The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-17 00:00:00

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Mr, Jarvis replied: !She will have served his turn
before long, ard then we may take his broken play-
thine, back again. Stone has lost them, he says.'
The telegram was explicit. Mr. Stone had spared
no expense. 'Have traced them here.' It was dated
from Brussels. Saw them married this morning.
Was seen, or much mistaken, and then they eluded
me. Will track them further. Certificate and letter
by first post.
I shall go over to Hillford, and tell Mrs. Churchill
to-morrow,' the lawyer said. 'She is as anxious as
we are about our poor Phyllis. I want to get hold of
that man Donovan, or whatever his name Is, too. He
has been blabbing something he knows to the police.
I must stop him.'

Why
Would you have Phyllis's husband taken up for
murder?'
'Oh, don't. I can't bear to think of It,' M. Jarvis
said. You must hinder that, Hedderwick.'
I shall never hinder it, if that man is allowed to
talk as he has been doing lately. There isn't much
doubt that he levied black mail to a pretty consider-
able extent before Mr. Gayford went away, and has
not had the common sense to hold his tongue. The
police are at work already, and there's only one way
to stop them?
And what is that?'
'Be ignorant of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed,'
quoted the lawyer, with a sad smile. The unravelling
of the skein will come Boon, and things will right
themselves, all but that poor child's fate. As she has
sown, as she must reap. I cannot alter it now.'
He may, be kind to her, poor dear,' Mrs. Jarvis said,
with her eyes full of tears. He can't be all bad.'
'I should like to know what part of him is good,'
her husband remarked. 'Don't wait up for me. I
shall be late. I daresay.'

' But you'll come home to-night?'
Oh, yes, I'll come to-night, never fear. There will
be nothing to keep me in Hillford.'
He found Mrs. Churchill and the girls in rather an
excited state, and surrounded by heaps of simple
finery; her pretty Madge, looking more like her former
self, over it, than she had looked for some time.
'Wedding finery?' he said, taking up a bit of white
ribbon. Who is going to rush into matrimony?'
None of us,' Norah said, smiling, as she finished a
bow and laid it down, with a look of satisfaction.
'We are only going to look on. It is a friend of yours,
Mr. Jarvis.'

A friend of mine? T don't remember anyone in
my circle of acquaintances that is likely to do anything
so foolish. Who is it, and when does it come off?'
Oh, not yet,' Norah said. But you have happened
to catch us on one of our leisure nights, when we get
on a little with our work. We are anxious for the
wedding to come off with eclat. The bride is our
especial property.'
'I am as mystified as ever. Who is the lady?'
You don't know much about her. But what do
you think of Barney Grubb for a bridegroom?'
Barney ! And who is he going to marry? Ah !
I recollect. One of your household is in it. He owned
to me he was "keeping company with her," as the
working folk say.'
Yes, it's our Mary,' said Madge, with just a little
quiver in her voice. 'I think Barney likes her, be-
cause she was dear Helen's favourite. She always
liked Mary.'
'And Barney loves Mary because Helen liked her.
That's a funny reason,' Mr. Jarvis said; and Madge
looked at him with great, earnest eyes, and said, very
gravely, Barney loved Helen, too, with all his heart.
He loved her as dearly as any gentleman ever loved
any lady.'
My dear Madge.' Mrs. Churchill said with a comical
look of horror, 'what a dreadful thing to say. Helen
was a lady, and Barney was only—'
'Only a ferryman, mamma, I know,' Madge said.
'But that makes no difference. He loved her. I saw
it in his eyes every time he looked at her. He could
not speak to her without shaking, and with a voice as
if he were crying. And I have beard him speak of
her, the tears in his eyes when he did so. And that
tle basket he sent to Biarritz. There was love in
every leaf and flower in it.'
Madge had grown quite eloquent, and Mr. Jarvis
looked at her in surprise. Her simple, child-like heart
had divined Barney's secret and kept it. She admired
the rough-looking, fearless eyed ferryman extremely.
and valued him at his true worth. And he, in his turn,
admired the gentle girl, so saddened by the sorrow
that had come into her life, and had once ventured a
word of consolation to her that she often thought of.
'lt's always darkest before dawn, miss,' he had re-
marked, when she was at the ferry house one day
talking to his mother, 'the very blaekeit—and then,
all of a sudden, the sun shoots up, and it's that bright,
you forget the night that's gone, and think only of
the new day that is making everything so beautiful.'
'And I wonder what he meant,' Madge sad, talk-
ing 0 her sister afterwards. Whereupon Norah
rebuked her for being too familiar with perms in
Barney's condition of life. But Madge never forgot
his words, and came to remember them afterwards.
wish Barney and his wife that is to be every
happiness,' Mr. Jarvis said. How about his mother?
Is she to live with them ?' .

06, ye',' Mrs. Churchill said. Barney would take
no wife that wouldn't make a home for his mother.
Your friend- Mr. Stone is coming back for the wed-
ding.'
Then lam sure it will be a joyful one,' the lawyer
remarked, at which Mrs. Churchill wondered. The
mysterious Mr. Stone had hardly seemed a joyful sort
of person, so far. Stone has succeeded in what we
wanted him to do,' he added, after a moment's pause.
He has found poor Phyllis.'
'Oh! where ?' asked Mrs. Churchill.
'ln Brussels. They are married.'

'Oh! how could she?' Madge said, and then bit
her lip and blushed, as her sister cast a reproving
glance in her direction.
Aye, how could she, indeed?' Phyllis's father said,
sadly. That is what we do not understand. I dread
to think what the end of it will be. Is Barney at home,
do you know? I want to have a talk with him about
that man Donovan. He is making himself too busy, I
hear, and he must be stopped.'

'Barney is in the kitchen,' Norah said demurely,
Very likely he had a presentiment of your coming
And so came to be on the spot.'
'He had a presentiment he should see his lady-love,
I suspect? was the lawyer's retort. 'l'll have a few
minutes' chat with him, if she can spare him, if you
please.'

CHAPTER LIV.
PROM SCOTLAND YARD.
A little fire is quickly trodden out,
Winch being suffered, rivers cannot' quench,'
--SHAKESPEARE.
BARNEY Gi.unn had made up his mind and was goine,
to give his mother a daughter-in-law. Mary's pretty?'
face and neat ways had taken his fancy from the first
time be had sorn her, and not very long after the
trial he had made up his mind to ask her to be his
wife.
The misfortune that had fallen upon him had been
for his advantage; it had given him a home and a
comfortable business to bring a wife to share, and he
Wes to'd on all sides, and had substantial proof of the
fact, that his future livelihood was made. His mother
was wllling and ready to welcome his wife, and'it
sePmed as if everything would work well. Mary was
rather shy at saying yes at first. In her secret heart
she had admired the handsome ferryman ever since
she had gone to the picnic in attendance on he
mistress and her daughter, and wished, like Desde
mons. that heaven had mad 3 her such a man.'

She had said the final yes to Barney when she gave
him the little bow that pointed the suspicion of Mr.
Jarvis to Horace Gayford in the affair of Miss
Ramsay's disappearance, and he had loved her all the
more for the genuine grief, she felt or the young
lady.
• I'd say yes to you this minute,' she said, naively,
if you would find poor Miss Helen.'
'Say it on spec,' Barney had replied; and trust
me; '1 may come at the truth about that, yet. Some-
how I can't think she's dead, in spite of what they
have heard.'

'Nor I,' Mary said. 'I don't feel as if she were
dead. No more does Miss Madge; I have heard her
say so. But if she is not dead, Barney, where is
she?'

Aye. that's it.' the ferryman said. What hag he
done with her? For it is him, Mary. Ile can do
what he likes with people; he can make make me turn
and go to him like ti little child, and do whatever he
likes to tell me. I felt bad the first time I tried it, I
can tell you.'
And when was that, Barney?'
• The first time I ever saw you, my dear,' was
Barney's reply. It hadn't anything to do with you.
Be saw that I noticed something that was going on.
awdtdhoatorthku
magt
othe poorlga nod td y o
then young untbhogi
anitka across,
understood
scbr undereotshksa,nt e hi
wI
it s
saw;
andi wickedt
he
el spelljustha had
hardl7l en
kbe,
I can tell you.'
• Lor, how horrid!' was Mary's remark, as she lel
Barney draw her close to him and kiss her blushing
up-turned face. Do you think he'll do it again?
What can you do?'
don't think he'll play tricks on any one much
longer,' Barney said. ' I have got my thumb on him, and
so has someone else. You'll know all about it in good
When you are my wife, my dear; and it
mt i mrle Mary;t
slai bel
belong
just
sfitr sets,
lmindbg as t hanike;
the girl replied;
but she did not make it very long, after all.
She told her mistress, and Mrs. Churchill set her-
self to 'make enquiries and see that everything was
straightforward, and Barney really able to keep a wife.
As she told him, she felt responsible for Mary, whom she
had taken from a girl's home, who had no friends; she
would not be inclined to give her up without some re-
monstrance to any one who would not treat her kindly,
and make her a good home.
'You may trust us, ma'am,' Barney said, including
his mother, with a bright smile and a look of love that
spoke volumes. We mean her to have a good home,
and mother won't interfere where she's not wanted;
she'll go back to Hereford if she and Mary don't get
on.'

I'm not afraid,' the cheery old woman said, turning
a pair of bright eyes on the lady's maid. Please
God, we'll be yery happy together, Barney's wife and
me. She won't grudge his old mother a seat at the
fireside, and the bite and sup she wants, not but what
I can keep myself for a long time yet,' she added with
a touch of homely pride that lighted up her wrinkled
face into something like dignity.
Yes, that she can,' her son said, proud of her, as
well he might be, for a trimmer or neater old woman
or one with a healthier or more contented faoe,
never. brightened a man's Imme. And I have some