People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1894 — MATT A TALE OF A CARAVAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MATT A TALE OF A CARAVAN

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.

CHAPTER lIL —Continued. “1 thereupon led the way up the cteps and into the vehicle. Matt followed; but, so soon as she caught a glimpse of the interior, stood timidly on the threshold. What is there in the atmosphere of a house, even the rudest, which places the visitor at a disadvantage as compared with the owner? Even animals feel this, and dogs especially, when visiting strange premises, exhibit most abject humility. But I must not generalize. The bearings of this remark, to quote my friend Capt. Cattle, lie in the application of it. Matt for a moment was awed. “‘Come in, Matt; come in,’ I said. “She came in by slow degrees, and I noticed for the first time—seeing how near her hat was to the roof—that she was unusually tall. I then did the honors of the place, showed her my sleeping arrangements, my culinary implements, everything that I thought would interest her. I offered her the arm-chair, or turned-up bedstead; but she preferred a stool which I sometimes used for my feet, and, sitting down upon it, looked round her with obvious admiration. “ ‘Should you like to live in a house like this?’ I asked, encouragingly. “She shook her head with decision.

“ ‘Why not?’ I demanded. “She did not exactly know why, or, at any rate, could not explain. Wishing’ to interest and amuse her, I handed her a portfolio of Uly sketches, chiefly in pencil and pen and ink, but a few in water colors. Her manner changed ait once, and she turned them over with little cries of delight. It was clear that Matt had a taste for the beautiful in art, but her chief attraction was for pictures representing the human face or figure. “Among the sketches she found a crayon drawing of an antique and blear-eyed gentleman in a skull cap, copied from some Eembrandtish picture I had seen abroad. “ ‘I know who this is!’ she exclaimed. ‘lt’s William Jones’ father!’ “I assured her on my honor that William Jones' father was not personally known to me, but she seemed a little incredulous. Presently she rose to go. “‘I can’t stop no longer,’ she explained. ‘l’ve got to go to Monkahurst for William Jones.’ “ ‘Monkshurst? Is that where the polite Mr. Monk resides?’ “ ‘Yes; up in the wood,’ she replied, with a grimace expressive of no little dislike. “ ‘ls Mr. Monk a friend of yours?’ “Her answer was a very decided negative. Then, slouching to the door, she swung herself down to the ground. I followed, and stood on the threshold, looking down at her. “ ‘Don’t forget that I’m to paint your picture,’ I said. ‘When will you come back?’ “ ‘To-morrow, maybe.’ “‘I shall expect you. Good-by!’ “ ‘Good-by, master,’ she returned, -eaching up to shake hands. “I watched her as she walked away towards the road, and noticed that she took bold strides like a boy. On reaching the road she looked back and laughed, then she drew herself together and began running like a young deer, with little or nothing of her former clumsiness, until she disappeared among the sand-hills.

“Thursday.—This morning, just after breakfast, when I had entered the caravan to prepare my materials for the day’s painting, Tim appeared at the door with a horrid grin. “ ‘There’s a young lady asking for ye,’ he said. “I had forgotten for the moment my appointment of the day before, and, when I leaped from the caravan, I perceived standing close by, with her back to me and her face toward the lake, the figure of a young woman. At first I failed to identify her, for she wore a black hat and a white feather, a cloth Jacket, and a dress which almost reached the ground; but she turned sound as I approached her and I recognized my new acquaintance. “I cannot say that she was improved 'by her change of costume. In the first place, it made her look several years older —in fact, quite young womanly. In the second place, it was tav.dy, not to say servantgally, if I may coin such on adjective. The dress was of thin *ilk. old and frayed, and looked a« if it

had suffered a good deal from exposure to the elements, as was indeed the actual cose. The jacket was »i«* old, and seemed made of the rough material which is usually cut into sailors’ pea-jxekets, which was the cose, also. The hat was obviously new, hut just as obviously homemade. “ ‘So you have come,’ I said, shaking hands. ‘Upon my word, I didn’t know you.’ “ She laughed delightedly, and glanced down at her attire, which clearly afforded her the greatest satisfaction.

“ ‘I put on my Sunday clothes, she exclaimed, ‘ ’cause I was going to have my likeness took. Don’t you tell William Jones.’ “I promised not to betray her to that insufferable nuisance and refrained from informing her that I thought her ordinary costume far more becoming than her seventh-day finery. “ ‘That’s a nice dress,’ I said, hypocritically. “Where did you buy it?” “‘I didn’t buy it. It come ashore.’ “ ‘What! When you “come ashore” yourself?’ “ ‘No fear!’ she answered. ‘Last winter when the big ship went to bits out there.’ “ ‘Oh, I see! Then it was a portion of a wreck?’ “ ‘Yes, it come ashore; and, look ye now, this jacket come ashore, too. On a sailor chap.’ “ ‘And the sailor chap made you a present of it, I suppose?’ “ ‘No fear!’ she repeated, with her sharp shake of the head. ‘How conld he give it me when he was drownded and come ashore? William Jones gave

it to me, and I altered it my own self—look ye now—to make it fit.’ “She was certainly an extraordinary young person, and wore her mysterious finery with a coolness I thought was remarkable, it being quite clear, from her explanation, that all fish that came to her net, or, in other words, that dead men’s clothes, were as acceptable to her unprejudiced taste as any others. However, the time was hastening on, and I had my promise to keep. So I got my crayon materials and made Matt sit down before me on a stool, first insisting, however, that she should divest herself of her head-gear, which was an abomination, but which she discarded with extreme reluctance. Directly I began she became rigid ,and fixed herself, so to speak, as people do when being photographed—her eyes glaring on vacancy, her whole face lost in self-satisfied vacuity. “ ‘You needn’t keep like that,’ I cried; ‘I want your face to have some expression. Move your head about as much as you like, laugh and talk—it will be all the better.’ “ ‘Last time I was took,’ she replied, ‘the chap said I mustn’t move.’ “ ‘Ah! I suppose he was a traveling photographer?’ “ ‘He had a little black box, like, on legs, and a cloth on top of it, and he looked at me through a hole in the middle. Then he cried “now,” and held up his hand for me to keep still as a mouse; then he counted fifty—and I was took.’

“‘Ah! Indeed! Was it a good likeness?’ “ ‘Yes, master. But I looked like the black woman who come ashore last Easter was a year.’ “With conversation like this we beguiled the day, while I proceeded rapidly with my drawing. At the end of a couple of hours Matt had become so fidgety that I thought it advisable to give her a rest. She sprang up, and ran over to inspect the picture. The moment her eyes fell on it she uttered a rapturous cry. “ ‘Look ye now, ain’t it pretty? Master, am I like that?’ “I answered her it was an excellent likeness, and not too flattering. Her face fell, however, a little as she proceeded. “ ‘Are my cheeks as red as that, master?” •‘ ‘You are red, Matt,’ I replied, flippantly; ‘so are the roses.’ “She looked at me thoughtfully. “‘ When it’s finished, will you give it to me to keep?’ “ ‘Well, we shall see.’ “ ‘I gav« t’other chap a shilling for his, frame and all, but I’ve got no more money,’ she continued, with an insinuating smile, which, as a man of gallantry, I could not resist. So I promised that, if she behaved herself properly, I would, in all probability, make her the present she coveted. “ ‘You must come again, to-morrow,’ I said, as we shook hands, ‘and I’ll finish the thing off.’ “ ‘All right, master. I’ll come.’ “And, with a nod and a bright smile, she walked away. “During the whole of this interview Tim had not been unobservant, and so soon as I was left alone he looked up from the work he was engaged upon, viz., potato washing, and gave a knowing smile “ ‘Sure she s a fine bold colleen,’ ne said ‘Does your honor know who she is?’ “ ‘I have not the slightest idea.’ “ ‘They’re saying down bey ant that she’s a say-fondling, and has neither father nor mother, new any belong* lugs.'

*"Pray who wanyoar informant? 1 “ ‘The man who picked her from the lay —William Jones hisself.’ “That name again. It was becoming too much for fiesh and blood to bear. From the first moment of my arrival I had heard no other, and I hod begun to detest its very round.”

CHAPTER IV. nrrnoDccxs william jonks axd ms tatkbr. My story is now bound to foUow iu the footsteps of Matt, who, on quitting the presence of her artist friend, walked rapidly along the sand-enenm-bered road in the direction of the sea. Skirting the lake upon the left hand, and still having the ocean of sand hills upon her right, she gradually slackened her pace. A spectator, had he been by, would have doubtless observed that the change was owing to maiden meditation; that, in other words, Matt had fallen into a brown study. Presently she sat down upon a convenient stone, or piece of rock, and, resting her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, looked for some minntes at vacancy. At last she rose, flushed warmly, and murmuring something to herself. The something was to this effect: “His hands are as white as a lady’s, when he pulls off them gloves, and he said I was as pretty as my picture.” I can only guess at the train of reasoning which led to this soliloquy, and express my opinion that Matt had well developed ideas on the subject of the sexes. True, she was not above sixteen, and had little or no experience of men, none at all of men who were both young and good looking. Nevertheless, she was not insensible of the charms of a white hand, and other tokens of masculine refinement and beauty. By a natural sequence of ideas, she was led to stretch out her own right hand and look at it critically. It was very brown and covered with huge golden freckles. The inspection not being altogether satisfactory, she thrust both her hands irritably into the pockets of her jacket and walked on. Leaving the lake behind her she followed the road along a swampy hollow, down which the very shallowest of rivulets crept along to the sea, now losing itself altogether in mossy patches of supicious greenness, again emerging and trickling with feeble glimmers over pebble and sand. Presently she left the road and camc upon a primitive wooden bridge, consisting of only one plank, supported on two cairns of stone. Here she paused, and, seeing a red-legged sand-piper running about on the edge of the water just below her, made a gesture like a boy throwing a a stone, whereon the sand-piper sprang up chirping and Ilew along out of sight. By this time she was in full sight of the sea. Dead calm, and covered with rain-colored shadows, it touched the edge of the flat sands about a mile away, and left one long creamy line of changeless foam. The sands themselves stretched away to the westward as far as the eye could see. But to the left and eastward, that is to say, in the direction toward which she was going, there was a long, rocky promontory, with signs of human habitation. Breaking into a swinglike trot, Matt hastened thither, following a footpath across marshy fields.

In due time she came out upon a narrow and rudely made road, which wound along the rocky promontory, at low water skirting the sand, at high water the sea. The first house she reached was a wooden life-boat house, lying down in a creek and, it being then low tide, at some distance from the water’s edge. On the roadside above the house was a flagstaff, and beneath the flagstaff a wooden seat. All was very stiU and desolate, without a sign of life, but a little further along the road was a row of cottages which seemed inhabited, and were in fact the abodes of the coast-guard. Instead of lingering here Matt proceeded on her way until she reached what at first sight looked like the beginning of a village or small town. There were house on each side of the road, some of them sevei al stories high; but close inspection showed that most of them were roofless, that few of them possessed any windows or doors, and that nearly all were decayed and dilapidated from long disuse, while not a few had a blasted and sinister appearance, as if blackened by fire. And still theie was no sign of any human soul. Suddenly, however, the street came to an end, and Matt found herself on a sort of rocky platform overlooking the sea; and on this platform, shading his,eyes from the blazing sun and looking out seaward, was a solitary man. So intent was he c n his occupation that he was unconscious of Matt’s approach till she was standing by his side. He turned his eyes upon her for a moment and then once more gazed out to sea.

A short, plump, thick-set man, with a round, weather-beaten face, which would have been {rood-humored but for its expression of extreme watchfulness and gTeed. The eyes were blue, but very small and keen; the forehead low and narrow; the hair coarse and sandy; the beard coarser and sandier still. He might have been about fifty years of age. Ilis dress was curious, consisting of a yellow sou’wester, a pair of seaman’s coarse canvas trousers and a blue pilot-jacket, ornamented with brass buttons which bore the Insignia of her majesty’s naval service. Presently, without turning his again from the far distance, the man spoki; in a husky, far-away whisper: “Matt, do you see summatut yonder?” Matt strained her gaze through the dazzling sunlight, but failed to discern any object on the light expanse of water. “Look ye now,” continued the man; “it maybe drifting weed, or it may be a wreck; but it’s summat. Look again.” “Summat black, William Jones?” “Yes. Coming and going. Now It comes, and it’s black; now it goes, and the water looko white where it was. If it isn’t wreck, it’s weed; if it ain't weed, it’s wreck. Ana the tide’s flawing. u 4 it’ll go aaaore afore night at

Qoldron point, If I wait far A. But 1 shan’t wait,” he added eagerly, “ITI gt and overhaul it now." He looked round suspicious, and then said: “Matt, did you see any of then eoast-guard chaps as yon come along?" “No, William Jones.” “Thought not. They’re up Pencroes way, fooling about; so there's a chance for an honest man to look arter his living without no questioning. Yon oome along with me, and if it is summit, I’ll gie thee tuppence some o’ these fine days.” As he turned to go, his eye fell for the first time on her attire. ‘-What’s this, Matt? What ore you doing in your Sunday clothes?” The girl was at a loss to reply. She blushed scarlet and hung down her head. Fortunately for her the man was too absorbed in his main object of thought to catechise her further. He only shook his fat head in severe disapprobation and led the way down to a small creek in the rocks, where a rough coble was rocking, secured by a rusty chain. “Jump in and take the paddles. I’ll sit astern and keep watch.” The girl obeyed and leaped in; but before sitting down she tucked up her dress to her knees to avoid the dirty

water in the bottom of the boat William Jones followed, and pushed off with his hands. Calm ns the water was, there was a heavy shoreward swell, on which they were immediately uplifted with some danger of being swept back on the rocks. Matt handled the paddles like one to the manner born, and the boat shot out swiftly on the shining sea. The sun was burning with almost insufferable brightness, and the light blazed on the golden mirror of tho water with blinding refracted rays. Crouching in the stern of the boat, William Jones shaded his eyes with both hands, and gazed intently on the object he had discovered far out to sea. Now and then he made a rapid motion to guide the girl in the rowing, but he did not speak a word. [TO BB CONTINUED.]

“WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE INTERIOR?”

MATT STRAINED HER GAZE THROUGH THE DAZZLING SUNLIGHT.