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~T' lewis m. prist, Froprieto? [ %. j*pM gg g*gp.: Jit % gnrmlim it % |>B<il. ShU ^>iinlfcinl nir Cimngliil lirinnt! nl % gw% *!* " [lEEMS-lm A|g naMffl. VOL. 16. YORKVILLE, S. C., THURSDAY, JULY 14, 187Q. jfe ., ;. . V " ^0.88. ~ *1 I Tin? HA WWwriting op gbeat men. ffce .ftofg Pellet. SPESE OF THE BLACK COTTAGE. To begin at the beginning, I must take yon back to the time after my mother's death, when my onjy brother had gone to sea, when my sister was out at service, and when I lived alone with my father in the midst of a moor in the west of England. The moor was covered with great limestone rocks, and intersected here and there by streamlets. The nearest habitation to ours was situated about a mile and a half off, where a strip of the fertile land stretched out JntA A** wRHtp. like 'a ton true. Here the out buildings of the great Moor Farm then in the possession of my husband's father, began. The farm-lands stretched down gently into a beautiful rich valley, lying nicely sheltered by the high platform of the moor. When the ground began to rise again, mifoa and ndko away; it led up to a country house called . Holme Manor, belonging to a gentleman named Knifton. Mr. Knifton had lately married a young lady whom my mother had nursed, and whose kindness and frienship for me, her foster-sister, I shall remember gratefully to the last day of my life. These and other slight particulars it is necessary to my story that I should tell you, and it is also necessary that you should be specially careful to bear them well in-mind. My father was by trade a stone-mason. His cottage stood a mile and a half from the nearest habitation. In all other directions we were four or five times that distance from neighbors. Being very poor people, this lonely situation had one great attraction for us? we lived rent free on it In addition to that advantage, the stones, by shaping which my father gained his livelihood, lay all about him at his very door, so that he thought his position, solitary as it was, quite an enviable one. I can hardly say that I agreed with him, J T mo HOTO fnnd though i never compuuueu. a *? of my father, and managed to make the best of my loneliness by being useful to him. Mrs. Knifton wished to take me into her service when she married, bat I declined, unwillingly enough, for my father's sake. If I had gone away, he would have had nobody to live with him; and my mother made me promise on her death-bed that he should never be left to pine away alone in the midst of the bleak moor. Our cottage, small as it was, was stoutly and snugly built with stone from the moor as a matter of course. The walls were lined inside and fenced outside With wood, the gift of Mr. Kniftdfr's father to my father. This double covering of cracks and crevices, which would have been superfluous in a sheltered position, was absolutely necessary, in our exposed situation, to keep out the cold winds, which, excepting just the summer months, " " ^ swept over us continually &u tuts jwi ivium. The outside boards, covering our roughly-built stonewalls, my father protected against the wpt with pitch and^ tar. This gave to our himi aUuoe a curiously dart., dlugy look, especially when it was seen from a distance, and so it had come to be called in the neighborhood, even before I was born, The Black Cottage. I have now related the preliminary particulars, which it is desirable that you should know, and may proceed at once to the pleasantet task of telling you my story. One cloudy autumn day, when I was rather more than eighteen years old, a herdsman walked over from Moore Farm with a letter which had been left there for my father. It came from a builder living at our county town, half a day's journey off, and invited my father to come to him and give his judgment about an estimate for some stone-work on a very large scale. My father's expenses for loss of time were to be paid, and he was to have his share of employment afterward in preparing the stone. He^was only too glad, therefore, to obey the directions which the letter contained, and to prepare at once for his long walk to the county town. Considering the time at which he received the letter, and the necessity of resting before his return, it was impossible for him to avoid being away from home one night, at least He proposed to me, in case I disliked being left alone in the Black Cottage, to lock the door and to take me to Moor Farm to sleep with any one of the milkmaids who would give me a share of her bed. I by no means liked the notion of sleeping with a girl I did not know, and I saw no reason to feel afraid of being left alone for only one night; so I declined. No thieves had ever come near us; our poverty was protection against them; and of other dangers there were none that even the most timid person could apprehend. Accordingly, I got my father's dinner, laughing at the notion of my taking refuge under the v * r TT. protection of a miilcmaia at moor r arm. ne started for his walk as soon as he had done, saying "he should try and be back by dinner time the next day, and leaving me and my cat Polly to take care of the house. "I had cleared the table and brightened up the fire, and had sat down to my work with the eat doting at my feet, when I heard the trampling of horses, and, running to the door, saw Mr. and Mrs. Knifton, with their groom behind them, riding up to the Black Cottage. It was part of the young lady's kindness never to neglect an opportunity oi 1 coming to pay me a friendly visit, and hei husband was generally willing to accompany kV nrSfa'a calro T m ft rip m v best cour ilVK IU1 IXIO tf ?*v w wmuv* * ^ ? iesy, therefore, with a great deal of pleasure, bat with no particular surprise at seeing them. They dismounted and entered the cottage, laughing and talking in great spirits. I soon beard that they were riding for the same county town for which my father wag bound, io4 that they intended to stay with some friends th?? for a few days, and to return home on horseback, as they went out. I heard this, and I also discovered that they had been having an argument, in jest, aboat some money-matters, as they rode along .. to oar cottage. Mrs. Knifton had accused her husband of inveterate extravagance, and ?atnerer being able to go out with money ic his -pocket without spending it all, if he possibly could, before he got home again. Mr Knifton had laughingly defended himself bj t declaring that all his pocket-money went ir presents for his wife, and that if he spent ii lavishly, it was under her sole influence anc superintendence. "We are going to Cliverton, now," he saic to Mrs. Knifton, naming the county town and warming himself at our poor fire just a pleasantly as if he had been standing on hi J own grand hearth. "You will stop to admire j J every pretty thing in every one of the Oliver-! ton shop-windows; I shall hand you the I puree, -and you will go in and buy. "When we have reached home again, and you have had time to get tired of your purchases, you will clasp your hands in amazement, and declare that you are quite shocked at my habits of inveterate extravagance. I am only the banker who keeps the money; you, my love, are the spendthrift that throws it all away1" "Am I, sir?" said Mrs. Kniiton, with a look of mock indignation. "We will see if I am to be misrepresented in this way with impunity.* Bessie, my dear," (turning to me), "you shall judge how far I deserve the character which that unscrupulous man has just given to me. I am the spendthrift, ami? 1 9 \T/sw tool 1 And you are oniy ine utui&.cx > > wj nvu. Banker, give me my money at once, if you please." Mr. Knifton laughed and took some gold and silver from his waistcoat pocket "No, no," Baid Mrs. Knifton, "you may j want what you have got there for necessary ' expenses. Is that all the money you have about you ? What do I feel here ?" and she tapped her husband, on the chest, just over the breast pocket of his coat Mr. Knifton laughed again, and produced his pocket-book. His wife snatched it out of his hand, opened it, and drew out some banknotes, put them back again immediately, and, closing the pocket-book, stepped across the room to my poor mother's little walnut-wood book-case, the only bit of valuable furniture about the house. "What are you going to do there ?" asked Mr. Knifton, following his wife. Mrs. Knifton opened the glass door of the book-case, put the pocket-book in a vacant place on one of the lower shelves, closed and locked the door again and gave m? the key. "You called me a spendthrift just1 now," she said. "There is my answer. Not one farthing of that money shall you spend at ?TAi?fiiv\nlr.4 i Ciiverton on me. jveep wie *ey m JVU4 |n/va j et, Bessie, and, whatever Mr. Knifton may say, on no account let him have it until we call again on our way back. No, sir, I won't trust you with that money in your pocket in the town of Ciiverton. I will make sure of your taking it all home again, by leaving it here in more trustworthy hands than yours until we ride back. Bessie, my dear, what do you say to that as a lesson in economy, inflicted on a prudent husband by a spendthrift ! wife?" ^ She took Mr. Knifton's arm while she spoke, and drew him away to the door. He protested and made some resistance, but she easily carried her point, for he was far to fond of her to have a will of his own in any trifling matter between them. Whatever the men might say, Mr. Knifton was a model husband in the estimation of all the women who knew him. "You will see us as we come back, Bessie. Till then you are our banker, and the pocketbook is yours," cried Mrs. Knifton, gayly, at the door. Her. husband lifted her into ^he saddle, mounted hubself, and away they both galloped over the rfaoor as wild and happy as a couple of children. Although my being trusted with money by Mrs. Knifton was no novelty (in her maiden days she always employed me to pay her dressmaker's bills), I did not feel quite easy at having a ptocket-book full of bank notes left by her in my charge. I had no positive apprehensions ubout the safety of the deposit placed in my hands, but it was one of the odd tTion (onr} T think it is pUUlU) 111 UJJ V/UOiMWWA VUVU . ?? II ? -- still) to feel an unreasonably strong objection to charging myself with money responsibilities of any kind,.even to suit the convenience of my dearest friends. As soon as I was left alone, the very sight of the pocket-book behind the glass door of the book-case began to worry me, and instead of returning to my work, I puzzled my brains about finding a place to lock it up in, where it would not be exposed to the view of any chance passers-by who might stray into the Black Cottage. This was not an easy matter to compass in a poor house like ours, where we had nothing valuable to put under lock and key. After j running over various hiding-places in my [ mind, I thought of my tea-caddy, a present j from Mrs. Knifton, which I always kept out ! of harm's way in my own bed-room. Most ' unluckily, as it afteward turned out, instead j of taking the pocket-book to the tea-caddy, I | went into my room first to take the tea-caddy | to the pocket-book. I only acted in this roundj about way from sheer thoughtlessness, and severely enough I was punished for it, as you will acknowledge yourself when you have read more of my story. I was just getting the unlucky tea-caddy out of my cupboard, when I heard footsteps in the passage, and, running out immediately, saw two men walk into the kitchen?the room in which I had received Mr. and Mrs. Knifton. I enquired what they wanted, sharply enough, and one of them answered immediately that they wanted my father. He turned toward me, of course, as he spoke, and I recognized him as a stone-mason going among his comrades by the name of Shifty Dick. HTbore a very bad character for every thing but wrestling, a sporTfbr which the workingmen of our parts were famous all through the county. Shifty Dick was champion, and he i had got his name from some tricks in wrestF ling, for which he was celebrated. He was a tall, heavy man, with a lowering, scarred face, and huge hairy hands?the last visitor in the whole world that I should have been glad to , see under any circumstances. His companion ; was a stranger, whom he addressed by the i name of Jerry?a quick, dapper, wicked, looking man, who took off his cap to me with mock politeness, and showed, in so doing, a i very bald head, with some very ugly-looking i knobs on it. I distrusted him worse than I did Shifty Dick, and managed to get between Mr leering eyes and the book-case, as I told ; the two that my father was gone out, and , that I did not expect him back till the next ; day. I The words were hardly out of my mouth I before I repented that my anxiety to get rid i of my unwelcome visitors had made me in cautious enough to acknowledge that my father . would be away from home for the whole ' night i Shifty Dick and his companion looked at t each other when I unwisely let out the truth, I but made no remark, except to ask me if I would give them a drop of cider. I answer1 ed sharply that I had no cider in the house, , having no fear of the consequences of refusing s them drink, because I knew that plenty of s , men were at work within hail in a neighboring quarry. The two looked at each other again when I denied having any cider to give them, and Jerry (as I am obliged to call him, knowing no other name by which to distinguish the fellow) took off his cap to me once more, and, with a kind of blackguard gentilly upon him, said they would have the pleasure of calling the next day, when my father was at home. I said good afternoon as ungraciously as possible, and, to my great relief, they both left the cottage immediately afterward. As soon as they were well away, I watched them from the door. They trudged off in the direction of Moor Farm ; and, as it was beginning to get dusk, I soon lost sight of them. Half an hour afterward I looked out again. The wind had lulled with the sunset, but the mist was rising, and a heavy rain was beginning to fall. Never did the lonely prospect of the moor look so dreary as it looked to my cjco tfa?4 rawing. Never-did-1- regret. toy slight thing more sincerely than 1 tnen regretted the leaving of Mr. Knifton's pocketbook in my charge. I cannot say that I suffered under any actual alarm, for I felt next to certain that neither Shifty Dick nor Jerry had got a chance of setting eyes on so small a thing as the pocket-book while they were in the kitchen; but there was a kind of vague distrust troubling me?a suspicion of the night?a dislike of being left by myself, which I never remember having felt before. This feeling so increased after I had closed the door and gone back to the kitchen, that, when I heard the voices of the quarrymen as they passed our cottage on their way home to the village in the valley below Moor Farm, I stepped out into the passage with a momentary notion of telling them how I was situated and asking them for advice and protection. I had hardly formed this idea, however, before I dismissed it None of the quarrymen were intimate friends of mine. I had a nodding acquaintance with them, and believed them to be honest men, as times went But my own common sense told me that what little knowledge of their characters I had was by no means sufficient to warrant me in admitting them into my confidence in the matter | of the pocket-book. I hud seen enough of j poverty and poor men to know what a terrible temptation a large sum of money is to those I wtioae wnoie lives are passea iu surapuig up sixpences by weary hard work. It is one thing to write fine sentences in books about incorruptible honesty, and another thing to put those sentiments in practice when one day's work is all that a man has to set up in the way of an obstacle between starvation and his { own fireside. The only resource that remained was to car- j ry the pocket-book with me to Moor Farm, and ask permission to pass the night there. But I could not persuade myself that there was any real necessity for taking such a course as this; and, if the truth must be told, my pride revolted at the idea of presenting myself in theicharacter of a coward before the people at tlfejfarm. Ti miuity is thought raffiier a graceful attraction among ladies, but among poor women it is something to be laughed at A woman with less spirit of her own than I had, and always shall have, would have considered twice in my situation before she made up her mind to encounter the jokes of plowmen and the jeers of milkmaids. As for me, I had hardly considered about going to the ferm before I despised myself for entertaining any such notion. "No, no," I thought, "I am not the woman to walk a mile and a half through rain, and mist, and darkness, to tell a whole kitchenful of people that I am afraid. Come what may, here I stop till father gets back." Having arrived at that valiant resolution, the first thing I did was to lock and bolt the back and front doors, and see to the security of every shutter in the house. That duty performed, I made a blazing fire, lighted my candle and sat down to tea, as snugly and comfortable as possible. I could hardly believe now, with the light in the room, and the sense of security inspired by the closed doors and shutters, that I had ever felt even the slightest apprehension earlier in the day. I sang as I washed up the tea-things, and even the cat seemed to catch the infe^iion of my good spirits. I never knew the pretty thing so playful as it was that evening. The tea-things put by, I took up my knitting, and worked away at it so long that I began at last to get drowsy. The fire was so bright and comforting that I could not muster resolution enough to leave it and go to bed. I sat staring lazily into the blaze, with my knitting on my lap?sat till the splashing of the rain on the outside, and the fitful, sullen sobbing of the wind grew fainter and fainter on my ear. The last sounds I heard before I fairly dozed off to sleep were the cheerful crackling of the fire and the steady purring of the cat, as she basked luxuriously in the warm light on the hearth. Those were the last sounds before I fell asleep. The sound fyiat woke me was a bang at the front door. I started up, with my heart (as the saying is) in my mouth, with a frightful momentary shuddering at the roots of my hair?I started up breathless, cold ana motionless, waning in the silence I hardly knew for what, doubtful at first whether I had dreamed about the bang at the door, or whether the blow had really been struck on it. In a minute or less there came a second bang, louder than the first. I ran out into the passage. "Who's there?" "Let us in," answered a voice, which I recognized immediately as the voice of Shifty Dick. "Wait a bit, my dear, and let me explain," said a second voice, in the low, oily, jeering tones of Dick's companion?the wickedly clever little man whom he called Jerry. "You are alone in the house, my pretty little dear. You may crack your sweet voice with screeching, and there's nobody near to hear you. Listen to reason, my love, and let us in. We don't want cider this time?we only want a very neat-looking pocket-book which you happen to have, and your late excellent mother's four silver teaspoons, which you keep so nice and clean on the chimney-piece. If you let 1 us in we won't hurt a hair of your head, my cherub, and we promise to go away the moment we have got what we want, unless you particularly wish us to stop to tea. If you keep us out, we shall be obliged to break intc the house, and then?" "And then," burst in Shifty Dick, "we'll | mash you!" "Yes," said Jerry, "well mash you, mV beauty. But you won't drive us to doing that/l will you ? You will let us in f" I This long parley gave me time to recover ) the effect which the first bang at the door had 1 produced on my nerves. The threats of the 1 two villains would have terrified some women 1 out of their senses, but the only result they 1 produced on me was violent indignation. I < had, thank God, a strong spirit of my own, < and the cool, contemptuous insolence of the 1 man Jerry effectually roused it " 1 "You cowardly villians!" I screamed at ] them through the door. "You think you_ i can frighten me, because I am only a poor 1 girl left alone in the house. You ragamuffin 1 thieves, I defy you both I Our bolts arejjc strong, our shutters are thick. Iam hereto^ keep my father's house safe, and keep it I will, t * ?ft jfjm against an army 01 you i You may imagine what a passion I was in. t when I vapored and blustered in that way^ji a whole mouthful of oaths. Then there a dead silence for a minute or two, and the two ruffians attacked the door. r t I rushed into the kitchen and seized the- ~ poker, and then heaped wood on the fire, and ( lighted all the candles I could find, for I felt .. as though I could keep my courage better if I t had plenty of light Strange and improba- x ble as it may appear, the next thing that at-". < tracted my attention was my poor pussy.i f crouched up, panic-stricken in a corner. I A was so fond of the little creature that I took" f her up in my arms and carried her into my 1 bedroom, and put her inside my bed. A comical thing to do in a situation of deadly c peril, was it not ? But it seemed quite natural. and proper at the time. c All this time the blows were falling faster s on the door. They were dealt, as I conjee- x tured, with heavy stones picked up from ther r ground outside. Jerry sang at hiq wicked t work, and Dick swore, As I left the bedroom after putting the cat under cover, 1^ i heard the lower panel*of the door begin to ^t crack. * JiJ I ran into the kitchen and huddled our fdtfrjY silver spoons into my .pocket; then took the j t unlucky book with the bank-notes and put it t in the bosom of my dress. I was determined to ;x defend the property confided to my care with 1 my life. Just as I had secured the pocket- r book I heard the door splintering, and rushed 1 into the passage again with my heavy kitch- f en poker lifted in both hands. 9 I was in time to see the bald head of Jerry, j with the ugly-looking knobs on it, pushed into 1: the passage through a great rent in one of the ii lower panels of the door. <3 "Get out, you villain, or I'll brain you on ii the spot!" I screeched, threatening him with t the poker. f f< Mr. Jerry took his head out again much $ faster than he put it in. - [? The n^xt thing that came through the fefttigl was a long pitchfork, which they darted Iff me from the outside, to move me from the door.& I struck at it with all my might, and the blown must have jarre<?the hand of Shifty Dickmpjj to his very shoulier, for I heard him give roar of rage and pain. Before he could catcfrij at the fork with his other hand I had drawn Jl it inside. By this time even Jerry lost his HE temper, and awoito more awfully than Dick ja himself. , , ? Then there came another minute of respite, it I suspected they bad gone t6 get bigger stones, d and I dreaded the giving way of the whole tl door. ^ e Running into the bedroom as this fear be- p set me, I laid hold of my chest of drawers, p dragged it into the passage, and threw it down j b against the door. On the top of that I heaped j my father's big tool chest, three chairs and a *1 scuttleful of coals; and last I dragged out the a ? if oa VkO?v) Qfl T ^ I Kltcueu UtUIC nuu laiuiuw iv aa uwu could against the whole barricade. They u heard me aa they were coming up to the door c with fresh stones. Jerry said, "Stop a bit 1": ^ and then the two consulted together in whis- * pers. I listened eagerly, and just caught * these words: ? "Let's try the other wayl" 1 Nothing more was said, but I heard their, i footsteps retreating from the door. s Were they going to besiege the back door .a i now ? Jf I had hardly asked myself that question^ when I heard their voices on the other side of 8 house. The back door was smaller than the a ! front, but it had this advantage in the way of b strength?it was made of two Bolid oak boards! f joined lengthwise, and strengthened inside by heavy cross pieces. It had no bolts like the |t front door, but was fastened by a bar of iron J running across it in a slanting direction, and f fitting at either end into the wall. ! b "They must have the whole cottage down 11 before they can break in at that door!" I 1 thought to myself. And they soon found out as much for themselves. Aiter five minutes t of banging at the back door they gave up t any further attack in that direction and cast i their heavy stones down with curses of fury^ c awful to hear. c I went into the kitchen and dropped on thej t window-seat to rest for a moment. SuBpenatj| and excitement together were beginning tdTC tell upon me. The perspiration broke out] j thick on my forehead, and I began to feel theft I bruises I had inflicted on my hands in mak- t | ing the barricade against the front door. I f ' - - ? 1 /? |_x; L..1 T . had not lost a paracieoi my resolution, out 11 <. was beginning to lose strength. There was a j bottle of rum in the cupboard, which my t brother the sailor, had left with us the last 1 time he was ashore. I drank a drop of it Never before or since have I put anything down my throat that did me half so much ( good as that precious mouthful of rum ! i I was still sitting in the window-seat drying my face, when I suddenly heard their i voices close behind me. t They were feeling the outside of the window 1 against which I was sitting. It was protected 1 like all the other windows in the cottage, by ( iron bars. I listened in dreadful suspense for < the sound of filing, but nothing of the sort t was audible. They had evidently reckons! i on frightening me easily into letting them in/l and had come unprovided with house-breaking tools of any kind. A fresh burst of oatha 1 i informed me that they had recognized the ob- i i stacle of the iron bars. I listened breathless- 1 . ly for some warning of what they were going i to do next, but their voices seemed to die away : in the distance. They were retreating fron: the window. Were they also retreating from i the house altogether ? Had they given up thi > idea of effecting an entrance in despair? < A long silence followed?a silence which I tried my courage even more severely than the tumult of their first attack on the cottage. - i i * _JDreadfuI suspicions now beset me of their being able to accompb'sh by treachery what hey had failed to effect by force. Well as I knew the cottage, I began to doubt whether here might not be ways of cunningly and silefttly entering it against which I was not provided. The ticking of the clock annoyed me ; he crackling of the fire startled me. I looked oat twenty times in a minute into the dark iornera of the passage; straining my eyes, lolding my breath, anticipating the most unikely events, the most impossible dangers. 3ad they really gone, or were they still prowing about the house? Oh! what a sum of noney I would have given only to have mown what they were about in that interval >f silence! I was startled at last out of my suspense in 1 * ^ Aw\m nnn ae mosi awiui mauuer. a buuu? uum Ifthem reached my ears on a sudden down he kitchen chimney. It was so unexpected tnd so horrible in the stillness that I screamed j^Jhe first, time since the attack on the house, t worst forebodings had never suggested to ne that the two villains might mount upon he roof. "Let us in, you she devil," roared a voice lown the chimney. ... There was another pause. The smoke from he wood fire, thin and light as it was in the ed state of the embers at that moment, had svidently obliged the man to take his face irom the mouth of the chimney. I counted he seconds while he was, as I conjectured, jetting his breath again. In less than half a ninute there came another shout: "Let us in, or we'll burn the place down >ver your head!" Burn it ? Burn what 1 There was nothing asily combustible but the thatch on the roof, md that had been well soaked by the heavy am which had now fallen incessantly for nore than six hours. Burn the place over ny head ? How ? While I was still casting about wildly in ay. mind to discover what possible danger here could be of fire, one of the heavy stones riaced on the thatch to keep it from being oft up by high winds came thundering down he chimney. It scattered the live embers on he hearth all over the room. A richly-furliahad with kniekkn&cks and thin mUB in about it would have Been set on fire imnediately. Even our bare floor and rough urniture gave out a smell of burning at the irat shower of embers which the first stone cattered. For an instant I stood quite horror-struck >efbre this new proof of the devilish ingenuty of the villians outside. But the dreadful langer I was now in recalled me to my senses ^mediately. There was a large canful of pater in my bedroom, and I ran in at once to btch it. Before I could get back to the iitchen a second stone had been thrown own the chimney, and the floor was smoullering in several places. wit enough to let the smouldering go p fcr a moment or two more, and to pour the rhola of my canful of water over the fire beige the third stone came down the chimney. I^ livearibers on fielder I easily disused f^erthat The man on the roof must have Wd the hissing of the fire as 'I put it ouf, na have felt the fifcangw produced in the air t the mouth of the chimney, for after the hird stone had descended no more followed L As for either of the ruffians themselves ropping down by the same road along which he stones had come, that was not to be dreadd. The chimney, as I well knew by our exerience in cleaning it, was too narrow to give assage to any one above the size of a small oy. I looked upward as that comforting reflecion crossed my mind?I looked up and saw, s plainly as I see the paper I am now writing n, the point of a knife coming through the aside of the roof just over my head. Our ottage had no upper story, and our rooms tad no ceilings. Slowly and wickedly the mife wriggled its way through the dry inside hatch between the rafters. It stopped for a phile, and there came a sound of tearing. [*hat, in its turn, stopped too; there was a ;reat fall of dry thatch on the floor; and I aw the heavy, hairy hand of Shifty Dick, ,rmed with the knife, come through after the alien fragments. He tapped at the rafters pith the back of the knife, as if to test their trength. Thank God, they were substantial nd close together. Nothing lighter than a - /r? i _j tatcbet would nave sumcea w remove uuy art of them. The murderous hand was Ltill tapping with he knife when I heard a shout from the man Terry, coming from the neighborhood of my ather's stone-shed in the back yard. The and and knife disappeared instantly. I went o the back door and put my ear to it, and istened. Both men were now in the shed. I made he most desperate efforts to call to mind what ools and other things were left in it which night be used against me. But my agitation onfused me. I could remember nothing exlept my father's big stone-saw, which was far oo heavy and unwieldly to be used on the of the cottage. I was still puzzling my infills, and making my head swim to no pur>ose, when I heard the men dragging somehing out of the shed. At the same instant hat the noise caught my ear the remembrance lashed across me like lightning of some beams >f wood which had lain in the shed for years jast I had hardly time to feel certain that hey were removing one of these beams before [ heard Shifty Dick say to Jerry, "Which door?" "The front," was the answer. "We've jracked it already; we'll have it down now n no time." Senses less sharpened by danger than mine, vould have understood but too easily, from ;hese words, that they were about to use the oeam as a battering-ram against the door. \IVhen that conviction overcame me I lost courage at last I felt that the door must jome down. No such barricade as I had contracted could support it for more than a few minutes against such shocks as it was now to receive. "I can do no more to keep the house against them," I said to myself with my knees knocking together, and the tears at last beginning to wet my cheeks. "I must trust to the night and the thick darkness, and save my life by running for it while there is yet time." I huddled on my cloak and hood, and had my hand on the bar of the back door, when a piteous mew from the bedroom reminded me of the existence of poor Pussy. I ran in and huddled the creature up in my apron. Before I was out in the passage again, the first shock of the beam fell on the door. / The upper hinge gave way. The chairs aim the coal scuttle, forming the top of the barricade, were hurled, rattling, on the floor, but the lower hinge ef the door, and the chest of drawers and the tool-chest still kept their places. "One more!" I heard the villains cry?"one more run with the beam and down it comes!" Just as they must have been starting* for that "one more run," I opened the back door and fled out into the night, with the book full of bank-notes in my bosom, the silver spoons in my pocket, and the cat in my arms. I threaded my way easily enough through the familiar objects in the back yard, and was out in the pitch darkness of the moor before I heard the second shock, and the crash which tnld mfi that the whole door had criven way. In a few minutes they must have discovered the fact of my flight with the pocket-book, for I heard shouts in the distance as if they were running out to pursue me. I kept on at the top of my speed, and the noise soon died away. It was so dark that'twenty thieves instead of two would have found it' useless to' follow me. How long it was before I reached the farmhouse?the nearest place to which I could fly for refuge?I cannot tell you. I remember that I bad just sense enough to keep the wind at my back (having observed in the beginning of the evening that it blew toward Moor Farm), and to go on resolutely through'the darkness. In all other respects I was, by this time, half-crazed by what I had gone through. If it had so happened that the wind had change ed after I had observed its direction early in the evening, I should have gone astray, and' probably perished of fatigue and exposure on the moor. Providentially, it still blew steadily as it had blown for hours past, and I reached the farm-house with my clothes wet through, and my brain in a high fever. When I made my alarm at the door, they had all gone to bed but the fanner's eldest son, who was sitting up late over his pipe and newspaper. I just mustered strength enough to gasp out a few words, telling him what was the matter, and then fell down at his feet, for the first time in my life in a dead swoon. That swoon was followed by a severe illness. When I got strong enough to look about me again, J. found myself in one of the farmhouse beds?my father, Mrs. Knifton, and the doctor vwete all in the room?my cat was nflleen at mv feet, and the Dockefcboofe that I had saved, lay on the table by my side. There was plenty of news for me to hear as soon as I was fit to listen to it Shifty Dick and the other rascal had been caught, and were in prison waiting their trial at the next assizes. Mr. and Mrs. Knifton had been so shocked at the danger I had ran?for which they blamed their own want of thoughtfulness in leaving the pocket-book in my care?that they insisted on my father's removing from our lonely home to a cottage on their land, which we were to inhabit rent free. The bank-notes that I had saved were given to me to buy furniture with in place of that the thieyes had broken. These pl^sant tidingSassist&l so1 greatly in protflHmgtmy fe-^ covery, pat I was soon able to relate to my friends.at the farm-house the particulars that I have written here. They were all surprised and interested, but no one, as I thought, listened to me with such breatlilees attention as the farmer's eldest son. Mrs. Knifton noticed this too, and began to make jokes about it, in her light-hearted way, as soon as we were alone. I thought little of her jesting at the time; but when I got well, and we went to live at our new home, "the young farmer," as he was called in our parts, constantly came to see us, and constantly managed to meet me out of doors. I had my share of vanity, like other young women, and I began to think of Mrs. Knifton's jokes with some attention. To be brief, the young fanner managed one Sunday?I never could tell how?to lose his way with me in returning from church, and before we found out the right road home again he had asked me to be his wife. His relations did all they could to keep us asunder and break off the match, thinking a poor stone-mason's daughter no fit wife for a prosperous yeoman. But the farmer was too obstinate for them. He had one form of anBwer to all of their objections. "A man, if he is worth the name, marries according to his own notions, and to please himself," he used to say. "My notion is that when I take a wife I am placing my character and my happiness?the most precious things I have to trust?in one woman's care. The woman I mean to marry had a small charge confided to her care, and showed herself worthy of it at the risk of her life. That is proof enough for me that she is worthy of the greatest charge I can put into her hands. Bank and riches are fine things, but the certainty of getting a good wife is something better still. I'm of age, I know my own mind, and I mean to marry the stone-mason's daughter." And he did marry me. Whether I proved myself worthy or not of his good opinion is a question which I must leave you to ask my husband. All that I had to relate about myself and my doings . is now told. Whatever interest my perilous adventure may excite, ends, I am well aware, with my escape to the farm-house. I have only ventured on writing these few additional sentences because my marriage is the moral of my story. It has brought me the choicest biissings of happiness and prosperity, and I owe them all to my night-adventure in The Black Cottage. Curious Things to Know.?In this hot weather, the following "curious things" are quite useful to know : Besides the fact that ice is lighter than water, there is another curious thing about it which persons do not know, perhaps?namely its purity. A lump of ice melted will always become purely distilled water. When the early navigators of the Arctic seas got out of water they melted fragments of those vast mountains of ice called icebergs, and were astonished to find that they yielded only fresh water. They thought that they were frozen salt water, not knowing that they were formed on the land and in some way launched into the sea. But if they had been right the result would have been all the same. The fact is, the water in freezing turns out of it all that is not water?salt, air, coloring matter and all impurities. Frozen sea water makes fresh water ice. If you freeze a basin of indigo water it will make ice as pure as that made of rain water. When the cold is very sudden these foreign matters have no time to escape, either by rising or sinking; and are thus entangled with the ice but do not form any part of it | IpSttUMMttS gtmnuj.j DEATH OF BISHOP POLK. A correspondent of the Standard of the Cross, in a recent letter to that paper, says: Being on a long ramble from my home in Cleveland, through the States in the South, I have been sojourning a few dayB in the city of Atlanta and vicinity, and having been over the battle ground of Kenesaw Mountain, where General (Bishop) Polk met his fete, I was interested in making inquiries about his life as a soldier, and of his death. Fortunately for my purpose, I was visiting in a home of a wealthy and highly intelligent Georgia family, where Bishops Elliott and Polk were often J inmates, and from the gentleman and xaay or the house I obtained the information which ! desired. " On the day when>General Polk fell/General Joe Johnston, who was in command, of the defences of Atlanta and vicinity, being at Kenesaw, tw&ty mile$ north of thtopldSe, daring a loll in the storm of battle, said to General Polk that the two, with their respective staff officers, would advance to an outlook and see how the field looked. Dismounting under the crest of Kenesaw, they stepped out upon the spur of the hill, and, with field glasses, were reconnoitering the g.ound between the two armies, when they noticed that General Sherman, with his staff, was doing the same thing, from the opposite hills. Being in fair view, they were recognised as general officers, and complimented with a shell from a battery near which General Sherman was standing. The shell struck close by General Johnston. As soon as the piece could be reloaded, another shell was dropped by the first, when General Johnston said : "Bishop, we have seen all we desire; let us retire," and walked rapidly back to where the hones were left. General Polk seemed lost in thought, and instead of following General Johnston to the rear, walked to the face of the hill, and received the third shell, which fell npon his side, carrying off his viscera. His two staff officen sprang forward, and receiving him in - their arms, carried hun to a conveyance uy which he was immediately carried to Atlanta, where he lay in. state for a time, and wastheq taken to Augusta for burial- " ' Having seen it reported so often during the war, that after he became a soldier, Bishop Polk had been guilty of using strong drink, and ajso cf usingprofene language, Tasked my host and hostess conberning the trUthof these reports. With an earnestness which I brought tears to their cheeks, they both exclaimed*: "No 1 O, no 1 never ! never I His Christian character was never sullied by his life as a soldier." ' .. ! . ?.? M l. I Ml.i. Y WTS ABOUT. SLEEPING. Dr. Hall thinks that good sleeping depends, i somewhat" on the oondition, of the sleeper when he retires. The stomach should be in good condition, not overloaded with undigested food. In cold.or damp weather the feet should be warmed a few minutes, and all anxion^though^and caresah^l&bedismissed. Thejbed for young and nriddlwaged people should be a husk or hair nuttreas, but a clean feather bed is beat for old. persons. The feet and lower limbs should be warmly covered, so as to draw the blood from the head and prevent dreaming, it is beet to lie on the right side, as that aids rather than impedes digestion, but in no case sleep on the back. But under no circumstances should two per- ; sons?save mother and infant?sleep together 5" ka/J a* ocon in IKa game room. UX ?UV IX1IHV V* WIVM mrnm m , Dr. Hall brings together a number of reasons why this common practice should be done . away with. It is indelicate. Its destroys pri- ' vacy. It weakens self-respect It is injurious to health, in that two persons consume more air than-an ordinary chamber holds, or than good ventillation will supply, while the difference in the temperaments and electrical conditions of almost any two persons renders it exceedingly improper for them to occupy the same bed. Many a child has wilted and waned and finally died from no other cause than sleeping with a middle aged or an old person. The animals herd together, but human beings should have each his own room and bed. The great thing, however, is to be supplied with plenty of pure air through the night A grown person breathes about eighteen hogsheads of air in eight hour's sleep. Every breath somewhat vitiates all the air in the room, us a drop of ink discolors all the water in a glass; and unless the air is constantly renewed by proper ventillation, it soon becomes impure and unfit to breathe, if not utterly poisoned- Death in consequence of breathing bad air is not an unusual occurrence; bat hundreds of^persons have had their health impaired, their strength wasted and their lives shortened, by sleeping in a closed apartment. There should be a(free and abundant circulation of pure air through the chamber, in order to sleep well and to get rest and refreshment from the sleep; standing water, articles of clothing, brushes and even a carpet, should be rigidly excluded from the chamber?the latter article in particular, as it collects and holds the fine particles of dust which the air gathers up and deposits in the sleeper's lungs. In order to sleep well it is best to retire regularly at an early hour, and sleep until we awake; but in no case a second nap after the morning waking, and in no case sleep more than ten minutes in the daytime when well The system will very soon take all the sleep it wants in the night, and the sleep will be sweet and refreshing. It does not follow that one should rise the ntoment he wakes. Dr. Hall thinks, and in this agrees with Henry Ward Beecher, who always plans the work of the day before getting out of bed. Perhaps this is one reason why he is able to do so much. Noteworthy.?Should the price of salt take a sudden rise in our community, our readers may account for it from the following: We know our fair readers never dreamed that the great bunch of ? "hair" which Fashion calls a chignon had anything to do with the price of salt, but it is a fact We are informed that the Virginia Saltworks Company paid last year about one thousand dollars more for salt sacks than they did the previous year, owing to the rise in the price of Jute, the material of which the sacks are made. "Well, but what have chignons to do with that ?" Why, your chignon, fair lady, is made of Jute, too, and the great demand for the material to make chignons has caused the price to advance; and that is how your "chignon" came to increase the price of salt; as well as the size of your head.?Marion Herald. The Duke of Wellington'! writing was large and forcible, with no attempt at decora* tion. During the last ten years of his life, however, his writing was indifferent, and often illegible. None but a compositor in a newspaper office, accustomed to all sorts of hieroI glyphics, could possibly decipher the cbaraoI ten. A letter of his to a minister in Lord Derby's Cabinet has not to this day been tinraveled. Nine put of every ten of the Duke's letters treasured by autograph hunters were written by his Secretary, Mr. GreviHe, who wrote a hand very much like that of the Duke in his best days. Lord Brougham's hand betrayed much on* conquerable restlessness of impulse. His manuscript Was a man of hieroglyphics; and, according to Dr. Belkinop, in all Mr. Clowes' extensive printing establishment in London, there was only one mas competent to grapple -. - -? * . v. j with it, and he often gave op in despair. The Royal family of England h*ve "generally written good, clear and freehands. William IV. wrote a remarkable plain and legible hand, and that of his brother George waa showy and fluent:il Queen Victoria has an elegant signature; Locke says the flutter a man writes, the slower others read what he has written. Napoleon could write fourteen pages a minute; unfortunately, however, each page consisted of right blots and a splatter. Some of his lines to Maris Lorim appear as -ii scatteaed over the paper by the explosion of a bombshell. Horace Greeley's manuscript is very illegible. A wag once observed that the sentence "Virtue is its own reward," written by Mr. Greeley, waa rendered by the compositor into { "Washing with aoap is wholly absurd," ' The Recent Great Fire at Constantinople.?By private advices flrom Constantinople, Turkey, of so recent date as the 8th ultimo, we learn that the cablet dispatches did not exaggerate the extent and destruction of the confLigration which ooqurred at that capital two days previous to that date. The {J. States consulate waa burnt out, and the general ravages of the fire, may, in one word, be considered awful. About 1,600human beings were burnt to death, and over $5,000,600 of prperty destroyed. The Sultan, theGrand Vizier and thfe Minister 6f Police were in the midst of the fire, the Sultan being jio aroidu-. ous that his clothes became igiqt^and, it was with much difficulty that he was rescued. The Sultan has appropriated the inert ber *? !- il_l 14 ?? - - t .1 - IBCD in VjOOBHUMUlUpiO W UW NJNRO WJ ?n> fire, And ha* distributed7 ?10,<M)GW?rth of breed, out of his own privi^pdnWttie dee* ? i*?. V 'mi je 1 '^1 >'<_ M ^ *' titute. This fire is considered as the most ex* tensive and disastrous one that eirer occurred at Constantinople. , The Hon. John Porter Brown, of the United States legation, issued a Masonic address in behalf of the .sufferers. It was published in the different newspapers at Constawbople, in English^ French and Turkish, a^lpn6daced a marked and beneficial effect. jfoe Maaonic ordetpifl largely increasing in^ Turkey, where it .was introduced by Mr.8*?W?#evei^ years ago.?Baltimore Sun, - >m' rat. ' ? ??+? The Grave of Osceola.?In the last num ber of Leslie's Illustrated Neat meat a sketch of the grave of Osceola, the Indian chief, near the walls of Fort Moultrie. Accompanying the sketch is an account of Osceola's life and death, from which we gather that he was thirty-six years of agent the time of his death, and during his Hie had slain a large r Tiber of white persons in the glades of Flot.iia. His father was an Englishman named Power, and his "mother the daughter ' of a Cherokee chieftain. While on a visit to an American fort, she was seized and ??^ ** a slave. This aroused the anger of: Osceola, and from that time to his capture he waged a bitter war against the whites. ' On the 23rd of October, 1837, while holding a conference with General Jessup, near St Augustine, he was seized, with .a number of his followers, and ' taken to Fort Moultrie, wbetejie was closely confined until his death. Osceola died as he had lived, a hater of. the race from which his father had sprung. ( He lay en the couch in the! cell assigned, and with a frown as dark as a cloud on his not unhandsome face, he fblded his arms across his ample chest, and thus his Spirit passed quietly away to the happy hunting grounds of the Seminoles, where his braves were impatiently awaiting his presence. The History of LageE.?Lager was first introduced. into New York city in the fidl of 1848, by William Schwalbe, who kept a basement saloon in 77 Chatham street It was brewed in Philadelphia. The first man who brewed it in this city was Herr Gullicb, who began in a small way in 1849, hj . Forty-sixth street, between First and 8econd avenues, . with a ftn gallon kettle. The plaoe is still a ; brewery, kept by Herr Bocke, who manufaotares 16,000 barrels a year. The demand for lager has increased in New York since 1848 to such an extent that now the city and suburbs have no less than 200 breweries.?New York Sun. " - - 'm ~~~ t&* A lady made her husband a present of &8ilver drinking cap with an angel at the ?. bottom. When she filled it for him he used to drink it to the bottom, and she asked him why he drank every drop. "Because, ducky, I want to see the dear little.angel at the bottom." Upon which she had the angel taken out and s devil engraved at the bottom. He drank all the same, and she again asked the reason. _ "Because I won't leave the old devil a drop," he replied. *? . . ... ' > * r1 JKT; man b New Hampshire, who had bought a pair of pups of rare breed, and had given them in charge of a dog fancier in a neighboring State, was astonished recently upon returning home, after an absence of a few days to find Ms wife in hysterics, occasioned by the receipt of a telegram worded as fellows: "The little darlings are doing well, andftare looking quite pretty. Please send their board money." * s| A party from Pittefield, Mass., to California, by railroad, are enjoying themselves 1 greatly, they visited the "Big Trees," and found the journey a little fatiguing, but were amply compensated by the feet that one of the ladies of the party rode on horseback into and out ofthe trunk of a standing holloiv_^d tree, and a gentleman walked 200 feet in-tHfe""^ J .of the prostrate hollow trees, and came out of a knot hole?