He turned and faced her. There was something in his look and manner that warned Sir Arthur; but Bee saw nothing, saving that by a desperate effort he might be delivered from temptation. "Bertie, will you come home with me?" she said. "We are going to the theatre to-night, and we dine earlier." "Curse you," he said, speaking in a thick, sullen voice, and keeping his hand on his friend's arm; always following and listening, and sneaking after me. I'm not a child, I tell you, to be chidden at your pleasure, and so you shall learn. I shall come home when I please." "Hush!" said the young man, who had stood, wondering and shocked. "I shall not hush," said Bertie, turning fiercely upon him; "I shall go where I like, and say what I like, and if any one meddles with me, they do it at their peril." He pushed through the door, that swung to behind him, and the young man stood, for a minute, looking down on a woman's face, in which a tragedy was written; but, before he had time to speak, Sir Arthur had drawn her on, and the darkness had swallowed them up. Inside the club there was light, and warmth, and a group of young men standing about the fireplace. Bertie was still half mad with anger, with a dull consciousness of being in leading strings, and a dull desire to act for himself, and show Beatrice her place once for all. He was not quite sober when he went in, and he was still less sober three hours later, when he stood in the hall, buttoning up his overcoat, preparatory to turning out into the bitter night. He was in a fractious, contradictory humour, taking offence at every chance word, passionately resenting the laughter he provoked. Several of his friends were standing about him-some contemptuous, some amused; but to one young man, as he stood watching him, there flashed back across his memory a woman's tragic face and despairing voice. Some instinct, too subtle for analysis, made Mr. Merton push his way to Bertie's side and touch him gently on the arm. "I go your way, I think," he said; "we can go together." He Bertie stared at him stupidly for a second, stopped in his incoherent anger, then he burst out into furious invective. "I won't be dogged leave me alone, I say I'm as sober as you like this," he cried fiercely, "it's all her doing are"; and he shook his well-meaning companion rudely off, and rushed into the street. caught a glimpse of his sister's expectant face in her dire anxiety she had returned to the Club accompanied by Sir Arthur, feeling, instinctively, that the crisis of his fate was involved in his proceedings this evening. With an oath he passed her, and, uttering a low wail, she fell insensible into Sir Arthur's arms. Bertie stumbled on perfectly reckless, jostling almost everybody he met. "Holloa! there, ye land-shark!" said a tipsy sailor, and the next moment Bertie was stretched on the flags. With the blind fury of a mad bull he started to his feet and dealt the sailor a blow upon the head. It was the work of a moment, but it was a fatal moment. The blow fell upon the poor fellow's temples, and he dropped lifeless. Bertie still rushed on, but presently a hand was laid upon his shoulder with a strong grasp, and the words, "You are wanted, you must come back," sounded in his ears. "Wanted!" said Bertie, looking with his dull eyes into the policeman's face, "what am I wanted for?" "He's dead, you see," said the man, pointing back at the dark group standing in the light of the street lamp. "Murder's an ugly word, but it's the word I heard yonder." CHAPTER IX. So this was the end! The end of all the love and care and tenderness of his sheltered childhood-the end of the hopes and ambitions of his youth-the end of his mother's passionate prayers-and Bee's unwavering faith. A felon's dock, in this crowded court house! Where was the fault? Where was the first false step that had ruined so fair a life? That none could tell now-not his mother, sitting, brokenhearted, in her dark room, with the blinds down and her trembling hands locked together, over the Bible on her knee-not this crowd of curious careless acquaintances, who came, partly because they had known him once-partly because it helped to pass an eventless day-not even the fair, still woman, who sat, hour after hour, facing, unconsciously, those condemning faces-sat just where the prisoner, if he should chance to raise his eyes, could see her's shining steadily across that troubled crowd, could see her lifted head, and the undying love she never tried to hide. People were sorry for her; they would have patronised her in their way, for there is a certain prestige in the loneliness of a great sorrow, but she seemed to hear or heed no one-she seemed dead to everything but the fallen man, who stood in his abasement the mark for the contumely and scorn of all the crowded court. Hope! could hope grow even here, in this polluted atmosphere, with the prison breath upon every living thing? Can hope indeed spring eternal in every woman's heart? Then it was hope that made Beatrice De Visme look so bravely in her unconsciousness at that bowed head, ready with her smile, that was sadder than other women's tears, to meet his eyes, should he lift them for a moment. "It was a madness," she inwardly commented. "I have watched him and loved him; surely I ought to know he slipped back so often; but, God knows, he was trying to be better; he was better, stronger, in every way-whatever happens, I am sure of that. O God, be merciful to us, for there is no help for us on earth. I will not let him go. I have fought for his soul; I have sacrificed my life for his; if he would look up once, he would know that I trust him." But the slow hours of the trial wore on, and he never looked up. Across his face there came no ray of hope-no look that was not despair, sullen, indifferent; dulled by vice no longer, his sin stood out vividly against a background of lost opportunities. His life if life were his would be a gift more terrible than death. He felt sometimes as if from his parched throat a cry must be wrung at last from the extremity of his misery; and they this wondering sea of faces-would look at him curiously, and turn shuddering awaywould think perhaps that he dreaded death, and not the ceaseless torment of his hopeless soul. All his nearest friends seemed to have died away into a remote distance. If he thought of his mother and Bee at all, it was as units in this condemning crowd who seemed to hem him in on every side. People called him cold and callous, because he evinced no restlessness or anxiety-but hour after hour the voices spoke before him, and he did not hear them. did not listen, he seemed wrapt away in a lonely world, where he had almost ceased to suffer; the voices droned on, and he wished it was over, and he could get away somewhere alone, before he went mad. He Towards the close of the day which had been warm and sunny, there was a stir and flutter in the Court, because the trial was nearly over, and the verdict would soon be given. Bertie was dimly conscious of a streak of sunlight falling and flickering on to the dusty robes of the men clustering together in a noisy group. He remembered a garden somewhere, with spring flowers and roses glittering with dew, and a slim figure, with a proud erect head, coming down between the lilies. It seemed to him such a pleasant memory that a smile came unconsciously to his lips, and he thought of it again. He forced himself to think of it, until he became aware that all the talking had ceased, and there was silence in the Court. After a long silence-there was a slight bustle and then another silence-and after that a voice that cut its way into his dull brain, and struck him like a blow. "Have you decided on your verdict?" "Yes!" "Are you all agreed ?" "Yes!" "Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty of murder?" "Not guilty!" There was a breath and a shiver through the hot little court house -a sigh of relief. It had been an excitement, and, in some way, a pleasure to hear a man tried for murder, who had been amongst them in such pleasant places on far away half-forgotten days-but to be convicted, that would have been too horrible. The Judge was leaning forward speaking to the prisoner in a clear, stern voice. "Robert De Visme, you have stood here charged with a crime such as I cannot even name to you without a shudder, and you have been acquitted. As your father's son, you have been known and honoured amongst us, and I thank God that he did not live to see you where you stand now. In law you are guiltless-absolutely and entirely innocent of this crime with which you have been charged-the most perverted judgment could not deem it otherwise, but, to your own conscience, you are guilty, with a guilt that only penitence and patience can wash a stain upon with away; your soul to which this outward stain is nothing. If I speak harshly, I would not speak hopelessly, there is a hope to which patience and penitence can reach. God grant you find it. You are quite free-you can go." "Free!" he raised his head like a wounded animal, with a look that fell on them like a spoken hush. From one to the other he turned his haggard face, and restless eyes—the sunlight fell upon him and showed how dim they were, how dim the gold of his crisp curls. It was a terrible look, and no one dared to meet it—it is so sad a thing to stand face to face with despair. They moved and turned for cloaks, and umbrellas-while still his eyes read each averted face. Then they were lifted at last! lifted as if by some mesmeric power, to a slight figure standing in the dull back ground of the crowded seats. She was leaning forward, with her hands pressed upon the crimson cushion that lay along the little parapet. Her black dress gave startling brilliancy to her pale, sweet face, and the soft brown of her hair. Her head was lifted; her eyes turned full upon him; her heart had touched his heart across that gaping space. His look, as it met hers, changed and brightened; a soft colour came to his sunken cheeks, and gave him back for a minute his lost youth. The policeman flung back the wooden door, and stood aside for him to he was quite free! pass Someone else had been watching Bee-had sat in the background day by day with eyes intent upon her brave face. He saw her rise now-he heard the soft rustle of her trailing skirts as she walked between the staring crowds, who made a path for her in wondering silence. He heard a rough laugh, and a coarse sneer hushed by a dozen whispers "One of the swells, is it? his keeper, as it seems." Her brother's keeper! What grander title could this world give her, though it gave it with a sneer. She stood beside the dock and held out her hand, with that unfaltering smile that knew no doubt and no fear. He moved across to meet her, but he would not touch her hand. And side by side they walked silently together, out into the glory of spring sunshine, that lay like a new world before his dull and dazzled eyes. After the night of his public shame, recorded in our tale, Bertie De Visme exiled himself from his native land. No persuasion of his sister or Sir Arthur could induce him to remain. "No, no," he said, "I must expiate my guilt in a land where my own conscience and God alone are witnesses of my shame." And if devotion to the paths of honour, works of benevolence, and thorough repentance can expiate guilt, his was expiated. His first act was to request his sister to make the widowed parent of the young sailor, whom he had accidentally killed in his madness, every reparation possible for her terrible loss, and she had done SO. She was brought as lodge-keeper to Sir Arthur's country residence-for, need it be said, Sir Arthur married his beloved Beatrice. Bertie, after long years of voluntary exile, returned to pass the remainder of his days with his sister, and it is in speech with his aged mother that we again hear his voice. "I have suffered, dear mother, and I do suffer still; and God knows my suffering. But He is merciful-" "And He, having forgiven you, my dear son, shall your mother not forgive?" And she clasped him to her aged heart, murmuring in her gladness-"My son ! my son!" THE END. REMINISCENCES OF JAMAICA: TWENTY YEARS AGO. BY A BOOK-KEEPER. HE estate whereon I was located was a very fine one, beautifully situated, and with more flat land about it than is to be seen on any other part of the Island. It was also a very large one, and worked with all the modern improvements of steam engine and horizontal mill. CULTIVATING THE SUGAR-CANE. There are two methods of cultivating the cane, one is called "planting," and the other "ratooning," and either is adopted according to the nature and capabilities of the soil. Ă planting estate is one where the land is wet and clayey, necessitating the planting of new cane roots every two or three years as the old ones rot. On a ratooning estate where the ground is dry and sandy, new roots are seldom ever put in, the original ones yielding crop after crop for 15, 20, and even 30 years, of course with the help of careful manuring, &c. The canes take twelve months to attain their full growth and ripen, and when young require the most assiduous care in keeping free from weeds, which in Jamaica truly "grow a-pace." When fully grown and about to ripen, the cane throws out a most beautiful arrow, which reaches a height of three or four feet above it (itself six or seven feet high). This arrow is clothed all round with a fine, soft, long down of a purple colour, and to see a whole field when just arrowed, waving about in the sunshine, the bright yellow of the cane-leaf blending admirably with the more sober purple of the arrow, is truly a lovely sight, which although to the mind of an Englishman, does not equal in splendour the golden corn of his own country, yet is very little, if at all, inferior in beauty. HOW SUGAR IS MANUFACTURED. When ripe the cane is cut as close as possible to the root (women being almost exclusively employed in this branch of labour) and carted to the mill, where, after undergoing the requisite amount of squeezing to extract every possible drop of juice from it, the trash or husk remaining is spread in the sun to dry, and is afterwards consumed as fuel in boiling the liquor, any surplus there may be going to the cattle pens to make manure. The juice is next conveyed to the boiling house, where it passes through various stages of boiling until it attains to the state of sugar, when it is ladled out into large shallow coolers, where, as it cools, it hardens. It is next potted into hogsheads or tierces, having five or six half-inch holes in the bottoms through which the molasses drain out, and in the course of two or three days leaves the sugar perfectly dry and granulated, and fit he was not suffocated, as the liquor was for shipment. THE MULE MILL. Most of the plantations now-a-days are possessed of first-rate mechanical appliances for grinding the canes, but there still remain some that are carried on by the old system of mule mills, or "cow, cow," as the negroes term it, from the fact, I suppose, of cattle often being employed to do the work when the mules get "knocked-up.' A mule mill is just like a thrashing machine, only on a larger scale. Some of these mills have eight or twelve wooden arms projecting from a perpendicular beam in the centre, which turns the rollers in which the canes are pressed, by means of pinion wheels attached to both. To each of these arms are yoked two mules, and on each is fixed a small seat for the driver. There is no mistaking the fact when in the vicinity of a mule mill estate, or even a mile or two off, owing to vociferous singing, or yelling, and the incessant cracking of their long bark whips, which means are resorted to by the boys to cheer and urge the poor jaded mules on their tiresome and monotonous round, and which can be likened to nothing else than the whooping of a set of Red Indians, or the jubilant though infernal rejoicings one might expect to hear from such a meeting as the unlucky Tam O'Shanter witnessed in Alloway Kirk. HOW RUM IS MANUFACTURED. As the liquor is boiling, all the dirt and water which rises to the top, is skimmed off and sent to the still house, where it is mixed with the molasses (also sent to the still house) and left to ferment. When quite dead, that is when all fermentation has ceased, it is pumped into the still and thence reappears in the shape of rum. I have heard brewers recommend their friends never to drink porter, as they assert that anything can be put into it, in fact all the dirt and refuse that accumulates in the place; but I am sure that anyone with a sensitive stomach who had seen two or three cisterns of liquor set up to ferment, might well be excused for forswearing rum ever after. Dead rats, cockroaches, scorpions, and even snakes at times, are to be seen floating about in it, and the lazy stillermen are by no means particular as to the contributions they add to this delightful mixture. I recollect one night, while standing over a cistern gauging it, an oil lamp which I had in my hand fell in, and immediately sank to the bottom. One of the men, who had just come from the pump, reeking with perspiration, immediately doffed his trousers, (all he had on at the time) jumped in, and before I had recovered from my surprise reappeared with the lamp. I wonder fermenting very strongly at the time. I know I made my mind up not to drink any of the rum distilled from that cistern. At first I was really disgusted with what I saw in the still house, but soon got accustomed to it, when I found that it was the usual thing, and by some was even considered to improve the flavour of the rum. Certain it is that on some estates where a peculiarly flavoured rum is made to suit the German market, not a still is ever run without the retort being first lined with yellow clay, which imparts a strong earthy taste to the spirit. I used to pity the depraved taste of the "Meinheers," and regret the spoiling of a good still of rum, but was obliged to conform to established rules. Notwithstanding all this, good old rum is not to be despised, or sneezed at, and every book-keeper who is not a teetotaller (a very rare phenomenon in Jamaica, by the way) keeps his little private cask, with the consumption of which no disagreeable recollections of its unclean extraction ever interfere. DUTIES OF A BOOK-KEEPER. It must not be supposed that because bookkeepers are so named, they have anything to do with books; quite the contrary, the weekly pay list being the only book they are required to keep; in fact by far the more appropriate appellation is that which Burns applied to them, viz., negro drivers." Out of crop time a book-keeper has not a bad time of it. After dinner, during that season, his time is his own, except that he cannot leave the estate, and then it is that his thoughts wander back to the land he has left; then it is that home, with its many comforts (never appreciated till lost), its social evenings, and its bright fireside, encircled with the merry laughing faces of brothers, sisters, friends, fills his imagination with the faultless precision and detail of a keen and longing memory, and makes his heart swell almost to bursting at the contrast which his present position offers to these precious recollections. There is no society for the book-keeper, no way of spending his evenings compatible with his tastes and custom, and this I consider to be one of the greatest evils of the life, as it frequently leads to dissipation and a descent to a sphere of society which can do nothing but harm. Man is eminently a social being, and if he cannot get one sort of company, depend upon it, in nine cases out of ten, he will seek for and (alas, how easily!) find another. If of a studious turn he may read, but even to the most "bookish" it gets wearisome and unwholesome if practised every evening of his life, and although there are in general two bookkeepers on every estate, they are sure to tire of each other's company very soon from being thrown too much together, even granting that they possessed congenial dispositions and tastes. During crop time, when the manufacture of sugar and rum is in full swing, the book-keeper has indeed a hard and tiresome life of it, being obliged to be in the still house or boiling house, as the case may be, from Monday morning at day-break until late on Saturday night, only obtaining the relief of getting all his clothes off, and tumbling into bed two nights out of the seven. Of course, all this time the poor fellow is expected to be wide awake, and never to go to sleep at all during the night, as the boiling and distilling goes on without intermission; and it certainly would be to the advantage of the estate if he could do so, as the niggers are incorrigible thieves, and will steal the rum and liquor wholesale whenever a chance offers. But, unfortunately for the pockets of the proprietors, human endurance is limited, though the spirit may be willing, the flesh is undoubtedly weak, and it is beyond the power of the most conscientious distiller to keep awake after the first two or three nights of the week. When thoroughly tired out with watching and keeping awake, he perhaps lies down on his hard wooden bench, with a heap of old books for his pillow (under which he takes the precaution to place the bung-starter, so that no one can have access to the puncheons), and, if he be allowed peace, sleeps as soundly as he would on the most delicious feather bed -fatigue being an excellent soporific, and the steam arising from the boiling liquor and hot rum or low wines effectually keeping the mosquito at bay. But, alas! he seldom, if ever, gets that quiet which is so necessary to repose. Just as he has had a few minutes deep slumber, and his dreams are conducting him in imagination to far different and pleasanter scenes, a rough shaking and a harsh voice, exclaiming: "Massa! keeper! get up, sa; till (still) da come down!" dispels the priceless boon of sleep, and awakens him to the bitter consciousness of his true position, and the necessity of his immediately going to the canpit, where he has to prove the rum that is coming in from a fresh still, and turn it off to the low wine cask when it looses the requisite strength that constitutes it proof spirit. When the still has ceased to flow of a strength sufficient to tempt the men to steal it, down he goes upon his bench again, fondly hoping this time to be undisturbed. Alas! how vain the hope; a cistern wants pumping up in readiness to be run into the still as soon as the one now running is finished, and it can't be done without singing. Singing, do I say? May the Muses forgive me for desecrating the name. I cannot attempt to describe the sound as it is bellowed forth from the capacious mouths of the niggers, in accents stento rian enough to bring the roof down, and amply sufficient to make sleep a thing devoutly to be wished for, but by no means to be obtained. So it goes on all through the night; a dozen interruptions, which time and space will not permit of my enumerating, occur, and contrive to render what little sleep he does get so broken and unrefreshing that no benefit whatever is derived from it. Truly it is a hard life; and what renders it more so is the want of active employment in the still house or boiling house. The most particular part of his duties is to watch that the niggers don't steal; all the work is done for him, and sometimes it gets so monotonous and tiresome as to be well nigh unbearable, and when combined with the want of sleep makes him positively wretched. Bookkeepers' salaries are very slender, £35 to £40 per annum being the highest given. To be sure, he is found in food (such as it is) and house room, and is allowed to keep a horse on the estate's grass, but even then the pay is miserably inadequate. He cannot do without a horse, and is obliged to keep a boy to attend to it, whom he has to pay out of his own pocket; shoeing also, and all the little etceteras attendant upon possessing a horse he has to pay for himself, the estate allowing nothing but the bare feeding. Then his rooms, or barracks, as they are called, are very oftenin fact oftener than not-such miserable hovels, with rotten floors, and roofs through which astronomy can be studied with ease, and the rain pours in uncomfortable quantities, that I am sure, no respectable farmer in England would think of quartering a horse or cow in them, so that taken altogether it is not such a tempting life nor such an "el dorado" as was at one time thought. UNWELCOME VISITORS. The first part of the night in the West Indies, after the land breeze has subsided, and before the sea breeze rises, is excessively hot and close, the effect of which, combined with the pertinacious assaults of those indefatigable and remorseless little enemies of mankind, mosquitoes, makes sleep an utter impossibility. In vain he smokes himself well nigh sick, burns brown paper, and has recourse to every conceivable method of dislodging the mosquitoes, which he knows to be lying hid in his room, and only awaiting his going to bed to commence hostilities. After lighting a cigar, he lies down, blows out his candle, and puffs away vigorously, hoping that, by the time the weed is done, not a mosquito will be left alive. After a while he tries to go to sleep, and, "perhaps, he partly succeeds. His cheroot gradually goes out, and finally drops from his mouth he is on the point of falling off into a delicious nap, when |