Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1905 — CRIPPS, THE CARRIER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CRIPPS, THE CARRIER

BY R. D. BLACKMORE

Aatkor of “LORNA DOONE,” “ALICE LORR AI N E,” ETC., ETC.

CHAPTER XVl.—(Continued.) One thing is certain —both Mr. Overrate and his mother mpst have been dead bodies with little hope of Christian burial, if that brave girl had not set forth on the Saturday night, to help them. Mrs. OveifShute hail quite thrown •P all hope of everything—save the mercy of God in a better world, and Ilis justice upon her enemies—when quite in the dark this'young girl came, while •he was lying down on her back, and curtseyed, and a*ked lier pleasure. If Esther had not curtseyed, perhaps Mrs. Overshute in that state of mind would have taken her for an angel; rough Etty's bonnet, made by herself, was not at all angelical. Rut she knew her for one of the lower .orders, and beEbnging herself to a tine old race, she •allied her last energies with a power •f condescension. However, these are medical, physical, social, economical and perhaps even phychological questions—wherein what remains except perpetual inquiry? Enough is to say that Russel Overshute. having long had a ringing in his ears, was rung •ut of that, and rang back to life by the lively peal of the fire bell. And ever since that, whenever he is ill —though it he only a little touch of gout—he immediately sends a good corpulent man to fay hold of the rope and swing to it. These things are of later date. For the present, this young man lay still in a very precarious state, with a feeble mother to pray for him. But though the house lay still in sadmess, loneliness and dull suspense,, and ♦hough the doctors, having abandoned the case, had the manners not to come again, ■till from day to day there was some

little growth of liveliness. Hardenow came almost daily, having put his class «f striders under a deputy six-leaguer; the Squire also might he expected; and even Zacchary Cripps. CHAPTER XVII. In the meanwhile, Mrs. Luke Sharp was growing very anxious about her son, *nd only child and idol. Christopher. Not that there was anything at all amiss with his bodily health, so far at least as she eonld see; but that he seemed so unsettled in his mind, so absent and preoccupied. Wherever he was, he always seemed to be wanting to be somewhere •lse, and he hated to be looked at; while he ran up into his own loft when he thought there was nobody watching. “Kit. now my darling Kjt. do tell me.” said Mrs. Sharp for about the fiftieth time, as she sat with her son in the sweet spring twilight, at the large western window of Cross-Duck House: “what is it that makes you sigh so? You almost break your poor mother's heart. I never did know you sigh, my own one.” “Once more, mother. I have the greatest objection to being called 'Kit.' It • muds so small, and—so horribly prosaic. All the dictionaries say that it means either the outfit of a common soldier, or else a diminutive kind of fiddle.” “Christopher. I really beg your pardon. 1 know how much loftier you are. of course; but I cannot get over the habit. Kit. Well. well, then —my darling. I h ope you are not at all above being ‘my darling.' Kit.”

"Mother, you may call me what you like. It can make no difference iu my sUstinic*.” “Christopher, yon make mv blood run oold. My darling. 1 implore you not to sigh so. Your dear father pays my allowance on Monday. 1 know what has kmg been the aspiration of your heart. Kit, you shall have a live badger of your •wu.” “I hate the very name of rats and badgers. Everything is so low. How can you look at that noble sunset, and be full of badgers? Mother, it grieves me So leave you alone; but how can I help 11. when you go on so? I shall go for • walk on the Holley road.’’ The young mail threw a light eloak •ri liis shoulder, and set his eyebrows sternly: and his conntemniee looked very picturesque. It occurred to liis mother shat idie had never seen anything more aoble. A* soon as she hail heard him bang the door. Mrs. Sharp ran back to She window, whence she could watch all Cross Duck l.olie. and alie saw him striding along towards the quickest outset to the country. “How wonderful it is!” she said to Aerself, with tears all ready; "only the •ther day site was quite a little boy. and whipped a top. and cried if n pin ran •ato him. And now he is. far heyond all Aspute. the finest young man in Oxford; A* has the highest contempt for ail vulgar spurts, and lie bolts the door of his bwtroom. His father calls him thick and ■•ft! All. he cannot understand his qunl•*mt There ia the deepest and purest-wefi-spring of tinWeiliglble ’poetry In KM. Hia great mind ia perturbed, and Am harried flint'into commune with the MM log star.

Before Mrs. Sharp had turned one page of her truly voluminous thoughts about her son, a sharp click awoke the front door lock, and a steady and welljointed step made creaks on the old oak staircase. - ~ ■'Miranda, I have some work to do to-night,” said Mr. Sharp, in his quiet, even voice; 'and I thought it better to come up •and tell you, so- that you need not expect me again, .hist have the tire -in the office lighted. I can work hotter there than 1 can upstairs. If I should ring about 10 o’clock it will be for a cup of coffee. If I do not ring then, send everybody to bed, and do not expect me until you see me.” “Certainly.. Luke. I quite Understand,” answered Mrs. Sharp, having been for .tears accustomed to such arrangements; “but, my dear, before you begin, can you spare me five minutes, for a little conversation?” “Of course I can, Miranda, I aim always at your service.” “Then, Luke, will you answer me only one question?—have you observed how very strangely Kit has been going on for some time now?” “Yes, Mrs. Sharp, I have observed it. You need not be at all uneasy about it. I am observing him very closely. When I disapprove, I shall stop it at once.” “But surely, my dear, surely I, his mother, am not to be kept in the dark about it? I know that you always take your own course, and your course is quite sure to be the right one; but surely, my dear, when something important is evidently going on about my own child, you would never have the heart to keep it from me. I could not endure it; indeed

I could not. I should fret myself away to skiu and bone.” “It would take a long time to do that, my dear,” replied Mr. Sharp, as he looked with satisfaction at her fine plump figure. “In the first place, then, you must promise me, whether my plan turns out well or ill, on no account to blame me for it, but to give me the credit of having acted for the best throughout.” “Nothing can be easier than to promise that. My dear, you always have acted for the best; and what is more, the best always comes of it.” “Very well, you promise that: also, you must pledge yqurseif to conceal from everyone, and most of all from Christopher, everything I am about to tell you, and to act under my directions.” “To be sure, my dear; to be sure, I will. Nothing is more reasonable than that 1 should keep your secrets.” "Miranda,” In «aid, "I will tell you something such as you never heard before. 1 have made a bold stroke, a “very bold one; but I think it must succeed. And justice is with me, as you will own, after all the attempts to rob us. Perhaps you never heard a stranger story; but still I am sure you will agree with me. that in every step 1 have taken I am most completely and perfectly justified.” "Luke, I declare you quite make me nervous. I shall be afraid to go to bed to-night. Really a stranger, or a timid person, would think you were going to confess a murder.”

The lawyer arose. He locked tiie door and looked out of the window. Then lie said; “Miranda, ydu must not be foolish. Now please not to interrupt me once; but ask your questions afterwards. To begin at the very beginning, you will do me the justice to remember that 1 linve worked very hard for my living. And I have prospered well. Miranda, having you as both the foundation and the crown of my prosperity; was perfectly satisfied, ns you know, living quite up to my wishes, and putting n little cash by every year of our-Jives, and paying mi a heavy life insurance, in case of my own life dropping—for tho sake of you and Christopher Y’ou know ail thnt?” "Darling Luke, I do. But you make me cry when you talk like that.” “Very well. That is ns it should lie. \Ve were ns happy ns need lie expected, until tlie great wrong befell ns—tho fierce injustice of losing every farthing to which we were clearly entitled. You were the proper successor to all tlie property of old Fcrniitugc. That old curmudgeon and wholesale poisoner of the university made a fool of himself, towards Ids latter end, by marrying Miss Oglandef, Old Black-Strap, ns of course we know, hnd no other motive for doing such a tiling, except liis low ambition to tie connected with a good old family. Ever since lie liegnn life ns n bottle boy in tlie cellars of old Jerry I’ignud ” “He never did that. Luke. Tlow can yon speak so of my father’s own first cousin? Ho was an extremely respectable young man; my father always said HO." “While lie was rnnking his money, Miranda, of conrse’he was respectable. Ami everybody respected him, as soon as he

had made it. However, I have not tha smallest intention of reproaching the poor old villain. He acted according to bia i lights, and they led him very badly. A foolish ambition induced him to marry that pompous old maid Joan Oglander, who had been jilted by Commodore Patch, the son of the famous We all know what followed; the old man w as but a doll in the hands, of his ladywife. He left all the scrapings of his life for her to do what she pleased with —at least, everybody supposes so.” “What do you mean, Luke?” asked Mrs. Sharp, haying inkling of legal surprises. “Do you mean that there is a later will? Has he done justice to me, after all?” , “No, my dear. He never saved his soul by attending to his own kindred. But lie just had the sense to make a little change at last, when his wife would not come near him. You know what he died of. It was coming on for weeks; though at last it struck him suddenly. The port wine fungus of his old vaults grew into his lungs and stopped them. It had shown for some time in his face and throat; and his wife was afraid of catching it. She took it to be some infectious fever, of which she is always terribly afraid. The old man knew that his time was short: hut take to-his bed he would not. Of all born men the most stubborn he was, as any man must be, to get on well. ‘lf I am to die of the fungus,’ lie said, ‘I will'have a little more of it.’ *Aml he went, and with his own hands hunted up a magnum of port, which had been laid by from the vintage of 1745. in the first days of Jerry Pigaud. But before that, lie had sent for me; and I was there when he opened it.” “Luke, you take my breath away. Such wonderful tilings I have never heard. At least, not in our own family.”

“Of course, my dear. We all accept wonders with quietude, till they come home to us. Well, when he fetched out this old bottle, it was fungus inside from heel to neck. He held it Up against the light, and the glass being whiter than now they make and, the wine gone almost white with age, there you could see this extraordinary growth, like cords in the bottle, and valves across it, and a long yellow sheath like a crocus-flower. I had never seen anything like it before; but lie knew all about it. “All, I know a genleihan,” he grunted in his throat — he never could say ‘gentleman,’ as you remember —‘a genleman as would give a hundred guineas for this here bottle. Quibbles, lie shouldn’t have it for a thousand. My boy, you and I will drink it. Say no, and I'll cut off your wife with a halfpenny. ’ —Miraiida. w-1 rat could Ido but try to humor him to the utmost? And really it was more like eating than drinking wine; for all the body was gone into the fungus. Nastier stuff I never tasted; hilt, luckily, he took the lion’s shore. ‘Now, Quibbles, I’ll tell you a secret,’ he said, after swallowing at least a quart; 4 a very pretty girl came and kissed roe t'other day, in among these very bottles. Such a little duck—not a bit ashamed or feared of my fungus, as my missus is. And her breath was as£sweet as the violets of ’2O! “Well, now, my little dear,” thinks I, as I stood back and looked at her, “that was kind of you to kiss an old man a-dying of port wine fungus! And if ho only, lives another day, you shall have the right to kiss the royal family, if you cares to do it.” Quibbles, I wouldn't call in you, nor any other thief of a lawyer. Lawyers are very well over a glass; but keep ’em outside of the cellar, say I. Very good company, in their way; but the only company I put trust in is thv one I have dealt with all my life—and many a thousand pounds I have paid them—The Royal Wine Company of Oporto. So now, if anything happens to me —though I am not in such a hurry to be binned away, and walled up for the resurrection — Quibbles, wait six months; and then you go to the Itoyal Oporto Company, and ask for a gentleman of the name of Jolly Fellows.’ ” “Now, Luke, I am al anxiety to hear,” exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, with a sudden interruption, “what was the end of this very strange affair.” (To be continued.)

HE LOCKED THE DOOR AND LOOKED OUT OF THE WINDOW.