Phantom Puppets of the Stage of Shakespeare. By H. SCHÜTZ Phineas Pett, Naval Constructor. By E. W. WILLIAMS. Part I.. 460 389 Players and Plays in the Sere and Yellow. By ARTHUR GOODRICH 193 Pyrenean Playground, The: an Appreciation. By R. W. AUSTIN 510 Robsart, Amy, at Cumnor. By PHILIP SIDNEY Rosamond, Fair, The Strange Story of. By PHILIP SIDNEY Savoy, High, On the Highway to. By S. BEACH CHESTER Some Early Art Sales. By GERALD P. GORDON, M.A.. Some Sidelights on Early Dissent in the Peak. By JOHN HYDE Stage Curtain, Peculiar, History of a. By W. J. LAWRENCE. Storm and Calm among the Fells. By WILLIAM T. PALMER Strange Story, The, of Fair Rosamond. By PHILIP SIDNEY Strange Story, The, of Viscountess Beaconsfield. By JAS. SYKES "Strong as Iron." By S. M. CRAWLEY BOEVEY English Amusements in the Eighteenth Century-Gladiatorial Combats by Englishwomen-The Legend of Bluebeard- A Supposed Prototype of Bluebeard-Human Monsters of Cruelty-The New "Encyclopædia Britannica" The Licensing of Plays-Indiscretion of the Censorship- Literary Protest against the Action of the Censor-Maeter- An Authorised Text of Shakespeare " Bibliomania ”_ Treasures of which the Collector still may Dream--French Books of Interest-A Veritable Find-The Third and Fourth Volumes of the New "Britannica " Mr. Morley and the Acton Library-Responsibility of a Large Library The Joy of Book-collecting. A Sanctuary for the Owl-Love of Animals and Their Des- truction-Mr. Merivale's "Bar, Stage and Platform "- Stories of Palmerston, Westbury, and Merrywether Teachers, The Ecclesiastical Licensing of, in the Past. By FOSTER 543 Tourist, A Last-Century. By CHARLES E. OSBORNE Unlicensed Nonconformist Schoolmasters, 1662 and Onwards. Upper Classes, The, under Former Edwards. By HENEAGE H. JEBB 273 "Web, The, of Empire." By E. A. REYNOLDS-BALL Wild Flowers. By CHARLES HARVEY KILBY With the Fisher-Folk at Wild Douarnenez. By J. QUIGLEY THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. "DID JULY 1902. NORA WILDING. A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS. By JOHN STAFFORD. IN TWO PARTS-PART I. CHAPTER I. ID you say you wanted me to leave the Rectory butter, The voice came from the cool yard-place, where the pump was. There had been a sound of vigorous swilling, succeeded now by a low ostler-like hiss. Leah, through the leaded window of the dairy, saw a head working with towelled agitation. She pushed her long white arm through the mouth of the barrel-churn, and drawing forth a handful of golden richness dropped it into a wide tray of water beside her. Then from a smiling mouth she said: "Come here, Master Dick; I want to speak to you." She looked up as the long figure darkened the doorway. "What is it?" said Dick, rubbing his muscular neck to a fine ruddiness. "I shall be off in a few minutes, and there's no time for talk, little gypsy." "Well, Nora can take the butter for that matter; an' she wants a run this morning. Her's ready to jump out of her petticoats wi’ May madness. You know what to-day is, I rackon ?" "I do, Leah "—their eyes met an instant-"and I hope she'll have many another. But what of it? and why should she be VOL. CCXCIII. NO. 2059. B "What of it? Think you a girl turns the corner o' seventeen an' thinks no more of it than passing from Saturday to Sunday? Nora's a woman grown, an' it was time to tell her so-she with her hair down like a yearling's tail, an' her frocks showing her calves like a circus-dancer ! But to see her stare an' colour wi' the rushing thoughts of it-cornflowers among the poppies! I said a word about dressing the part, an' out she bounced to do it. She's upstairs now, getting into my Sunday gown-the white 'un; an' old Deborah's doing her hair up-trying to, anyway, for not a gross o' pins will keep that mop in order. There's the postman's whistle; run to the gate, Dick, an' take the letters, and I'll be stamping the pats." But at the sound of the mercurial whistle Dick had started as if it had blown in his ear. There was a subtle changing in his tanned face; and instead of doing Leah's bidding he strode down the yard to the saddle-room, there to finish his toilet. The postman would be some few minutes yet in reaching the garden-end, and doubtless someone else would be there to meet him; it generally was so; and so it fell out this morning. It was a young girl in white, and very red of face, who held out her hand to Silas, the postman, for the usual morning's mails. "Bless me! that's never Miss Nora!" said he. change, to be sure! an' all in a night too!" "What a "Give me the letters, Silas; and don't be rude." She tried not to laugh, but only blushed the more. "No offence, miss-you know me; but, you see, I left a slip of a gell larst night, an' now I finds a beautiful young leddy. Beats caterpillar an' butterfly, s'help me if it" "How dare you compare me to a caterpillar! Give me the letters at once, and be off!" And, as maidens do, she stamped her foot. The man, who was neither young nor old, but had known her from her baby days, gave a grin and closed his wallet. "Here they be-four for the master and two for you, Miss Wilding." The name was less strange to the eye than to the ear. She sent him a quick glance, saw his sideward leer, frowned, and turned to examine her letters. One, in a neat feminine hand, bearing the Blackhurst postmark, she knew to be from her old governess, Miss Somers; but the other-she stared hard at it, turning it over and about with brows of speculation. Same postmark-handwriting masculine and spreading; it might be a doctor's, a clergyman's, or a farmer's even. This last word lingered with her, making a key. It was a farmer's, or, at least, a farmer's best man; for now she recognised the hand, and retiring to a little arbour, which gave shaded sitting-space in the garden corner, she laughingly tore open the missive. Dick was ever at his games: what was he up to now? She began the scrawled lines with a smile, proceeded with mounting brows, ended with a face as white as milk. Then the colour rushed back, and, with odd perturbation, she read again her letter. "That you may have all day to think of it, dear, I remind you in this fashion of our talk in the orchard on this very day of last year, when, half in jest and half in earnest, we plighted our troth, our joined hands bridging the little stream-but with this saving condition in the binding, that it be subject to confirmation at the same time and place after twelve more months had gone over us; then, so it was arranged, it was to remain final for ever and ever. Not a word since then have we spoken of that hour and its memories; and few are the times, I fear, when you have even thought of them. But every, every day, my Nora, have I been recalling our bargain; and like the brook in the Dene which swells in power and volume as it draws nigher the sea, so has my love been for you. Look into your heart for once, my dearest, and tell me to-night in the orchard what it is you have found there. And if it should be only the old friendship, then not another word shall I say; but if it be something deeper and stronger, and as different from the other as sunrise from moonlight, then I'll slip a little thing on your finger, and all the world shall know that it's just the love of our Nora for her cousin Dick.” Her first love-letter. A third time did she read it; and on the sweet April face came and went many maidenly things. Then, though she was sitting there in the cool tree-shade, she felt, all at once, as if she had stepped into a sunbeam; and, wondering why it should be so, Nora leaned back and looked into her heart. Some few minutes later Leah pricked ears and glanced up at the sound of a singing, low and sweet, like a hedge-bird's: "O'er the moor to the cliff by the sea, 'Twixt the gorse aflame and the heather dead, Though the earth hears not their rhythmic tread, "Leah! where's grandfer, Leah? Here are some letters for him." "Come in, Nora; I'm waiting to see how it fits." "The frock? I'd forgotten all about it." She entered the dairy, and stood smiling in the light from the door. "It's a little too big-you're fuller than I am; but how do I look, Leah? It feels so funny;" and she kicked a leg, showing a tip of toe; then, glancing at the other, "Why, what's the matter? What a stare and a glare! Isn't it all right?" Leah turned her head, and took up her butter-stamp, biting her lip for that her jealousy had so tripped her up; but she had to look again, and this time with honest admiration. "A trifle too big, it may be; an' Deborah's done your hair too slack; moreover, that shaped hat ought to have a little cock to one side-ay, that way. Now you look-but I mustn't tell you or it'll head." turn your "Little danger of that," laughed Nora; "but where's grandfer? Shall I let him see me, Leah ?-let him see the new woman of Brereton?" She laughed again, and drew herself up, squaring her shoulders, and puffing her young bosom out like a pigeon; and the black-browed Leah had to laugh in her turn. "Yes, let him see you-why not? It'll do his old eyes good. You'll find him down by the Mill, or in Coney Bottom. An' you can take these on to the Rectory, if you don't mind. You've frightened Master Dick away somewheres. But walk steady, or you'll have all your hair down. What hay-bands to be sure !-here, let me pin it firmer." And Leah did so, with a growing brightness of eye which perhaps her muttered words explained as Nora passed lightly down the garden-path to the little green wicket opening on to the lane. "He'll soon find the difference now. Why, they're as far apart as dray-horse and Arab pony, as thistle and rose. Whoever her father was, he was no ploughtail hobbledehoy. There's blood in her -blue blood-as different to the Warrens' as cream is to whey-an' she's showing it more an' more-can't help it. Nature's grace an' grace nature wi' Nora. There's a mystery somewheres. Look how they've brought her up-like a squire's daughter! An' him to dream of her as a farmer's wife! Why, all she can do is to feed the hob-lambs,' an' gather eggs o' mornings. I've nothing against her; she's a good little soul. All the same, she's not going to marry Dick Warren-not if I know it! I'm as comely as she is, or the glass tells lies; an' if I can't squeak a fiddle, or tinkle a pianer, I'm worth a dozen of her on a farm like this. An' Dick'll come to see it; I'll make him see it! An' I'll make him wed Leah Brading, as sure as to-morrow's sunrise!" 1 Sussex for pet lamb. |