Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1905 — CRIPPS, THE CARRIER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CRIPPS, THE CARRIER

BY R. D. BLACKMORE

Author of “LORNA DOONE,” “ALICE LORRAI N E,” ETC., ETC.

CHAPTER XVl—(Continued.! Knowing pretty well all the chief Booms of the house. .Hardenow resolved to go and see if they were locked: and grasping hjs black holly-stick for selfdefense. he made for the dining room. The door was wide open; the cloth on the table, with knives and forks and glasses placed, as if for a small dinner party. Hardenow tasted, the water in a jug. and found it quite stale; then lie opened a napkin, and the bread inside it was dry and hard as biscuit. Then be saw with still further surprise that the windows '•'ere open to their utmost extent, and the basket of plate was on the sideboard. “My old friend Russel, my dear old fellow!" lie cried, with liis hand on his leart. "wliat strange misfortune has befallen you? No wonder my letter was left unanswered. IYfhaps the dear fellow is now being buried, and every one gone to his funeral. But no! if it were so. these things would not be thus. The funeral feast is a grand institution. -Everything would be fresh and lively, and live leaves put into the dinner table." With this, true reflection, he left the bo olll to seek the solution elsewhere. At the etui of tliis passage he came to a small alcove, fenced off with a loose white curtain, shaking and jerking itself hi the wind. He put this aside with his stick; and two doorways, leading into

separate rooms, but with no doors ip them, faced him. Something told him that both these rooms held human life, or human death. First he looked in at the one on the left. He expected to see lonely death. His nerves were unstrung to such a degree that lie wholly forgot everything except his own absorbing sense of his duty as a man in holy orders. In the noom on the left he saw a little bed, laid at the foot of a fat four-poster: and on this little bed of white lay a lady, or a lady's body, cast down recklessly, in sleep or death; with the face entirely covered by a silvery cloud of hair. From the manner in which one arm was bent, Hard enow thought that the lady lived. There was. nothing else to show it. Being a young man. a gentleman also, he hung back and trembled back from entering that rdbin. Without any power to “revolve things well.” as he always directed his pupils to do, Hardeuow stepped to the other doorway, and silently settled his gaze inside. His eyes wore so worried that lie could aot trust them, until he had time to consider what they told. They told him"'a tale even stranger Shan that which had grown upon him for an hour now, and passed from a void alarm into a terror: they showed him the loveliest girl—according to their rendering—that ever they had rested on till now: a maiden sitting in a low chair reading. silently sometimes, and sometimes in a whisper, according-to - some signal, perhaps, of which lie saw no sign. There was no other person in the room, so far as he could see; and he strained his eyes with extreme anxiety to make out that. The Rev. Thomas Ifardenow knew ♦hat he was not discharging the function*! now of the sacerdotal ofllce. in watching a young woman through a doorway, without either leave or notice. But though fee must have been aware of this, it •earcely seemed now to occur to him; or whether it did, or did not, he went on in the same manner gazing. The sound of low. laborious breath pervaded the sick room now and then. In •pita of all draughts, the air was heavy with the scent of herbs strewn broadcast, to prevent infection—tansy, wormwood, rue and sage, burnt lavender and rosemary. The use of acids in malignant fevers was at that time much in vogue, aad saucers of vinegar and verjuice, •teeped lenTon peel, and such like, ns. well aa dozens of medicine bottles stood upon ■ttta tables. Still Hardeuow could not aeo the patient; only by following the glaaeo of the reader could he discover da direction. It was the girl herself, feMrever, on whom Ida wondering eyes wan bent. At first he Beemed to know few face, and then he was sure that he jNWt hare been wrong. The sense of do-

iiig good, nnd the wonderful iufluejice of pity, had changed the.face of a pretty gill into that of a beautiful woman.'Hardenow banished his first idea, and wondered what-sirange young lady this could be. ' ’ she was reading aloud.'and /loing it not so very badly, it was plain enctugh t«hat she expected no one to listen to her. The sound of her voice, perhaps, was soothing to some one who understood no words; as people have been soothed and recovered by a thread of waterfall, broken with a walking stick. At any rate, she read on. and her reading fell like decent poetry. Ilardenow scarcely knew what he ought to do. lie did not like to go forward; and it was a mean thing to go backward, rendering no nelp, when help seemed wanted so extremely. He peeped hack into the other room: and there was the lady with the fine white hair, sleeping as soundly as a weary top. driven into dreaming by extreme activity of blows. Nothing less than a fine idea could have delivered Hardenow from this bad situation. It was suddenly borne in upon liis mind that the house had a rare old fire bell, a relic of nobler ages, banging from a- bar in a littie open cot, scarcely big enough for a hen roost; and Itussel had shown him one day, with a laugh,

the corner in which the rope hung. There certainly could be but very little chance of doing harm by ringing it; what could be worse than the present state of things? Some good Samaritan might come. No Levite was left to be driven away. For Hardenow understood the situation now. The meaning of a very short paragraph in the Oxford paper of Saturday, which he had glanced at and cast by, came distinctly home to him. The careful editor had omitted name of person and of place, but made bis report quite clear to* those who held a key to the reference. “llow very, dull-witted now I must be!” cried the poor young fellow in. his lonely trouble. "I ought to have known it. But we never know the clearest things until too late.” It was not only for the sake of acquitting himself of an awkward matter, but also in the hope of doing good to the few left desolate, that Hardenow moved forth from the windy white curtain away again. He went down the passage at a very great pace nearly akin to a run: and then at the head of the staircase he turned, and remembered a quiet little corner. Here, in an out-of-the-way recess, the rope of the alarm hell hung; and he saw it, even in that niche, moving to and fro with the universal draught. Hardenow lang such a peal as the old bell had never given tongue to before. The bell was a large one, sound and clear; and the call must have startled the neighborhood for a mile, if it could he startled. “Really, I do believe I have roused somebody at last!” exclaimed the ringer, as he looked through a window commanding the l road to the house, and saw a man on horseback coming. “But. surely, unless he sprang out of the ground, he must have been coming before I began.” In this strange loneliness, almost any visitor would be welcome; and Hardenow rau towards the top of the stairs to see who it was, and to meet him. But. here, as he turned the corner of the balustraded gallery, a 'scared and hurrying young woman almost ran into his arms. “Oh, what is it ?” she cried, drawing back, and blushing to a deeper color than well extracted blood can show; “there is no funeral yet. He is not dead! Who is ringing the bell so? It has startled even him, and will either kill, or sav«( him. Kill him, it will kill him, I am almost sure!” “Esther —Miss Cripps—what a fool I am! I never thought of that—l did not know —how could I tell? I am all in the dark. Is it Itussel Overshute?” “Yes, Mr. Hardenow. Everybody knows it. Every one lies taken good care to run away. Even the doctors will come uo more. They say it is hopeless;

and they might only, infect their otha* patients. I fear that liis mother mint die. too. She lias taken the fever in a milder form; but walk she will, whila walk she can. And at her finite of life it is such a chance. But I cannot slop on* moment.” “And at your time of life is it nothing, Esther? You seem to think of everybody but yourself. Is this fair to your own hetfrtli and home?'’ While lie was speaking lie looked at her eyes: and her eyes were filling with deep tears —a dangerous process to conlompkite. "Oh. no, there is no fear of_Lliat,"'she answered, misunderstanding him; "1 shall take good care not to go home until 1 am quite sure that' there is no risk.” “That, is-not what I mean. I mean supposing you yourself should catch it?” "If I do, they will let me stay here, 1 am sure. But I have no fear of it, The inlluenee that led me here, will lead me back again. But yott ought not to be here. 1 am quite forgetting you.” Hardenow looked at her with admiration warmer than lie could put into words. She hud been thinking of him throughout. Site thought of every one except herself. Even in the moment of first surprise she had drawn away so that xho stood to leeward; and while they were speaking she took good care that the current of wind passed from him to her. Also in one hand she carried a little chafing dish producing lively fumigation. Esther curtseyed at a distance, and started away—until her retreat was iut off very suddenly.--—— “Why. ho girl! Ho girl'! and young man in the corner! Wliat is the meaning of all tliis? I have come to see things righted: my name is Worth Oglander. I find this here old house silent as a grave, and you two looking like a brace of robbers. Young woman! —young woman! —why, bless me now, if it isn’t our own Etty Cripps! I did believe, nnd I would believe, but, for knowing of your family, Etty, and your brother Cripps the carrier—that here you are for the purpose of setting this old mansion afire.” Esther, having been hard set to sustain what had happened already, was now unable to assert her dignity. She simply leaned against the wall, and gently blew into the embers of her disinfecting stuff. She knew that the Squire might kill himself, .after all his weeks of confinement, by Coining over here, in this rash manner, and working himself up so. But it was not her place to say a worth even if she could say it.

lieve, as long as lie draws breath of life, that by (he grace of the Lord lie owes that privilege to the lire .ell. In this belief he has always been most strongly supported by Esther Cripps, who, perhaps, was the first to suggest the idea; for he at that time must have failed-to know a fire bell from a water bucket. The doctors had left him, through no fear for their own lives, hut in despair of his. There was far less risk of infection now than in the earlier stages; no sooner, however, did the household find out that the medical men had abandoned the case than panic seized their gallant hearts, and with one accord they ran away. From Saturday morning till Saturday night, when Esther came from Beck-ley. there was nobody left to watch and soothe the poor despairing misery, except the helpless and worn-out mother, (To he continued.)

HARDENOW RANG SUCH A PEAL AS THE OLD BELL HAD NEVER GIVEN TONGUE TO BEFORE.