall all be dancing to tunes of hie playing, just as you did."

"They will always be nice' tunes," said Esther.

Heroism at the tender age of five was revealed in a pathetic story from Tod'morden. Tho little heroine, Nellie Taylor, gave her life in a devoted, but fruitless, effort to save that of her baby sister Phyllis. The tiny girls had been playing with a pair of tongs, which their mother took away and placed, as she thought, out of their reach on a shelf above the fireplace. Sho then left the house for a few minutes. There was no fireguard. On her return she was horrified to find the house full of and a neighbour who rushed inside saw the children lying on tho floor terribly burnt. Both died soon afterwards from their injuries, the elder one stating before the end that Phyllis tried to reach the to.ijiS and hor pmofore_ caught fire. Xellie tried to put out the blaze, aad caught fire, herself