BEGINNING ALONE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 11, 14 March 1891, Page 18

BEGINNING ALONE.

In Eight Chapters.—Chapter Vlf.

A BITTER SEARCH. When Nellie came home from her choir practice that morning — the morning ot the twenty-third of December, — she was annoyed to find that the children had not returned, but supposing that they had been taken to Littleton by their father and Walter, she ordered dinner to be saved for them, and went about her daily duties.

The afternoon wore on. When she perceived signs of a gathering storm, Nellie began to be a little anxious for her father’s return. From time to time she watched at the drawing-room window. The wind had been howling fiercely for an hour or more, and the air was thiek with Hying snow, when at last she heard bells. The sleigh, scarcely visible in the darkness that had already gathered, dashed np to the gate. ‘ Where have they put the children?’ she exclaimed, uneasily, as she ran to open the door. A sudden blast came in on her, almost wrenching the knob from her fingers, and the Hoor was white with snow in an instant.

‘ We have barely escaped it,’ said her father, gaily running in with bis arms full of parcels. 1 A little moie and the road would have been impassable. Drive back to Arragon’s as quickly as you can, Walter. It is the inost violent storm I have seen for years.’ ‘ Father !’ called Nellie. ‘ Where are the children ?’ * The children 1 Are they out in this weather ?’ ‘ They have not been home since you went away this morning.’

Mr Wharton sprang to the door. ‘ Walter ! Walter !’ he cried.

Walter heard his loud call, and turned his horses, certain of some calamity. ‘ What has happened ’’ he cried. ‘ Diive to the post-office !’ said his father, leaping into the sleigh. ‘ The children have stayed out somewhere in town all day, perhaps Mis Burns kept them. They must not walk home in this storm.’

‘ I hope they have not tried to go over to the Dillingham’s !’ exclaimed Walter.

• Walter, do not imagine such a thing until we must !’ said his father, desperately. ‘ Give me the reins.’ Driving furiously, Mr Wharton soon reached the little post-oHice, and was out of the sleigh before it had come to a stop. ‘ Mrs Burns !’ ‘ Tn a minute,’ said Mrs Burns, who was lighting her lamp behind the small glazed boxes. • Mrs Burns, are the children here ?’ ‘ Mr Wharton, is that you ? Thecbildren? They haven’t been here since about noon. Perhaps they are playing with the little Cassons at the rectory.’ ‘ They haven’t been home since they left the post-< ffice. Did they say anything when they were here that leads you to think they meant to go to the rectory ?’ ‘No, they weie full of their Christmas-tree. Poor little deals ! I am afraid they will be disappointed, for T asked Joe White to take your card over to Dillingham's, and he told me that they are all gone to spend Christmas in Littleton, the Dillinghanis and the Tuckeis, too. Look over at the rectory, Mr Wharton ; very likely they aie there.’ • It i» no use,’ said Walter, coming in from the rectory. ‘They are not there, and they have tried to go over to Dillingham's—with that broken biidge and all this wind

and snow,’ he added, and as he thought of the possibilities something like a groan escaped him. ‘We had better drive over there at once,’ said Mr Wharton. ‘ You can't, Mr Wharton,’ said Mrs Burns. ‘ Dennet has just gone, and he says that the millroad is so drifted that no horse could plough through it.’ An old gentleman, wrapped in furs, came in the office to mail some letters, and seeing Mr Wharton stepped toward him. ‘ Mr Wharton,’ he said, ‘ I Lope your children came home in good season. My man met them a little after one o'clock going toward the Red Mill. They said they were going to Dillingham’s, but he warned them not to cross the Bridge ; it is very unsafe.’ ‘ They have not returned, my lord.’ answered Mr Wharton, staggered at this con tit mation of his worst fears. ‘ And the Dillinghanis and Tuckers are both away from home,’ said Walter.

‘ They have been taken in somewhere along the mill-road !’ called Mrs Burns, who, pale and anxious, was putting on her bonnet and cloak. ‘I am going down to Nellie.’ ‘ But can you leave the office ?’ objected the bishop. ‘ Is any one in Dulwich going to think of the mail,’ she cried, indignantly, ‘ and those two precious darlings out in a storm like this ’ Jennie, you can do your best without me.’ The door closed on her.

‘ Search should be made at once,’ said the bishop. ‘We must rouse the town. Where had we better meet ’’ He hesitated an instant. ‘ The church, I suppose, is the best place. Walter, go and tell Brown to ring the bell, and warn every one you meet to be there. I will drive up to Mr Casson’s, and get him to summon the people up at that end of the town, if you will call out those at yours. Bring Cornelius; he is an excellent man to organise, and knows how to dispose large bodies of men.’ ‘ Cornelius is away,’ said Mr Whaiton, ‘ on business of the college. He went yesterday moining, and will be gone three days.’

‘ That is a pity,’ said the bishop, ‘ but let us lose no time. ’ Before long the church bell rang out peal on peal into the frosty air, and the men gathered so quickly that the halflighted nave was filled in less than fifteen minutes from the time the alarm was first sounded. There was a short interval of silence. The men assembled waited undecidedly for some one to take the lead. Then from the chancel, where, without book or light, he stood alone in the shadows, the bishop’s majestic ana melodious voice fell on their eais. The wind lashed the windows and howled in the organ-loft, but the full, deep, clear tones dominated the tumult without strain or effort in fervent supplication : ‘ Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Oh, let thine ear consider well the voice of my complaint. For there is mercy with thee, theiefoie shalt thou be feaied. Thou, O Loid, who stillest the raging of the storm, hear, hear and save, that they perish not! O blessed Saviour, who didst save Thy disciples ready to Seiish in a stoim, hear, hear, and save, we beseech Thee. ave. Lord, or else they perish. The living, the living shall praise Thee. Oh, send Thy word of command to lebuke the raging winds, that they being delivered from this distiesa may live to serve Thee and to gloiify Thy name all the days of tnM lite. Hear, Lord, and save them, for the

infinite merits of our blessed Saviour, Tby Son, our Lord) Jesus Christ.* Joining their voices to his, the men in the nave responded ‘ Amen.' When the search was at last fully organised two panties set out, one on each side of the Big Triangle, arranging tomeet half-way at the Tucker’s on the ridge opposite the town. The party on the Dillingham side was much the larger, and not an inch of the road—the mill-road—was left unscanned.

Before crossing the bridge some one picked up from the scattered suow a little spotted handkerchief, which Mr Wharton recognised as Reginald’s, but beyond the bridge no further traces were discovered anywhere. At the Dillinghams’ the party carefully examined the yard and even the stables and other outhouses, which, according to the custom in that part of the country, were scattered over the place, and every drift was investigated. Shouting, calling, and swinging their lanterns, they proceeded dot only along the road, but into the woods that lined its sides, though the stiff hedges and ra d fences made it unlikely, if not impossible, that the children could have strayed from, the travelled way. At the Tucker place both parties traversed every foot of the garden and adjacent orchards. * Reginald ! Elizabeth !*' they shouted again and again, throwing the light-from their lanterns in every direction, even into the windows of the dark and closely locked cottage ; but no one answered, and the wind blew their voices back into their faces.

At every house near the road they made unavailing inquiries. The childien had been neither seen nor heard of. Wearied out and disheartened, they turned their steps homeward.

The fear that the children, in attempting to cross the bridge on their return, had fallen through in the storm and darkness, turned to a feeling of ceitainty. The snowcovered ice was crumbling and full of holes. Heavy stonesthrown from the bridge crushed through and sank.

To venture upon the ice in that weather at night would have been foolhardy and useless. Nevertheless oneof the younger and lighter men, girded by a rope, made the attempt, only to be dragged back drenched with freezing water.

* It is nothing but slush and rotten- ice,’ he said. ‘No man could live in it.’ On assembling at Mr Wharton’s to make arrangements for the next day the searchers found the house well lighted, and Nellie walking restlessly from room toroom, with shining eyes and haggard face. ‘ They are quite safe — I am sure they are; some one has taken them in,’ she repeated fronttime to time, as one after another of the tired company, after dtinking the hot coffee which Mrs Burns poured out, pressed her hand and silently went away. ‘ Some one has taken them in,’ Nellie persisted, stopping a moment at her father’s side, who was sitting, exhausted and broken, in his chair by the library fire. ‘God grant it!’ he answeied, hopelessly. Then Mrs Burns came to bid them good-night, and the wretched household were left alone. Nellie went upstairs and closed her door. She even undressed and went to bed, but sleep wasdenied her. Waiting until the house was still, she slipped noiselessly along the hall to thedeserted nursery. The wind wasnow coming only in fitful gusts, and the temperature was slowly rising. She softly opened the window and looked out. ‘ It is going to rain,’ she said. Turning back, she found herself entangled in a maze of sitings. It was one of Reginald’s inventions. Nellie lighted a candle and patiently rearranged all the little cords and pulleys, kissing every one as she did so.

Then seating herself on the floor, she looked about on all the familiar toys and treasures, heaped upon the shelves and tables. Each one carried its own especial sting; just or unjust, deserved or the contrary, the pain was the same for all. The ship whose sails she had had no time to hem ; the doll whose wig she would not glue to its head ; the confiscated blocks, placed high on a shelf, out of reaeh, as a punishment for disorder. ‘My darlings, my little darlings !’ sobbed Nellie, • what would life be without you ?’ How proud she was of them, with their quaint, eharming fancies, and odd ways ! How little had she done to makelife sweet to them ! Oh, to live the last eight months over again ! for one more opportunity. She had not meant to go on in the way she had been following so long ; she was only getting started. But they were coming home! she would not think otherwise. Thronging, terrible pictures stood at the portals of her imagination. They should not enter ! the children, her mother’s treasures, —how had she guarded them 1

Nellie blew out the light. It was instinctive ; there are times when truly we call on the darkness to cover us. She knew not how long she had been lying on the nursery floor—perhaps she had slept, poor child 1 She reproached herself for being able to sleep. But the sound that aroused her was the heavy down-pour of rain on the roof of the porch. She rose and looked out. A gray light was stealing over the dreary sky, and she went to her room and diessed. The rain had frozen as it fell, atd when, on the next day, the searching parties started out once more they found the roads a glaze and the trees coated with ice. As soon as there was sufficient light, they again went over the mill-road, and it was significant that no one ealled the names so loudly shouted the previous night Retaining t»

the bridge, they attempted a second search in the creek, but the mens coate froze upon their backs, and they gave up in despair. Toward noon messengers came to Mr Wharton with the news that the creek had so risen that the ice had given way, and had floated down to Dulwich in a great heap, forming a dam at the foot of the hill. * It is there that they will probably be found,’ some one said, and the others sadly acquiesced. All day long Nellie restlessly paced the floor. No one knew what was going on in her mind, for she seldom spoke, not even answering questions. Toward evening, however, as the storm began to clear away, a new idea seemed to possess her, and her look of dull, terrible endurance gave place to one of feverish interest. * Walter,' she said, ‘ go, cut down that little Norway fir ! when they get home to-morrow they must have their tree !’ ‘O, Nellie !’ groaned the boy. * Yon are mad ; they cannot have lived through, all this. By this time, they are—‘ * Hush !’ she cried, in shrill, piercing tones. ‘ Don’t say it, Walter ! You shall not say it. Tney are living, living —I tell you ! Get me the tree, dear, or I shall go mad. Ask papa.’ Walter went in and told bis father.

‘Do as she says,’ answered Mr Wharton. ‘ I fear she may become ill. Suspense is intolerable. I nave ceased to feel it.’

‘ And I,’ answered the boy. Taking an axe, Walter went out and cut down a small Norway fir that the children had called ‘ the Christmastree.’ It fell with all its load of gleaming crystals, and Walter took it into the kitchen. After the ice had melted off, he set it up before the window at the end of the drawing room, where the Christmas-tree had always been placed. Nellie immediate'y busied herself with its decoration. Mr Wharton went out to arrange for a party of men to cut the ice-dam in the creek on the following morning, and when he came home he brought the village doctor with him. The old man looked at Nellie and shook his head doubtfully. ‘ Take this,’ he said, after mixing some medicine in two glasses, * and if it does no good take the other glass toward morning.’ Without a word she took it. * Let her alone,’ lie added, as he left the house. * Don’t interfere with her, and don’t talk to her ! mind that; don’t talk to her !’

The work of trimming a Christmas tree is something that ■may be indefinitely prolonged. Nellie, dreading its completion, dressed dolls, strung long ropes of white pop-corn, made gauze bags for candy, and even sent the reluctant and bewildered little cook up to the shops, open this season until -ten o’clock in the evening, to buy tinsel and candles. ‘ Miss Nellie is clean crazy !’ was the apologetic preface with which the girl announced her errand. When all was finished, even to the close-tied packages which Nellie found neatly done up in readiness on the ■nursery shelf and directed in Elizabeth's childish hand to -each member of the family, labelled ‘ From Elizal eth ’ and ‘ From Reginald ;’ when the last shower of shining silver wire had been thrown over the branches and all the candles . made to stand erect, Nellie looked at the clock, and found that it was nearly twelve. ‘ I must go !’ she exclaimed, with sudden, breathless • agitation, as with averted eyes she kissed her father and Walter good-night and ran upstairs. *lt is the bells,’ said Walter. ‘They will ring in a minute.’ Nellie closed her door, and sat down on the edge of her bed, her hands over her ears and her eyes fixed on the little clock which, ticking vigorously, stood near by on the . mantel.

Every Christmas Eve, at midnight, the chimes in Dulwich rang out the Adeste Fideles, followed by peal on peal of the bells. Pleased by the name, which they had come across somewhere in their story-books, the children had always called this peculiarly jubilant performance ‘Mr Francis Triple Bob Major.’ It was for this that Nellie waited. ‘ When it begins,’ she said, aloud, ‘ I shall go mad !’ Mary Tappan Wright. (TO BE CONTINUED.)