CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
BY MEAD AND STREAM
MONASTIC ENGLAND.
TWO DAYS IN A LIFETIME.
SLEDGE-DOGS.
A KING OF ACRES.
AN ORDER OF MERCY.
TWO SONNETS.
No. 1.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1884.
BY MEAD AND STREAM
A STORY.
BY CHARLES GIBBON,
Author of ‘Robin Gray,’ ‘Queen of the Meadow,’ ‘The Golden Shaft,’ etc.
CHAPTER I.—THE OVERTURE: ‘MUCH VIRTUE IN IF.’
The sun still bright on the hilltop; figuresrising to its crest, and there halting, with handsshading their eyes, to take a glad or sad lookbackward. Then, impelled by the master Time,they move downward through deepening shadesto join the great crowd in the bosky glen at thefoot of the mountain. Mingling in the crowd,they become themselves shadows, making strangeshapes in the beautiful garden ground wherethey find rest.
But in that pause on the bright hilltop, inthat look back along the slope which has beenclimbed, there falls a mist from the eyes. Thereis the straight easy road up to the height whichwe might have taken, and there are the deviouspaths like the mazy involutions of the lines ona railway map, which we have taken, and whichhave made the journey appear so wearisome tomany, so short to the happy few.
But all see what a much pleasanter road theycould travel if they might only start afresh withthis new vision.
Old friends meet and exchange complimentsabout birthdays—some accepting them contentedly,others regarding them as grim jokeswhich would be honoured in the omission. Butgay or sad, every one has in the heart a plaintivenote which sounds that monosyllable ‘IF!’
‘If I had only been advised at the rightmoment, how different it would be with menow,’ sighs the pallid invalid, closing his eyesin vain and trying to forget.
Then the sad-faced maiden:
‘If he had only trusted me a little more—ifI had only doubted him a little less, how sweetit would have been to have gone down this hillsidehand in hand together.’
‘If I could only have persuaded him not tomake that last journey,’ murmurs the widow.
‘If my son had been spared,’ moans thechildless.
‘If I had known his falsehood,’ bitterlyexclaims the betrayed.
‘I wish the guv’nor’s cash had not gone so fast,’mutters the spendthrift, ‘and it might have lastedlong enough to have made this an easy slide, ifI had only