The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-12-27 00:00:00

CHAPTER IV.

"HorE!" I could not hear my own voice, as I
gasped out the word, for the jubilant peal of the
Christmas bells; they were flinging their message
of peace on earth and goodwill to men all over the
hills and valleys, and there was no room for ray
poor little cry of terrified astonishment to find a
voice. Hope! It was her very self, dressed in the
grey gown she had worn oa that evening when she
had left me to go and feed her dovet before she
went out of the house to meet her fate, whatever it
was. _

•
111-natured people there were in the world, who
had dared to say that my wife had run away from
me. What did it matter? I knew, an 4 so did
every one who had known my Hope; every one who
had seen what we were to each other, and how we
lived Lnd loved our life for its love's sake: and the
roses were there too—l remembered that afterwards.
—the knot of late pale roses that she had gathered and
thrust into the bosom of her dress. How came they
there this cold winter's night? How came /ze there
looking at me who had lost her and mourned for
her as one dead? Her hair was falling on her
shoulders as I had sometimes seen it fall when she
had been stooping, or moving quickly. It was
such a wealth of hair, and so heavy for the pins
with which it was fastened. And it had fallen
down that evening. how well I rememl•ered every
trilling detail of that night, as I watched her. She
did not speak to me nor move; only looked at me
as if she would fain say something. And I called
her name again, wondering at her as she stood
there in the glitter of the moonlight, with the
bright radiance lighting up every little detail of her
dress and appearance. " trope! my darling ! "
And as I spoke the exultant bells changed their
rythm to a plaintive wail. A cloud crept over the
moon. The wind stirred amongst the trees, and the
bright light died out with a swirl and a shiver, and
I was alone. Nothing in the cold snow-covered
garden but myself. Hope was gone, and I was sick
and shivering with fright. I don't know how I got
into the house. I dill get there, and Mrs. Carlyon
was by my side and ministering to me, for the
thought I was fainting, before I recovered my
wits enough to speak to her.
"What is it, Mr. Westover she asked. "Are
you ill
"No," I replied, and then I gasped out in my
excitement " I have seen Hope."
"Seen Hope! Where is she? Have you brought
her in? How did you find her? Oh, thank heaven,
she is not dead !"

She burst into hysterical tears as she spoke. She
had grown strangely weak and pale of late, and it
had seemed to me that her husband did not seem as
kind to her as he had been formerly, but I dare say
this was my fancy. He came in now and asked her
somewhat roughly what was the matter with her;
and when she did not reply, and I told him what I
had just told his wife, he -stared at me a moment,
and then dropped into the nearest seat. I never
saw such a change come over a man's face in my
life. The life seemed to die out of it. I think I
realised then for the first time how these friends of
mine had felt for and with me in my affliction.
" Tell ma about it," ho gasped. ~" Where is
she?"

I told him I knew, and so did he, that what I
had seen was no reality; that either my imagination
had formed my darling in her habit as she lived out
of the thin air, or that there are in very deed more
things in heaven and earth than we have dreamed
in our philosophy."
"You saw her? There!"
"Just where I have told you, standing by the
raised bed, just as she looked that night. I was not
afraid. I spol.e to her."
"Your nerves are out of order, Westover,"
Canyon said, with a visible effort. What I had told
him had evidently affected him curiously. "You
want a tonic and a change."
I don't know what I was going to answer him,
for our attention was distracted by Mrs. Canyon
going into violent hysterics. She was weak and ill
and had lost all her nerve, and the idea that I had
seen something not of this world was appalling to
her.

"Then it was not Hope, and you have not found
her," she gasped. "Oh, take me away from this
awful house! Let us all go. Has she come to call
me to go after her I won ler? She would pity me
if she knew."

"I will take her away, Westover," Canyon said,
a scowl coming into his face at his wife's wild wor
" She is strangely fanciful of late. Don't heed her."
The colour had not come back to his own cheeks,
nor the light to his eyes, and he trembled as he took
up the slight form of his wife and carried her to
her own room. I heard her sobbing and wailing
for a long time, and I heard, too, his voice in loud
and angry remonstrance. Something had grown up
between those two that I could not understand.

We had our sad task to perform the next day,
and lay the honoured head of our old friend in the
silent grave in the churchyard. It was a large
funeral—so many people had lovcd her, and the poor
gathered to do her honour, forgetting their holiday
in their sorrow for her loss. Mrs. Canyon was
quite too ill to attend; she was quite prostrate.
What I had seen in the garden had been the last
straw, and she allowed herself to be ill and eared for
in a fashion that I had never seen in her before.

I was sorry I had told her of my fancy, for it
was fancy, of course, I thought to myself, as I stood
at my bedroom window early in the evenitg of
Christmas Day. Canyon had gone out; he had a
few friends that he had promised an hour to, and his
wife begged him not to consider her, but to go if he
wished. We had eaten our Chr:stmas dinner in
sadness and sorrow' and it was hard on him, who
was nothing to me but a kind friend, that I should
weigh him down with my grief, and make his life as
dreary and unhappy as mine had come to be.
Fancy !—of course it must have been fancy—it
was pardonable. Hope was always in my thoughts,
and—it was no fancy now—she was there, standing
where I had seen her before—close by the raised
bed in the garden.below me, looking up at me, her
sorrowing husband, with her great earnest eyes,
th ,t seemed to speak as I met their eager glance.
" St ty, I am coming," I said, looking straight at
her, as she stood. "Stay and speak to me, Hope,
my darling." _ _ _ _ _ _

'But she-was gone when I reached the place, and
there was nothing but the still trees, and the sha-
dows, an myself, with a weight of cold sickness at
my heart and a horrible perplexity in my confused
brains. I watched through the livelong night at
my window for her to come again, but she did not,
and with daybreak came a curious incident. The
servants were only just up—l could hear them bust-
ling about downstairs, and through the noise of fire-
lighting and general moving to and fro I heard a
strange whining, complaining noise, as of some
animal in pain.
I went 'downstairs and opened the front door,
guided by the sound, and there on the step was what
looked like a dying dog—a miserable little creature,
muddy and footsore, and looking as if it had not
had a meal or a drop of water for days. I love ani-
mals and cannot bear to see them suffer, and some-
how I felt as if I had seen this wretched creature
before. I lifted it up, dirty as it was, and carried
it to the kitchen fire. It looked at me with almost
human eyes, and seemed to thank me for the milk
that was brought and put down before it. It ate and
drank with a famine that was painful to so, and
then Ito' lied upon me as if to signify that it had
come to see me and no one else.

"I do believe it is Mrs. Hunter's dog," the house-
maid said, after contemplating it for a minute or
two. "It Ze ' Floss, Floss!"

The creature looked at her as she spoke its name,
and wagged its tail. It was clearly Floss, but how
had she come here, and where from? He understood
that the Hunters had gone:a long distance away. My
own troubles had put thorn out of my head entirely.
In the course of the day she had recovered herself
wonderfully, and made her way into the dining.
room, taking up her quarters as if she meant to stay.
She was quite welcome. Was not Hope fond of her?
I would have sheltered anything living that she had
loved, but I was not prepared to see her make a
furious onslaught on Canyon. She flew at him the
moment he came into the room, and would have
made her teeth meet in his leg had I not been in
time to catch her. It was odd, for she had always
seemed very good friends with h;m. before.
"I would not keep the animal if I were you," he
said to me. "It may be mad. Where did it come
from ?"

"Don't you know her F" I asked. "It is Mrs.
Hunter's little dog. The one that was so fond of
poor Hope."
Again the dog broke from my grasp as I spoke,
and rushed at him, and Carlyon gave a great gasp
and fell fainting on the floor at my feet. I rang
for the servants, and Mrs Canyon came, and we did.
what we could to revive him, but he seemed con-
fused and wandering, and I thought no more of the
dog till the cook came in to say she was afraid it was
mad. It was digging and tearing up the garden,
and would not let any one come near it. I went out
to see what she meant, just as a knock came to the
door, and the clergyman of the parish was an.
nounced. He had cone to see me on some parish
business, and I welcomed him cordially. He was a
good, true-hearted man, and I had found him a syni-
pathising friend.
He walked out into the garden with me, and I
told him of the dog's strange reappearance, and its
antipathy to Canyon.
"There is more than mere accident in that," he
said, pointing to the place whera Floss was digging,
tearing up the ground with her paws, which were
torn and bleeding, and uttering short, sharp bar
of distress and excitement the while.

"There is something there she knows of,--":he
said; and as he spoke something glittered in:the
sunlight, tossed up by the dog's eager scratching.
I picked it up. It was Canyon's ring—one .he had
lost some time—and I said so to Mr. Harvey. To
my
Npirinsehie v
ssloaceerwgaso a
hosrfd. or
"do not stay
here, for thew love of Heaven! Go for a policeman,"
I heard him say, as the place began to swim round
with me and somebody's arm held me up. I would
not go in; I seemed to know by intuition of what
was coming. It was like a dream, but I saw it all.
I saw our gardener and another man and the police-
man set to work with spades and strong arms to
enlarge the hole that little Floss had made. I heard
some one say in a husky whisper, "Keep bad: the
dog, for God's sake!" and I saw Floss break from
someone that was holding her and hurl herself into
the hole with a piteous whine, and then all was
dark, and I knew no more.
What a tale there was to be told me when I came
back from that death-like swoon, and it was a wild-
eyed despairing woman who told it me: my friend's
wife begging on her knees for mercy from me on
her husband, my wife's m..rderer ! Mr. Harvey was
there, too, trying to help me to be ea'm and to bear
what must be told. Hope had never gone out that
night. When Carlyon pretended to speak to her at
the door he had left her lying dead under tho
bushes.

With his horrible story came another, the reason
of it all—the cause of his wife's wasting agonies and
white wan face. He was false to her—leading a
double life,—one of reckless evil-doing with a woman
whom he had flaunted as his wife out of sight and
hearing of the poor soul whom he had sworn at tho
altar to love and cherish,—and one of seeming purity
and affection in our little village. And the know-
ledge of it had come somehow to Hope, and her pure
nature had revolted at his treachery, and she had
spoken more than once of it to him. On this
evening she had heard something fresh, and she took
occasion to tell him that she would keep his guilty
secret no longer' and had faced him resolutely with
her great earnest eyes, and he had struck at her in
passion, and fear of her betraying him, and the blow
had stunned her. _

The devil entered into him as he saw her fall.
There were no witnesses of his crime, and he struck
and struck again till there was no need for more
blows—she would never bear witness against him
in this lower world. The scheme to put me off the
scent came into his head like an inspiration—she
was going out and if he could only make me think
that she had gone he would be safe for some time.
He gained his end, and no one suspected anything,
and he had time to cover the body up before it even
occurred to me to ask what he was doing out there
so long. Everything seemed to play into his hands
afterwards—my illness, and the story told by the
drunken woman, of how she had Been Hope come out
of the house, all gave him time to finish the work we
had begun in the garden and conceal every trace of
what had happon.ed. No wonder that he had grown
thin and pale, and that he was irritable and fitful in
his temper after it was all over. He dared not go
away from the place lest something should be dis-
covered that his presence could have prevented. It
was he who had lamed the dog and thrown it over
the fence into its master's garden. Floss had been
a witness of all that had happened, and had nearly
brought detection on him then by flying at him.
He believed he had killed her too when he threw
her away from him.
And his wife told me all this. She had had no
knowledge of it till now; she had discovered her
husband's perfidy and his wicked life, but till his
terrified ravings betrayed him she had no thought
of this, and she besought me with sobs and moans to
have mercy.
"He did not mean to do it, and he is dying," she
said. "He has died a thousand deaths since that
day."
I could well believe that. Life must have been
like a foretaste of hell to him, day by day, with that
haunted presence in the garden. Forgive him?
How could I forgive him? I had no answer for
her. What was there to answer? I must have
gone mad, I think, for my memory for what hap-
pened to me for some time is very indistinct. I was
taken to the rectory and tended and cared for. Car-
lyen was arrested, and made full confession; but he
did not live to be tried. He was dying—his wife
had spo;en truly. When I was able to face the
world again I was far away with my kind friends,
who had taken me oat of England for awhile; and
when I returned to liippleworth again—which I did
for a bri f period to attend to my own affairs and
some of Mrs. Grainger's that I had neglected—
Beech Lawn was an altered place. I hardly knew
it again. Mr. Harvey had seen to it and had all my
goo is removed for me. I could not live in the
village after all that had happened to me. All that
remained to me was a plain white cross
in the churchyard, with Hope's name on
it, and the little dog which attached itself to
me as it had done to her. People wonder
that I can take to it at all, but some-
how it seems to speak to me of Hope and
the old time when we were so happy together.
Poor drunken Nannie never varies in her story, and
I have come to think that by some inscrutable dis-
pensation of Providence she did see Hope that
night as I saw her twice afterwards when I was
neither drunk nor dreaming. lam an old man now,
and my sorrow is a thing of the past. I shall see
hope soon, if there is any truth in the Gospel that
is preached to us from the pulpit; and she will know
that my heart has been hers all this time; that I
have lived my life and gone my way without ever
meeting any one who could fill her place. Poor
Cla a Canyon has gone before me. Not long ago a
message came to me from a clergyman in the wilds
of Western America, telling me of her death. She
had hidden herself and her broken sorrowful life
out there in the wilderness with some friends who
had emigrated long before. I shall lie by Hope's
side in the churchyard when the time comes. - I
have arranged all that. Death shall not divide us
much longer; and when I have passed the golden
gates, and understand everything that seems so
dark here, 1 shall know, maybe, why I was per-
mitted to see her under the moonlight on that
Christmas night.

"I'm sorry, George, that papa has refused you, but
you must ask him 'gain; I know he has a soul.'
"Do you think so, darling ? " "Oh, I know it."
"Well, then, you must have sen him bid me good
evening last night. Yes, indeed, love, your father
has a sole, and a thick one."

"Look heal), Ransom," said an old negro to a young
fellow, "I doan' min' yer 'sociatin' wid my daughter,
but I druther yer wouldn' come roun' my ho.i,e no
mo'. Time 'fore de las' what you wus hear, I missed
er water bucket, and de las' time de bridle wuz gone,
an' now, ez I has a use for de saddle, I druther yer
wouldn' come heah. I doan' say dat yer ain't hones',
fur de Lawd knows I blebes yer is, but such cilia
things happens while yer is in do neighbourhood, so
jes' ter "please er ole man, what ain't enjoyin' very
good health, please doan' come roun' dis house
110 mo'."

While cremation is being advocated and encouraged
in so many quarters, a German scientist has invented
some chemical process by which one's inanimate clay
may be converted instantly into a cloud of vapour.
Good scheme for folks who like to feel that they will
be mist when they are gcne.

Dramatic views: "Your son is an actor, you s 4,
Mr. Maginnis ? " "Faith, he is." "Where does he
act ? " "Down the Bowery." "And what roles does
he play ? " "Bolls is it? Faith, he rolls up the
curtain."

It seems like the irony of fate when a milkman
gets drowned in his own well.—New York Jouinal.
If he would not "kick the bucket" he might escape,
but it is better to leave well enough alone. In these
days the "milk of kineness " is very thin and
watury.
Blundering all around. Be :"I saw Miss Dash
to-day. She is a charming young lady." She: "Oh,
yes; very charming and very young. You ninny,
she's just my age." He: "The deuce she is! But
she doesn't look it."
There is no necessity to remind the young gentle-
man who married Miss Astor that the published lists
of presents at fashionable weddings should be care-
fully p-eserved by the newly married. Some day
thgy may prove of valuable assistance to sheriffs in
making inventoripm

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