LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 257, 8 April 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

CHARLES VAN RHEYN. {From the Argosy.) ( Continued.) I got what I wanted for Bill Whitney, and went down, thinking what a hard lif« it was for him—what a shame that we made it so. Indulged, as Van Rheyn must have always been, as tenderly treated as a girl, sheltered from the world’s roughness, all that coddling must have become to him as second nature ; and the remembrance lay with him still. Over here, he was suddenly cut oil from it, thrown into another atmosphere, isolated from country, home, home ties, and associations; and compelled to stand the daily brunt of this petty tyranny. Getting Tod ‘apart that night, I put the matter to him : what a shame it was, and how sorry I felt for Charley Van Rheyn; and I asked him whether he thought he could not (he having a great deal of weight in the school) make things pleasanter for him. Tod responded that I should never be anything but a muff, and that the roasting Van Rheyn got treated to was superlatively good for for him, if ever he was to be made into a man. However, before another week ran out, Dr Frost interfered. How he got at the reigning politics we never knew. One Saturday afternoon, when old Fontaine had taken Van Rheyn out with him, the Doctor walked into the midst of us, to the general consternation. Standing in the centre of the schoolroom, with a solemn face, all of us backing as much as possible, and those of the under-masters who chanced to be present rising also, the Doctor spoke of Van Rheyn. He had reason to suspect, he said, that we were doing our best to worry Van Rheyn’s life out of him: and he put the question deliberately to us (and made us answer it), how we, if consigned alone to a foreign home, all its inmates strangers, would like to be served so. He did not wish, he went on, to think ho had pitiful, ill-disposed boys, lacking hearts and common kindness, in his house; he felt sure that what had passed arose from a heedless love of mischief; and it would greatly oblige him to find from henceforth that our conduct to Van Rheyn changed: he thought and hoped that he had only to express a wish upon the point to insure obedience. With that—and a hearty nod and smile around, as if he put it as a personal favour to himself, and wanted us to see that he did, and was not angry, he ■went out again. A counsel was held to determine whether we had a sneak among xis—else how could I'rost have known ? But none could be pitched upon: every individual fellow, senior and junior, protested earnestly that he did not let out a syllable. And, to tell the truth, I don’t think we had. However, the Doctor was obeyed. From that day, all real annoyance to Charles Van Rheyn ceased. I don’t say but what there would be a laugh at him now and then, or that he lost his names of Bristles and Miss Charlotte; but virtually the sting was gone, Charley was as grateful as could be, and seemed quite happy ; and upon the arrival of a hamper by grande vitesse from Rouen, containing a huge rich wedding-cake and some packets of costly sweetmeats, he divided the whole amid us, keeping the nerest taste for himself. The school made its comments in return. * He’s not a bad lot, after all, that Van Rheyn. He will make a man yet.’ , *' * * * * * ‘ It isn’t a bit of use your going in for this, Van Rheyn, unless you can run like a lamplighter.’ * But I can run, you know,’ responded Van Rheyn.

* Yes. But can you keep the pace up ?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘We may be out for three or four hours, pelting like mad all the time. ’ ‘ I feel no fear of keeping up,’ said Van Rheyn, ‘I will go.’ ‘ All right.’ It was on a Saturday afternoon; and we were turning out for Hare and Hounds. The quarter was hard upon its close, for September was passing. Van Rheyn had never seen Hare and Hounds: it had been let alone during the hotter weather: and it was Tod who now warned him that he might not be able to keep up the running. It requires fleet legs and easy breath, as everybody knows; and Van Rheyn had never much exercised either. ‘ What is just the game?’ he asked in his quaintly turned phrase. And I answered him—for Tod had gone away. ‘You see those torn strips of old copybooks that they are twisting? That is for the scent. The hare fills his pockets with it, and drops a piece of it every now and then as he runs. We, the hounds, follow his course by means of the scent, and catch him if we can.” ‘And then?’ questioned Van Rheyn. ‘ Then the game is over. ’ * And what if you not catch him ? ’ * The hare wins; that’s all. What he likes to do is to double upon us cunningly and lead us home again after him. We vault over the obstructions—gates, and stiles, and hedges, and that. Or, if the hedges are too high, scramble through them. ’ ‘But some hedges are very thick and close; nobody could get through them,’ debated Van Rheyn, taking the words, as usual, too literally. ‘ Then we are dished. And have to find some other way onwards. ‘ I can do what you say quite easily.’ ‘All right, Charley,’ I repeated, as Tod had done. And neither of us had the smallest thought that it was not all right. Millichip was chosen hare. Snepp turned cranky over something or other at the last moment, and backed out of it. He made the best hare in the school; but Millichip wa« nearly as fleet a runner. What with making the scent, and having it out with Snepp, time was hindered ; and it must have been getting on for four o’clock when we started. Which docked the run considerably, for we had to be in at six to tea. Letting the hare get on well ahead, the signal was given, and we started after him in full cry, rending the air with shouts and rushing along like the wind. A right-down good hare, Millichip turned out to be ; doubling and twisting and finessing, and exasperating the hounds considerably. About five o’clock he had made tracks for home, as we found by the scent; but we could neither see him nor catch him. Later, I chanced to come to grief in a treacherous ditch, lost my straw hat, and tore the sleeve of my jacket. This threw me behind the rest; and when I pelted up to the next stile, there stood Van Rheyn. He had halted to rest his arms on it; his breath was coming in alarming gasps, his face whiter than any sheet. * Halloa, Van Rheyn ! What’s up ! The pace is too much for you.’ ‘lt was my breath,’ said he, when the gasps allowed him to answer. ‘I go on now.’ I put my arm on him, ‘ Look here : the run’s nearly over; we shall soon be at home. Don’t go on so fast.’ ‘ But I want to be at in what they call the death.’ ‘ There’ll be no death to-day : the hare’s safe to win.’ ‘ I want to keep up,’ he answered, getting over the stile. ‘ I said I could keep up, and do what the rest did. ’ And off he was again, full rush. Before us, on that side of the stile, was a tolerably wide field. The pack had wound half it over during this short halt, making straight for the entrance to the coppice at the other end. We were doing our best to catch them up, when I distinctly saw a heavy stone flung into their midst. Looking at the direction it came from, there crept a dirty ragamuffin over the ground on his hands and knees. He did not see us two behind ; and he flung another heavy stone. Had it struck any one’s head it would have done damage. Letting the chase go, I stole across and pounced upon him before he could get away. He twisted himself out of my hands like an eel, and stood grinning defiance and whistling to his dog. We knew the young scamp well; butcould never decide whether he was a whole scamp, or a half natural. At any rate, he was vilely bad, was the pest of the neighbourhood, and had enjoyed some short sojourns in prison for trespass. Raddy was the name he went by; we knew him by no other; and how he got a living nobody could tell. ‘ What did you throw those stones for ? ’ ‘ Shan’t tell ye. Didn’t throw ’em at you.’ ‘ You had better mind what you are about, Mr Raddy, unless you want to get into trouble.’ * Yah—you!’ grinned Raddy. There was nothing to be made of him ; there never was anything. I should have been no match for Raddy in an encounter; and he would have killed me without the slightest compunction. Turning to go on my way, I was in time to see Van Rheyn tumble over the stile and disappear within the coppice. The rest must have nearly shot out of its other end by that time. It was a coppice that belonged to Sir John Whitney. Once through it, we were on our own grounds, and within a field of home. I went on leisurely enough: no good to try to catch them up now. Van Rheyn would not do it, and he had more than half a field’s start of me. It must have been close upon six, for the sun w r as setting in a ball of fire; the amber sky around it was nearly as dazzling as the sun, and lighted up the field. So that, plunging into the coppice, it was like going into a dungeon. For a minute or two, with the reflection of that red light lingering in my eyes, I could hardly see the narrow path. The trees were dark, thick, and met overhead. I ran along whistling : wondering whether that young Raddy was after me with his ugly dog ; wondering why Sir John did not The whistling and the thought came to a nummary close together. At the other end of the coppice, but a yard or two on this side the stile that divided it from the open field, there was Charles Van Rheyn on the ground, his back against the trunk of a tree, his arms stretched up clasping hold of it. But for that clasp, and the laboured breath, I might have thought he was dying. For his face was ghastly to look upon, blue all round the mouth, and had the strangest expression I •ver saw. (,To be continued,)