Short Story.

Western Star, Issue 2152, 30 October 1897, Page 4

Short Story.

The Love of Reuben Gywnne. By ANDREW POLLOCK, an “ North British Advertiser.” CHAPTER 1. “ I tell you, Mary, I’m not going to stand it. If you choose to run after and worship that conceited pup, with Qiis fine airs and loud clothes, you and I must part.” The -speaker was a strapping young fellow, garbed in the rough guernsey and long sea boots of a fisherman, Who was idly lounging against the hull of an upturned boat, with hands shoved deep in 'his pockets, and an angry expression marring his fine features. The person to whom his remarks were addressed was a smartly-dressed young woman with a sweet, piquant face, who stood in front of him tracing divers devices on the sand with her parasol. The sun was just disappearing in the west, and casting its last red beams full upon them. Thus illumed they formed a pretty picture. . “ Please don’t adopt any high airs to me, Reuben. If you object to my friendship with Mr. Fenn, then, as you say, we had better end the matter. I assure you that I, for one, will not be sorry.” The young woman delivered 'the last words with a defiant flash of her brown eyes into the blue depths of his own. “ High airs !” retorted Reuben, in a decidedly piqued tone, “well, anyhow, I don’t owe my education to you. But as you seem so anxious to break off our engagement, I shall not stand 'in the way of your happiness. Besides,” he added, in a changed 'and somewhat despairing tone, “ a school teacher is too great a prize for a poor fisherman.” “ So you dare to taunt me with our inequality of station,” she burst forth, am angry flush mounting to her cheek. “ I wish you a very good afternoon, Mr. Gwynne.” Her voice broke a little, and her eyes were dim, but she bowed, turned on her heel, and, opening her parasol, stepped proudly away along the shore. Reuben said no more, though his suntanned cheeks became gray. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, Shifted his position uneasily, and began to kick the loose pebbles into the surf. This was the first cloud on the horizon of his happiness. Meanwhile, the young lady held, on her way, as her sweetheart, almost immovable, looked after with longing eyes. Suddenly he caught sight of a little man, arrayed in loose flannels, and adorned with a gorgeous “ blazer.” His blood went leaping through his veins, for in him he recognised the rival who had caused the quarrel and many heartburnings besides during the past fortnight. The girl saw him too, and easting a swift, backward glance, she set her head at a higher angle, and deliberately advanced to meet the grinning dandy as he emerged from behind the rocks. “ Curse Ms ugly face, the wasp !” said Reuben to bimself, grinding a mussel-shell Into powder with his heavy heel, while his face became purple. He saw the “ wasp” obsequiously greeting Miss Graham, and then, after some hand-shaking and conversation, Mary linked her arm in his, and the two walked towards the spot where Reuben remained standing. “ She might have spared me this, ’ he muttered, a dull pain rising in his heart ; but a dogged resolution to face out his defeat conquered, and as they came nearer he began to sing. A smirk of satisfied vanity covered the face of Mr. Fenn. All this Reuben noted mechanically. A rippling laugh came from Mary, and a gratified smile passed over her face. Then he turned his back as if unconscious.of their presence, and looking at a ship gliding far away over the sunlit bay, he sang a little louder. Then a faint tinge of pink rose to the cheeks of Mary as she heard the words. Her little strategy had failed to disturb his equanimity. “ Dark is the forest, dark is the shore, Loudly the wind and the waters roar—- ‘ True, true till death ’ ” came sounding in her ears, causing an indefinite sense of pain to rise in her breast. “ That—ah—fellah sings uncommonly well, don’t you think, for a common fisherman ?” drawled her companion, bending his eyes on her, and twirling a slight moustache. “ Beautifully ! Oh, you should hear him sing out in the bay in the moonlight,! It is heavenly.” “ Cth—ah—you know him then ?” There was a palpable sneer in his tone. “Yes,” she returned confusedly, repressing a strong inclination to hotly resent his words. “Heis a teacher in the Sunday school, and knowing my passion for boating, he often treats me to a row.”

“In the moonlight ?” queried Mr. Fenn, with something faintly approaching a jocular tone. Her equanimity was restored ; so she sweetly remarked, “ Often. lam extremely fond of the view which the night affords. Everything is so weirdly beautiful. The sky, when the moon is shining, and the myriad stars sparkle like gems, and are reflected on the waters as in a vast mirror, form a grand picture; while the gray cliffs, topped with white-washed cottages, look like sentinels, who, after sleeping for a thousand years, have again become possessed of life. And when out in the boat Mr. Gwynne sings some sweet songs, and the cliffs fling back the echoes ; and it is fine.” Mr Fenn smiled faintly, but thought to himself, “ What a little' unsophisticated darling this village school-mis-tress is.

He dhanged the subject by beginning to dilate on society and the pleasures ,of balls ; and as her cheek reddened and her eyes shone, he read her unspoiken thoughts and secret desires. Reuben watched the twain with a great despair. He could see Mary benddag forward and apparently absorbed and delighted in the conversation of her companion. She had never done that to him. She had never loved him. he thought ! So this was the end of his beautiful day-dream. He might have guessed the result for some time back, for her demeanour had become cold. And how coldly she had broken off the engagement. But could she know what St meant to him ? A voiceless moan rose in his heart, and his blue eyes grew misty with unshed tears of agony. Taking from his breast a locket, in which was a miniature portrait and a tress of silky-brown hair, he gazed at it. “ Fair and false, like all womankind !” he muttered. Then following a sudden mad impulse, he threw it far out into the sea. A silvery gleam of water marked the spot where it fell, and the only tie that bound her to him was severed. Choking down a sob. he turned' and walked away, with head erect and shoulders squared like a soldlier on guard.

CHAPTER 11. During the succeeding week Reuben

went about his usual duties with a grim and taciturn look, and his numerous friends, both among the visitors and the natives, missed his cheery voice and winning smile. Through these weary days he saw little of Mary, and the occasional glimpses he got of her only tended to embitter him more, for Mr. Fenn was constantly by her side. If I could only get a chance,” he thought bitterly, “ I might win her back.” One afternoon his opportunity came. Reuben was slowly ascending the tortuous path that led up by the cliffs from the shore with a herring net, which he had been mending, slung across his broad shoulders, when he met her face to face—alone. If only they had cast off their false pride and spoken freely, the tragedy that afterwards occurred would not have been ; but Reuben was sore with imaginary wrong, and Mary was cherishing an illusion, and smarting under an implied slight. Neither spoke, hut Reuben stubbornly blocked the narrow way. “ Excuse me, Mr. Gywnne,” ait last said Mary, raising her eyes coldly to his face; “ would you please stand aside and allow me to pass, as I am to a hurry ?” “ Oh, certainly,” retorted Reuben, his proud spirit ,in arms against her coldness, and as he suited the action to the word he added sneeringly : “To meet Mr. Fenn, I suppose ?”

“ Pardon me, Mr. Gwynne ; if I am, it is none of your business,” she answered freezingly as she pursued her way. “ I’ll murder him,” he snarled after her, but she paid no attention. The day succeeding this little episode was dull, and the clouds to seaward ominously portended a coming storm. Reuben was standing idly beside Ms boats watching the foamy rollers breaking sullenly on the beach, when a voice at his elbow aroused Mm from the contemplation of the waves. Turningf he saw Mr. Fenn, with Mary hanging on to his arm, standing by. “ What do you—ah—charge for a boat, my good fellah ?” inquired Mr. Fenn, surveying Reuben in a supercilious manner through Ms eyeglass. “ That—ah —depends—ah—’Ton for what length of time the —ah—gentleman may wish to hire it,” returned Reuben, mimicking so exactly the tone and gesture of Mr. Fenn that an irrepressible gleam of amusement flickered for a moment in the eyes of Mary, which did not escape the observation of Reuben, who wrongly construed it to be in ridicule of himself. “ For an hoar or so,” said Mr. Fenn, allowing his annoyance to find vent in his voice.

“ Sixpence,” returned Reuben, gruffly, pushing down a boat to the edge of the water. “ But,” he continued a little anxiously, “ I wouldn’t advise you to go far from the shore, as there is a strong ebb tide on and a storm is brewing.”

“ Keep your advice for those who are in need of it,” snapped Mr. Fenn, seizing the opportunity to pay off old scores. “ Certainly,” said Reuben, quietly, as be assisted Mary gently into the stern. Mr. Fenn tossed a florin down on the sand, and stepping gingerly in took up the oars, while Reuben pushed off.

“ Here,” he cried, noticing the money on the sand, “ you have dropped a florin.”

“ Keep sixpence for your boat hire, and take the rest as a slight return for your honesty,” called out Mr. Fenn, bending to the oars and sending the light craft dancing over the crested waves.

“ Curse you and your money !” wrathfully shouted Reuben, delivering a savage kick at the unoffending coin. “ Independent beggar !” chuckled Mr. Fenn, as he tugged at the oars ; “ but I think I got equal with him there ; didn’t I, Miss Graham ?” “ You certainly tried your best to insult him,” blazed forth Mary, with a sudden revulsion of feeling in favour of her old love.

“ Oh—ah—yes, he is a friend of yours ; pardon me.” He was so much tickled with his own wit that he narrowly missed capsizing the boat. “ Please be careful, Mr. Penn,” cautioned Mary. “ Oh, I can manage a boat all right,” he replied. Out he rowed, paying no heed 'to a remark of Mary’s about heeding the advice Of Reuben. The sea meanwhile became darker and the wind freshened, while the clouds gathered ominously. “ Oh, I say, Mr. Fenn,” said Mary again, more 'anxiously, “ I think we had better return.” “ You can place implicit trust in me ; I am at home in a boat,” he replied. And In attempt to show off his prowess he (somehow allowed an oar to slip from his grasp into the water. “ You have certainly done it now,” said Mary, growling very white as she watched' his frantic efforts to secure the lost oar.

“ Upon my word, 'Mists Graham, I couldn’t help it,” he said, turning pale with fear as he looked more eare/fully at the creamy sea and the louring sky. Nerved by desperation, he tugged at rthe one oar like a madman, only, however, making the boat describe erratic circles, while it rocked alarmingly. The wind, too, began to moan louder and louder, the surges to rise higher and higher, while 'the frail boat seemed mnaeed with destruction every moment. To be concluded -