CHAPTER V

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VIII, Issue 2, 1 May 1903, Page 107

CHAPTER V

At the end of six years, just when the settlement had decided that it was no use wondering when Miss Crayley and Timothy would return, they came back. Not with any flourish of trumpets, but quietly, so that no one knew of their return until they were established in the house with the enchanted garden. Then the settlement received a shock. Timothy Haggart was dying ; and during the day it was rumoured that, not only was he •dying, but also that he was a hero.

Once more Timothy lay in the big white bed in the house with the enchanted garden. Miss Cray ley sat again by the fire, and gazed into it. as though hoping to find in its glowing heart, the answer to some problem over which she was puzzling. For six short, precious years — how precious only her own heart knew — she had had a young life to watch over, had come in daily contact with a mind bright and enquiring, had watched it expand under her care into a thing of intelligence and beauty. How she had striven at first to separate the wheat from the tares ! The boy had exceeded all her most sanguine hopes. His masters spoke well of him, and his ready wit and skill at all games made him a favourite with his school-fellows. His bright, handsome face won him friends whereever he went. And it had ended in this. Miss Crayley glanced toward the bed and stifled a sob. Well : she had done her best, the boy had been happy once he had settled into the routine of school life. But something akin to the bitterness of Death passed through her when she thought that, but for her, he would

probably be well and strong now. What right had she to lift him from the life wherein he was born, and expected nothing better than to live it ? She pictured him in that other life — his energies misdirected, and his nature warped by his surroundings. Better thus, she thought, a thousand times ! But oh ! the pity of it ! In the embers she saw him, as he would have been, had God let him fulfil life's promise — tall and strong, doing good work in the world, and the comfort and prop of her old age.

Well, the settlement had reason to be proud of him. He had practically given his life for another. With a pang of unreasoning jealousy, she thought for the first time of his mother, taking her last long rest in the Settlement Cemetery. Untutored, hard-worked and slovenly she had been, but somewhere in the woman's heart lay the capacity to understand and rejoice in the great thing her son had done. Well, death would restore them to each other. Timothy would lie beside her, for such was his wish. After all he was hers, and she was only playing at Motherhood — " pretending " as the children say.

She took from her pocket a letter and leaning forward, read it again by the firelight. It was stamped with the crest and motto of a wellknown College. " Dear Madam,'' it began, " I regret very much to tell you that your nephew, Timothy Haggart, has met with an accident, and your presence here would be welcome both to him and to us. A fire broke out in the wing where he occupies a room, and in carrying a stupified companion down a ladder, an iron support fell on Timothy's back, and we fear injury to his spine. I must tell you that the brave lad went back at the risk of his own life to save a friend who is unhurt. Need 1 say that we and the whole school are very proud of him ?"

She could read no further, tears blurred her sight. She thought of the scene when she arrived at the

College — the silent little groups of boys, and her passing among them to the room where Timothy lay. The doctor told, quietly and frankly, that nothing could save the boy. His lower limbs were paralized, and it was only a question of days before paralysis reached the heart. He was in no pain, and the end would probably come quickly. Timothy's one wish seemed to be to get home, not to the little cottage she had taken by the sea, during his schooldays, but home to the house with the enchanted garden. Outside, the river hurried noisily over its pebbly bed to the sea. Timothy moved his curly head restlessly. " Auntie," he called. She knelt beside him. She put his clinging brown hands to her heart as though their touch could still its wild beating.

" My dear boy/ she said, and the sob in the sweet throat caught his ear.

" Don't cry, Auntie," he said boyishly. " Don't cry, or I shall think I have not done right. You taught me to be brave, and when the chance came, I could not but take it. Only I did not think it a chance then, it was just Barker minor I wanted to save. Did you hear the boys cheer me.?" he asked smiling. " Of course, Auntie, it is dreadful to die, but it is better than being a cripple for life— not to go swimming; or fishing, or to help you in the garden anymore. Oh, I could not stand that ! And now I want to thank you — you know you have never let me mention it — I cannot do it properly of course — for all you

have done for me. I was an awful little vagabond ; wild as they make 'em, and I took a lot of training. By Jove ! this is the very same bed you put me into that night six years ago. And I can smell the flowers, and the river sounds just the same, Auntie." He choked back the tears, and looked up at her. She kissed him again and again, stroking his curls lovingly. " You have been more to me than I can tell you, Timothy, the debt t is all on my side, my dear. You cannot think how proud and happy you have made me, my brave boy." She wept silently. Presently he took one of her hands, and placingit on his pillow, he laid his cheek against it, and so fell asleep. * * * * A week later the Idler, lounging thro' the vast Cemetery with its few graves, passed near Timothy Haggart's, and carefully placed a couple of red roses on it. He had picked them over the fence of the enchanted garden. A vague recollection that he had sometimes seen Timothy do the same thing, prompted him to place them on his grave in passing. " Well," he said, surveying the crimson roses amid the mass of white flowers that covered the grave, " well, you've got enough now and to spare. Shoulcf nt wonder either if, somewhere or other, you're a wearin' of a crown of 'em." He opened the gate and passed! out.

(the end.)