1921-12-17 — Page 7

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1921.

A CHRISTMAS STORY

"THE BATTLE OF LIFE."

PART THE FIRST.

Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, if when, a little where, a fierce battle

was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking drop. ped. Many an insect deriving its delicate colour from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that

themselves, obliterated, in the lapse of time, even these remains of the old conflict and wore away such legendary Iracen of it as the neighbouring people carried in their minds, until they dwindled into old wives tales, dimly remembered round the winter fire, and waning every year. Where the wild flowers and berries had so long remained upon the stem untouched, gardens arose, and houses were built, and children played at battles on the turf. The wounded, trees had long ago made

THE CHINA MAIL

might be infinitely more agree. Music and dancing to day!" said able company than we are.said the doctor, stopping short, and It was charming to see how these speaking to himself" "I thought they girle danced. They had no spectators dreaded to day. But it's a world of but the apple pickers on the ladders. contradictions. Why Grace, why, They were very glad to please them, Marion !" he added aloud, is the but they danced to please themselves world more mad than usual this tnor (or at least you would have supposed ning ?" [ro); and you could no more, help admiring, than they could help dancing. How they did dance! :-

Not like opera-dangers. Not at all, And not like Madame Anybody's

| Make some allowance for it, father if it be replied his younger daughter, Marion, going close to him, somebody's birthday." and looking into his face, "for it's

Somebody's birthday, puss," re-

you never hear how many new per formers enter on this hal ha! hal it's impossible to speak gravely of it on this preposterous and ridiculous business called life, every minute? ".

"No, father!"

"No, not you, of course; you're a

woman almost," said the doctor. "By the bye,, and he looked into the pretty face, still close to bis, "I suppose It's Your birthday." his per daughter, pursing up her red "No! Do you really, father?" cried

day by dying men, and marked its / Sabbath bells rang peacefully; old been for a moment reanimated in the in the sunlit scene, like an expanding lips to be kissed.

frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red. The trodden ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of human feet and horses' hoofs, the one prevailing hue

still lowered and glimmered at the

sun.

Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon beheld upon that field, when, coming up above the black line of distant rising ground, softened and blurred at the edge by trees, she rose into the sky and looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces that had once at mothers' breasts sought mothers eyes, or slumbered happily. Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the secrets whispered afterwards upon the tainted wind that blew across the scene of that day's work and that night's death and suffering Many a lonely moon was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept mournful watch upon it. and many a wind from every quarter of the earth blew over it, before the traces of the fight were worn away,

They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in little things; for Nature, far above the evil passions of men, soon recovered her serenity, and smiled upon the guilty battle- ground as she had done before, when it was innocent. The larks sang high above it; the swallows skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro; the shadows of the flying clouds pursued each other swiftly,

circle in the

I.

able," said Grace good-humouredly; for a moment, that there could be and pausing for a moment to admire anything serius in such bubbles, and the pretty head she decorated, with were always undeceived-always l' her own thrown back; and Marion But the home adoring, self-denying being in high spirits, and beginning qualities of Grace, and her sweet ro dance, I joined her. And so we temper, so gentle, and retiring, yet in danced to Alfred's music till we were cluding so much constancy and. out of breath.And we thought the bravery of spirit, seemed all express- music all the gayer for being sent by Alfred. Didn't we, dear Marion ?"

"Oh, I don't know, Grace. How you tease me zbout Alfred."

Tease you by mentioning your lover?" said her sister.

"I am sure I don't much care to

beauty, stripping the petals from some flowers she held, and scattering them on the ground, "I am almost tired of hearing of him; and as to his being my lover??

"Hush! Don't speak lightly of a true heart, which is all your own, Marion." cried her sister, "even in jest. There is not a truer heart than Alfred's in the world!"

"No-no," said Marion, raising her careless consideration, "perhaps nut. eyebrows with a pleasant air of

ed to him in the contrast between her quiet household, figure and: that of his younger and more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her aske sorry for them both-that life should be such a very ridiculous business as it was.

quiring whether his children, or either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one. But then he was a philosopher,

A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance. over that common philosopher's store (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist's, resear- and generous men, and has the fatal ches), which sometimes trips up kird

every precious thing to poor account. property of turning gold to dross and 4

"Britain!" cried the doctor. "Britain! Hollo 1"

over grass and, corn and turnip-field Christmas toge, and blazed and roared finished pupils. Not the feast. It was plied the doctor. "Don't you know and wood, and over roof and church. away, The deep green patches were not quadrille, dancing, nor minuati's always, somebody's birthday? Did, have him mentioned." said the wilful The doctor never dreamed of in-

no greener now than the mentory of dancing, nor even country-dancing spire in the nestling town among the those who lay in dust below. The It was neither for the style or the trees, away into the bright distance ploughshare still turned up from time French style, nor the English style: on the borders of the sky and earth, to time some rusty bits of metal, but though it may have been, by accident, where the red sunsets faded. Crops it was hard to say what use they had a trifle in the Spanish style, which is were sown, and grew up, and were ever served, and those who found a free and joyous one, I am told, gathered in the stream that had them wondered and disputed. An deriving a delightful air of offhand been crimsoned, turned a water-mill: old dinted corselet, and a helmet, had inspiration, from the chirping little men whistled at the plough; gleaners been hanging in the church so long. castanets. As they danced among and haymakers were seen in quiet that the same weak, half-blind old the orchard trees, and down the Broup at work; sleep and oxen man who tried in vain to make them groves of stems and back again, and pastured: boys whooped and called, out above the whitewashed arch had twirled each other lightly round and marvelled at them as a baby. If the round, the influence of their airy in fields, to scare away the birds smoke rose from cottage chimneys; host slain upon the field, could have motion seemed to spread and spread, people lived and died; the timid forms in which they fell, each upon

water. Their creatures of the field, and simple the spot that was the bed of his un. I streaming hair and fluttering skirts, flowers of the bush and garden, grew timely death, gashed and ghastly the elastic grass beneath their feet, and withered in their destined terms: soldiers would have stared in, hund. the boughs that rustled in the mor and all upon the fierce and bloody reds deep, at household door and battleground, where thousands had window; and would have risen on been killed in the great fight,

the hearths of quiet bomes; and would have been the garnered store of barns and granaries; and would have started up between the cradled infant and its nurse; and would have floated with the stream, and whirled round on the mill, and crowded the orchard, and burdened the meadow, and piled the rickyard high with dying men. So altered was the battle. ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight.

But there were deep green patches in the growing corn at first, that people looked at awfully. Year after year they reappeared; and it was known that underneath those fertile Spats, heaps of men and horses lay buried, indiscriminately, enriching the ground. The husbandmen who ploughed those places, shrank from the great worms abounding there; and the sheaves they yielded were, for many a long year, called the battle-sheaves, and set apart; and no one ever knew a battle-sheaf to be among the last load at a harvest home. For a long time, every furrowstone house with a that was turned, revealed some fragments of the fight. For a long time, there were wounded trees upon the battle ground: and scraps of hacked and broken fence and wall, where deadly struggles had been made; and trampled parts where not a leaf or blade would grow. For a long time, no village girl would dress her hair or boson with the sweetest flower from that field of death; and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them.

Nowhere more altered, perhaps, about a hundred years ago, than in one little orchard attached to an old honeysuckle

The seasons in their course, however, though they passed as lightly as the summer clouds

porch; where, on a bright autumu morning, there were sounds of music and laughter, and where two girls danced merrily together on the grass, while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share their enjoyment. It was a pleasant, lively, nutural scene; a beautiful day. a retired spot; and the two girls, quite unconstrained and careless, danced in the freedom and galety of their hearts.

If there were no such thing as display in the world, my private opinion is, and I hope you agree with me, that we might get on a great deal better

than we do, and

ning air-the flashing leaves, the speckled shadows on the soft green ground the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily-every this between the two girls, and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the world seemed

dancing too.

t

1

At last, the younger of the dancing sisters, out of breath, and laughing gaily, threw herself upon a bench to rest. The other leaned against a tree hard by. The music, a wandering harp and fiddle, left off with a flourish, as if it boasted of its fresh- ness; though the truth is it had gone at such a pace, and worked itself to such a pitch of competition with the dancing, that it never could have held or, half a minute longer. The apple pickers on the ladders raised a hum and murmur of applause, and then, in keeping with the sound, bestirred themselves, to work again like bees. The more actively, perhaps, be cause an elderly gentleman, who was no other than Doctor Jeddler himself it was Doctor Jeddler's house and orchard, you should know, and these were Doctor Jeddler's daughters came bustling out to see what was the matter, and who the deuce played music on his property, before. break- fast. For he was a great philosopher, Doctor Jeddler, and not very musical.

"There! Take my love with It" said the doctor, imprinting his upon them;" and many happy returns of the the ideal of the day, The notion of wishing happy returns in such a farce as this," said the doctor to himself, "is good! Ha! ha! ha!

Doctor Jeddler was, as I have said, great philosopher, and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was to looks upon the world as a gigantic practical joke: as something too absurd to be considered seriously, by any rational man. His system of be tief had been, in the beginning, part and parcel of the battle-ground on which he lived, as you shall presently understand.

"Well! But how did you get the music?" asked the doctor. "Poultry stealers, of course! Where did the minstrels come from?"

Alfred sent the music. said his daughter Grace, adjusting a few simple flowers in her sister's hair, with which, in her admiration of that youthful beauty, she had herself adorned it half an hour before, and which the dancing had disarranged.

Oh! Alfred sent the music, did he?" returned the doctor.

"Yes. He met it coming out of the town as he was entering early The men are travelling on foot. and rested there last night; and as it was Marion's birthday, and he thought it would please her, he sent them on, with a pencilled note to me, saying that if I thought so too, they had come to serenade her.”

But I don't know that there's any great merit in that. I don't want him to be so very true. I never ask ed him. If he expects that 1 But, dear Grace, why need we talk of him at all, just now!"

It was agreeable to see the grace. ful figures of the blooming sisters, twined together, lingering among the trees, conversing thus, with earnest ness opposed to lightness, yet, with love responding tenderly to love. And it was very curious indeed to see the younger sister's eyes suffused with tears, and something fervently and deeply felt, breaking through the wilfulness of what she said, and striving with it painfully...

A small man, with an UR... commonly sour aqd discontented face, emerged from the house, and returned to this call the uncere- monious acknowledgment of "Now then!!!

"Where's the breakfast-table?" said

the doctor.

"In the house, returned Britain. "Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told last night?" said the doctor. "Don't you know that there are gert emen coming? That there's business to be done this morning, before the coach comes by?. That this is a very

particular occasion ?"

returned the doctor, looking at his "Well, have they done now ?”** watch, and clapping his hands.

The difference between them, in respect of age; could not exceed four years at most; but Grace, as often

"I couldn't do anything. Doctor happens in such cases, when no Jeddler, till the women had done mother watches over both (the getting in the apples, could I?" said doctor's wife was dead), seemed, in Britain, his voice rising with his her gentle care of her young sister, reasoning, so that it was very loud and in the steadiness of her devotion at last. to her, older than she was: and more removed, in course of nature, from all competition with her, or participa tion, otherwise than through her "Come! make sympathy and true affection; in her Clemency?" wayward fancies, than their ages seemed to warrant. Great character of mother, that, even in this shadow heart, and raises the exalted nature and faint reflection of it, purifies the nearer to the angels!

The doctor's reflections, as he look ed after them, and heard the purport of their discourse, were limited at first to certain merry meditations on "Ay, ay," said the doctor careless on the folly of all loves and likinge, ly, he always takes our opinion." and the idle, impositions on them- "And my opinioning favoué-selves by young people, who believed

baste!

where's

from one of the ladders, which a pair "Here am I, mister," said a voice

of clumsy feet descended briskly. Everything shall be ready for you in "It's all done now. Clear away, gals.

half a minute, mister.'

With that she began to bustle about most vigorously; presenting, as she did so, an appearance sufficiently pecular to justify a word of in-. troduction.

(Continued on Page 8.):

POCKET WALLETS

TOBACCO POUCHES

CIGAR CASES

CIGARETTE CASES

COLLAR BOXES

COLLAR BAGS

STUD BOXES

JEWEL CASES

TROUSER · PRESSES

WALKING STICKS

UMBRELLAS

LANE, CRAWFORD'S

FITTED CASES FOR MEN

FITTED CASES FOR LADIES

SUIT CASES

BLOUSE CASES

ROLL UP DRESSING CASES

ATTACHE CASES

NOVELTIES FOR XMAS

PRESENTS FOR

MEN

ALL ENGLISH MAKE

SILK TIES

SILK HANDKERCHIEFS

SILK SCARVES

WOOLLEN SCARVES

FANCY WAISTCOATS

WOOLLEN CARDIGANS

SWEATERS

DRESSING GOWNS

L. C. & Co.

MEN

LINEN

HANDKERCHIEFS IN FANCY BOXES

MENS' BEDROOM SLIPPERS

MENS' LEATHER SLIPPERS

BRACES IN FANCY BOXES

SILK SOCKS ALL SHADES

MENS' GLOVES

NEW DESIGNS

SELECTIONS for XMAS.