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TBE SOUTHERN WORLD, JULY 1,1882,
W on H
A NIIEAF OF Bit'llKAT CtBAIR.
BY EBON K. BKXFOBD.
He saw the wheat wulUnK,
All (Olden In the sun,
Andstrong and stalwart reaper*
Went by him, one by one.
"Oh, could I reap In liarveet I”
Ilia heart made bitter cry;
"1 can do nothing, nothing,
Ho weak, alas! am I.”
At eve, a fainting traveler
Hank down beside his door—
A cup of cool, sweet water
To iiuench his thirst he bore.
And when refresh’ll and strengthened,
The traveler went his way.
Upon the poor man’s threshold
A golden wheut-sheaf lay.
When came the Lord of Harvest,
He cried: “Ob, Master, kind!
One sheaf have I to offer,
And that 1 did not bind;
I gave a cup of water
To one athirst, and he
Left at my door In going,
The slieaf I offer Thee.”
Then said the Lord of Harvest:
“Well pleased with this am I;
One of My angels left It
With thee us he passed by.
Thou mayst not join the reapers
U)Kin the harvest plain.
Hut who so helps a brother
Hinds sheaves of richest grain.”
THE WEDDING MARCH.
An Artist’s Story.
“No. 329—A Wedding March.” Such was
the number and name of a picture in the
Academy, of a certain year which shall,
for }>olitic and personal reasons, be left un-
designuted. The picture was one of my
painting; and I, Reginald Tracey, had been
fortunate enough to attain three very im
portant ends hy its production. Firstly, it
was deemed excellent enough by the hang
ing committee to be placed on tiie line, and
it faced you in a very prominent manner os
you entered Room No. V. Secondly, this
prominent position secured for my picture a
large share of attention, which resulted in
its finding a purchaser almost as soon as the
Kxhibition doors opened. But thirdly, it
served the actual purpose for which I painted
it, and which led me to choose my subject.
That purpose involved just the least bit of
lomance; and although the clever critics
praised the picture, and even hinted that
"Mr. Tracey had been singularly fortunate
in his treatment of a somewhat unusual and
difficult theme,” etc.; not one of them so
much as guessed that it was a picture with a
purpose. As the sequel may serve to show,
that purposu sprang from and ended in what
I am pleased to call my little romance.
It was a charming day, that on which I
went to Rockhampton to sketch the water-
meadows and to see my old friend, I)r. Jos.
Brooke—Jim, I generally called him—who
hud settled us a practitioner in that town.
The whole place was steeped in sunlight;
and the deep shadows cast by the old houses
in the narrow streets by the waterside re
minded one of nothing so much as the black
ness of the shades in some old Dutch town,
where Rembrandt must have learned the
special art that hears the impress of his ge
nius to-day. The old church of Rockhamp
ton is a fine bit of Norman architecture. Ris
ing architects declare that there are no purer
pillars of that style, or better preserved
arches, with their queer faces squeezed into
the corners thereof, and which seem to im
press the Rockhampton juveniles on Sun
days quite as much os the service. Passing
through the church-yard, I found myself at
lost at the church. With little hope of find
ing tiie door open I lifted the latch, when at
once it yielded to my touch. As I passed
within the green baize doors within the
porch, I heard the sound of the organ; so
stealing quietly into the grateful shade and
coolness of tbo church, I ensconced myself
in the biggest pew I could find and listened.
How soothing was the effect of the music
and surroundings on that glorious day I I
could not see the player, who was concealed
by the curtains in front of the organ-loft, but
intuitively I guessed it was a lady who
played. 1 imagined that only a woman’s
delicate touch could have made that “Kyrie”
speak in these tones; and there was more
gentleness than power in tbe “Stabat Mater”
into which the player glided. Then 1 re
member the “Wedding March” succeeded;
and after half an hour's private hearing of
tho musters, I quietly slipped out of church,
once again into tbe glad sunlight that played
around the grave-stones, and mode the world
so fair to see.
After lunching at my hotel, the Red Lion,
I went to see Dr. Jim. It appeared that the
fair player of the church was a Miss Spal
ding, and tbe only daughter of a well-to-do
and retired merchant, who had settled at
Rockhampton some eighteen months before;
and Jim, I found, had been paying bis ad
dresses to tbe young lady. Her father had
married for the second time and bad thus
given Miss Spalding a step-mother. The old
gentleman, as Jim called him, was an easy
going man, kind-hearted in every way, gen
erous to a fault, and looked kindly enough
on Dr. Jim's suit. But as to Mrs. Spalding,
Jim pronounced a decidedly unfavorable
opinion. She was an ambitious, and, as he
expressed it, scheming woman, who thought
that Nelly should look somewhat higher
than Dr. Brooke, of Rockhampton—and that
she should at least marry money—with which
latter commodity, Jim was, as ayoung doctor
of course, by no means overburdened. With
out actually discouraging Jim’s attentions,
made things decidedly unpleasant for the
lovers. Mr. Spalding, good, easy man, was
completely under the dominion of his wife.
Hence, Jim confessed, he was in a somewhat
unsettled state of mind.
“You see, Regy," said Jim, “Nelly will
not disobey her parents in any way. That
she cares for me, she has confessed to me
more than once. But when 1 press her to
consent to be married at once, and to make
me happy, she won’t hear of it.”
“My dear Jim,” I responded, in my new
found capacity of guide, counsellor and
friend, “she is not tbe first girl who has
had to struggle between love and duty; or at
least what she conceives to be her duty.”
“She is so thoroughly conscientious,” re
plied Jim, “that Hear even to press her to
take the step which would make me a happy
man for life. When I ask her in my despair
whether she will ever choose between her
step-mother’s wishes and my love, she im
plores me not to tempt her; and so,” added
Jim, “here I am ; miserable os need be.”
All this interested me exceedingly. She
was evidently a girl of sterling worth, and
with a high sense of the duty she believed
she owed to her parents’ wishes. I thought
over Master Jim’s love affair as I lay in bed
that night, and came to the conclusion that
the cose was a difficult one. You cannot al
ways mold human minds to your own bent
and purpose by simply speaking. Hence I
came to the conclusion that Miss Spalding’s
love for my old friend ought to be tested and
tried in some other way. As my experience
of human nature goes, there seems nothing
like putting love, of all human emotions, to
some rigid test. But how the tejit could be
applied to the case in which I had thus been
led to feel a special Interest I knew not.
I confessed as I rolled over to sleep that I
did not see my way clear to help them. Lit
tle did I think that tbe morrow was to bring
the means and the man. Tbe man was Jo-
slab Blagden, Require, iron-founder, of the
firm of Blagden, Bilge & Co., of Birming
ham and elsewhere; the means was-my
humble self.
The day after my arrival at Rockhampton
Jim proposed that I should drive with hint
on his morning round, and added he; "We’ll
call at Mount Grove on our way home.’
Mount Grove was the residence of Mr. Spal
ding, and 2 o’clock fonnd us at the gate of a
very nice villa residence, overlooking the
river, and standing within its own nicely
kept grounds.
We were ushered into the drawing-room,
where we found assembled certain persons
whom Jim had not expected to see." Mr.
Spalding received me courteously, as also
did Mrs. Spalding. Miss Nelly greeted me
most cordially, adding that she was much
pleased to make the acquaintance of Dr.
Brooke's old friend, of whom he so often
spoke. In addition to the family circle of
three, it was clear there were strangers pres
ent. These latter were Mr. Joslah Blagden
and his sister. Mr. Blagden did not impress
me favorably. He was a stout, florld-com-
plexioned man, remarkable for the extreme
breadth of his white waistcoat and for the
profusion of jewelry displayed thereon.
“A safe man, my dear sir; a very safe
man," Baid Mr. Spalding to me at lunch.
“Why, 1 suppose his turn-over is about
half a million a year—the iron trade, you
know,” added the old gentleman by. way of
explaining that Mr. Blagden was one of the
metal-kings of England.
“Self-made man too,” said Mr. Spalding;
“began life as a foundry-boy.”
From what 1 saw of Mr. Blagden within
the next few weeks, his origin could have
been pretty accurately guessed from the
manner in which he imparted the “foundry-
boy’s” manners into a sphere in which his
Industry and success had led him. He was es
sentially a vulgar man, who bullied his sister,
a meek, silent little woman, with a good
heart and a kind nature, as I discovered
later on.
As we drove home from lunch that day
Jim was strangely depressed. I guessed his
thoughts pretty accurately, for he burst out
into a tirade against Mrs. Spalding on our
arrival at borne.
“I shouldn’t wonder, Regy,” said he, “if
that fellow Blagden has been invited down
here as a suitor for Nelly. He's a friend of
Mrs. Spalding’s, I know, because she her
self comes from the ‘Black Country.’”
Jim's state of mind, from the moment he
broached this theory, may be better imag
ined than described. For the next three
weeks I am bound to say that his temper
was well nigh unendurable. One evening
at dinner at Mount Grove, I felt half afraid
he was going to inflict personal chastise
ment upon Mr. Blagden; a feat I should
have much rejoiced to have seen skillfully
performed, after the iron-master's course
invectives against the medical profession,
which had been called forth during some
arguments concerning doctor’s fees. Nelly’s
attitude towards Jim appeared to have un
dergone no perceptible change. She was lov
ing and gentle as before; but I fancied that
Mrs. Spalding contrived dexterously to
keep Miss Blagden and Nelly as frequently
together as possible; and thus Jim’s teie-a-
teiet were reduced to a miserable minimum.
Worst of all, os Jim remarked to me one
day, Nelly had confessed that her step-mother
bad on more than one occasion hinted that
Mr. Blagden’s visit and stay were not solely
prompted by friendship to her parents. Mrs.
Spalding was, in other words, a clever wo
man, playing a nice little game of diplo
macy, and while keeping on the most
friendly terms with Jim, was, to my mind,
furthering her own aim and ideas of a matri
monial alliance for Nelly with the elderly
iron-founder. I know that most of my
readers will say that Miss Spalding should
have settled the matter for herself, and
have given Mr. Blagden to understand that
his attentions were unwelcome and hope
less. But as I remarked before, we are not
all cast in one mould; and the most loving
natures may sometimes be coerced by what
seemed to be their duty, into self-sacrifice
of the most unreasonable .kind, and which
can only entail misery in the end.
So things went on at Rockhampton, with
diplomacy at Mount Grove, and despair at
No. 14 High street, where Dr. James Brooke
announced his willingness to relieve the af
flicted daily from ten to eleven a. m., and
from six to ten p. m. I had been sitting
cogitating over matters one evening at the
Red Lion—Jim having been called to a dis
tant part of his parish—when an idea found
ed, I believe, on a quotation from an old
French author, occurred to me. The quo
tation was to the effect, that “when moral
suasion fails from any cause to change an
opinion, it is lawful to appeal to the most
trivial of our emotions.” Happy idea!
thought I. I shall see whether or not 1 can
work it to the advantage of Dr. James
Brooke and—shall I add it?—to tiie confu
sion of Josiali Blagden, Esquire.
My plans were then rapidly matured.
Morning, noon and night find me busy in
the old church. I am hard at work on a
canvas on which the interior of tiie edifice
grows under my brush day by day. There
are no sounds of the “Kyrie" now; nor are
the jubilant strains of Mendelssohn heard,
as on a bright sunny day not so far gone by.
Nelly docs not come to practice her old
favorites os of yore. Blagden, I know,
hates music; and painters, os he once ex
pressed it—in shocking bad taste—are usu
ally “a seedy lot.” I remember Mr. Josiah's
white vest and cable chain, with enough ap
pendages attached thereto to setup a small
jeweller in a thriving way of business. The
aisle and gallery are now complete in my
picture. I paint it as I sit in the aisle; in
the distance you can see the altar and chan
cel; and the vicar, who looks upon me oc
casionally, says it is as like as can be. He
is curious, however, to know the nature of
the figures I have sketched roughly in. There
is a group passing down the aisle from the
altar-rails where the vicar can still be seen
at his post; and there iFa figure standing
alone and solitary in the pew, as if facing
the advancing party. The vicar cannot
quite fathom the design. The church he
can understand; but tbe meaning of the
picture pussies him. I bade him wait pa
tiently for the solution of the mystery.
When my study of the church was com
pleted, I went home to the Red Lion, and
there I painted in my figures. There was
little need of models, for my sketch-book
was full of studies. Turning to my picture,
now progressing rapidly, I find that there
are heads of two elderly men, and there is
a careful sketch of a young man’s face like
wise. There is a fair girl’s face and a ma
tronly countenance, and another face which
seemed not unlike that of Miss Blagden.
At last, my task is completed. The picture
is a mere “study," but it is a careful study
withal. The old church you recognize at a
glance; the figure Well, we shall see.
The vicar has been busily spreading a re
port that I have been painting pictures of
the church and there is curiosity to see
them. I now propose that one fine day that
a very few of my Rockhampton friends
shall come to see my work. The circle is
very select. I have invited’only Mr. and
Mrs. Spalding, the great Josiah, Miss Blag
den and Jim. I contrive with a diplomatic
cunning for which I have not before given
myself credit, that Nelly Spalding shall be
admitted to a private view. She herself has
been all anxiety to see the picture, and I
pretend that by great favor she shall see it
before any one else. Mine host of the Red
Lion has prepared a nice little luncheon,
even to some dry Pommery, “which the
great Josiah”—as I have been accustomed
to call him, possibly from the magnitude of
his waistcoats—says he dotes upon. I make
a malicious and unkind but perfectly just
mental suggestion that in early life “the
great Josiah" was better acquainted with
the merit of “’alf-and-’alf ” than dry cham
pagne Mine host has done his best; and
now I wait my guests. I feel nervous and
excited; why, I can hardly tell; but I con
fess to myself that 1 shall be glad when my
little symposium is over.
Here at last. They troop up-stairs into
the large room where my luncheon was
spread. Mr. Josiah is looking very large
to-day. There is an air of jubilant triumph
about him as he bustled about Nelly, assist
ing her in taking off her wraps and saying
“nothings” which are anything but “soft," as
the great man expresses them. To me, his
air is simply patronizing. Mrs. Spalding is
gracious as usual; and Mr. Spalding seems
to regard the near prospect of lunch with
more evident satisfaction than he does the
prospect of an artistic treat. Mr. Blagden
suggests that we had better step in to see
the picture—lunch has evidently its attrac
tions for “the great Josiah.” But I tell
him I wait Dr. Brooke, at which announce
ment he subsides. Then J suggest to Miss
Nelly that, with her mother’s permission,
she may now have the picture all to herself
for a momentary peep. Mrs. Spalding who
is deep with Miss Blagden in the mysteries
of the manufacture of rhubarb-jam, readily
consents.
Nelly follows me into the room where my
picture stands covered with a crimson cloth
on my easel. I close the door and unveil it.
Nelly glanced at it for a moment then grow
ing deadly pale sinks half-fainting—not into
my arms, but into those of Dr. James
Brooke, who has most opportunely come
upon the scene. In speechless astonish
ment he gazes at me, but he too seems as if
he was going to repeat Nelly’s procedure as
as lie glances at the picture. “For heuveu’s
sake, Regy," says Jim in a hoarse voice,
“cover that picture up."
Nelly opened her eyes in a moment or two,
which seemed to me like an age. Jim had
employed the interval in a fashion not un
familiar to lovers, I believe. And when she
did open her eyes it was to clasp Jim round
the neck, and her words were few but de
cided; “Jim, dear! I can never, never
marry that man I I will do whatever you
wish me to. But oh I they have tried me
so! ”
What is it in my picture that has so per
turbed the lovers, and brought Nelly Spald
ing to her senses? Simply the interior of
tbo old church once again. A ray of sun
light streaming through a chink in the
stained window falls on tho sad, pale, tear
ful face of a newly-made bride. The bride’s
face is Nelly’s own; and tbe pompous bride
groom is Josiah Blagden, the artistic treat
ment of whose white waistcoat and chain
has cost me no end of pains. Behind bride
and bridegroom come the figures of Mr. and
Mrs. Spalding; and in the distance the vicar
is seen still standing within the altar rails.
But the central figure after the bride herself
is the young man, pale, motionless as a
statue, who stands in a pew and whose ashy
gaze is fixed on the bride. The face of the
man in tho pew is that of James Brooke.
The picture tells its own story to Nelly
Spalding. It places the possibility of the
future before her eyes as she has never dared
to picture it to herself. It reflects in all its
naked truth the fate to which through her
indecision she may commit herself and Jim.
And it tells its story so well that art con
quers diplomacy in decision, and aids love
in its triumph over the great Josiah himself.
Footsteps on the stairs. I cover the picture
again. Nelly stands beside Dr. Brooke; her
cheek is pale and there are tears like dew-
drops glistening in her eyes. The iron-mas-