The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-11-28 00:00:00

CATHERINE'S MISTAKE,

OR,
A SECRET FOR YEARS.

CHAPTER XXX.
WHICH IS THE HEIR?

Moos, stars, and summer twilight were in the sky
before Miss Waco and her pupil crossed the stile, and
turned their steps homeward—still arm in arm, still
conversing gravely. They followed the same path
Maxall had taken across the field, passing through a
small
~copse, and then by a private entranca into the
park.
They wandered on so slowly that it was no longer
light when they stood together in sight of the house,
both halting by tacit consent to gaze at the pic-
turesque old building before them.
"I often wonder, Miss Waco, if Ross should never
marry, who will have Redfern when he dies."
"If the property is entailed, the heir-at-law will
have it, Cle."
"I wonder who the heir-at-law is. Maxall, do you
think?"
"Oh, no. The heir-at-law is the nearest blood rela-
tion. You have plenty of cousins?"
"Oh, heaps! Then you are sure Maxall will get no
good by Ross—Ross's death ? "
"Certainly not; but what makes you think of such
a thing just now?"
"Don't know; but fancy it was looking at that old
house, and thinking how many people would covet it.
There's papa coming along under the beech trees!
ask him who the heir-at-law is."
"And Twill go in, Cle. It:is near supper time, and
I promised cook to give her a lesson in whipping
&sine cream. It is getting damp. Don't remain out
late."
And she attempted to detach the girl's hand from
her arm as she spoke. But Cleland held her fast.
"Miss Wace, I think you and papa have had a row—
I mean a quarrel. You keep out of his way so; and
he looks as savage as a Crim Tartar. lam sure there
is something. You shan't go. I've got you fast. I
can see the poor old gentleman is in a stew now, for
he is gnawing, his pencil-case like fun, and that always
means Something is wrong. Fa dear! Miss Wace
wants to know who is your heir-at-law," she cried, at
the utmost pitch of her voice, for Mr. Ingestre was
some hundreds yards off. He came up very leisurely,
took off his hat to Miss Wace, and then answered his
daughter's question.
"My heir-at-law, Miss Ingestre, is my son Ross."
"No, I mean, who is Ross's heir, supposing he dies
Without children ? "
" Humph ! You wan't to know. I thought so.
Ross shall not die without children, trust me for that.
I don't mean to let a soul of them get what I have
fought so long to keep for me and mine."
"Papa, do not be so wicked,' cried his daughter.
"Suppose Ross were to die this moment, could you
Prevent it ? "
"Talk sense, little preacher. I'm savage."
"Well, as long as 't is not Maxall, I dint care."
Was it merely fancy? but Miss Waco thought she
saw the father start.
" Maxall ! Good Heaven, no! Unless you choose
to marry him—eh, Cie ? "
And then poor Cleland's wrath was ludicrous to see.
"Marry him? Rather be torn to pieces by red-hot
Pincers a thousand, thousand times, than marry him !
Never! never!"
Her father laughed, but not merrily.
"No, you shall never marry anyone you don't love,
child."
Then came the girlish reply—
"I'll never love any one but you and Ross, and Miss
Wace, of course."
George Ingestre sighed heavily.
" Ah, Cle, Ole! my girl! save yourself much
Pain, and love not at all. Love nothing but yourself,
ray child, for love of others is a thorny path, indeed.
Treachery will be given you for your passionate love
—ingratitude for your devoted faith. Abjure it all,
Cleland, and live to love only yourself ! "
She was in his arms, and he tenderly weaving his
fingers through her long, tangled hair.
"Of all things created," he continued, "love is most
ungrateful. You give your soul—you give your best,
Your only self, and in return get dust and ashes!
Oh, Ole! Oh, Cle! what is there in life worth living
for!"
" Father ! your children ! "
"My children! Yes!"
He kissed and fondled that upturned, tearful face,
and said its loving eyes were well worth living for.
And then they walked on into the house alone, for
Miss Wace had gone.
They all four met again at supper. Maxall's spirits
Were very high, but no one joined in the laughing
mood. Mr. Ingestre was dull, ate nothing, and sat
With Ws head resting on his head, lost in theught.
Cleland even was subdued, and glanced uneasily every
now and then at the pale face of her governess, a shade
sadder than its wont."
"What's up, Cle? You look glum," whispered
Maxall, filling her up a glass of wino.
"I'm not glum," she retorted, instantly, and in a
loud tone; "don't give me any wine, for you know
Miss Wace does not like me to take it."
"Miss Wace be hanged!" he muttered.
Cle stamped on his tiny foot.
"How warm the room is ! " said its master, starting
" Parkins ! open all the windows and doors. I
Shall be stifled."
"It is a Stifling night, sir," said Parkins; "one of
those black nights without a breath stirring. A
storm is coming up, I think."
Miss Wace rose from the table and looked out of the
Open window. Stars and moon were gone, black
night all round, not a leaf rustled, not an insect moved;
earth's pulse seemed arrested by the darkness over-
shadowing her. Wait—one gentle sound there was,
the whisper of the hopey-dew as it settled on the
leaves of a clematis creeping round the window. The
lady listened for a footfall in vain.
"I am anxious about Ross, Mr. Ingestre," she said.
at last; "it fidgets me that:he should be out in these
lonely woods so late at night. It is not safe."
"Oh, he's all right —what harm can come to him?
I don't care that the boy should be fooling about in-
doors all his life. He can find a more manly occupa-
tion than that, I hope."
"I hope so, too."
"What makes you so anxious about him?"
"I am asking myself the same question," was her
brief reply.
"I believe that boy is the apple of your eye," he re-
torted, almost savagely.
"Jam very fond of him," she said, with quivering
liPs. "He is like what I would have prayed God for
a son of mine to be; he is what his father must have
been before—" Here she stopped, walked quietly
awaY, and called Cleland to follow her.
"Good a' -ht, my dearest, best old father!"
"Am I very old, Ole?"
"No; it's only my fun, you know. You are as
handsome as possible yet. Good-night."
"God bless you, darling." He kissed her fondly
and she ran off.
Mr. Ingestre was alone then, for Maxall had left the
room some time before. He flung himself down on
the sofa, and fell into a heavy sleep. Two hours after,
borningo entered, and closed the windows and shut-
ters noiselessly, lighted his master's bed-room candle,
and placed it on the table for him.
" Wonaer how long massa goin' stay dar ; catch
him def ob cold; no nightcap over him yars ; guess I
Wake him up. Massa! mama! twelbe by the clock,
sar.',
"Oh, have I been asleep ?—suppose so. Twelve
o'clock, say you? Is Ross at home?"
" No ; he not come in yet, sar."
"And do you sit up for him?"
"Ess, masse. I set up for him, sleeping by de
door. All right, masse, I let him in when he come.
Your candle, sar."

CHAPTER XXXI.
ROSS'S LONG SLUMBER.
CLELAND could not sleep that night at all. There was
nO storm; but it.was so hot, so intensely hot. Window
and door both open, yet not a breath of revivifying
air. She tossed and tumbled, groaned and sighed; the
Pillow scorched her burning cheek, the bed on which
she lay was like a furnace beneath her; rest and com-
fort were not to be found in it, and at last she leapt
out, and crept to the dark open window, fainting and
exhausted with the heat.
"Oh, what a dreadful, murderous night ! " ex-
claimed the girl, leaning out, and shuddering at the
°Ppressive darkness ; " so awfully still and heavy, it
seenas as if the air were made of lead. Oh! what's
that? s,
A sound, certainly, but a very slight one; merely
the
„ rustle and sway of a bough near the gable end of
'a° house. Biit there in the absolute stillness it was
startling, as nothing else on all the earth moved with
a Sound.
Cleland had no fear of ghosts. When a tremor
Shook her, her first thought was of some one climbing
tlle tree and entering the house by Maxall's window,
lthe only one in that gable, and close to the Lebanon
eedar-tree.
es, there was something most undoubtedly—a soft
scraping sound, scarcely a noisb—and then a second
rust
,le and sway back of the bough. No cat would
717 e caused a stir in ascending the mighty branches
the old Lebanon cedar, and other animals there
Were none.
tjhen Cle began to reflect upon the probability of
leves. Was it likely they would break into the
use, knowing how desperate a man its master was,
:
ud th
Use? at loaded fire-arms were always kept ready for
" xall has his gun loaded ; for I remember Ross say-
:!_g so this evening, and if it should be any one,why, he
Zilst take care of himself. I wonder if Ross is at
Perhaps he cannot get in at the door, and is
Maxall's window."
dr idea was sufficient to cause her to throw her
fecTsing-gown over her shoulders, and with shoeless
Patter gently down-stairs, in order to learn
ther her brother was yet home.
the firEt thing she saw was the hall lamp still burn-
and the black asleep in his chair. Half-past one
homell great clock on the stairs, and Ross not at
Bhe
eszt Crept bulk to the room, uneasy and sick at
ino. • But she did not get there without first reedy,.
a severe fright.
er..;.° tall, ghostly-looking figure, lamp in hand, was
i
ag up the corridor; qlad turning in the directi.on
ICr brOther's room.

"Oh, Catherine! I thought you were a ghost! He
is not come home. Domingo is still in the hall, and
his cap is not on the slab. Oh, how hot it is!"
"How wrong of him! It is past one o'clock."
"Yes, and I can't sleep a bit. I heard a rustling in
the cedar-tree by Maxall's window, and. I fancied it
might be him; but of course he would not come in
that way, when he knows Domingo is sitting up for
him."

“Cle, is that you? What the duce are you out of
bed for?”

This was Mr. Ingestre's voice, for they were not far
from his room.

Miss Wace blew out her lamp, and the two hurried
away, leaving the master of the house grumbling at
the terrific heat and the "infernal noise."

Cleland fell a,sleep at last in the protecting arms of
her governess, and there she slept peacefully enough
while the great darkness passed away, while the cool
twilight of dawn came over the earth, with the twitter
of birds in their nesis, and the glorious rousing of all
inanimate Nature. Slept peacefully, while the sun
arose in violet and crimson splendour, casting a purple
glory on her sleeping face, and deluging the earth
with its refulgent brightness. Slept while the face
beside her kept a troubled watch and thought of many
things.
Among others, of a land where she was born, where
faces were dark and natures darker; where the mur-
derous steel flashed out on a fellow-creature there, as
readily as an angry word does here. Where natures
were wickedly revengeful, and human eyes could look
death at their victim, even as the creole boy's had
looked that night.
And then the watcher sank into a fitful sleep,
fearful, starting, and filled with many horrors. She
was awakened by the voice of the housemaid, Forrest,
at her bedside, saying—
" Eight o'clock, ma'am; and do you know, ma'am,
Master Ross's bed is empty—not been slept in all
night ? "
"Not home, yet! Does your master know ? "
"Yes, Domingo has just told him; but he does not
think much of it."
Cleland heard the news, but uttered not a word.
She rose and dressed herself with trembling hands,
and, could her companion have had the heart to smile,
she would have done so at the many absurdities the
poor child committed in the task.
When her toilet was finished she left the room, and
soon came in again, attired in hat and cloak.
"Kiss me first," she said gravely; "I am going to
look for him." _

In vain Miss Wace attempted to dissuade her
from her purpose, and to say that nothing but the
boy's own freakish mood had kept him out all
night.
"No, no!" said Cle ; "Ross is not selfish. He
would think of our anxiety. He would not, for an
idle whim, make us miserable on 3 moment. Some-
thing has happened to him. I am going to Sandbanks
Wood."
"Not alone, Cie! I will go with you."

And then the two set out.
Ah, that morning walk across the fields! In all
their lives to come, would either of them forget it?
—forget the dreary foreboding they carried in their
hearts, and yet the struggling of a brighter hope to
overcome it?
Fresh and smiling was that August morn, and
bountiful in all the vigour and wealth of life. Their
way lay across the dewy park, and through a wind-
ing avenue cut out of the heart of a thick pine wood,
where the ferns sprang from the leafy mould in wild
and almost tropical luxuriance, where honeysuckle
trailed upon the ground, and tangled among the young
oak saplings --where the heath-bloom lined each side
of their path, and filled the morning air with the racy
scent of moorlands far away.•
Now in the sunlight, now in shade—now winding
along the outskirts of a wood, now deep in a field of
corn—up a narrow lane, and at last into a roadway
cut between two woods, having sandbanks on either
side, as red as new-dug gravel.
Wild and broken banks, some twenty feet high, with
the roots of the trees above hanging; down in great
festoons, where time and weather had washed the soil
away, and left them bare.
"This is Sandbanks Wood," said Cle. "We will go
in by this gate. About a hundred yards in, the path
splits in three; one leads to Whitemorc, the second tc
Bartlett's Farm, and the third to the Gravel Pits. We
will go there first, for he said he should lay up in that
direction."
"And gone to sleep, no doubt, poor boy! We shall
find him as damp as these birch leaves."
The girl smiled hopefully; the sunshine and warm
beauty of the morning had done their work. Her
heart beat with something like certainty; she felt
that, in the midst of such bright and beautiful life,
there could be no shade as dark as death.
Could the insects hum so blithely—the sun shine
so cheerfully—the skylark and whitethroat sing so
gaily, if—if something lay in that wood?
They went on, and soon the cross-roads came in
sight--simple grass paths, bordered by heath. Here,
just as they rounded a clump of fern, they both beheld
the selfsame sight.
Ross, rolled up on the soft green turf, his head on
his arm, his back towards them—to all appearances
in a gentle sleep.
"Ross! Ross! how could you frighten us so ? "
And the sister bounded away towards the spot, and
seized hold of his bent arm.
Sleeping? Yes! But with what a strange white
face! And this that his body lies soaking in—
blood!
Then such a cry went through that wood, and two
poor women were madly clutching each to herself a
corpse—screaming, and wailing, and dabbling in the
blood.
For he was blood and wounds all over. His poor
face only was unscathed.
His chest, his stomach, lais arnw and thighs, were
torn with shot and black with powder, and a bloody
track up from the Bits showed from whence he had
struggled to lay his young life down and die.

CHAPTER XXXII.
JUDGMENT.
GEORGE INGESTRE laughed grimly when lie heard Miss
Wace and his daughter had left the house to look for
Ross, and had not yet returned.
He sat down to a solitary breakfast, and gave vent
to his irritation by flinging an egg at Domingo's
woolly head, because it was a trifle over-boiled.
Then Maxall came down, and was proportionately
astonished to see his guardian pouring out his coffee,
and three empty seats all round; and still more
astonished to hear where the occupants that should
have been were gone.
He lifted his dark brows with a look of intense
disdain, and said lie thought it hard lines indeed when
a fellow could not be out all night if he chose, without
having all the women in the house running after him
in the morning.
"That's all very well; but I'll not have the boy
out all night, Mr. Max., nor you either, while you
are under my roof. Give me that cream ewer.
Why, how your hand shakes !—drinking last night,
eh ? "
Maxall indignantly repelled the charge. Drinking,
indeed! did his guardian mean to insinuate that he
was in the habit of tetting drunk?
George Ingestre chipped his egg all round, and then
replied.
"I tell you what it is, Maxall : you visit the In-
gestre Arms' too often for your reputation; that is,
if you want to keep one for sobriety. I've been told
by several people that you do go there too often, and
take too much brandy when you are there. Now. I
don't want to be harsh with you What's that?
Who's that at the door ? "
A feeble scratching sound at the handle, like that
of a child's grasp, unable to turn it. And then it
opened, and Cleland came in, idiotic and staring,
her face ghastly white, her clothes stained with
blood.
"Father, come and see him. Come with me and
see him !"
"Good Heavens! what is the matter with the
child? There is blood on you. Cle--girl--blood, I

say ! "
"Yes, be is all blood! Come and see; it's in the
hall."
He rushed past her, and Maxall shrank back into the
furthermost corner of the room.
Rushed on, what to see?
Stretched on a gate, lifted from its hinges, and now
laid on the floor, covered decently with cloths, save
only his poor face, his boy Ross—something which •
had scarcely the form of humanity now, so mangled
was it with shot.
" Dead ! dead!" was the dismal cry of those all
round. No need to tell him that.
The shock was too great. He staggered back, and
without a word fell heavily to the ground.
And there he lay, with the weeping and wailing of
all the household round about him; with strange
faces flocking in from the stables and grounds—farm
labourers, neighbours, villagers, all horror-struck and
filled with terror.
There he lay, close to the body of his dead son,
and utterly unheeded by all, save the woman who
had quietly lifted his head into her lap as he lay
there, and now wiped the cold sweat from his lips
and brow.
When George Ingestre opened his wild eyes they
rested on hers. He muttered the dead boy's name,
and then staggered to his feet.
"Take me away, Catherine," he said; "lead me
from this dreadful sight. 0 God! my son, my son!
Dead—dead! Murdered for the in of his father!
I see it all. I see God's hand in it. My boy! my
boy ! "
(To be continued.j

Wife: You don't tell me that Prof. X. has been
struck dumb? Husband: Yes, last night. And he
was master of seven languages. Wife: Is it possible?
And was he struck dumb in all the seven?
"Some people have got no feelia's of humanerty
a tall," growled a disgusted tramp to his partner.
" Whaes the row ?" asked the partner. " Wy, them
durn people up at that house on the hill set the'r dog
on me." "Is that all?" in a strong tone of disap-
pointment. 'No, it aint." "What else did they
do ?" 'W y, the durn hound hung on to my pants
as I was trying ter git away, an I drug him down the
bill, an I'm a bog if the whole family didn't git after
me with clubs an things, bawling at every jump
Bring back that dog! bring back that dog!' as if I
was wanting to steal their clang cur. That's what
makes me feel like going clean back on the Christian
religion and whooping her UP for Bob Ingersoll."-
IV-ere/rant Traveller.