The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-11-19

(By l.. Cope Cornford.)

~uol oAAS
senger named Henry Clutterbuck took
his seat in the stage-coach which ran
from London to Brighthelmstone. The
traveller, contemplating the band OF
white and frozen landscape, fringed
with trees and intersected with brown
hedges sliding continually past the
coach window, and hardening to the
rumble of wheels and the hollow ciat-
Ter of hoofs, which set themselves in
a wearisome cadence, a in his mind
his Journey of thirteen years ago.
Down the same road, thirteen years
ago. the post-chaise wung through
the thick dust toward the open sea, be-
tween luxuriant hedges of vivid green;
carrying him to the lady who had so
inspired him. The traveller remember
ed now that hopeful passion had come
to nothing, and how he had subse-
ouently forgotten it; and he was dwell
ing upon these memories, when MS
malady attacked him, and a spasm or
pain stopped the wheel OF hought he
swallowed a portion from a little Wal,
and soon drowsed into a stupor. The
coach stopped to change horses, ne
awakes, the pain being somewhat as
suaged, and looks out OF his corner al
the passengers going in n out the
inn for LIQUOR, stamping up and down
the iron road, and beating their hands
together. The nipping wind ficks the
blood into their faces. MIR. Clutter
buck has an interest in the
place scene which his fellow-passen-
gers have not, since 1t is the last OF
the sort he is likely to behold; ana yet
they impress him with an air or stupid
indifference. The ringing notes or the
horn as the coach starts forWard strike
upon his senses as all of a piece with
the scarlet faces which had specked
the White landscape. The coach Wheels
and the beating hoOfs take up their
former tune; and the wheel in his head
begins to turn nee more, throwing up
forgotten fragments of his life. With
sense of detachment he regards him
self from without; sees himself stroll
ing through his three-and-th1rty years,
taking his pleasure where he found 1t;
talking a good deal, drinking and
gambling now and again, sometimes
casually INDUCING in con-
slant to but one pursuit, the art or
fencing, until the catastrophe befell
which set a limit to his pleasant dolngs.
Now, beyond a vivid space OF the
familiar world, he perceived that which
should presently fall and shut him out
Into the dark. But there was one
loose thread in the welt of his life,
which with a purpose part sincere and
part whimsical, he desired to weave
into the promiscuOus design before he
was torn from the loom.
The coach swung down the long hill
IN the colored dusk, and pulled up at
the door of the Castle Tavern, on the
Steyne.
Harry Clutterbuck, dining by himself
at a small table in the painted coffee
room, unconsciously noted the lady and
gentleman who had occupied the places
opposite to him in the coach, dining to-
gether. The man had a very heavy
stoop, and a handsome face with a
sly twist in it; and as he talked to his
companion he looked sidelong from
under his brows.
Sitting over the fire with his liquor.
MI. C1utterbuck presently dropped an
Opiate into his glass, drank off the con-
tents, and went to bed.
The next morning Cutterbuck hired a
chaise and drove eastward along the
hills. On his right lay the glittering
levels Of the sea, beaten fla by an off,
shore wind from out of the bitter
northeast; on his left, the swelling up
Idk1Aos Lll - lain ~HN
in the sunlight, rose upon the cloudless
blue. Turning inland along a valley,
the traveller passed through Owing
dean village, and struck into a rough
trackway leading over the hills should
er to the right.
AS he went the traveller saw, as in a
picture the figure Of his former self,
attired in lace hat and coat, white
buckskin breaches and powdered bag
wig, riding this way thirteen years ago.
through fields of spring. Mr.. Henry
Clutterbuck, considering this fine
young man with a frigid interest,
thought him a good deal of a fool.
Reaching the summit of the hill,
Clutterbuck stopped the chaise, desired
the driver to await his return, and,
alighting, walked forward. Beneath
him, in the hollow, stood a great
square house, girt about the trees; blue
smoke curled from the chimneys; and
beyond, sloped the long roofs of farm
buildings, whence arose the cheerful
noise of cocks and hens. Clutterbuck
passed through a gate in the new flint
wall (there used to be a hedge and a
green opening), and entered the little
which climbed the hill upon so
steep an ascent that the branches
brushed the upper windows of the
house. A winding path led downward.
Coming opposite to the long window
of a room on the ground, and a little
above it, Clutterbuck stopped: and the
next moment stepped aside behind a
holly bush, from which he could see
into the room without being seen from
there. For within that chamber, stand
ing before the fire of logs, was the
woman he had come to see; and beside
her stood a young man with a pink
fresh face, who was looking at Menella
Warning exactly as Mr.. Clutterbuck had
regarded Menella Harbord thirteen
years ago. Save that Menella was
something stouter in figure, and wore
her dark hair bound with a red ribbon
in which a jewel twinkled, instead of
flowing loose upon her SHOULDERS. the
thirteen years had passed upon her
like hreath nnOn a mirror. CLUTTER