driacs, a class of people with which, my dear Mrs. Pickering, we are not entirely unfamiliar at Springside; but when there is any real disease it is a thing most specially to be guarded against, and I look to you to "Do you mean to say that Sir Geoffry is seriously ill ?" asked Madge, anxiously. "I speak to you as a practical woman. I know that you are one by your look, your earnestness, your very manner of moving about. As such you are entitled to frankness, while the fribbles and dolls of society should receive merely evasion. Sir Geoffry Heriot's heart is seriously affected, and any sudden emotion might be fatal to him." Madge turning deadly white, leaned her head upon the table to steady herself, then said, "You speak strongly, Doctor Chenoweth." "I speak to you the literal, undisguised truth. I could wrap it up in any form of conversational sweetmeat that might please you. I should do so, if I were addressing most of my clientèle, but you are worthy of plainer speaking, and from me you get it." "Do you consider Sir Geoffry's life in danger ?" "If any serious news were to be brought suddenly under his notice, most undoubtedly. And I speak thus strongly because, from what you have just said, he is evidently labouring under an excess of mental excitement." "Doctor, in the course of your career you must have been the recipient of many confidences as strange and stranger than that which I am about to make. Sir Geoffry is eager for a reconciliation with his son, from whom by force of circumstances he has been separated for many years. Is it likely that the meeting between the two would be fraught with danger to the general ?" "Under present circumstances with the greatest danger! I would not answer for 'So," she said to herself, twenty minutes after, when the doctor's swift roans had borne him into Springside, and he was whispering the lightest of nothings into the deafest of ears in the Hot Wells Hotel, so ends my plan of immediate reconciliation between father and son. It is plain, from Doctor Chenoweth's opinion, that Sir Geoffry's strength is not sufficient for him to bear the meeting, and that it must consequently be deferred." When, in the course of the afternoon, she commenced talking on the subject with Sir Geoffry, and, approaching it in the most cautious manner, was about to suggest the impossibility of summoning Gerald at once to his father's side, she was surprised to find how completely the general coincided with her view." "Quite right," he said, "quite right. There is nothing that I am so anxious for as to see my boy, and to take him to my arms. But we must wait a little; I am not strong enough to go through much excitement, and I've just had some news which necessitates my placing a rod in pickle for those scoundrels who were here the other day." "Scoundrels! what scoundrels ?" "From the Terra del Fuegos mine, my dear. I shall yet be the means of bringing them into the prisoner's dock." JUST PUBLISHED, THE EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER FOR CHRISTMAS, 1871, ENTITLED SLAVES OF THE LAMP. Now ready, price 5s. 6d., bound in green cloth, ALL THE YEAR ROUND. To be had of all Booksellers. The Back Numbers of the PRESENT SERIES of his life if he were called upon to undergo ALL THE YEAR ROUND, so great an excitement." "Thank you, doctor," said Madge, after a moment's pause. "It was important that your advice should be asked. You may be certain that it shall be acted upon." Also Cases for Binding, are always kept on sale The Right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors. Published at the Office, 26, Wellington St Strand. Printed by C. WAITING, Beaufort House, Duke St.. Lincoln's Inn Fields. said the pedlar, beginning with dignity to roll up the stuff. "When a lady doesn't know a bargain when she sees it, why it's part of my profession to tache her at a little inconvanience. "Fourpence, ye said!" "Fippence," said the pedlar. "Oh, musha, musha, but ye're miserly an' hard! An' 'twas fourpence ye tould me at the first." "If ye say another word I'll make it sixpence," said the pedlar. "Is it laughin' at him ye are ?" "Sorra laugh in the matther. If so be he has anythin' to sell, old coats, or gownds, or curtains, or jewellery, why it's mysel' will give the best price for the goods.' "Sit down, thin, good man, an' wait a bit, for that's a quare different tune ye're whistlin' now. He's out gleanin', but he'll be in for his dinner by'n bye." Tibbie groaned and rocked herself, with her eyes upon the chintz. The material before her was worth eighteenpence a yard. Tibbie knew it well. It was strong and soft, and warm and silky; printed in good | colours, and of the most brilliant design. Why the ordinary pedlar would not give her a calico at the price! But to part with so many fivepences cut Tibbie to the heart. And the thought of walking about Tobereevil, amidst the cobwebs and mildew," dressed out in all this finery, was like to make her crazy between horror and delight. And in the mean time, while she deliberated, the coveted stuff retreated, yard after yard, into the pedlar's pack. "I'll be biddin' a good evenin' to ye," said the pedlar, shouldering his bundle. "Stop! stop!" shrieked Tibbie, and she huddled herself away across the kitchen. She seized the poker, so that the pedlar thought at first that she was going to lay it about his head. But she only poked it up the chimney, bringing down a shower of soot, and a grimy little bag which chinked as it fell among the ashes. 'Wan, two, three, four!" said Tibbie, counting out her money. "Oh, my curse on you for a villain, would ye take it from me?" The pedlar put the money in his pocket, Tibbie glaring at him strangely the while, as if she had given him poison, and he had swallowed it. The pedlar cut off the cloth, folded it neatly, and placed it in a roll in Tibbie's arms, where she gripped it and pinched it, so that had it been a living thing it certainly would have strangled. been "Gleanin' ?" asked the pedlar. "Pickin' what he can get," returned Tibbie. "Sticks for the fire, an' wisps o' hay; wool out o' the hedges', an' odd praties an' turnips out o' the rigs." The pedlar stared. "It amuses the ould sowl, I suppose," he said. "Oh, ay!" said Tibbie, with a whine, an' helps to keep the roof over his head, the crature!" There was silence upon this, during which the black-beetles came a journey across the kitchen flags, and walked playfully over the pedlar's boots; while Tibbie went on with her cooking, making the woodcock spin giddily from its string as she basted it before the fire. She was considering whether the pedlar would buy the rags and bones which she had been storing in the cellar for the past ten years. By-and-bye a sound was heard from above, and Tibbie left off torturing the woodcock, and placed him on a dish. A slice of bread and a glass of water were added on a tray, and then the miser's dinner was carried up-stairs. "Ye may wait, my man," said Tibbie, coming back. And when the tray had come down again, she ushered the pedlar into the presence of her master. He was sitting, all alive with expecta tion, in the dreary state of his dilapidated dining-room, a little leaner, more wrinkled, more surly and fretful-looking than on the day when he had scared Miss Martha out of his presence. In a corner of the room lay a small heap of the spoils which he had gleaned off the country since the morning. "Take them away, Tibbie, take them away," he said, waving his hand towards the meagre pile, "and be careful about picking up the straws. They have cost me a hard day's work, good woman; and see that you do not lose the fruits of your master's toil. You perceive, young man, we will have no waste here, and I am glad to learn that you are one of those who count nothing too old or decayed to be of use. I am told that you are anxious to do a little business with me, and that being so, we will proceed up-stairs." The miser's nose was long, thin, and almost transparent, and as he spoke he sat sharpening the end of it-as it seemed to the looker-on-with a many-coloured rag, which had once been a pocket-handkerchief. The pedlar stood, hat in hand, a little in the shadow thrown by the strong red sunset and the heavy oaken framework of the window. His attitude was respectful, but there was a strange look of loathing mixed with fear in his eyes, which now fixed themselves, as if fascinated, on the face of the miser, and now roved about the room. "You will see a great house," said the miser, while he shuffled across the hall, looking nervously over his shoulder, as the keys jingled in his hand, "a dilapidated house, which the owner has no means of repairing. What it costs me, young man, to keep the holes in the windows stopped, so as to shut out the wind, and prevent the roof flying off on a stormy night-why, it makes me what I am," he said, flapping his patched garment ostentatiously. "It makes me what I am." The first Finiston of Tobereevil, the man who had brought the blight upon his race, had had in his princely days a grand idea about the planning of a dwelling. The staircase was wide enough for eight men to ascend its black steps abreast. Inky faces of demons and satyrs grinned from among vine-leaves in the carvings of the balustrades. Black marble nymphs twined their arms and their hair round pillars on the landing, and lost themselves amid foliage and shadows. Formerly, all the sinister effect of this blackness had been carried off by the ruddy velvet hangings which had glowed between the arches, and the deeply-stained windows which had loaded every ray of sunlight with a special flush of colour. Flora and Bacchus had crowned themselves in the splendours of the illuminated glass, making the inner air warm with the reflection of their frolics. Their wreathed attendants had chased each other laughingly under the lower arches of the side-lights. Now Flora's azure robe still fluttered against the sun, and her feet still twinkled among clouds and roses. But her fair round throat had become a spike of ragged glass, and the sky looked in rudely where her face had used to smile. Bacchus had had his lower limbs completely shivered away, and seemed to soar out of an intrusive bush of ivy. As the miser crept feebly up the staircase the scarlet midsummer sunset had assaulted all the colours in the window, flinging fire to right and left, and streaming triumphantly through the rents in the glass. The black nymphs were all burning as they clung round their pillars, each like an Indian widow upon her pyre. From left and right of this landing another staircase led, one to each wing of the house. Simon turned to the left, and brought the pedlar along galleries and down passages, and up more stairs, till he reached a low-roofed lobby, where tall black presses were stationed like goblins in the mouldy twilight. To the locks of these he fitted one after another of his rusty keys, seeking for valuables which the pedlar was to buy of him. And meantime the pedlar had leisure to observe how the roof was broken in above the spot where they stood, and how the walls and the ceiling, and the presses and the floor, were all stained with rain-marks, as if the rain had poured in there many winters through. "You perceive that we have got an enemy here," said the miser, with a dreary laugh. "But it will be a long time yet before he makes his way down to the lower rooms. We have damp down-stairs, plenty of damp, but never a pouring stream like this. It will suit me well to get rid of this property before next winter comes round." The mice The property was dragged out, and proved to be some faded garments, stained with rain, and eaten up with mildew. They were shrunk and discoloured; past all recognition of shape or hue. had dined off them at many a hungry pinch, and the moths had made pasture of them for years. That one fine lady of Tobereevil, while sweeping her satin skirts down the sumptuous staircase below, and counting herself the first of a race of queens, had little thought that her faded finery would be thus preserved in the family, and bargained over by her descendants, after she and her expectations had long melted into the churchyard mould. Yet there it lay, exposed in its ghastly uncleanness; and this pedlar was to purchase it, and take it forth into the world. The pedlar stood in a recess between two of the presses, and close to his head there was a tiny window. Through this loophole he could see far over the country. He could see a large portion of the estate of Tobereevil, a few hovels, a few sickly wreaths of smoke, vast rich tracts of uncultivated land, melancholy fallows, and the strong, brilliant woods. The whole was a picture of neglected land, rich in beauty and glowing with promise, but with the shadow of the curse distinct upon its face amidst all the splendours of the midsummer sunset. The pedlar gazed long, as if he had forgotten his bargain, and that lively sauciness which was his business expression did not find its way through the bitterness on his face. with the money which Tibbie had paid him for her dress. And in wrangling over the contents of the bundle they had ample occupation for the rest of the evening. CHAPTER XIII. TROUBLED IN HER MIND. It was a moment of some excitement to May when she climbed into the great travelling-carriage of the Archbolds, and was taken from the gate of Monasterlea. Miss Martha inspected her departure with pride. "I have done my best to turn her out like a gentlewoman," thought that kindly spinster, "and, let them have whom they may, they can never see a sweeter face at their board. Ah, deary me! why does Paul not come home while she is looking like that?" And Miss Martha returned to her lonely parlour to follow out the train of this idea, with her knitting in her lap, her spectacles on her nose, and her mouth at a reflective angle. She had been busy as a bee for the past few days, but now the delicate laces were all cleared and pressed, the fair muslin gowns were all folded, the little knots and rosettes of gay ribbons were all stitched in their places, the excitement of trunk-pack The pedlar turned round, and saw the figure of the old man bending and moving as he shook out, straightened, folded, and flaunted his gaudy and unseemly rags, and turning from the dreary landscape, and meeting this more dismal and ludicrous picture, a look of horror and disgusting had come to an end, and the humdrum burned gradually in the pedlar's gaze. "Name your price, and don't keep me in suspense," said the miser, irritably, and suddenly raised his greedy eyes, and peered into the pedlar's face. Then, as if he could hear no more, and with a glance of terror, the pedlar raised both his arms hurriedly, and pushed the miser from him, swiftly and strongly, but with nothing violent in his touch; turned from him without a word, and fled along the lobby, past the goblin presses, and down the staircase, and to left and to right, mistaking his way, and finding it again, escaping at last out of the door, and away into the woods of Tobereevil. Stop thief! stop thief!" shrieked Simon, pattering after him a little way, then coming back to see that nothing had been taken, then following again with his cry, unconvinced, "Stop thie-ief!" And Tibbie at last caught the sound in her dungcon underground, and came running and stumbling up-stairs. But when the two old creatures met, panting and vociferating in the hall, they were obliged to declare to each other that the pedlar had vanished, and that he was the devil, a gipsy, or a thief at the least. Yet after this they found his pack lying untouched in the dining-room, together knitting had returned to its place between Miss Martha's fingers. Her child was gone, but though Monasterlea might be sleepier and lonelier than ever, Miss Martha was neither sleepy nor lonely. She was accustomed to live out a great deal of life within her twenty-four hours, and she could live it out as well in her silent parlour, over a silent occupation, as though she had been haranguing a multitude, or ploughing the rustiest fallow on Mr. Finiston's estate. It was a gift that she had got in the order of charity, this unflagging vitality, which would not be unoccupied. It had lit a comfortable hearth in this ruin surrounding her, it managed her farm, made a pride of her meadow-grass, drew beauty and fatness from her garden and dairy, and made a pleasant proverb of her house-keeping. When constrained to be quiet she could employ her energy in planning good things for other people. There were many within her reach who were worthy of a thought, and very many more who were in need of it. And when all those were reckoned there was not found one who was not infinitely the better when the fruit of such remembrance was dropped, ripe and unexpected, into his lap. Was there thirst, or hunger, or nakedness, or repining hiding itself in anguish in the holes of the land? |