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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 50, 3 April 1885, Page 7

Tbis woeful babe cursed the race of Finiston. Their riches should yield them no pleasure. They should perish with cold, and be gnawed by hunger. Their lands should be waste, and their house decay. Their daughters should never live pa9t childhooi ; and even those of their sons who had gentle hearts should become hardened by possession of the gold of the Finistons. The curse should lurk for them in the corner-stone of the wall, in the beam under the roof -tree, in the log upon tha hearthstone, in the meat upon the dish : " In every bud and blade of grass that grows, la every leaf upon their mighty trees, la every kindly face that smiles ou them, In every pleasnnt word that neighbours speak." In conclusion, there was a prophecy. Never should the. family be fieed from the curse till one of them should be murdered by a kins man of bis own : •• Then closed his eyes this dreary babe of woe, And rolled away from off bis mother's heart ; Her arms were stiff and cold beneath the snow, And he lies buried in the evil well." After such a dire event a baneful spirit was, of course, said to haunt the well ; and from this the name of the property took its rise. The old name was forgotten ; and the estate was known as Tobereevil, " The Bamhee's Well." The curse seemed to set to work at once upon the master of Tobereevil. He was seized with a panic ; and not even his farspreading, quickly-growing plantations could give him comfort. He could not forget that it had been predicted that his race should perish with cold, and be gnawed with hunger. He began immediately to retrench his expenses. Gradually he dismissed his numerous servants, sending away first one and then another upon some idle pretence. Now and tben a carriage was sent back to the maker's to be repainted, or to get new springs, and never returned to Tobereevil. The horses also disappeared. One was too spirited, another too sulky. A fresh stud was to be procured ; but time slipped away, and the stable remained empty. Gardeners and workmen who had been brought from a distance returned whence they came, gardens began to lie waste, and the place took a neglected look. The master, hungrylooking now and ill-dressed, toiled at his farm, assisted by a small i staff of labourers. His wife, who had came there as a sort of queen, faded away into a melancholy-looking spectre. His two sons grew up wild and half-educated. They were instructed in little besides the history of the curse, and the means to be taken to avert its fulfilment. These means were the saving of money, the stinting themselves and their dependents of the necessaries of life, so that treasure might be hoarded, making it impossible that they should ever come to want. The elder was to inherit everything ; the younger was to go abroad and work for his living. This was to prevent all risk of the family property being scattered. The elder, however, a gentle, sickly lad, did not loug stand in the way of his brother. The weight of the responsibility broke h'*s heart, and he sought refuge from the curse in another world. The younger sou succeeded to the property at his father's death* and became the first genuine miser of Tobareevil. And so it went on from generation to generation. Tha curse and gold were handed from father to son, and from uncle to nephew. It was a singular fact that no daughter of the family ever lived to reach womanhood. Meanwhile the accursed plantations had grown up ; and cue magnificent Woods of Tobereevil spread for miles over the country, and grew thicker and darker, and grander and more mysterious, as the years Tolled along, and the curse tightened its hold around the lean throats of theFinistons. The wicked trees grew proudly out of the hearth-places of the vanished home?, no wholesome roots and simples were to be gathered among their shades, but strange and poisonous berbs grew hidden in their depths, nourished by the evil atmosphere of the place. If an old woman were seen rooting in the dark places of Tobereevil Woods, ber character was gone, and she was looked upon as unholy and a person to be shunned. There were stones from old times of people who had been poisoned, and people who had been made mad, by the noisome weeds that bad been plucked in the 'heart of the Wicked Woods. Sis generations had passed away, and Simon Finiston was master of Tobereevil. In his youth he had been gentle and almost generous ; and a hope had bean entertained that the curse was worn out, and that the reign of misery was at an end in the country. The tenants on the estate trembled with delight at the piospect of having a merciful and sympathising landlord, of seeing the wild places brought to order at last, the decayiug mansion restored, the plough fuirowing the idle acres, and employment and plenty going hand in hand along the valleys and over the hills ; but these hopes proved an empty dream. As soon as he became master of the property, Simon's character underwent a gradual and miserable change. His gentleness degenerated into nurvous weakness, his firmness into a dogged obstinacy. The friends who had hoped better thingß of him tben dropped away one by one, and left him to his fate, lhe unhappy ten .nis fell back into despair, and the air was thick with thtir complaints. And so, at the time of the opening of this story, the curse was still dragging out its evil existetice. The heir to the estate of tbe Finistona was said to be a young lad named Paul Finiston, nephew of biroon, tbe actual owner, who had always kept him at a .distance. The miser was a timid man, and it was said that he had a horror of the prophecy being fulfilled in his own person. He dreaded being murdered by a kinsman of bis own. However this may be, young Paul Finiston had never been seen at Tobereevil. His father aud mother had paid a visit there once ; but they had hurried away speedily, and had never come back. At this time, when Simon was growing old, tbe mansion of Tobereevil looked grim and dilapidated. It stood in a slight hollow of the land, with the sombre masses ot the woods at its back, and a strong force of loftier trees mustering about it like a guard. The sullen gray walls were bleached and blackened, and rain-soiled and mo4B»eatea. There were broken panes everywhere, and shutters

closed over them to keep out the wind weeds, and wild plants grew on the pathways and in the crevices of the steps at the entrance. A solitary cow grazed in the wild field that had once been a velvet-like lawn, aud a few starveling bens pecked among the pebbles in the long, rank grass ; and in this dreary abode dwelt the man who was lord of Tobereevil, including Monasterlea. (7o be continued.")