New York dispatch. [volume], March 28, 1886, Image 1

About New York dispatch. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1863-1899

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PIBUSIIED BY A. J. WHABM 801.
vol?xli.-no? 24.
Entered at the Post Office at New York,
N. Y., as Second Class Matter*
THE NEW YOKE DISPATCH,
PUBLISHED AT
NO. 11 FRANKFORT STREET.
The NEW YORK DISPATCH is a journal of light, agree
able and sparkling Literature and News. One page is de
voted to Masonic Matters, and careful attention is given
to Music and the Drama.
The Dispatch is sold by all News Agents of the city and
suburbs, at FIVE CENTS A COPY.
TERMS FOR MAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
SINGLE SUBSCRIPTIONS $2 50 a year
TWO SUBSCRIBERS 400 “
FIVE SUBSCRIBERS 900 “
ALL MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS MUST BE PAID IN AD
VANCE. postage paid everywhere by the
DISPATCH ‘OFFICE.
AdarfeffS NEW YORK DISPATCH,
Post Office Box No. 1775.
plays ano players.
-‘SPECULATIVE ENTERPRISE.”
'Wr. Montgomery in “ Ttief Theatre ”—A
Wail Over the “Palmy Days”-The
Old-lime Managers—Were They
Worshipers of Art?—The
Pothers and Hamblins.
BY JOHN CARBOY.
A new ‘'weekly record of the stage” was born in
lto the world of journalistic trouble, trial and
f travail on last Saturday a week ago. It bears the
? title of The Theatre. Price five cents. It publishes,
' aside from contributed articles, critical and other
wise—in the first issue they are mostly otherwise—
'the casts of the current plays at the various thea
tres and pertinent news items of the weekly do
’ ings of prominent as well as the ordinary mem
bers of the profession. The initial issue contains
• contributions from the pens of George Fawcett
Rowe, George Edgar Montgomery. Doshlar Welsh
and I hilip G. Cusacks.
B. B. Valentine and Henry Gallup Paine are an
' nounced as being contributors to the second number,
which was issued yesterday. Also Mr. Townsend
Percy makes himself heard in this issue.
Mr. Percy is conversant with theatrical matters,
at least he ought to be, for he has paid very dearly for
bis knowledge of the business, and, beside, he was
for some time the dramatic critic of the now mori
bund Star. In this latter capacity I believe—with
' out reference to the ability displayed in his criti
cisms—he was, in the expression of his opinions,
honest and kindly.
MR. MONTGOMERY
made his record as the dramatic critic of Jones’s
Independent - Democratic-Republican • Mugwump
■don’t-know-what-in-sheol-it-is Times. While Mont
gomery was connected with this diurnal hybrid,
his contributions were about the only consistent
and honest articles in the treatment of their sub
jects there wore in the paper.
If he was in error, the fault was not resultant
from intention, but in judgment.
Ho was too straightforward in his views, too man
ly in his criticisms to suit Jones's organ. In fact
he couldn’t change his tune to suit the Jones’s idea
of carrying water on both shoulders with a couplo
of pitchers in each hand for use in cases of emer
gency.
There was nothing of the Mugwump in G. E. M.’s
composition.
Beside, ho was young. He had not grown bald
in Bohomianism. Ho was natty in appearance;
his clothes fitted him with a made-to-order exact
ness. His coat was as unwrinkled as his face; he
was mild-spoken, modest; not at all the sort of
person to rough it in tho wild riot of petty jeal
ousies, the arrogance of cheap officials, tho back
biting and hydra-headed annoyances which mark
the conduct of so many daily papers—especially one
like tho Times.
Being young and unused to roughing it, and
thinking everybody his special friend who patted
him on the shoulder, he became, after a while,
through his innocence and peaceful disposition,
A VICTIM OF MISPLACED CONFIDENCE.
He attended to his work faithfully, wrote poetry,
essays, and let everybody elso’s business severely
, alone.
This sort of man on a daily paper is not likely to
be particularly successful.
There isn’t enough of the conspirator in him.
His capacity for midnight beer and billiards and
bar-room criticism, is too limited.
■ Above all. he had the misfortune to be a scholar,
and scholars are rarely afflicted with an itching
palm.
As Captain Diedrich, in “Evangeline,*’ remarks,
“Ho had some style about him.”
So whon all these attributes of his character
which so utterly disqualified him from service as a
critic for Jones’s Blow-hot-and-cold Times, and as
a conspirator, how could he have expected that his
. position would be permanent ?
He resigned his position as critic. Out and away
from the murky atmosphere of the Times, impreg
nated as it is with Mugwump malaria, Montgom
ery’s path has been one of peace and poesy; he has
used his pen as he chose, and has, I trust, so
prospered that there has never a doubt clouded his
thought as to the source from whence his morrow's
bread and butter and other health-sustaining luxu
. ties would come.
The Times has not, since he left it, had as faithful
.ft representative of its dramatic columns since.
But it has one which can inhale its atmosphere
and live. Schwab.
Now it is that Montgomery, possibly wearied
with the monotony of sailing on the smooth sea of
an unobtrusive life, has taken unto himself the
task of seeking the rewards and emoluments, not to
r say tho reputation which may be his, as tho co
publisher and editor of a “ Weekly Record of tho
Stage.”
His reward, I hope, will be success not remorse.
I notice, in this connection, that a reporter who,
in tho course of a year’s service on a daily paper,
lias had two or three assignments to interview an
Actor or actress, manager or playwright, or to
■“ write up” a performance at one of the minor thea
tres, invariably—if his assertions and assumptions
Are to be believed—
KNOWS MORE ABOUT THE STAGE,
Its people, plsys, history and business, than those
who have passed the better part of their lives in
theatric study.
They know it all; but, unfortunately, they nover
betray their vast knowledge in anything they write
for the press.
Of these is the man who had an assignment not
long ago to write up a dress rehearsal at the Casino,
and who had Pauline Hall “ stepping from the
atage into the fiies,” and referred knowingly to the
“ exquisite setting of the tormentor wings in the
upper entrances,” and incidentally mentioned that
the artistic tasto of the property man was plainly
visible in the “ props and other braces, which add
ed to the brilliance of the wtise-en-scene.”
Oi these, too, was the Herald man, who once crit
icized a performance of “Fazio” at Niblo’s Garden,
-and called the work a “ new play written by a cler
igyman" —“a play containing some excellent
and then he went on and gave a synopsis
*f the plot.
You boo it wasn't his fault that ho wasn’t old
enough to have been in New York or Philadelphia
in 1818, wlicro it was played and wasn’t even then
regarded as anything particularly now, or that it
was extraordinary that a clergyman should have
written it.
But ail the same, he knew it all,
jpf these, too, was the one who “ went” for a lead
ing ,actress who, as ho asserted, “gave a miserable
roudK*ion of her part of Ophelia, in ‘Othello,”’ aud
wounit i’P with the crushing announcement that,
2b a whole, this piece of sbßicapeare•o, ,
since its adaptation by Sheridan Knowles, has
never been so wretchedly misrepresented.”
Now, again, a return to the text of this little dis
course may not be out of order.
In the initial number of this modest and unas
suming candidate for public favor, The Theatre, Mr.
Montgomery contributes an editorial which boars
tho title of
“THE MANAGER.”
He gives it as his opinion in this editorial that
the manager “not so very long ago was a well
defined personage,” but that now he is not of that
ilk in the vocabulary of definitions. And that the
old-fashioned manager is at this moment merely
“ an agreeable and highly respectable reminis
cence.”
This slighting reference to tho old Public func
tionaries of the theatre who have come down to us
from the palmy days of the last century, or therea
bouts, is rather rough, to say the least, upon such
well-preserved and vigorous veterans as McVicker,
Bidwell, Colville and Hooloy. What has any one of
these bright and shining managerial lights done
that he should thus be put by Mr. Montgomery
upon a pedestal in the Museum of Antiquities, and
labelled—“This is a Reminiscence; see Catalogue.”
“The main object,” quoth my esteemed friend, G.
E. M.» of tho manager in the palmy day period,
“was not to make money, but to produce plays and
present actors. If the plays and the actors made
money for him, so much the better; if not, he was
seldom disposed to throw up his trade and rush
into a more lucrative business.”
That is to say the old time manager was always
ready to go into bankruptcy for the sake of exalt
ing dramatic art. That rather than a Murdock, a
Booth, Forrest, or any of the great actors of the
time should suffer from a stringency in his individ
ual financial account, the manager would give the
star the entire gross receipts of the engagement,
and himself board at the alms-house, and go around
with his hat taking up a daily collection with which
to pay his company and the rest of his theatre.
I remember many of those great and good
SELF-SACRIFICING MANAGERS.
There was old John Bates, John S. Pother, Garry
Hough, Carr and Warren, Hamblin, Price, A. H.
Purdy, E. A. Marshall, Simpson, and a score or two
others equally notable in “the long ago,” whose
“main object was to produce playa and present
actors, and not to make money.”
But it is painful to reflect that through some
defect in their mental vision they almost invariably
lost sight of tho main object for which they became
and were managers, and really exhibited a disgust
ingly unartistic and greedy desire to enrich them
selves first and give'what was left—to the actors.
Thoy did not encourage art by paying a loading
man two or three hundred dollars a week—nor did
they expend ten or fifteen thousand dollars in the
production of a play. Not a bit of it. The leading
man was happy if he received twenty-five to thirty
dollars a week; and the ordinary star, if he could
get forty or fifty dollars a night, looked upon him
self as on the high road to fortune.
There were as many Stetsons, Miles & Bartons,
Gilmores, Hills, Miners, Murthas, Abbeys, Frenchs,
Graus and McOaulls
IN THE “ LONG AGO ”
as there are now There was no less speculation in
theatrical managers than we have now. Their
methods and the profits and losses of their dramatic
undertakings were not so familiar to the public as
the enterprises of the managerial guild of the pres
ent time, for the simple reason that thirty and
forty years ago there was comparatively little said
of them in the public press; neither players or
plays hold such a prominent position in social or
popular estimate as they do now; thoir movements,
the financial resources of the managers, and the
progress of the drama were far from being mat
terfl ’-'nmjnt in «»” ''nminorcia'
sense. Columns in the press in advertising, in
notices, interviews, criticisms and theatrical news
are devoted to the stage and its condition and work
now where paragraphs were then considered all
sufficient.
There are a score of managers now, where in the
“long ago” there were scarcely five; theatres have
multiplied ten fold, and the chroniclers of their
daily history, the newspapers, have increased almost
beyond computation in number, influence, circula
tion and size.
Had the motives and objects for which a large
majority of the managers of those days and even
of tho “not very long ago” been as clearly ventila
ted by the press, I have a gloomy suspicion that
it would have been revealed that they had a much
greater interest in the receipts of the box office
than in the exaltation of dramatic art.
Else wherefore did managers then when Shakes
peare wouldn’t “draw,” when melo drama—the
“ Agnoe, or the Bleeding Nun,” “Dumb Girl of
Genoa.” “Flying Dutchman,” “Cherry and Fair
Star,” and all that sort of thing wouldn’t “pull up
the season to a paying basis ” —knock out the profit
less legitimate in one round and put upon the stage
nomadic troupes of “Model Artists”—the nude
forerunners, in lack of costume, of comic opera
choristers and gaze with delight upon the packed
audiences these exhibitions attracted?
THEATRICAL MANAGEMENT IN THOSE DAYS
meant money—as it does now. If profit could be
made by a close adherence to the legitimate pur
poses of a theatre and dramatic art, well and good;
if not, then, anything for profit.
I do not agree with my critical friend that “we
must deplore tho fact that speculative enterprise
should dominate artistic purpose.”
It is this spirit of speculation, creating as It does,
rivalry among managers and the expenditure of
capital by each one of them in endeavoring to pro
duce dramatic or theatric attractions to win the
greater share oi profit and popular fame to himself,
which has in the past few years brought to our
stage its greatest dramatic and artistic triumphs.
What but the speculative enterprise of Jarrett
and Palmer was it which brought to our stage the
magnificent revivals which in late years we have
had of “ Julius Cass ar,” “ Henry V.,’” and “ Sar
danapalus,” or of Hill and Abbey in that of “Romeo
and Juliet?” What but “speculative enterprise ”
induced Robson and Crane to give so costly a re
vival of “The TwoDromios?” Did these managers
expend all this money out of a pure and disinterested
love of art; for the mere purpose of “ producing
plays aud presenting actors ?”
Not much 1 They didn't even give a thought to
the “ domination of artistic purpose ” other than
in so far as it might be tributary in ensuring a
profitable return through popular favor.
Were it not for this same spirit of “ speculative
enterprise ” would capitalists and property holders
invest so largely of their means in erecting theatres
and lavishly providing them with every attribute
in the way of decoration, and of costly furnishing, to
satisfy not only the most luxurious tastes of the
public, but to ensure the most perfect representa
tions on the stage ?
Let us have more “ speculative enterprise ” and
less of this mourning about the decadance of
“ dramatic art.” If the public wants Shakespeare
and “ the old comedies ” the managers will give
them place.
But when a man wants to purchase a pair of shoe
strings he isn't going to ask for horse shoes.
THE PLAYGOING PUBLIC
is not timid in making known its taste. And if it
has an appetite for comic opera or burlesque, the
manager would be deservedly regarded as an idiot
who would persistently endeavor to satisfy that
appetite with “ Hamlet ” or a dramatization of the
“ Sorrows of Werther.”
The manager, like the actor, must fit himself to
his time and its demands.
The newspaper of fifty years ago would make but
a sorry showing to-day.
Ths Figaro published thirty odd years ago by the
elder Parsloo, in Barclay street, was a “lame and
impotent conclusion ” as compared with any of the
dramatic papers now published. Fifty years hence
chore will bo tho story of to-day—the old, old story
repeated. There will be the same grief over “Specu
lative enterprise dominating dramatic artistic pur
pose.”
We won’t know it, Montgomery, but it’ll be there
all the same.
The press and critics and the wiseacres then will
mourn for the “ palmy days” of ISS6; thoy will tell
tho rising generation that then thoie were managers
who loved Art better than making money. They
will Dame the Stetsons, Hills, Abbeys, Grans and
tho rest, as men who were continually throwing
their money to the dogs for tl*o sake of embracing
Art and being glorified as martyrs in her cause.
And the young critics of 1936 will tell their man
agers thai they thouid take cample from those of
1886.
And I bore thoy will io ibn public libraries or at
«Oiuo of the old bank (stalls fin J volumes in a read
able .etale of preservation, of Mr. Montgomery's The
Tiicaif e.
And ib&t the pe?ti#al of r»li C s of the jour-
a dead aud fcoou era, will tend with earn
reader
“To wale Pre sotfl by cirol<*« of Art
Tp tawd ths goaih's and tv lujud tho heart.”
NEW Y<ORK- SUNDAY," MARCH 28, 1886.
TBESAPPHI&EONIHEBEICfI
A HORRIBLE LEGEND OF BARNEGAT.
Tlie Men WHo Came from
tlie Sea.
DAZZLED BY GOLD AND GEMS.
Sol Mulready’s Murderous Hos
pitality.
REUBEN THE PARRICIDE.
The Assassination of Senor
Camacho,
A HORROR-HAUNTED CABIN.
A paragraph going the rounds of the press to the
effect that a fisherman has picked up on the beach
near Barnegat a very fine sapphire, has given rise to
a great deal of speculation and fanciful surmise as
to how the gem came to be where it was found.
The generally accepted hypothesis is that it was
washed up by the sea from a wreck, though some
surmise that the romance behind it is no greater
than the simple dropping of it from a setting in
some duck-hunter’s adornments. Either explana
tion may be the true one—yet perhaps neither is
correct, for tho sapphire, found where it was, fits
strangely well into ono of the most strangely horri
ble legends told by the old folks along Barnegat way
on the Jersey coast, among whom there is a wealth
of weird, fantastic and ghastly tradition—which,
however, they aro very shy of airing to incredulous
strangers. The story they tell, which may be
THE TRUE TALE OF THE SAPPHIRE,
is as follows: As long ago as 1846 there lived near
the beach a tall, sallow, raw-boned man known as
“Bulky Sol,” but whose real name was Solomon
Mulready. His family consisted of a dreary, old,
worn-out, wretched-looking wife, whose name of
Mehitabel might have been enough to crush her
even without the hard life she had with Sol and
three children—two sons, Reuben and Daniel, aged
respectively 20 and 18 years, and a daughter, Nancy,
aged 12. They fished and gunned for a living, sup
plementing those’avocations with occasional petit
larcenies when they had a chance, and ofttimes cap
turing some valuable plunder from wrecks, which
wero sadly frequent in those days upon that coast,
even when no false lights gleamed upon the shore.
In June of the year mentioned, Sol Mulready, going
down to the beach early one morning, was a little
surprised to see coming in from the sea a small boat
rowed by two men. No vessel appeared in sight to
discourage the supposition that they might have
rowed across from the other side of the big pond.
In fact Sol, with a slight abatement of his ordinary
sulkiness, asked them if they had not done so.
“Oh 1 no,” answered one of them. “ Not so bad
as that. But we ve had a long pull all the same
and don’t mind telling you why, for you look like a
square good fellow who wouldn’t betray a couple of
sailormen in bard luck. The fact is that Murty and
I were shipped aboard a hermaphrodite brig where
there was a mate who just made life a heli for us,
and one night we, to protect ourselves, gave him
such a hammering that he isn’t out of bed yet. We
knew that j ust as sure as he got us to New York the
Captain would have us arrested for
MUTINY ON THE HIGH SEAS,
and we made up our minds that as soon as we
could give him the slip we would do so. Last niaht
we got a chance aud—here we are. That’s all there
is of it and I think if you’re a man and found your
self fixed as we were, you would have done as we
did.”
Sol said that he thought he would. Probably if
he bad known their real story—wlaidh was not at
all like what they told him—he would have been
quite as likely to do as they had done. He didn’t
more than half believe them; and yet their story
was a good and not at all an improbable one, They
had made it up well so as to stand inquiry. But
t-bey were such a villainous-looking pair! Sol
didn’t mind that. He rather liked viilainous.look
ing people, being one of them himcelf.
They said that they had a few shillings and would
like to buy a breakfast. He led the way to his
cabin where the miserable-seeming Mehitabel and
her daughter got them up an abundant, if not
choice, meal.
After breakfast tbe two deserters took a walk
down the beach. Sol wondered wby two men who
must be weary from a night's hard rowing, should
take a walk for exercise. He sniffed a possibility of
profit in watching them. Clambering up to the low
garret of his one-story cabin he laid himself upon
its floor before the small square window that sus
tained a semblance of doing duty as a window for
it, and trained upon them a powerful ship's teles
cope that he had once “saved ” from a wreck.
The two men went a long distance up the beach,
looking about them keenly from time to time, as if
to watch if they were observed. Then they sat
down on the sand, lighted their pipes and smoked
for some time, all the while watching to see that
they were quite alone. From where thoy sat only
tbe end ot Sol’s cabin, above the eaves, could be
discerned. At length, as if re-assured by the per
fect solitude around them thoy proceeded to busi
ness. One of them spread his jacket between them
on the sand. Then, each drew packages irom in-‘
side his shirt, where they had been upheld by his
belt. As they opened the package and poured out
their contents a flood of
GOLD AND DAZZLING GEMS
glowed and sparkled in the sunlight. Viewed
through the glass the treasure seemed so near to
Sol that his fingers mechanically clutched as if
grasping at it. He saw the sailors divide it in two
piles, toss a coin for first choice between them—
which seemed to be won by the loquacious one
who had told the fanciful story of their flight—and
then each, taking his share, secreted it about him,
after which they lit their pipes again. Sol came
down from the loft, put away the telescope and
hastened to tho swamp, having first told his wife
that she must not, before his return, give dinner
to the sailors, who had that morning announced
their intention of going away about dusk. They
did go away about that time, but not as they had
purposed.
When Sol returned from the swamp he brought
with him a bunch of foliage, apparently some small
vines twirled tightly together, and a quantity of
thick, glossy, green leaves, which he concealed un
til he could get a chance to jam it into a coffee pot
that he filled with water and put on the fire to boil,
After a little while be poured off a greenish decoc
tion from the leaves, cleaned out the coffee pot, put
in the decoction again, threw in some coffee,’ and
ordered Mehitabel to get the dinner ready.
The fugitive sailors ate heartily, and each drank
a couple of cups of tbe coffee Sol had prepared
Within half an hour after dinner strange sensations
assailed them. Their hearts beat violently, yet a
feeling of cold seemed to run through their veins
Then they became drowsy, and when they got up
to go out into the open air their knees weakened
and they staggered. Going a little way from the
house, on the beach, they laid down upon the sand
and in a iew moments lost consciousness alto
gether.
Sol, who had been watching them from the door
of his cabin, came down to them, with a keen
sheath-knife in his belt, and a shovel in his hand
With as much coolness as if he had been simply
spading up a garden, he dug a hole in the sand near
the head of each stupified man, and then, taking
first one and then the other, rolled them over on
their faces, put a knee upon their backs, holdfin"
up by the hair their beads,
CUT THEIR THROATS FROM EAR TO EAR,
letting the blood flow into the holes he had dug.
Then he rifled the bodies of every article of value
upon thorn and taking them one by one in his boat,
carried them out to deep water and sank them
there, with heavy anchor-stones fastened to their
eet. That was the journey they started on, a much
longer one and sooner commenced than they had
contemplated.
Sol. believed that no human eye had witnessed
his crime. He was wrong. His sons were away at
Barnegat, Nancy was hunting berries in.the distant
woods, and before he went out to kill the sailors he
tied Mehitabel so that he thought she could not
move toward the door to see what he was doing.
But the old woman’s curiosity gave her surprising
forces. She could not quite get to the door, but
did manage to crawl to a hole in the wall where she
could follow her busband with her eyes. The
horror of the sight she saw paralyzed her.
When Sol had completed his job, he returned
home, liberated bis wife and again clambered up to
the loft, to bo alone, in order that he might learn
the amount of wealth that he bad won at the cost
of two murders. It overwhelmed him. There were
more than two handlulls of precious stones,
emeralds, sapphires, rubies, diamonds and pearls’
Starless anlr
Concerning those he could only make a guess, from
their size and brilliancy that they must be worth
an enormous sum. With the gold, however, he was
more familiar, and there was enough of it to make
him a rich man, from his point of view. It was
almost dark when he finished counting and esti
mating, and so engrossed had he been in his task
that he had not heard the return of his sons, or the
hideous story that the white-faced, trembling, half
crazed old woman told to the elder one. No, he
heard of nothing, thought of nothing, for hours,
until
DEATH STOOD AT HIS ELBOW,
except gold and precious stones. Suddenly awak
ened to a consciousness that some one was climbing
up the cleets on the wall that served for a ladder to
the Jott, he hastily jerked a piece of sail-cloth over
the piles of wealth on the floor and turned, with an
oath, to demand who was coming up. For answer,
tbe head of his eldest son, Reuben, arose through
the little trap door, followed by his body.
“ What do you want here ?” demanded Sol
angrily.
“I want half ”
“Half what?”
Reuben’s only reply at the moment was to bring
from behind him his left hand, that he had kept
clenched until now, and to lay before his father
what it had held—a handful of sand, clotted togeth
er with blood. The young man had gone to the
beach to verify his story and, easily find
ing the spot where the murder had been done, had
brought back this evidence to support his claim for
a share In tbe profits of the crimes.
Sol replied to his son’s demand with a refusal, a
curse and a threat to break his neck—as nearly si
multaneously as one tongue could utter three
things—aud springing to his feet struck Reuben a
violent blow in tho face. The boy knew that he was
no match for his father and backed away, striving
only to shield himself from the blows that Sol —
who seemed to be wild with fury and was yelling,
“ You’ve come to rob me I have you ?”—rained up
on him. The low small loft was an ugly place for
such a struggle, but Reuben did not dare Attempt
descending the ladder for fear of being kicked in
the face. Becoming desperate he pulled out a dou
ble-barreled brass pistol that, since he was a boy,
he had been in the habit of carrying “ for style ” —
and, without any deliberate aim, Area it toward tho
powerful man who, with frenzied strength was
beating him down. Sol Mulready follto the floor
dead, with
A BULLET IN HIS HEART.
When Reuben had sufficiently collected his senses
to realize that he had killed his father, terror over
came him; ho thought no more of the plunder of
the dead sailors, but only of escape, and with a cry
of horror rushed down the ladder and out of the
cabin door and away in the gathering night. He
had not even seen the treasure.
Daniel, who had been sitting on tbe bench out
side the back doorand amusing himself with paint
ing up an old duck decoy, heard the quarrel, the
shot, and Reuben’s cry as he fled, as did also Nancy,
who had just then returned home. It was some
minutes, however, before he could summon suffi
cient resolution to go up in the loft and see what
had happened to the man who so suddenly stopped
cursing and striking. In these few minutes the
dusk had deepened until it was almost night. He
took a candle with him when he went up.
Sol was dead—no doubt about that. The best
thing Daniel could do, as it seomed to him, was to
lower tbe body to the ground floor. It would then
be time enough to consider what further was to be
done.
There were plenty of ropes in the loft. He fast
ened one about his father’s body, ran it around a
post of an old cot bedstead, so that it should not
“ pay out” too rapidly, and made ready to push the
corpse to the trap and lower away.
Just then he accidentally kicked aside tbe piece
of sail-cloth and exposed the glittering piles of gold
K oxuo. sight seemed to dazzle and stun
him for a moment. Then he was possessed by an
agonizing fear that somebody would come up to
help him and share bis discovery. With nervous
haste he pushed the body down tbe trap and let it
go with such a rush that it landed with a violent
thump upon the floor below, fairly shaking tbe
house. For an instant his heart stood still. Thon
he seized a handful of tbe gold coins, shoved them
into his pocket as if to have with him a tangible
proof that he was not dreaming, and, blowing out
the candle, hurriedly descended the ladder.
It was quickly determined by the widow Mul
ready and her two children that, to shield her elder
son from the possible consequences of his rash act,
Sol should be buried deep in the sand, at some dis
tance from the cabin, and the murder concealed.
If the neighbors should miss him, thoy were to be
allowed to suppose that he had been
DROWNED AT SEA,
and a story was concocted of Dan. finding his fath
er’s boat bottom upward, stranded on the beach.
Anyway, they had little to fear from neighbors, who
were scarce, and little interested in them.
Dan. dug a deep hole in the sand. He and his
mother carried Sol to it and covered him up in it.
That night, while Nancy was asleep and his mo
ther was weakly sobbing in her bed, Dan noiseless
ly climbed to the loft again and secured the rest of
the gold and tbe precious stones. It scared him
almost to death to go up there, but his cupidity
was greater than his fear. Not until daylight could
he examine bis rich find. Of the possible value of
the gems ho had even less idea than his father had,
but he felt that they represented a li.rge fortune.
Securing in his pockets one stone of each color
green, blue, whito and red—he made his mind up to
take all the gold, go to Philadelphia for the great
spree that had been the dream of his life, find out
while there something about the value of the stones
and return home for tbe others, which he would
carefully hide somewhere before going away. When
he got them he would sell them for all they were
worth, go far away somewhere aud enjoy all the
pleasures that riches can give. He did not waste
a thought upon the mother and sister that he would
leave to starve.
During the day he fonud an opportunity to hide
his treasure. The best place he could find to se
crete them was in the sand under a loose board in
the floor of his mother’s bed-room.
That night Daniel set out for Philadelphia, walked
all the way there, and within ten hours after his
arrival had got foolishly drunk in one of the vilest
haunts of the city, had boastingly exhibited hie
geiUß, had been robbed of them and of every coin
he had. and waked to find himself destitute, half
naked and lying in the rain, at night, in an alley.
His head ached so that it dulled his mental agony
over his loss, and in a dazed way he stumbled down
to the ferry, begged his way across, and set out for
homo, unconsciously
GOING TO HIS FATE.
Two things had happened at the cabin on the
beach during his absence. The morning after his
departure a couple of strangers came there, driving
in a beach wagon along the shore, making inquiries
whether anybody had seen two sailor men come
ashore in a small boat, two days before. Tbe Widow
Mulready, though cold at heart wilh apprehen
sion, obstinately denied all knowledge of the men,
and Nancy, though she knew that two sailors had
mysteriously appeared and disappeared, took her
cue from her mother and professed entire ig
norance.
The men, who announced themselves officers of
the law, said that the persons they sought were
Luciano Savali, an Italian steward, and Murty
O’Brien, a sailor, who had murdered and robbed a
Spaniard named Senor Camacho, on the herma.
phrodite brig “ Gitana.” Senor Camacho was a
rich hunchback, who had amassed great wealth as a
slave dealer in New Orleans, and was on his way to
New York, carrying the bulk of his riches with him.
One morning he was found a corpse in his bunk
with a great broad-bladed and sharp.polnted dag
ger driven squarely through his heart. A belt that
he wore about him, filled with precious stones of
enormous value, was gone. The diamond studs in
his shirt bosom and the diamond rings on his fin
gers were gone. The heavy rolls of gold that he
was known to have in his trunk were also gone and
the trunk stood open, completely rifled. Savali
and O’Brien, too, were gone, and one of the brio’s
small boats with them. g
It was clear enough that the steward had per
petrated the murder and robbery, while the sailor
who was on the midnight watch at the wheel’
looked out for their eseax-e and they had gone to!
gether in the boat. Having told their story the
officers went away.
The second thing that happened was that Mrs
Mulready, quite overcome with her violent emo
tions and physical weakness, took to her bed with
what proved to be her death sickness.
When Dan arrived home to find his mother ill in
bed aud two old neighbor crones—called in bv
Nancy—watching constantly at her side, he was in
tensely disgusted. He had but one thought—to get
the precious s’ones and flee. But he could not cet
at them with those old women there. He felt that
he
WOULD THROTTLE HIS MOTHER,
if he could get a chance unobserved, to hasten the
solution of the difficulty. The end was nearer than
bethought, however. That night she died and the
old women busied thems< ves making her ready for
burial. Dan sat in tho outer room, gnawing his
nails with impatience and in his heart cursing the
enforced delay.
Suddenly his sight was attracted to the one little
window in the back wall of the cabin and he saw at
it, very white and with eyes abnormally large
staring in upon him, the face of his missing brother
Reuben. Thinking that it was the fugitive and
that he would have to go outside to see him. he
went out of the front door and around the corner
to the back of the cabin. There was nobody there.
He was surprised and went on around the small
building, seeing no one until he turned the corner
nearing the front door, when, to his unspeakable
horror, he was met by hi* father—looking as he had
in life but with a face distorted by vindictive rage,
who glided toward him with a threatening gesture.
The boy turned with a shriek and fled up the
beach. Swift as he ran, two figures joined and
kept pace with him—the figures of sailors, with
ghastly grins upon their evil faces, with their index
fingers pointing to their throats, which were cut
across from ear to ear and yawned open like enor
mous bloody mouths. The figures got before him.
He turned and ran back the way he came to the
through the front floor of which he dashed
and tell fainting to the floor.
When he revived—thanks to the pail of water that
Nancy, in trying to sprinkle his face, spilled all
over him—he found that the crones had finished
preparing his mother’s corpse for the grave. They
had washed it, clothed it with the least ragged of
the poor woman’s calico gowns, and straightened it
out upon a board laid on two chairs, in the outer
room, with clamshells in lien of pennies upon the
sightless eyes, to keep their jids closed.
At last! The bed-room wa? fcmply. Ho could
now seize his treasures, and. as soon as day broke,
flee from that horror-haunted home. Tremblingly
he stole into the room where Death had just been,
and in the darkness knelt by Hie side of his mother s
bed to lift the loose board and clutch the package of
gems buried beneath it in the sand. The edge of a
quilt hung low in front of the bed, and was in his
way. He threw it back, stooped and recoiled in
terror, for there before him, squatting over the
place where the treasure was secreted, and with
eyes that seemed to shed a greenish, baleful light
upon him, was what the half-demented boy imag
ined to be
THE GHOST OF SENOR CAMACHO,
the murdered Spaniard. The shock, coming so
speedily upon what he had already endured, over
threw the last of the boy’s reason, and he dashed
out of the house again, this time a maniac.
He was never seen again in that neighborhood,
but died in a Delaware poor-house, a couple of years
later, recovering his senses sufficiently a little be
fore death to tell most of this story.
Nancy lived for a while with one of the old women
who helped to prepare her mother for burial, and
then drifted away, none knew where. The cabin
was said to be haunted, and somebody set it on
Are. Very speedily the sand was drifted over its
ashes by the winds, and not a trace was left of the
place where it had stood. The only sign ever seen
since of Senor Camacho's gems was probably the
sapphire recently picked up on the beach.
KOT SIR TOOMAS’S WIFE.
The Mysterious Thefts in an En
glish Baronet’s House.
THE SKILLFUL WORK OF A DETECTIVE.
A. Visit to a Devonshire
Village.
A Most Remarkable Revelation of Fraud
and Deception.
•<The facta I am going to narrate,” said an En
glish detective to the writer, “are of comparatively
recent date, and for that reason I shall not give you
the full names.”
In October, 187-, Mr. Lewis, a celebrated criminal
lawyer of London, received a summons to attend at
the residence of Sir Thomas T , a middle-aged
baronet of large wealth and influence. When he
reached the baronet’s residence. Sir Thomas said:
“Mr. Lewis, I wish to consult you about a very
remarkable occurrence. As you see, Jam suffering
from the gout, or I should not have troubled you
to wait upon mo. My wife, who, as you may be
aware, is much younger than I, has for some time
been missing various articles of jewelry and small
sums of money. We have done all in our power to
dicover the depredator, but our efforts have been
useless. Emboldened by immunity, the thief has
become more daring and rapacious. A diamond
aigrette, worth £2,000 sterling, and over £SOO in
money were stolen from La ly T ’s escritoire
yesterday evening. At eight o’clock she laid the
aigrette in a drawer in her escritoire, intending to
wear it at a later hour, and placed the money,
which she had drawn from the bank early in the
day, alongside it. Leaving the door of her apart
ment open, she crossed the corridor to her maid’s
room, opened the door, kept hold of it while she
gave some directions to the head nurse, and re
turned immediately to her apartment.
“Half an hour later she discovered that the aigrette
and money were gone. As I was ailing and had
retired, she said nothing about the loss to me until
this morning, and lat once sent for you to ask
what you would recommend under the circum
stances.”
“ No one but yourself and Lady T knows that
the diamonds and money are missing ?” Mr. Lewis
asked.
••No one,” was the reply.
A SUGGESTION.
“ Now, you will understand, Sir Thomas,” said
Mr. Lewis, “ that though I may advise you as to
the best course to pursue so as to discover the
thief, it is peculiarly the province of a regularly
qualified detective to investigate this matter. This
is a fine library, Sir Thomas.”
“Yes, but it is very much out of order,” Sir
Thomas replied.
“ I observe that,” Mr. Lewis said; “ now, if you
take my advice, Sir Thomas, you will employ a
gentleman for a week or two to put it in order. I
know a gentleman who could do it for you. It is
not exactly his line of business, but I feel sure he
could do it. You see, Sir Thomas, to return to the
other matter, an expert detective is the man for the
job. And I think it would be needful for him to be
domiciled in this house for a week or two. You
have some fine volumes here, Sir Thomas. The
gentleman whom I would recommend would re
quire a bed-room and a parlor where he could have
his meals served. He would soon put this library
in good order. Now, suppose, Sir Thomas, I send a
detective to investigate this theft. Nobody must
know he ij a <HtecMye,, ydfl the
gentleman I temporary
librarian, of courftd you would introduce him as
such, and Lady T and the domestics would
know that he was your librarian. As your librarian,
he would have to do with you. In other respects,
Sir Thomas, he would bring his information to me.”
A light dawned on Sir Thomas. Ho saw at last
what Mr. Lewis was aiming at and said:
“Any gentleman whom you send here, Mr. Lew
is, I will understand is to be my temporary libra
rian. In other respects, I will not interfere with
him.”
“ And when will the rooms be ready for him ?”
Mr. Lewis asked.
“Any time. This evening,” was the reply.
“Then, Sir Thomas, your librarian will arrive
about six o’clock this evening,” Mr. Lewis said, and
departed.
INSTALLED.
At six o’clock that evening I arrived at Sir
Thomas T ’s residence and was received cour
teously and introduced to Lady T as a gentle-
man experienced in arranging books, who was go
ing to put things to rights in the library.
Now, I couldn’t tell you howl fulfilled my duties
as temporary librarian. My real business was, of
course, to keep my eyes open and see what clew I
could discover about the robbery. I soon became
familiar with the apartments occupied by Lady
T , and came to the conclusion that there was
more of a mystery in the case than I at first-sup
posed. The third day I was there I saw something
which opened my eyes. I was in my private room
after dinner, taking a smoke, when I heard foot
steps in the corridor. I was on the alert, for my
lady’s apartments were on the opposite side of the
corridor. I had oiled the lock, handles and hinges
of my door, so that I could open it without making
a noise. I held it a little ajar and listened. Two
persons were in a’low conversation.
AN ASTONISHING SIGHT.
I glanced out carefully and saw Wynne, the but.
ler, conversing with some one who stood within
the doorway of the anteroom to Lady T ’s bou-
doir. Presently the person within the doorway
came forward and I instantly recognized Lady
T . She placed her hands familiarly cn the
shoulders of the butler and, looking up Into his
face, spoke in a low, earnest tone. Presently he
took her gently by the arms and then patted her
OFM, NO. 11 FRANKFORT BT.
cheek. She passed into the room and then the but
ler departed.
You may be sure that, experienced detective as I
was, what I had just seen, greatly astonished me.
Lady T was not more than twenty-six and the
better must have been at least fifty. I was not ready
to believe that there was any illicit companionship
between these two and yet bow was I to explain
this scene? I got down and thought over the sub
ject for fully an hour.
Who was Lady T ? What were her antecedents
prior to her marriage with Sir Thomas? How and
where had he met her? These were questions I
would have given much to have had answered. I
went out and visited Mr. Lewis. I didn’t tell him
what I had seen but I asked for information re
specting Lady T , and he promised to furnish it
to me the next day. Until then I had to be content
to possess my soul in patience. Next day I was
again at Mr. Lewis’i office and learned what I want
ed to know.
A HISTORY.
Sir Thomas was the nephew of his predecessor in
the baronetcy. His father had early squandered
what little patrimony ho had and, dying at a com.
paratively early age, his widow and only child were
left in very straightened circumstances.
The boy managed to pick up an education and
went into the diplomatic service. On a visit to his
mother’s home in Devonshire, when nearly thirty
five years old, he fell in love with the daughter of a
poor clergyman. They had not been long engaged
when Thomas was sent to India to fill a position of
some responsibility. For some time the lovers cor
responded, but finally the young lady informed
Thomas that her father bad been stricKed with
paralysis and that he had had to resign the small
curacy which be held. They were reduced to pov
erty when a gentleman kindly lent them aid. This
gentleman, whose name was Ransome, had proposed
marriage to her, and she represented to Thomas, in
pathetic terms, the necessity of hts immediate re
turn and their speedy union, unless he was pre
pared to see her the wife of another. It so hap
pened that the ship by wbicn this letter was sent to
India, was lost, and that Thomas was laid up with
a severe attack of fever which necessitated his re
moval to the mountains. Thus a year passed, and
no letter came in response to tbs young lady’s.
With her helpless father upon her hands and a
kindly gentleman aiding them, his hope being that
the daughter would become his wife, and thus en
able him as a mark of affection and duty, to provide
for her father, she was in a painful dilemma.
When hope was almost gone, she consented to be
come the wife of Mr. Ransome and they were mar
ried. They removed to Staffordshire, taking the in
valid with them. The father died, and Mr. and Mrs.
Ransome lived happily together for nearly ten years
without any expectation of a family. At the end of
that time, however, a daughter was born. Not long
after, Mr. Ransome lost all he had in the world in
railroad speculation and committed suicide.
THE ADOPTED CHILD.
All that the widow had to subsist upon was an in
come of £SO a year. She removed to the village of
Biddicomb, in Devon, and there took up her abode
with a widow named Small, whose farm was man
aged by her son. Mrs. Ransome died within three
weeks of her arrival at Biddicomb and young
Small resolved to care for the child. The person
who bad the paying of Mrs. Ransome’s income con
tinued to remit it, and the widow and her son con
sidered themselves well repaid. The child, named
Ethel, grew strong and lovely. From papers left by
the mother, young Small discovered the relations
which had once existed between Thomas T and
Mrs. Ransome, and that the former was nephew and
heir to Sir Reginald T , baronet. When Ethel
was seventeen the baronet died and the nephew re.
turned from India, having attained the mature age
of sixty-three. He had never married. Young
Small wrote to Sir Thomas, informing him of the
circumstances of the death of Mrs. Ransome and
enclosing letters and papers which contained re
peated references to the baronet, at the same time
Small informed Sir Thomas that he had cared for
Mrs. Ransome’s only child, a lovely girl, now ap
proaching womanhood.
Sir Thomas, whose heart was still faithful to his
first love, at once started for Devonshire, saw Ethol,
was transported with her beauty and proposed to
educate her and provide for her in the future. Mr.
Small could say nothing in answer to this
proposition in the absence of her son, who had
gone to Swansea to purchase sheep. It was ar
ranged, however, that on the son’s return, an an
swer should speedily be given, and Sir Thomas de
parted. The result was that Sir Thomas’s proposal
was acceded to, and Ethel went under his guardian
ship and protection. Six years later she became
Lady T .
DOWN AT BIDDICOMB.
Somehow or other, I felt satisfied that the butler
had something to do with the missing diamonds
and money. As soon as I could well get away, I
went down to Biddicomb. Mrs. Small was dead,
and young Small, bettor known as Sam, had
quitted the farm about three years before. What
like a man was he ? Well, he was a large man with
sandy hair and ruddy face and very large blue eyes.
Whither had he gone ? Some said to America or
Australia; others to London. Sir Thomas’s
butler was a big man with sandy hair, ruddy com
plexion and large blue eyes, and he had been in Sir
Thomas’s employ as butler only since his marriage.
Tnis was a coincidence. Ah I now I had it ! What
more natural than that Lady T should be on
familiar terms with the man who had been to her
as a father for seventeen years.
I went and found some of the oldest inhabitants
of Biddicomb and had a talk with them. One of
them, Master Somers, remembered Mrs. Ransome’s
coming to the Smalls. She remembered, too, that
about that time Susan Warsot had an illegitimate
female child by Sam Small, though he wouldn’t
own it and it went to the poorhouse, and died
there. Of course Susan Warsot was living down
there by the water-side, in the small cottage with
the yellow blinds, but she was now Mrs. Shelton.
A DISCOVERY.
I went and had a talk with Susan. She was busy
making a fishing-net in her back yard but was
ready to talk. I showed her half a dozen sover
eigns and jingled them under her nose and she ad
mitted that she had had a child of which Sam Small
was the father, but denied that it died.
“What became of it ?” I asked.
“Sam swapped it for another child and it was
reared by his mother five years ago. Sam and the
child disappeared for a time and Sam came back
without her and said she was well married. But
that was all stuff, for she’d been married afore she
went. That I know, when she was barely sixteen
she went off with Kit Marven, a sailor that came to
Randolph, and they were married at Lawton for I
went there and saw the registry myself.”
“ And what became of Kit?” I asked.
“ Oh. he went off with his ship and never came
back,” was the answer.
“Did you never inquire after your child?” I
asked.
“You see, I got married and had seven children
ig w?4lpcjr, and I’ve had my hands full ever since.”
Suean replied.
I thought I had done pretty well, and went back
to London. I saw Mr. Lewis and told him my
story, He was astounded. What was to be done ?
Here was a nice revelation that had come to light I
IHE SAILOR.
After a long talk, it was arranged that I should
watch the butler who, I had no doubt, was Sam
Small. I did so. One night I tracked him to a
house in Wapping, where he met a sailor about
thirty years old. They had a long confab together,
and I observed that the sailor was very domineering
and the butler very submissive, and deprecatory.
When a crowd came in I gave up my table to them,
and moved nearer to the butler and his companion.
I took up a newspaper and read it intently, listen
ing to the conversation of the persons in whom I
was alone interested. I heard the sailor say-
“A fellow must spend money. I am bound to
have out my spree, and d—n it, I want more
money, for I’m off to America. It don’t matter to '
me a curse if she has to steal the old man’s false
teeth and sell them, I must have money, or else I’m
going to blab.’’
I overheard much more conversation, but I have
told enough to show you the drift of this story, it
was then all as
CLEAR TO ME AS A PIKESTAFF,
Lady T was the illegitimate daughter of Sam 1
Small and Susan Wartop, and had been substituted <
for Mrs. Ransome's child. The sailor was Ethel’s
husband. Kit Marven, and he had found her out
and was bleeding her under threats of exposure.
She had’taken her own jewelry and money and (
pretended that some thief had stolen them. It was
a nice predicament for one to be in, but Mr. Lewis
agreed with me that there was nothing for it but to 1
make a clean breast of it to Sir Thomas.
How I told him the story and how he received ft,
I needn’t describe. He bore up wonderfully. He ’
refused to see the woman who had doubly deceived 1
him, for she was, as Small admitted, aware that she i
was his child and procured his appointment as ;
butler to have him near her in case of any unfor- 1
seen trouble with Marven. Bbe quitted the house,
and Sir Thomas settled upon her an annuity of (
£4OO a year. That’s my story. I think somebody (
ought to have been banged at the finish, but reality 1
is stranger than fiction.
PRICE FIVE CENTS.
LIFE WORTH LIVING.
How beautiful it is to be alive I
To wake each morn, as if the Maker’s grace
Did us afresh from nothingness derive,
That we might sing how happy is our case.
How beautiful it is to be alive.
To read in some good book, until we feel
Love for the one who wrote it; then to kneel
Close unto Him whose love our soul will shrive.
While every moment’s joy doth more reveal
How beautiful it is to be alive 1
Rather to go without what might increase
Our worldly standing than our souls deprive
Of frequent speech with God, or than to cease
To feel, through having lost our health and peace*
How beautiful it is to be alive 1
Not to forget, when pain and grief draw nigh.
Into the ocean of time past to dive
For memories of God’s mercies; or to tuy
To bear all nobly, hoping still to cry
How beautiful it is to be alive 1
Thus ever toward man’s bight of nobleness
Striving some new progression to contrive,
Till, just as any other friend’s wo press
Death's hand, and, having died, feel none the Jew
How beautiful it is to be alive I
Mn Sto.
“OUTOFTHOEPTHB”
BY AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR.
CHAPTER I.
" MUBDBB ! 1”
“ Boys, did ye hear the news ?”
“ No, nothin’ particular. What’s up ?”
“ Come in out o’ that, man alive, an’ shut the
door behint ye; it s a perishin’ blast yer lottin’
in on us entirely.”
The scene was a wind-beaten little shebeen in
the heart of the Galtees, and round a glowing
turf fire some half-dozen shock-headed peas
ants were drinking, smoking, and talking poli
tics drowsily.
“ Well, Mickey, out with yer news.”
“Do ye mind ould Tom Connellan, of Larch
HSU, over Rathturk way?” answered Mickey,
passing his hand over his moist grizzled bead
and drawing his stool close to tho hearth.
“ Ay, ay; what of him ?”
“ Well, that little yalla-hairod girl of his, that
plays the argan so grand for Father Maher on
Sundays, was murdered an hour ago forenlnst
her own hall door 1”
“Murdered! Good Heavens 1” stammered a
lanky pale-faced boy, rising unsteadily to his
feet. “ I—l don’t belaive it. It’s—it’s wan o*
yer usual cock-an’-bnll stories, Toole 1”
“ Mickey, man, you’re drunk or dramin’—.
who’d be after murderin’ the likes of her ? It’a
a lie 1 It can’t be 1”
All the drowsiness had left the group, as each
man, clutching his glass, leaned forward, his
eyes fixed excitedly on the new-comer, who, ev
idently satisfied with the sensation he had pro
duced, began composedly lighting hie pipe. Af
ter two or three exasperating puffs, ho answered
musingly:
“ A lie ye say, hoys ? Well, well, may be it is;
the man who tould it to me beloved he was tell
ing the truth, any ways,”
" Who was he ? Who tould ye ?”
“Jemmy McCabe, the post-boy. I mot him
on the Mill Road twenty minutes ago; an’ he
tould me that when he was laivin’ Rathturk
with th’ letters, Nancy Byrne, the Connellans’
servant, came tearin’ down the main street
like a mad woman, havin’ run the whole way
from Larch Hill, an’ with just breath enough
left in her body to pant out ‘ Murdher—mur
dher 1 The doctor—tho praist—tho po-leece I
Quick 1’ ”
“ Save us an’ bless us—what does it mane ?”
“ Who’d have the heart to kill that purty
child—she was little else ?”
“Mickey, Mickey, can’t ye spake, man ?’*
“ Who did it?”
“ What was the raison ?”
“Nobody knows yet. It seems tho mother
thought the gurl had gone to bed early, an’
they was all just saited eomfortable like in tho
parlor as usual, when they heard a screech
outside, followed be the report of a pistol, and,
ruunin’ out, they found her lyin’ face upward
on the grass a-swimmin’ in blood, but nobody
in sight.”
A long silence followed, broken by the host, a
wiry little fellow with pale, blinking eyes,
“ What brought the gurl out at the hour, is
what I ask ? Somebody must have sent for her,
you know; or may be it was a saycret meetin’.
Ye never can be up to the ways of gurls, oven
the beat o’ them.”
“No, nothin’ o’ the kind. The idea is, she
merely went out to meet her sweetheart that
she was to be married to in tho mornin’, who
was expected back from Dublin by tho last
train.”
“Her sweetheart? Ye mane that black
headed chap from Mexico that’s got Tom Con
nellan be the nose—ye’ve heard of him, boys,
haven’t ye ?”
“ Ay, ay, that we have—that we have,” an
swered three or four voices in bitter chorus -
“the meddlin’ scoundrel 1”
“Him that turned out the poor Roches to
perish with could an’ hunger on tho bog last
Thursday week ?”
“An’ that give the O’Conuors of Ballydoon
notice the day before yesterday, I heard in town
to-day—bad cess to him 1”
“ Well, it seems he went up to Dublin on busi
ness, and was expected back to-night, and Miss
Nora, they fancy, not wishin’ to go to bed until
the last train was in, went down a bit of the ave
nue to see it he was eomin’, an’ so came to her
cruel end as 1 tould ye. Heaven have mercy on
her sowl this night 1”
“ Hew sowl is in glory, there’s no doubt o’
that, for a betther, kinder, gentler, sweeter
young lady never throd the earlh, as I ought to
know that’s known her since the day she was
born—an’ ye can’t gainsay me in that, Mickey
Toole,” growled a grizzy old giant, striking the
rickety table with his ponderous fist and glaring
at Mickey.
“I ain’t a-gaiusayin’ of ye, Phil Burke.
Why do ye talk at me like that ?” murmured
Mickey, aggrievedly. “ I never said or heard
said a word that wasn’t to the young lady’s
credit—an’ as iur her purty face, why it did
wan good to look at her !’’
•‘That it did, with her lovely beamin’ eyes.”
“ An’ her beautiful, shinin’ hair,” put in an
other.
“ An’ her purty red lips, that had a smile an’
a kind word ior every one that camo her way,
high or low, rich or poor.”
“ Do ye mind the time, Phil Burke, when yer
brother was in trouble about Howley’s bailiff
how she sat up with his wife night altar night
when she’d the fever, and minded the babby as
if it was her own ?”
“ When the Slatterys were starvin’, the year
o’ the blight, how she toiled up the hill every
day of her life with the bit of food that kept the
lile in tbeir bodies —Heaven bless her 1”
“ An’ Heaven help the man that did thie erne!