“The Opal Ring’’

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 137, 11 June 1937, Page 9

“The Opal Ring’’

A THRILLING SERIAL STORY

By

Rosaline Masson.

The Colonel had been greatly pleased with the attention. The trophy was I suspended in Hie hall at Druimdaroch, ■ and a second letter dispatched, ex- I pressing a hope that Charles would some day return t.o Scotland. Butl Charles had not returned to Scotland. ; He had changed tils fortunes, that the ■ wealthy surroundings of his boyhood ! were incidental on his mother’s having • returned to live in her family home, and that now all lie had to count on was a small inherited income. Then, white lie was at a loose end in India, the Great War broke out, and he offered his services tliere. Willi the credentials he gave, and the record of a father and an uncle both having been in the Array, tliere was no difficulty. The great shortage of officers in India allowed him to be accepted at once. He was trained as an officer of the Indian Army Reserve, attached to the Indian troops, retained in India during the war, and given captain's rank on demobilisation, lletiling then to New York, lie had lound his military experiences of little interest to his very neutral American business kindred. They were not impressed by them, and Die promised business opening was olfcred him, but with tepid cordiality, and a very plain hint that lie must not expect it to lead to anything big, as there were already sons in, and others ready to come in, to the great family business. Charles himself rather despised business, and two years later, when Colonel Stewart's invitation came, it was accepted. It was very natural that Charles should remember that lie was his uncle's heir at law, though lie knew the estate in Scotland was disentailed. Charles Stewart had arrived in England six weeks before Jim Brodie s ship was due, and after a fortnight in London, lie had gone straight on to Druimdaroch. The tiger skin in the hall was one of the very first things his uncle had pointed out to him on his arrival. Charles had given it a critical glance, made some remark about its preservation and the best method of cleaning skins, and told shortly tlie story of the tiger hunt. The old Colonel had been entranced — would Charles despise the milder forms of sport? Hut. Charles despised nothing. He appraised the stretches of honey-scented moor with keen appreciation in the drooping eyes that were just a trifle too near together. He was interested in all he was shown or told, listening deferentially, expressing no opinions without first tactfully learning the opinions of others. And so the month had passed, and now a new, and as it seemed a discordant, element was introduced. At the first dinner the only one who appeared not conscious was the discordant element himself. Jim Brodie talked a good deal, and talked well. He gave the impression of being totally mal'raid, without thought of self, but with much self-assurance. He told item, without any boasting but witli tartling veracity, of Gallipoli ami gypt. Mrs Stewart managed to licit that he had volunteered immediately he had heard of the war—dden off within the hour to the nearst township and enlisted in the ranks, mi been trained and shipped off withut returning home. ■What did your relations say?” ■ ked the Colonel. “I have none.” There was an instant’s pause; they ~1 forgotten. ■‘Except us," Mrs Slewart said, ently. •■That's right!” He turned to her, • earning sudden sunshine. Charles Stewari opposite raised his yes from his plate lor a second, and ■garded his cousin. He was saying cry little. ■And you were wounded?” -Mrs ' •wart asked. ■ Not enough to send me home.” ■You call this country home, my d? Not Australia, eh?" "Qh, Australia is home riglit enough, .' course; but the Old Country is alays spoken of as home with us." "With a capital II," put in Charles. "That’s riglit. He beamed at liarles. And then he to:d them, with a curias admixture of shrewd observation •id naive ignorance, his impressions ; the Old World, and especially of i.ondon, which had been a painful re- . elation to him in more ways than one, out mostly, it appeared, in Hie iniquiies of civilised life. He spoke with ome heat of these, and with a disernlng frankness which, in Alicia’s resence, startled the Colonel. But .licia also startled the Colonel. "He said nothing—nothing coarse, tear," was her comment to her husand later. "Now that story that r Patrick told us the other day " "Yes. yes. 'Ho shouldn’t have told I. of course; at least, it's a good story, nil not with ladies present." "Ah, but you must remember that Jim Brodie has lived ‘on the land,’ as ho calls it, where no ladies are present, and he has not learnt their artificial limits,” she reminded him. "And, John dear, I fancy Kitty's boy doesn't say much more when there are no ladies present than when there are. Isn't tliat Hie impression he gives you?” "Uh, yes, possibly." The Colonel was reluctant, but Mrs Stewart remained smiling softly. The impression might grow. It might be his own to-morrow. The Colonel, carefully planted, was fruitful soli. But at the dinner table she had. with the inborn of her kind, tactfully steered Jim from I.ondon and back to his own life "on Hie land”; and Jim, encouraged by her interest, and seemingly hardly to notice the gradual silence of his uncle at the head of Ihe table, and his cousin opposite to him, waxed enthusiastic and poured fourth, in his vowel-murdering accent, vivid descriptions, Illumined by unconscious Hashes. His hearers grew interested in spite of themselves. They seemed to see before them great plains and mighty rivers, and the tangled undergrowtth and interlaced brandies and dense scrub of forests. Sometimes it was a great loneliness, at night under the Southern Cross; sometimes it was the bleating of thousands of sheep that sounded in their cars; sometimes it was great pasture lands ot' virgin soil or vast stretches of upstanding grain, golden under the open skies and the heat of the ripening sunshine; and in he midst of all, this young giant with his steadv eyes, his strength and hie

fearlessness, making God’s earth yield the food of man. It was all primitive, huge clean. The butler brought in the coffee, massive old silver on a heavy silver tray and placed it on the table in front of Mrs Stewart. The footman, followed, set a large shaded silver lamp ; on the table, and turned up the wick. : The pink lamp-light fell in a circle on polished mahogany, on hot-house Howers and fruits, on the glossy sil- I ver, and caught the deep blues and reds of the Crown Derby cups and ; saucers. The summer evening was still twilight, and through the uncurtained i windows behind Jim Brodie the soft gloaming was fast fading into the grey mystery of coming night. The faces of the four who sat round the table were above the radiance thrown by the shaded lamp, and showed obscurely. The mingling of day and night of natural and arlifleial light , might have seemed symbolic of the human position, but of this no one present was consciously aware. Charles Stewart had been unusually silent all dinner time, listening with 1 attention, but only occasionally raising his eyes and resting them on his ' newly met cousin. His face betrayed 1 nothing. When they rose at the end of dinner he sprang up quickly and opened the door, drawing back i deferentially to allow his uncle to hold it open, as he liked to perform this task for his wife himself. Jim u Brodie, a little puzzled by all this j' ceremonial, remained standing at his ■ place at table, watching it. The Colonel joined his wife very soon. ‘‘They’ve gone outside to smoke,” he told her, in answer to her smile of silent welcome. “It's as 1 well lor them to make friends. I've ; brought my cigar in here —if you don’t , object?” He smoked in silence for some minutes. ‘‘A wholesome lad,” he said, pre- ; sently, “but unsophisticated.” “That is exactly the word,” his wife agreed, “You have chosen the exact word, John.” John looked pleased. “I see what you mean,” she went on. “you mean fresh and wholesome —fresh as our Highland hills in the early morning—that is what you mean, isn’t it, John?” It was not exactly what John had meant, but it sounded the right thing to mean. "Ye-cs, I suppose it must be,” he assented, rather doubtfully. “But I wish to heaven, my dear, that he hadn’t that shocking accent!” he added, with sudden tesliness. Here, the difficulty being neither fundamental nor incurable, his wife was wise enough to agree, even taking a harder view of it than he did, so that presently he was demanding of her sarcastically whether she would have preferred an American twang. “John I Don't say that before Charles!’’ “Why not? He' doesn't speak with an American twang 1” “No, but he has lived so long there.” “Long? He hasn't had time to live long anywhere! Well, after all, he left New York when he was a mere boy—scarcely of ago, he said to me— and the real time of man's work—the War time—he spent iij India—and though 1 could wish he'd been in a home regiment —still—” “He joined at once, we ought Io remember that.” “My dear, who forgets it? But i; goes without saying. No one of our Stewart blood could have remained in America —” “We must be careful, though, in what we say about America before him. my love. His impressionable year: were spent there, and his friends an there, and all the kindness he has re reived —oh, I know, John, it is not oir fault, but I think his heart is there. H< returned there after the War.” “He tells me he does not regard him self as an American citizen,” said the Colonel, stiffly. “Of course not, dear!” she said, “lie is very widely travelled for so young a man. He calls himself a cosmopolitan.” “Cosmofiddlesticks I” cried the Colonel. “He is a Stewart of Druinidarock I” “Or will be," she murmured. “Eh?” “If you make him your heir.” Outside, the sudden sound of the opening of a door, footsteps and voices, a pause, and suddenly a young laugh rang out. The old people looked up quickly at one another. It was long since the hall of Druimdarock had echoed to a laugh so joyous, so unconscious. “That was Kitty’s boy,” the old lady said. The Colonel stood up and threw the end of bls cigar into the' burning logs. “It’s an infernally ticklish job. Alicia and that's the truth of it. I’ll need your help my dear —a woman's instinct.” “Oh, John —take your time —Lak. your time! You arc always so wise, dear —at the end.” “Oh, well!” he responded, gratified The door opened, and the two youn: : men joined them. CHAPTER IV. The Me etlng on the Bridge. i Mora Wilson was engaged in the en- ! trancing occupation of gazing over the ’ edre o', a dyke into the roaring to:i rent of a Highland burn in sY>ale. it is • a characteristic of a Highland burn that when it passes under a roadway. It changes its character entirely during its temporary seclusion in the darkness beneath the bridge, and, whereas it may approach the bridge in all wild excitement of hurry and turbulance — sweeping round the rocks and islets that break its course, swirling in a I hundred little waterfalls and eddies, here a mass of circling foam, there a slittiering surface of rapidly moving water glittering in sunshine, so tliat the ear Is filled with the noise and roar of deafening walers —cross the roadway and look over the dyke at the oilier side, and what a change is there, mv countrymen! The burn emerges calm and quiet, its petulance a thing of the past, a gentle slow-moving river You look down into deep brown pools and on to over-hanging branches hardly stirred by the waters that pass through them, and the centre of the stream is silent in its peaceful reflection of leaf and sky. (To be continued,!