THE GLASS KNIFE.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 31, 5 August 1867, Page 4

THE GLASS KNIFE.

Shortly after the Peace of 1815 my mother had a fancy for possessing' a town-house; my father, who never, within my memory, refused her anything, at once busied himself in procuring one for her.

Hitherto we had lived in Wales, and had never dreamed of any greater change than a visit to the county town for “its ” season. In those days people seldom went to London, except on business, unless they were of the highest rank. The county towns were filled at the assize-time with all the better classes of the landed gentry, who enjoyed the gathering, balls, Ac., and then returned to their old halls to pass the remainder cf the year in quiet rural avocations, bun sing and shooting. Amongst the peasantry a great awe of t’ e distant city prevailed; it was looked on as an abyss of crime and subtlety—a mighty labyrinth,in which one risked disappearing for ever, and never being heard of afterwards.

This was especially tbe opinion of my old nurse, wbo violently set her face against the idea of a yearly residence in London,which she never named bv any other destination than that of “babvlon.”

I was then a hoy of about ten years old ; a dreamy child, preferring hooks to play i precocious from having no childassociate ; and highly imaginative, prohahlv from the wild scenery and the seiluuon in which I had been reared, I loved to wander amongst the hills surrounding our dwelling, with a volume of romance in my hand, and sit for hours absorbed in the adventures of my favourite heroes. Occasionally I would lay aside mv hook, and indulge in day-dreams, in which I was myself the chief actor, performing impossible feats with the greatest composure, aud thinking nothing of them when done. Pernicious as these timewasting reveries generally are, I do not think them without their attendant good. The mind, constantly exercised in imagining difficulties, and in devising an escape from them, gains a degree of readiness in expedients, and is less less likely to be surprised from its selfpossession by sude'eu dangers or unusual events. This digression is necessary to explain mystery.

To return to our desired change of abode. .Mv father looked every morning through t’.e advertisements of the “Morning Herald ” (of the last date we received), and one day announced that he had found a house advertised in the previous day’s paper, which appeared to he exactly that which hereouired.

“ But,” he added to my mother, “I must first go up end see it- then, if it suits, and the price not too exorbitant, }'ou shall have it.” When old nurse heard of my father’s intentions, she burst forth into lamentations about the risk he run, declaring that it was frightfully dangerous to go to London all alone, and that she believed he would never return. It is probable that these diatribes, being uttered in my hearing, were partly the cause of a dream which I had that night, although af.er-events seemed to mark it with almost a p: o dietic character. I dreamt that my father was in London and that I saw him alone in a large room, bending over some papers, while a man armed with a glittering knife stole softly behind him, and was about to plunge it into the hack of his neck. The knife was made of glass ! Ima ie desperate efforts to call out and waru my father of his danger, but fruitlessly; I could not utter a sound, and I woke with the agony of mv struggle with the nightmare. The next mornii gat breakfast I told my dream, and nu father luigbed at me. “If the wfapu; were only a glass knife I don’t t ink it would he verydangerous,” he said; “'but, George, lam not going to London alone.” “ Not alone, father ?” said I. “No, ’ he replied, “ I shall take you wiih me; your mother thinks you require a good dentist, and it is a capital opportunity to have your teeth examined; she bus no faith in Mr. Martin’s successor.”

I was in a state of rapture. To see London ; to take such a journey; to get such a chance of adventures—lor which I was as eager as Dan Quixote; above all be a protector of my father—for such in my childish folly I believed I should he, —delighted me ; I forgot my dream ia my joy at such a prospect.

We started the next evening hj the mail, and after a very long and tiresome journey, in which not the shadow of an adventure enlivened the long and dreary way, we entered London late in the evening of the following da}-. My father took me to an hotel in the Strand, where he usually stayed whenever be visited town, and I gained my first idea of the grandeur and hustle of London from the number of carriages and hackney-coaches which I counted, without ever coming to an end, from the window. The next day we went to the house of the person who advertised. It w r as a very large and handsome mansion in then a fasionable square, and my father was greatly pleased with its appearance. Mr. Brown, the present owner, was at home, and received my father very courteously. He was a most respectable looking old gentleman, with grave, formal demeanour. He told my father that he was about to go to America, and that he wished to sell his house as

speedily as possibe, even if it went a little below its real value. He took my father over it (I accompanying them,) and certainly itwasa palatial residence in point of size, but it was badly furnished and the household was much to small to keep it in proper order and cleanliness. In one room, up stairs, we saw a little girl playing with a kitten: she was a thin pale child, with large, dark eyes, long hands and fingers. My father just spoke to her, hut I was shy and said nothing. After we had seen the house, my father told Mr. Brown that he would send a surveyor to look at it, and if his report were favorable, he would at once purchase it. The next two days were spent in seeing the wonders of London. My father took me to the Tower, to see the armour and the wild beasts; to St. Paul’s and to Westminister Abbey, and in the evening to the play. I had never been so happy before; and yet when the day came on which he had agreed to go to Mr. Brown’s and pay for the house, (of which tne surveyor had given an excellent report,) I felt so much depressed that my father asked what ailed me, and why I was so pale. I explained that I felt as if some great misfortune was going to happen to us. He laughed, and said, “ Don’t be superstitious, my hoy; you are only feeling the re-action of so much unusual excitement.” “ Papa,” I said, “ you don’t think Mr. Brown has a glass knife, do you ? His room is just like the one I dreamed about. “ George,” said my father, “ it is a good thing for you that we are going to live in London every year for a few months; you are getting as superstitious as an old women. I hope you are not really timid ?” “No, no,” I cried, indignantly,“lam not afraid—at least, not for myself.” Soon afterwards we set out. Before we left I told the waiter where we were going: I cannot quite tell you why. On reaching Mr. Brown’s house we were shown into his study, a large and very gloomy room, the window of which looked into a paved court at the hack of the house. I gazed out of the window while my father was talking to Mr. Brown, and saw a grating in it raised, and a good deal of coal-dust sprinkled round it. It seemed that there was some delay in the business; the deeds of the house and the deed of transfer, or something (I never knew what it was), were not ready, or had not arrived, and we had to wait. “ Perhaps your son would like to go and play with my little girl while we settle our business,” said Mr. Brown glancing at me. I did not know what to do when myfather appealed to me. I disliked leaving him with Mr. Brown in that dismal room, so like my dream; and yet I|could not refuse to go, for I was painfully shy. My hesitation ended in my father desiring me to go, and Mr Brown escorting me up one flight of stairs, and from thence pointing up another, and bidding me go on upwards, and find Mary in her nursery. I obeyed, and found Mary at the top of the house alone in a large garret, which was her nursery. She seemed surprised to see me, hut she was a very selfpossessed little girl, much older than myself in manner, though not in mind, for I soon perceived that she was very simple, almost wanting in intellect. “ Are you sorry to go away from this house?” I asked, just to make something to say to her, as she sat hugging her doll. “ Mary isn’t going away,” she said. “ "ies, you are,” said I; “my papa has bong’ht the house. Didn’t you know it 1 The gentleman who came to see it with me the other day, he has bought it.” TO BE CONTINUED.