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STREAKED WITH GOLD.\ ,

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STREAKED WITH GOLD. By R. E. FRANCILLON, AUthor of "Earl's Dene," "Queen Cophetua, National Characteristics, &c., &c. CHAPTER IV. 1HE BLACK WITCH OF LLANFAWR. It was on a spring Sunday that Rachel had first met with Evan, and now the snoow was on the ground. It was On a certain Friday in December, before moon-rise, that Rachel was sitting with her kther over the peat fire, and thinking, in the twi- light, that life was not without a ray or two of sUnshine. Evan's friendship, now an old story, had grown very dear to her, and she had never Earned that such friendships are only made to end. Without being able for a moment to forget bel' curse, she had grown half accustomed to it; bappily it is impossible for sane human nature to spend every hour of every day in despair. Her father was in unusually good spirits he was talk- ing to her more like the old self of their Black Country days, and indulging in a certain faculty he had of throwing everything but the present foment to the winds As a strong man, she sup- Posed, he could endure their common curse more easily and defiantly than a weak girl. Presently—for the first time since Captain Mar- tin's unlucky visit—a knock was heard at the door. £ ut this time Gelart, the companion of her walks, showed no sign of disapproval, on the contrary, he scratched at tho door and whined, as if wish- ing to let the stranger in. "Can it be Captain Martin ?" she thought; but ^his time she was not pleased to think so. Her kther, however, instead of frowning, callcd out in 4 genial voice Come in and, to her dismay as *ell as amazement, there entered one whom she Wished to see there far less- than Captain Martin. ^as Evan mad that, without a word of warning, he had come to see her at home ? If her father had almost kicked a gentleman like Captain Martin out of doors, what would he do now ? He did the only thing she would have thought incredible. Sit down, mate, and make yourself at home," he said jovially, while Evan took off his hat and looked shyly at Rachel. "Rachel, bring toy good friend Roberts here some ale. I've been thinking hard, mate, and the more I think the ^ore sure I feel." "Well?" asked Evan, anxiously, but following Rachel with his eyes as she left the room to fetch the ale. j That you've seen gcrJff. I only wish Caer Groea *as mine—two penny-weight of gold in the ton Pays, they say, and I'd blast out the whole hill and grind it to dust on the faith of what a man of ■^ftse sees with his own eyes. But Caer Groes isn't tnine, worse luck; it's in the hands of men who've c°tt»nitted themselves to an opinion, and you may take it from me that when your quick Welsh cap- tain and your slow Scotch manager find them- "Ives in the wrong boat together, they'll go down with all hands sooner than own it isn't the right one. You've made it their interest not to find the £ °ld, just to prevent being found out in a blunder. .\h, here's Rachel with the ale—and here's good; to you! You wouldn't think of going back to C&er Groes, I suppose ?" I'd starve sooner. After being turned off like Mog—and a mad dog, too Bravo shouted Matthew Dunn, slapping him On the back. You're a. lad of spirit—give us your hand. You're right; they've treated you like a CUr- Ah, I thought a real man like you would get sick of slaving for a hole like Caer Groes before Iong-. Now I've been thinking—Hulloa!" he eXclaimed, looking suddenly at a gold Watch that he held out ostentatiously, told you to look in at seven, did I ? Just *hen I bad to go to—confound my memory—I ^°n't be away longer than I can help, and we can ^n'*h talking when I'm back again—all nightlong, If YOtllike. Rachel, you take care of my good nend here. Fetch some more ale—no, bring out the brandy. I'll put you in the right track when COrQe back again, never fear." What does it mean ?" asked Rachel, scared, bewildered, and breathless, as soon as her father ilad gone. Why are you here—why have you Passed the stone?" For she had fixed upon a certain isolated fragment of rock beyond which ahe had made him promise never to pass, and to "Which sho had come to pay a. superstitious regard. Ah, Rachel, a great deal has happened. I've bêet). turned off at Caer Groes, and made friends "with your father; and I don't know whether I'm standing on my head or my heels." Made friends with my father!" exclaimed chel, aghast. Evan, you are ruining yourself -do you know who his friends are ? Do you know *hat you say ?» I know-what people say." Don't you know what becomes of every young my father makes friends with-how they get °rse and worse, till I don't know—he means to \lQ fight, but that is what we are—better for you hate me like the others than make friends with b' lDl; and now you have passed the stone!" They call me madman, and you and if tell lies of us I think they will tell lies of your ^ther too." No, Evan, they are not lies—they are true! I ar° a witch, and you are mad—to come here!" A witch! There is no such thing-" Should I call myself one if I did not know that 1 I have not said so to you before, because I 1?,a-s glad you did not believe. I had not the heart to spoil my only good hours! But now you must shall believe, and you must go, and never sPeak to me again. You have lost your employ- ment ? That is the beginning with all my father's friends. Surely you have not been tempted to Sive up honest work for a wizard's wages ?" lIe told her his story from the beginning—how be had found gold in Caer Groes; how everybody but her father had been against him; how all Proof of hie discovery had been buried without hands. And yet you do not believe in witchcraft!" she e*claimed with bitter triumph. Gold comes and goes just to drive you into our hands; and you ^ould never have thought you saw gold if you had not studied, and you would never have studied If you had not-known me." Her chain of reasoning was startlingly close, 4l»d quite sound enough to impress if not convince his mind. Wlutt, indeed, if everybody—including Rachel—was right, and he, the minority of one, in the wrong? Science, experience, public opinion, Rachel's self-accusation, were all against him and he must have been a prodigy of self-confidence not.to give some weight to all these combined. liut, if so, how much more did the poor girl, com- pelled by supernatural injustice to be the agent of evii against her own will, appeal to his pity—and tnore ? "You are no witch, Rachel," he said still more stubbornly, as if contradicting himself rather than her. «People who try to do good cannot do harm. ^our father, indeed-" He stopped in the same infusion as at their first meeting. Rachel hardly heard him—she sat gazing fixedly into the fire, thinking how she could possibly undo some of the evil that she had done. It might be suicide to drive from her side her only friend. But it would be murder not to drive him away. Rachel? he asked at last, in an uncertain, questioning tone. She looked up, and he went on, as if hardly able to eXpress himself in words This is a dreadful life for You. j would throw' myself down the long shaft if i could do anything to help you. If you were what you say, I would do lt all the same." 441 know how good you are to me—you need not tell me that," she said bitterly, and yet gently. No-you don't know-" "I do, indeed; 30 go before father comes back, never speak to me again. That will be bring-- good to me—better than if you could save me from having been born." Not I!" he said hotly, as if he had at last found bis tongue. I will not go, and I will stay by you 48 long as you live, for, witch or no witch, you have Nobody but me. Why will you not speak to the Preacher, or to Captain Martin—they are good tnen, wise men, who will tell you there are no itches if you do not believe me ?" Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'—that is ^*hat thev will tell me! I read that in church, Evan." Be looked very grave as she turned away, not to meet his eyes. Then he started up, and burat out— .And, indeed, that is why there are not any ^ore—they have all been killed! I cannot bear it 4lly more. I don't care about Caer Groes or the Sold—j only care about you-" It She forgot her witch-hood then. Or, if that eY-note of all her life ran audibly through :\1c.1b momentary forgetfulness, it sounded for the 1:lllstant like a note of triumphant joy that it was her fate to be unwooed as a woman once d fore she died. For once she might more than e*»ti herself a mere common daughter of Eve. A ^derfui mist of light swam before her eyes. 'ike the wonderful haze vanished in a moment, e QUe of those rose-red mists in which she had sometimes lost her way at sunrise among the hills, and made the desolation round her a hundred times blacker than before. Her love meant his ruin she was a daughter of Lilith, and he a son of Eve. But she could not draw her hand from the strong hand that held it and would not let it go. He had seen her eyes, veiled with mist as they were, a.nd they had not yet answered him; and though unversed in subtlelies of feeling, the instinct of love told him that he was the witness of a battle. His immediate joy in having won her love was less intense for the moment than hers had been, for it was not yet assured. She was living her life, crowding it all into one overflowing instant, while he was trying to read the battle through her eyes. I want you as you are," he said," and what- ever you are. It is because you think yourself that thing that I will not have you say no." Don't drive me quite mad, Evan I love you so much that I will not be your wife—not even your friend." I want to save you, my poor girl!" he said, doubtful still of an answer that should have been more than enough to satisfy any man. My wife will have plenty to do and to think about besides such fancies. You are a great deal wiser than me, but be sure you are not wise to think you can hurt me by being good to me." You think so ?" she asked mournfully, as if to say "I wish I were really no wiser than you." If I oould only believe half you say But it is all too good for me to dare believe. Everybody cannot be wrong. Surely you do not think I would not be happy if I could ? And I am happy! Nothing can take to-night away from me, even if I live for ever." But I—am I to be unhappy to-night, Rachel, and every night and day till I die ?" No—yes—no—Good night, dear Evan: Good- bye." What could he do but take his dismissal and go ? Don't hate me, Evan, all the same!" she whispered as she opened the door. I am so un- happy said she who had called herself happy but a moment ago. He felt her eyes, hungry for the love she was refusing, full upon him—and there was yet one thing left to do, nay, that must be done. He drew her close to him till he felt her heart beat against his own. If you were the blackest witch that was ever born I would love you for ever!" he burst out passionately. "I will never give you up—you love me, and I love you. You are my wife now-" The woman proved stronger than the witch at last; she had tried to be strong, but Love had his way. She could not answer him in words, but even he was content with silence—it was a fuller and deeper promise than if she had said yes at the first word. Forgetful of all the rubbish in Caer Groes he left her at last without waiting for Matthew Dunn. She watched him out of sight, and then—what had happened ? Was it she or the whole world that was changed ? Had she suffered herself to destroy his soul, or had she enabled him to save hers ? The house had grown too small to hold her the air of the open hills was but just wide enough to breathe. She never at any time took into account her father's uncertain comings and goings, and she was not in a mood to heed such trifles as the hours that had flown by since he had left her with Evan. With Gelart unnoticed at her heels, she left the house and the fir-trees and wandered at random without knowing where. The moon had now risen, and its wild white light upon the mountain side suited the dream light within her. On she went, higher and higher, farther and farther, finding in the biting winter wind only a refreshing draught, until a faint sheep-track that she had instinctively followed led her to a slope of turf that quivered under her feet—but even that was solid ground to one who trod upon air. Then the course of a deep, narrow mountain torrent led her farther still; and I know not in what untrodden tract she might have lost herself had slje not sud- denly heard these words— Ho, ho, ho! What a fool's nest Caer Groes is, to be sure Was it only a freak of her excited fancy, or did she really hear these meaningless words in such a spot and in such an hour ? If so, it could only be a madman that was amusing himself with laughter at midnight where none had need to come even by day. The voice seemed to come from behind a rock in front of her, and she crept under its shadow, half to listen, and half to hide. It was another voice that answered. A goose. nest-and we've cooked the birds pretty brown this time. You're wrong though if you think the job was easy. That fellow Roberts is a meddlesome sneak and a preaching spy, but he's no fool." "You may say that—I remember how he ducked you and then thrashed you dry—ha, ha, ha!" He thrashed me ? I thrashed him, you mean —at least I should have, with one hand, too, if it hadn't been on a Sunday, when a fellow's legs aren't as steady as they might be—if it had been the middle of the week, he'd have had something else to brag of. Any way, I'm even with him now." It Was a sliave, though! One more blast in that number five of theirs would have opened the eyes of the Caer Groes people pretty wide." And so we made the one more blast in our own way-first come, first served. And as there's no more lead in that hole, things are safe for a long spell to come." b "They were near committing burglary on their own ground-ha. ha, ha "You should have heard the preaching stuff that went on between Evan Roberts and Griffith Owen—it would have made you split your sides. One of them talked of hearing ghosts in the mine, and the other told him there were no such things." They'd be astonished a. bit, if they knew what sort of ghosts were about, and what they found there. It might pay to work the ghost game—I'll rattle a few chains the next time I go down. Didn't you shake in your shoes, though, when you heard the borers going in number five ?" I P-N ot I. I was laughing too much——" You laugh a great deal too much," said a third voice. You've proved yourself that stone walls have ears." Not ours—and we have no walls here-" Hulloa what's that," exclaimed the third man suddenly. "A dog!—and hark! There isn't a bush behind that rock to rustle in the wind." That ill-starred Gelart again Rachel trembled from head to foot; but the strange discovery she had made had paralysed her even more than the fear of discovery by this band of thieves. Gelart had betrayed her. In another moment she was seized by the arms from behind and led roughly from her hiding-place. Before her stood a long wooden cow-shed, such as is often seen in less deserted parts of the hills. Below her, deep in the torrent, she heard the well known splash of an invisible water-wheel. And round her stood three or four strange men in the working clothes of miners. Her heart beat—but even now it was more with indignation than fear. But they regarded her so silently that it was as ifsthey, and not she, were afraid. The man who had seized her still held one of her arms in a painful grasp but it Was long before the third voice said— A spy from Caer Groes They're sharper than we thought for." They whispered together and then the same man spoke again. What have you heard ? Out with it; every word." What have I heard she began, recovering all the presence of mind that was needful to scare the robbers and to prove Evan's story true. "I have heard everything—you have secret works here. and are robbing Caer Groes of gold." That's what you've heard, is it ? Turn to the moon, then, a.nd let us see who you are." I am the Black Witch of Llanfawr she said, drawing herself up, and for the first time trying to make use of her reputed terrors. And I mean to see the right done." But her boast was received with a general smile. Dunn's daughter, that is ?" said the man who was questioning her. Yes-Matthew Dunn's daughter; the daughter of Evan Roberts's friend. I shall tell my father, and he will know how to deal with you." More whispering went round—this time as if there was a difference of opinion among her captors. "And If Matthew Dunn chooses to let well alone ?" Do you know him so little? This is what he has been trying to find out. all day, and when he wills a thing it is done. But if he did nothing," she went on, presuming on their panic and her own imaginary powers, "and if you will not do right yourselves, the people at Caer Groes shall know all I have heard—and more." And quite right of you to stand up for your sweetheart—and thank you for a fair warning, it saves a good deal of trouble, and-wel1, there's but one way to treat a woman that knows too much, and whose sweetheart's the very man one doesn't want her to chatter to. It's no manner of use getting her to make promise pie; in goes her fellow's knife and out the cat's meat comes. So a fancy's struck me and my mates here of how to lock. the lid of your chatter-box without a soul being the wiser—not even Dunn for we're not going to noose our necks hecause he's got woman- kind. If I was fool enough to keep a wife, and she was standing in your shoes, I'd just whijtte and turn my back, and if I never saw her again, I'd never ask why she'd gone nor where she'd gone to." What do you mean ?" she asked, faintly, while a cold chill came over her. Hang it, mates, let's have it over. Where's the Captain ?" Far enough under Caer Groes by now." And the shaft's clear, I know." Before she could move or scream, one of the men threw a large piece of sacking over her head, and her feet were lifted from the ground by one strong pair of hands while her shoulders were grasped by another. There was no need to ask what she had to do with the shaft being clear. Why had they not stunned her or stabbed her at once without a word? Already, in thought, she was whirling down a. black abyss, striking from side to side against the jagged rocks, and yet not losing consciousness till she struck against the unknown depth below. And yet, even in that hideous instant, she felt that, in truth, she was receiving the most benign of mercies. She had" lived and loved as fully as love or life could ever be given, to her, and death had come, like a friend, to save her from future remorse and Evan from her. Had he come before love, he would have come too soon he would have come too late had she destroyed Evan's life by blending it with her own. Could she only have left one parting word behind, she would have been content to die—glad, even, were it not for the horrible form in which death came. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" ran through her last thought, and—in spirit—became transformed into a prayer. Suddenly her bearers stopped, and she closed her eyes. Already, in anticipation of one moment more, she imagined herself held over the brink of a black pit, when another deep voice startled her ears. Hulloa, mates!—What sort of a sack have you got there ?" Only one man in the world had a voice so deep and full. She tried to cry out through the sack- cloth veil, but her mouth was closed by a heavy hand. "A woman?—You idiots, to bring a woman here—a magpie—and to think a bit of sack could hide such baggage from me! I'll have discipline here. Why, if it my own flesh and blood, down she should go into gossip's hole—dead women tell no tales, they say—not that I'd trust them, dead or alive." "And that's where she was going," said the men's spokesman—"into gossip's hole." And who dares take the law into liia own hands without my orders? Set her on her feet and let me see her—Rachel!" (To be continued.)

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