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Show even Years By Clarence Cardeiv T had been eleven long 4 jm 0 years since Jock bad Tm started off at 9 to his JW Bog flr6t school, to be fol-fln fol-fln BOW lowed b Eton and JH rTf Sandhurst a pass- Vf IkL age of uneventful J JQ years punctuated up p at Glendochle by the anticipation and real ization of the boy's holidavs. Katherire had married, true, but Katherltie dearly loved daughter as she was, was only a girl, and Sandy poor little weakling Sandy had lain in the old kirkyard for the last seven years and had become a pitiful and tender memory. mem-ory. And Sandy, the younger boy, had ever been ailing. It was Jock who really counted "the boy ' as they fondly termed him He was a dear boy. too weak, if one was to trust that tell-tale mouih and chin, but charming , utterh charming, and cv-i cv-i eryone's friend. Only his mother caught her breath sometimes in a sigh t that w-as an unuttered prayer as she l looked from her boy to one of the portraHs that hung on the dinlng-? dinlng-? room walls at Glendochle It repre- I sented the laird of two generations ago, with the same pleasant, smiling I blue eyes and undecided, weak mouth, j who. when he had died at The Hague, a ruined gambler, unable to set foot in his own country, no one had said anything any-thing worse of him than 'Toor Dun- can, ho was his own enemy!" There 1 lay the inherent curse of the Mathe-son Mathe-son family, their fatal love of gambling. gam-bling. From father to son It had been ' handed dow n to a lesser or gTeater degree de-gree a passion for cards that amount-! amount-! ed to a disease In the present I household they were anathema. The ' laird had never touched one himself, 1 and had extorted a perhaps unwise promise from his boys to do the same To poor little Sandy it had proved only , too ea9y of keeping; but Jock, giving I his word lightly, but with every in-I in-I tention of keeping if, found it lmpossi-J lmpossi-J ble at Eton, more difficult at Sandhurst Sand-hurst and the friends' houses where he : began to stay, and altogether out of the question so it seemed to the boy I in the lancer regiment in which he , found himself at 20. Bridge was played play-ed for high stakes, and the boy had no lack of money. Refusal to play would have been accounted mere meanneBB, or so he argued, with the blood in his veins, running hotly and i the family curse upon his young shoul- I ders. And so he played played and I won for the first three months then luck turned and he could not touch a I winning card. Presently the boy i j found himself In some straits To I write home for money to pay his card I debts w as impossible, even to his in-, in-, dulgent mother. He played once ; again, staked high, and lost In a mo- ment of mad excitement, replying to I w hat seemed like a taunt on the non-I non-I redemption of his I. O U 's the boy lifted lift-ed his hand. The blow was given to a superior officer, aud in the heat of his young passion the boy said things for which he w as hardly to be held responsible. re-sponsible. There was only the invlta-ble invlta-ble to follow an Interview with his colonel (a personal friend of the laird's t. and presently there would be a subaltern less in a lancer regiment. But fate stepped in with a telegram The boy. standing half-defiant, half-sullen, half-sullen, before his superior officer, was told to open it. "Come at once. Your mother dangerously dan-gerously ill " He was told to go immediately, and, if needs be say nothing at present of what had happened at Aldershot. The colonel saw him go with a sigh of re lief, as one respited from a painful task. The boy missed the night mall from Euston, and only sped northwards north-wards in the early houra of the next morning. He did not allow himself to think much as yet. There was only one idea in his mind to see his mother moth-er again. And after that nothing mattered, mat-tered, or was, at least, mercifully hazy and dim. Inverness presently, and another change. The little well known station at last, but, to the boy's surprise, nothing noth-ing there to meet him. He would walk on the five miles rather than wait for the slow-moving "machine" that the station master would get ready "In a Yvee w hile." He would, of course, meet the carriage soon He set out over the, hills praying he who had prayed little lit-tle of late that he might be in time. He was nearing Glendochle now. Still the carriage did not meet him. He realized that it must have taken the longer and better road The short October Oc-tober evening was draYYing in, but it would be light for quite a while yet on the top of the hills Another turn, and ho would see the white turrets of old Glendochle among the treeB. Every Ev-ery stick and stone he passed held its memories for bim. In the burn here he and Katherlne used to fish for speckled trout Katherine who had a tiny Jock of her own now. He would grow up presently to know what his uncle had done. And here Jock re- I membered so well carrying Sandy over tho wet steppingstones poor Sandy, J who had always been so helpleBS. The boy had been used to think of his little lit-tle dead brother with a sort of pitying regret. It wa6 awfully hard on Sandy dying before he had had any fun out of life. But now now wa6 Sandy, lying ly-ing in his passionless sleep in the kirkyard. the one to be pitied Did life hold much future good for him, the boy who had broken his promise . and would have to leave the regiment? His hand, slipped unconsciously uncon-sciously into his coat pocket, came In contact Yvith something cold and hard. Jock remembered, to his surprise, that he had snatched up in his hurry of departure the first coat his servant had offered. When he had last Yvorn it he had been practicing Yvith a revolver, revol-ver, a new toy, with a brother officer. His fingers closed over It now. The boy drew In a quick deep breath. "When the boy comes home." The words were again on the lips of the household at Glendochle. Yvith a wnsh that was an tin breathed prayer. 1 There was small hope that he would be in time now. Katherine, bending her fair young head down to the pillow, pil-low, caught the whispered words, "Tell him his mother knew , . . and understood . . ." But Katherine Kath-erine understood nothing The boy could see Glendochie now from the top of the bill. He scanned the windows, eagerly watching for the dreaded sign, then breathed again more freely. Yes, he was in time. From behind the house the sun shot its red dying rays on to the still pool in front In which Jock and Sandy had once fallen, to be rescued only to receive a severe whipping from a frightened as well as angry father. To Sandy, tho shorn lamb, the flogging had been mercifully tempered; but Jock could remember it to this day. He had always al-ways feared his father, not realizing the latent kindness beneath a dour Scotch exterior. No, he would neY'er ' have come home now, except for his mother. He gazed down at Glendochle Glen-dochle as he descended the hill. Surely it was very early to shut up and draw down the blinds as they were doing now upstairs and downstairs, down-stairs, too? The boy looked . . and understood. His hand went Into his pocket again. He started violently. violent-ly. Of course, it was his imagination; but be fancied he had heard his name softlv spoken by his side: "Jock!" He went down as far as the edge of the pool, then he leant oTer. There was a splash, and something cold and hard sank to the bottom. The boy looked at Glendochie again. He could not face his father tonight. , . m It would be better to go back . . , and see the colonel, and then, if possl ble. come home. He only glanced at the old white house once more, then he walked slowly up the hill again In the direction of the station. The mist was coming down In great white folds now. It was not until two days later they-found they-found him. He must have missed his footing and fallen orer the steep hillside hill-side In the mist. The river ran jusc below. They bore the boy gently homo and laid him beside his mother The colonel when he heard of the accident, behaY'ed bo thought some of the mess in an unaccountable manner. Of course, they were mistaken; but the words that fell from his lips had sounded like "Thank God!" |
