New York dispatch. [volume], March 28, 1886, Page 2, Image 2

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

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2
work to-night,” cried Phil Burke, rising with a
fierce oath, “ior when my hand ”
“Whist, Phil, whist!” interrupted the pale
faced lad, who had not joined in the chorus of
commendations, but had sat, his hand shading
his eyes, staring at the fire in troubled thought.
<( Ye don’t know what ye’re sayin’. If what I- I
fear is the case, the man that spilt her blood
desarves yer pity more nor ”
“ Paddy, Paddy, what are ye sayin’ ?—what
are ye talkin’ about, man alive?”
“I’m talking oi Andy Roche-Peter Roche’s
eldest boy; for I belaive it was him—the Lor’
look down on us this night, that shot poor Miss
Nora be mistake.”
There was a silent startled movement among
the men; I h 1 Burke’s pipe fell from his fingers
to the earthen floor and was smashed to bits.
“Be mistake?” he e hoed, in a low voice.
“Be mistake for that that Mixican divil, bad
luck to him !” resumed the boy, bitterly. “I
know Andy had been out after him for the last
three nights, but, as ill luck would have it,
didn't come across him at the right time, an’
Andy is such an omadaun at them sort o’ things
—loses his head completely and couldn’t hit a
haystack at ten yards I We all tould him to
give it up to his cousin Brian, who offered to do
the job nate for seven-an’-sixpence: but Andy
wouldn’t listen and would have the revenge in
his own butther-fingers, and this is what’s come
Or it—this is what’s come of it I”
“Paddy, ye can’t be sure I” pleaded a couple
of v.oices hoarsely.
“No matther/’ one of the men said, “how
clumsy and confused he was, no matther how
dark the night, Andy couldn’t mistake a slight,
yalla-haired slip of a girl lor that black strappiu’
six-feet divil -he couldn’t, honey, and Mickey
hero says she was quite alone when they came
out, that her sweetheart wasn’t with her at all;
didn’t ye, Mickey—d.du t ye?”
Mickey, thus appealed to, after a moment’s
puzzled reflection, answered confusedly
“I did, boys, I did; I won’t deny it; but, now
that I come to think of it, I remember Jemmy
McCabe said that wan o’ the stories was, she
was quite alone when the shot was fired—an
other, that her sweetheart was with her, sure
enough, but that he’d tore after the murderer at
wanst. Goodness knows which was right 1 I
suppose we’ll hear in the mornia’.”
Nobody spoke alter this, except to ask for
more whisky, and presently Andy Roche’s ma
ternal uncle and two of his sons walked quietly
out and the rest of the company followed suit.
In less than ten minutes the cabin was deserted
by all save its owner : , who was stooping over the
fire to light his pipe, when a hand gripped his
shoulder violently, and, turning round, he
found himself conlronted by a tall, powerful
looking stranger, with a ghastly, bloodless face
and dark, wild eyes.
“Who are you? What do you want?” cried
the little man, retreating nervously and devout
ly crossing himself.
“ Whisky—whisky; 1 want whisky—quick I”
the new-comer answered in a hoarse whisper.
“Whisky?’ echoed Pat valiantly. “Musha,
then, you’ve an engagin’ way of yer own entoire
ly, whoever ye are ! Is that the way to come
inso a gintieman’s house and nearly knock him
into the fire because ye want a glass of bis
whisky, ye drunken spalpeen? Whisky, in
deed I You’ve had more than enough, I should
say, of ” He stopped suddenly, lor the
stranger’s fiery breath was fanning his face and
in his upraised hand a b;tof steel was gleaming.
“ Whisky,” he repeated, with an oath—
“ whisky, or by ”
“All right—all right, my man,” broke in Pat,
thoroughly cowed; “as much as ye like and
rare good stuff, too. Just let go of me for a mo
ment until I pull the jar from under the bed,
Will ye?”
“ Fill—fill it up. What are you stopping for ?”
the stranger cried, when Pat’s hand trembled.
“ Up to the brim I”
He seized the mug, drained the coarse, fiery
spirit at a draught and held up the vessel for
aapther.
•‘ I’ve—l’ve no more!” said Pat apprehensive
ly,’ when the man had finished that. “ I’m
sorry, sir, for ye seem to have a powerful thirst
on ye entoirely. If ye’ll kindly go on up the
foad straight until you pass the first milestone
be th’ oula mill, you'll come to Luke Fagan’s—
a little white house with a ditch in front—
where ye’ll have a plentiful supply, and no mis
take.”
Then the stranger staggered out, and Paddy
Shot the bolt oi h.s ..cabin with a sigh of relief.
“Fagan is a fine, strappin’ fellow for his
tears, an’ his three *>ons is as tall as himself.
I’ve done no harm in Bendin’ him there,” he
thought, a little uneas.ly. “I wonder who the
chap is ? I fancy Ivo seen his black muzzle
somewhere or other within the last six months;
but I disremember where. He did gi’ me a bit
Of a start with that knife tucked so handy up
his sleeve; but I’ve done no harm—Fagan an’
his boys ’ill be a match lor him, drunk or so
ber» never fear.”
CHAPTER 11.
SC IT SEEMED THE LOVELIEST NAME IN THE
WORLD.”
“And this is Pidge, my eldest boy, John-
Juan, I mean—and this is Donald, the next.
Donald, ye naughty boy, put down those dirty
puppies an’ kus your dear brother, who’s
come all the way irom America to see you.
Where are Blanche and Violet and the twins ?
Tell them to co ne at once and greet their broth
er, too. Oh, John—Ju«n, I mean—l cannot tell
you how your poor father and I have looked
forward to this day, which, it seemed to us,
would never come; so many years have fled, so
many Baby, baby, you torment of the
world, take that candle out of your mouth—it
isn’t augarstick, I’ve told you already ! Ah,
here are Blanche and the twins ’—fine little fel
lows, aren't they, Juan ? A pair of the sturdiest
young Celts he ever christened, Father Maher
said they were. Cecil, 1 ercy,wipe your lips, put
your arms round your brother s neck, and tell
him he’s welcome to his father’s home at last.”
But the sturdy young Celts, with many un
couth demonstrations oi repugnance, hiding
their little foxy heads in her skirts, refused to
comply with their mother’s request.
“ No, I won’t—l won 11 ’ piped Percy, in a
muffled wail. “ The nasty black man 1 ’
“ He's a beard like baby's Jack-m-th’-box. I
won’t kiss him, mammy—l won’t—l won’t !’’
echoed Cecil, voci eronsly.
At which the nasty black man—old Tom Con
nellan’s eldest son by his first marriage with a
Mexican girl, twenty-nine years before—burst
into a loud and rather discordant laugh, that
brought the color into his stop mother’s worn
face unpleasantly-.
* * * * < »
It was nine months before the night Mickey
Toole had burst into the shebeen with the news
of the girl’s murder that John Connellan,
known in the land of his birth as Don Juan do
Sandoval Connellan, landed in Ireland for the
first time, and hastened to Larch Hill, his fa
ther’s ancestral property.
The father and eon had almost outgrown the
memory of each other, for, a few years after his
first wife’s death, Tom, mhoriti-ng Larch Hill
unexpectedly, gave up his appointment in Mex
ico and hastened home, leaving his boy, at the
urgent request of his maternal grandparents,
to thoir care.
He married within six months of his return,
and, a second family growing up around him as
torolifically as the weeds in his neglected acres.
J han was left undisturbed with the Sandovals.
It was only after the lapse of sixteen years that
the young man found money and leisure to take
his first journey eastward and renew the ties of
bis boyhood. His grandparents were both
dead, his two uncles also; he had no other rela
tives in Mexico. Alter seven years of a lonely,
adventurous life in the northern prairies, cattle
farming, the prospect of the pleasures and
comforts of a real home was very inviting to
him, particularly as he had treasured religious
ly the legends of the pomp, position and mag
nificence of the Connellans of Larch Hill, re
lated to him by his father when he was a child.
The Connellans were the grandest people in
Ireland—descended of course from the kings of
by-gone days—half of verdant Tipperary be
longed te them, their home was a spacious man
sion standing in a mighty, well-timbered park,
their tenantry the most prosperous and devoted
in the land, miles of majestic mountain sur
rounded their estate—in fact, there was no limit
in the boy’s imagination to the splendor and
prestige of the family.
The process of disenchantment was a terrible
pne. From the moment he swung open the
nattered gate of Larch Hill, all the castles he
had been building for years came crashing one
by one to the ground with a force and rapidity
that almost stunned him.
The spacious mansion was a whitewashed,
tamble-down barrack of a house, devoid of the
ordinary requirements of civilized life, with
doors innocent of bolts, locks, even hinges, plas
ter tumbling from the ceilings, moldy paper
peeling off the walls, unglazed windows stuffed
with paper and rags; the timbered park, some
fifty barren, undrained acres choked with
weeds; the majestic mountain range, a lime
stone peak behind the hill that would not feed
twenty head of cattle; the prosperous, devoted
tenantry, some half-dozen small farmers, who
had refused to pay any rent for the last three
years, and the whole property, valueless as it
was, mortgaged to the hall door.
He found his father, whom he remembered in
thb prime of life, stalwart and debonair, an old
White-haired man, crippled with rheumatism,
hopelessly bankrupt and almost imbecile; his
stepmother, a middle-aged, hungry-looking
womau, surrounded by a flock of dirty, red
haired children, whoso number seemed illimit
able, and two dingy-looking bailiffs in posses
sion of the kitchen hearth pending an execu
tion on the household furniture and farming
implements which was to take place next week.
As poor Mrs. Connellan feverishly related the
story of their mislortunes and mishaps, the lat
ter culminating in number and volume ever
since the first year of her marriage, an impulse
born of disgust and disillusion urged her step
son to rush from tho room, shake the Larch
Hill mud from his feet forever, renounce all
ties of kindrod henceforth and spend his hard
earned fortune on bis personal pleasure and ad
vancement After all, he argued, what claims
had this unfortunate family on him ? His old
father scarcely recognized him, had never
troubled his head about him for the last score
years—why should he ally himself with the
misery, squalor and ugly destitution of his
boms, open his purse-strings—as he must in
evitably do, if ho spent a single night under that
crumbling roof—for people who did not care a
brass farthing for him or he lor them.
Ho was impatiently removing half-a-dozen
grimy little hands from his knees, preparatory
|o following tho selfish impulse, when ths door
opened and a girl apparently a few years older
than any of tho other children entered listlessly,
not seeing him at first, for he was in tho shade
windows. Hha was tall and aligUL
! with a pale pure face, wild melancholy eyes of
I deep violet-blue, and a mass of soft, silky, gold
| en hair tumbling untidily from under a shabby
straw bat.
Tossing a roll of music on to tho table, she
sank with a weary gesture upon a chair, when
John rose and looked eagerly at his stepmother.
“ Oh—a—Nonny, is that you, child?” she said,
mopping her eyes, for tho recital of her woes
had been tearful. “ You are earlier than usual.
Juan this is my eldest daughter, Nora. Nora,
this is your brother, come home from America
at last 1”
John, who had been reluctantly compelled to
salute eleven unsavory little faces, mow ad
vanced with some alacrity to touch Nora’s fresh
crimson lips.
“I am happy, dear sister, to have at last tho
pleasure, ’ ho began, bending over her with
rather awkward empressement, when she, be
coming aware of his intention, • rose quickly,
clasping her hands to her face.
He drew back at once, the color also rising in
his brown cheek, and stammered an apology,
why he scarcely knew.
There was an uncomfortable pause for a mo
ment until Mrs. Connellan, who had been cor
recting one of her offspring, turned and said
simperingly:
“You are astonished, are you not, Juan, to
think I am tho mother of a daughter of Nora’s
age ?”
“Yes, very much. I did not know you had
grown-up children,” he answered.
“I was a mere child—barely sixteen —when I
married Captain Connellan, your father’s second
cousin—in fact, I ought to have been in the nur
sery, every one said 1”
“ Captain Connellan I I—l see; my father was
not your first husband?”
“Of course not. Didn’t you know that,
Juan ?”
“ Yes— no— yes. I beg your pardon. I re
member now hearing he had married a widow
with three or four children. It was stupid of
me to forget. This young lady is your daugh
ter by your first marriage?”
“ Yes, my only surviving child,” she answered
rather flurriedly—“ Nora de Burgh Scully Con
nellan. She is very like what I was at her age,
Juan, only that my hair had a more aburn shade
—that shade that is so much the fashion nowa
days, that artists rave about, the old Phoenician
red, you know, John.”
“Phoenician? Venetian, you mean.”
“Yes, the Venetian Rubens loved to paint.
Only for that difference, Nora is just the image
ol what I was when her father led me to the al
tar.”
“You must have been a pretty girl,” he an
swered under his breath, scarcely knowing what
he was saying.
Then Nora collected her wraps and left the
room in some confusion, and shortly afterward
the young man strolled out to have a look
round the place, with difficulty shaking off his
step-mother, who had not half-finished the re
cital of hor troubles.
“ Mother,” cried Nora, the color still burning
in her cheeks, “why did you not explain iu
time ? It was stupid of you to let him—let him
try to do that”
“ Oh, stuff and nonsense, child !” answered
the mother, impatiently. “ What does it mas
ter whether he kissed you or not? It’s absurd
worrying about such trifles in the state we’re
in. There’s only one thing we’ve to think about
now; whether he means to help us or not—
that’s the question. I can’t make him out a bit,
so far; he spoke so little and looked bo glum
and dazed like.”
“I never thought he would be like that—
never!” said Nora, dejectedly. “I thought he
would be like that miniature of father when he
was a boy. I don’t like him, mother !”
“No, he’s not in the least like Toni when I
first knew him. He must take after his mother;
she was a Mexican, you know.”
“ He’s just like one of the pirates in the
‘Rover of the Pacific,’ ” remarked Pidge, pen
sively ; “ a chap who’d put a knife into you as
soon as wink at you. Ha, ha, Nonny, you did
look such a precious little tool when he tried
to kies you—l thought I’d die with tho laugh
in’ I He looked almost as frightened as yor
aelf.”
“Eh, Nonny,”sniggered Donold, nudging his
sister, “if it had been a nice little yellow mus
tache, instead o’ that Jack-in-the-box beard, you
wouldn’t have turned away your head, and made
such a face, I bet—not you !”
At which Miss Nora blushed up to the roots
of her hair, and walked hurriedly from tho
room.
Mrs. Connellan vigorously cuffed her hopeful
son, and called him a vulgar and cruel little
monkey for teasing his poor sister when she was
bearing her little trials so bravely.
Nora leaned on the sill of her bed-room win
dow, the moonlight falling softly on her pale,
sad face, and thought drearily of all her troubles
and disappointments ; of the empty larder, the
worn boots and tattered skirts of her brothers
and sisters ; of those two dreadful men smoking
by the kitchen fire; and last, but not least, of
the owner of that “’nice little yellow mustache,”
that brushed her cheek for the first and last
time two evenings before under the old chest
nut at the corner of the road.
The owner of that mustache was a Mr.
Frederick Dugdale, Lieutenant of the 112th
Foot, then stationed at Rathturk; ho was
fair, slight, hazel-eyed, and twenty-five. He
had Deen her favorite partner at all the mili
tary dances and small parties given in the
neighborhood since the regiment camo ; he had
singled her out from the first, had whispered
nonsense—such sweet nonsense!—in her pretty
ear whenever Fate bad left them for a moment
alone together : ho had treasured flowers sho
had worn, handkerchiefs, bits of ribbon she
had dropped, and had shown them to her weeks
afterward ; had sent her original effusions on
her birthday and the 14th of February, in which
“dart” was made to rhyme with “heart,”
“love'’with “dove,” “true” with “you,” and
the end of it all was that he was going to marry
a girl with fifteen hundred a year and for whom
he did not care a straw.
This news she had learned but the day before
yesterday, when he had returned from long
leave, and, meeting her outside the Bank House
in Rathturk, he had walked home with her, and
confessed that he was the most miserable fellow
under the sun, that he hadn’t a penny in the
world, was crippled with debt, and engaged to
be married to his cousin, who had been attached
to him for years, but whom he could not ever
oven like.
Poor Nora listened to it all without a re
proachful or complaining word ; but even her
lips were white when he at last stopped under
the chestnut-tree, taking her cold hand, and
said, with a hard laugh :
“ Nora, mavourneen, say you’re sorry for me
before we part; say you’ll think of me some
times with pity and kindness. You don’t know
what it is to have to say good-by to you. You
can’t feel what I feel—lor I saw all along you
did not or ever could care for me as 1 cared for
you. But still you feel pity for me, don’t you ?”
She tried to murmur “ Yes,” then drew her
hand from his and began to nervously twist it
in her shawl.
“ Nora 1”
“I must go home,” she said, in a quick whis
per. “ Mother will wonder what’s keeping me.
1 must go, Mr. Dugdale—please.”
“ And I must let you—l cannot keep you.
Nora, may I kiss you before I go—the first and
last kiss? It won’t do you any harm, dear, and
its memory will be treasured by me till the day
I die. May I?”
She was only eighteen—she had never been
more than twenty miles outside Rathturk—had
read no novels of later date than Sir Walter Scott
and Miss Edgeworth. So she did not resent or
even understand the wrong he had done her.
She only leit that he, handsome and attractive,
was going away; that he had singled her out
from among all the grander young ladies of the
neighborhood, had given her hours of vivid
happiness, nights of wakeful bewildering joy;
that he was so sorry to have to say good-by to
her, his voice faltering in pronouncing her
name. So she said, yes, he might kiss her,
lifted her lips to his for a second, then went
quickly home through the wood.
Her day was so full of work and troubled
bustling that she had not time to find out how
very sore her heart was, what a blank life hers
threatened to be to the grave. It was at night,
when the house was still, that her trouble rose
before her in giant shape and Frederick’s hazel
eyes followed her mournfully in the darkness,
and would not leave her, try as she would to
banish them.
“ I can’t go to bed to-night,” the poor child
said wearily. “ I can’t spend another night
like the last; I feel as if I could never sleep
again. n
So she pulled up her blind, opened the win
dow, and, leaning on the sill, tried to think of
all her mother had said to her that day; tried
to see Mr. Dugdale in his true light—a shallow
flirt, whom any girl with a grain of pride and
spirit would forget and despise, as he deserved
to be despised and forgotten. But, try as she
would, it was no easy matter to dethrone him;
it might be all true what her mother had said
of him—she supposed it was, but even that
knowledge could not drive away his handsome
pleading face from her eyes or drown the mu
sic of his voice in her ears—it was so pure and
sweet; so different from the flat aggressive
brogues ef all the other men she knew. “ Nora
mavourneen 1” How different her name sound
ed-when spoken by him! It seemed the loveliest
name in the world—and she used to hate her
name before—used to be always grumbling be
cause she wasn’t a Maud, a Florence, or a Con
stance. Nora, Nora mavourneen 1 Now she
wouldn’t change it for all the world !
John Connellan, while the young lady thus
mused, paced the damp moonlit sod, his pipe
between his lips, in a state of fretful indeci
sion.
The old house looked if possible more gaunt
and uninviting than by daylight, the mountains
more bare and desolate, the whole country
bleaker and drearier. With a shiver, he wrap
ped his cloak more closely round him, and his
neart went across the sea to the torrid glories
of the land of his birth. What had he in com
mon, he asked himself for the twentieth time,
with that hungry red-headed flock ? Why need
he share a day longer their unlovely lot ? His
portmanteau was lying unopened beside a sack
of rotting potatoes in the hall; there was no
lock or bolt on the gate; in fact, it was support
ed by half a hinge. He had only to step inside
for a moment, and, without any harrowing fare
wells, take the last train for Dublin, and never
waste a thought on Larch Hill again.
He walked slowly toward the house, and at
that moment the moon, slipping from behind a
bank of dark cloud, beamed forth upon Nora’s
golden head and ead wild eyes upturned to
tne sky.
Instinctively he drew back under the shade
of a tree, and, taking the pipe from his mouth,
looked at her long and intently.
“ Trouble here too, by Jove I Ugh ! Wha-t a
dismal country this is f Poor Ireland; her skies
NEW YORK DISPATCH, MARCH 28, 1886.
and hor children seem to weep in eternal driz
zling duet! 1 wonder what your particular
trial is, Miss Nora ? Nothing to do with the
larder or the bailiffs, I’ll bet, for your proiile is
the very poesy of sorrow. It must be the lad
you love you’re th nkiug of; I suppose things
are not working smoothly between him and
you. I wonder who he is ? Some shock-headed
squireen with his half-dozen acres in the Lan-d
Court, I suppose. If I don’t move on to-night,
I must ask my garrulous step-mother about
him to-morrow. To move or not to move?—
that’s the question ! There—my pipe is out! I
must get a light first of all; that’s a ‘ move ’ I’ve
no hesitation about.”
He went into the hall, stood for a moment
frowning at his portmanteau lying beside the
potatoes, then, turning the handle ot a door
opposite, passed into the parlor, where his step
mother, crouching over a few sods of turf in
the wide-throated hearth, was waiting for him.
Half an hour later, he was trudging up tho
creaking stairs, portmanteau in hand, to the
state bed-room, an immense unoarpeted room
with a couple of its window-panes stuffed with
rags, letting in the cold night-breeze.
CHAPTER 111.
"you will say yes, my child.”
It was still drizzling slightly when John Con
nellan awoke the next morning, alter a esmfort
less night. Going down to tho parlor, he found
the remnants of a very unappetising breakfast
littering the table. While Mrs. Connellan, with
flurried impressement, was sweeping a corner
free from cru-sts and crumbs, and “ wetting ”
him a fresh cup of tea, he strolled to the win
dow, and saw tho figure of a girl, huddled up
in a torn waterproof, running down the avenue.
“That’s your daughter, Miss Nc«ra, isn’t it ?”
he asked, turning abruptly to his hostess.
“ Where is she going in the wet, at such an
hour o 4 the morning ?”
Mrs. Connellan sniffed three times, put her
hand to her heart, and burst into tears. He
shrugged his shoulders, and looked at her im
patiently.
“ Where is she going? Oh, well you may ask,
John, at such an hour of the morning and in
such weather !” replied the mother hysterically.
“She is going—I will not deceive you—why
should I?—going to Rathturk to teach music to
the Hennessys at the Bank, people whose grand
father kept a small public-house at Mountmel
lick, whose mother was a draper’s assistant
at ”
“ Going to teach music—that child ?”
“ Child or no child, she’s an elegant musician
any way,” the mother retorted a little warmly.
“ And the Murphys of Green Hill, the Hennes
sys, and the Mike O’Reillys of the Flour Mills
were only too glad to snap her up when Father
Maher spoke to them at her request, though in
deed, as far as the salary, they ”
“How long has she been thus employed?
Has she to walk those three miles in all seasons
and weather to Rathturk and back ?” he asked
sharply.
“ Yes ; in hail, rain, or snow, she’s never
missed a day since she began it seven months
ago. Oh, John, I can't tell what a blow it was
when she broke the news to me, and told me
what she had done I I wouldn’t give my con
sent at first; I told her I’d rather almost see
her dead at my feet than have her actually serv
ing those common upstarts my father wouldn’t
have touched with a pair of tongs!..She, tho
granddaughter of the Scullys of Bfllyscully,
people that held their heads higher than ever
the Connellans did in their best days—the
daughter of a post-captai,n in the Navy, first
cousin to Lord Barelands, and closely con
nected with the O’Slatterys of Shane Castle—in
deed, my aunt Maria ”
“ Still, you let her do it, deeply as you felt it.”
“I couldn’t help it, John; she and Father
Maher—you know she plays the organ for him
every Sunday—settled it between them after the
crash last Spring; and she said, if I didn’t do
something toward the support of the family,
that she’d leave us altogether, and try to earn
her living independent of us. So I had to give
in; and, John—l don’t mind telling you—in
deed. there is no use of hiding anything from
you at the present pass, Heaven help us I that
the little she earns, dear brave child, has kept
us in bread and butter for the last three months;
not another penny have we bad to support us.
Our tenants this side of the hill haven’t paid us
a farthing this year, and the Rathturk lot not
for the last two years and a half, although some
of them, I know for a fact, have their fiity
and their hundred pounds safely stocked in the
National Bank.”
“ Why don’t you sell them up—evict them ?”
he asked hotly. “How can you fold your
hands and see your children want?”
“Me evict—me sell up—a poor lone woman
like me ? Ahs John, sure you don’t know what
you’re talking about I If your poofuear father
was only the man ho was five years ago, may be
something could be done; but, situated as I am,
what can 1 do but fold my hands?”
“Have you no male relatives you could apply
to ? Hadn’t you a couple of sons by your first
marriage, older than your daughter ?”
“Dead,” answered'Mrs. Connellan quickly,
covering her eyes with her handkerchief—
“dead, and in their graves these seven years
and more. I have only Nora, and she does her
best, sweet child, goodness knows ! I couldn’t
ask more.”
John rose without making any reply, and
presently, alter paying his father a visit, went
out and wandered all over the property, exam
ined the land, visited some of the tenants, at
tended by an old herd who had been in the ser
vice of tho family for more than half a century.
At five o’clock be returned, and, as it was Still
raining heavily, he asked for an umbrella,
stating that he was going out again and wanted
protection. After a long search, an ancient
“ gamp” with three or four crippled ribs and a
broken handle was unearthed, with which he
started toward the town, his step-mother not
daring to question his movements, though she
was burning with curiosity.
About an hour later, standing by tho parlor
window, she saw tho umbrella returning, and
underneath it not only tho stalwart figure of her
step-son, but also her daughter Nora clinging to
his arm, and swathed so clumsily in his big
overcoat that she was scarcely able to walk.
“Ho,ho!” thought Mrs. Connellan, with a
sudden flush of surprise and pleasure. “That’s
the way the wind blows ! That’s what he wanted
the umbrella for, is it ? We’re going to be a
thoughtful affectionate brother, are wo—though
not connected by any ties of blood. Now, if—if
I can manage to keep that mincing traitor in the
background, I think I see my way through
this.”
Darting out into the hall, she took her daugh
ter in an effusive embrace, and half carried her
into the parlor, where a turf-fire burned.
Nora, her cumbrous wrap removed, sank,
limp and listuess, on to a chair, too tired to
speak.
“ Why, you’re soaked—just soaked through,
child I” the mother cried, patting her vigorous
ly. “ I never saw your in such a state before;
it’s enough to give you inflammation of the
lungs, it really is !”
“ The worst part of the shower was over be
fore I met yonr daughter,” said John stiffly;
“ she had no umbrella, and her cloak was so
light and thin that it was of little or no use in
keeping out the wet.”
“ And no wonder ! It’s the old waterproof I
bought in Dublin a few years after I married
your father, John, when Donald was a baby, I
remember; it’s of no use at all. Ah, darling,
if I could only afford to buy you that sealskin at
Mrs. Molloy s, in the High Street—that’s what
would keep the wet and cold out—and the
greatest bargain I ever saw in Rathturk, for it
isn’t a coat, but a whole costume! Are you
rested now, Nora? Then run up-stairs, love,
and change your shoes and stockings at once,
or you won’t be able to put a foot under vou to
morrow.”
When she had left the room, John, after some
fumbling in his waistcoat-pocket, stuffed a roll
of crumpled paper into his step-mother’s hand,
saying somewhat gruffly—
“ There—get it lor her to-morrow ; don’t let
her go to town again this weather without it.”
“ Get what, my dear boy ? I don’t under
stand,”
“ That coat you were talking about at What’s
his-name’s—Molloy’s, in the High Street”
Before she had time to answer, he was out of
the room. Opening with trembling fingers the
precious roll, she saw with delight that she
would have enough not only to get the coat in
question, but also a shawl for herself, boots for
the boys, a pelisse for the baby, a leg of mutton
for dinner on Sunday, and to pay some small
pressing bills beside,
u Aren’tyoa coming down to tea, honey?”
she said presently to her daughter, who was
lying half asleep on her bed. “ Make an effort,
Nora; it will do yon more good than lying mop
ing in the dark here. There—that V 8 a good
girl I I’ll brush your hair for you and make
you tidy. Where’s that bit oi blue ribbon you
wore the other day ? It made you look so fresh
and pretty. Give it to me, love.”
“That bit of blue ribbon?” repeated the girl
languidly. “I’m sure I don’t know. Don’t
bother about my hair, mother dear. What does
it matter?”
“ Nora,” whispered the mother sharply,
“you’re thinking of that little wretch still. I
wonder you haven't more pride, I do. I’d hate
a man if he had treated me as he has treated
you. I’d not waste a second thought on him—
not I! There, there,” she continued soothingly,
touched by the look of startled pain in the soft
dark eyes—" never mind your old mother—she
only talks like that because she loves you, and
doesn’t mean half what she says, beside.
Here’s the ribbon ; sit still for a minute till
I fix it straight. Dear, dear, what dreadful
weather we are having, to be sure I Why,
it’s raining harder than ever! It was very
nice and thoughtiul of John to go
and meet you with that cloak and umbrella this
evening, wasn’t it ? And he, you might say, al
most a stranger. It would be long before Pidge
or Donald would think of such a thing, even if
the deluge were coming down on you ! I must
say I like to see a young man of his age thought
ful like that.”
“ It was kind of him,” the girl admitted in -
differently “ I didn’t know he came to meet me
expressly. Yes, I think he means to try to be
nice to us, mother; but I don’t feel as ever he
could ba to me what the other boys are—like a
real brother, you know.”
“ No, of course not, dear—who’d expect it ?”
Mrs. Connellan assented quite cheerfully.
Beside, you must remember he is not your
brother, Nora, nor any relation in the world to
you, though I think he will be a son, and a re
markably good son, to me.”
Then she showed her the roll of bank-notes,
and told her about the seal-skin coat. And
Nora, with the blue ribbon in her pretty hair,
came down as her mother wished, and smiled
kindly on the young man, played and sang to
him by the firelight alter tea, while their
parents dozed on either side oi the hearth.
John, when he went to bed that night,
though the wind was howling drearily round
the house, and the rain pouring into his ro m
through the broken window-frame, did not
shiver and shake or wish himself back under a
suunv Dacific sky, for bora’s smi’.e had warmed
his chilly blood as no smile of a brighter, hand
somer woman had over done be.'ore; and tho
tearful win<l-beaten land was to him a land of
light, promise, and enchantment lor the mo
ment.
No shock-headed squireen, he learned from
his step-mother, had wooed or won the girl; she
was only eighteen—a mere child, who had never
lelt her mother’s wing for one night since she
was born; her heart was fresh and quite free to
be stormed by any honest, well-principled
young man who really loved her. It looked all
plain and fair sailing to John. He forgot the
tragic little face he had seen at the win •low-sill,
and only remembered the kind smile, the grate
ful sisterly pressure ot her fingers when she
had bidden him good night, and he longed
for the morning, when, perhaps, if this thrice
blessed weather continued, he would have the
privilege ot holding that old umbrella over her
all the way to Rathturk and bacK again.
It turned out as he had hoped; the rain still
came down, and at breakfast Mrs. Connellan
herself suggested his escorting her daughter to
town when he announced he had business there
that morning.
So he started, the umbrella gallantly unfurl
ed, notwithstanding its decrepitude, Nora’s
substantial music-cases under one arm, her
small hand resting on the other; and he thought
it was tho shortest three mile he had ever
walked, and would not believe when his com
panion assured him they were Irish, not En
glish—the longest miles in the world.
A few evenings later, Nora, returning without
escort, was met in the hall by her mother,
whose pale face was unusually flushed. She
called her into the parlor, and began to pass her
hand rather tremulously over the silky fur that
covered her from chin to ankle.
“ How lovely it feels !” she murmured admi
ringly. “ You can’t think what a relief it was
to me all day, child, to know you were warmly
as well as becomingly clad. 1 never saw any
thing suit you so well; it’s really only slight,
fair people who can wear seal to advantage.”
“It’s very nice; I haven't felt cold once to
day ; but I wish you had it, mother, instead of
me ; the shawl would do for mo quite as well.”
“Me? A fine figure I should look in it, in
deed ! Beside, what would John say, I’d like
to know, Miss Nora, to such an exchange?”
To all appearance, it was quite indifferent to
Miss Nora what be would say. She made no
reply, but gazed listlessly into the fire for five
minutes without speaking, while the mother
watched her keenly.
She bad said she bad not felt cold once that
day in her new coat; but, when just outside her
own gate, the poor child had met a sudden blast
that had chilled her to the bone. She had
passed her lover, unseen and unnoticed by him.
riding home from the meet with Miss O’Connell
of Connellsgrove, the prettiest girl in the coun
ty. They were going very slowly, for the horses
were tired, but that was no reason why they
should ride so olose that his hand could rest on
her saddle, or why he should be so preoccupied
as not to glance for one moment at the spot
where she had let him kiss her a week before ?
“Nora, what are you thinking about? Don’t
you sea I have something to tell you, child ?”
She turned with an effort.
“ Yes, mother, something nice, I hope.”
“ The best news in the world, my daughter ;
news that has given me, thank Heaven, a fresh
lease of life to-day I We’re free—they left the
house this morning ! Kiss me, Nora 1”
“ They—you mean the—the ”
“Bailiffs! Yes—they’ve gone, bag and bag
gage. John cleared them out—paid up Kelly
and Harper in full. We can breathe freely iu
our old home again, darling I I can t tell you
what a day this has been to me ; I simply could
settle to nothing, so overcome was 1 with relief
and excitement and joy.”
“It was good of him ! Where is he, mother ?
I will go and thank him,” Nora cried, starting
up with flushed face.
“ He’s out just now beyond, with Ryan, the
attorney. Y’ou’ve time enough—time enough.
But, Nora—whisper, honey—you’ll thank him
the only way he wants to be thanked ; you’ll—”
“ I'll say everything you wish me to say—why
shouldn’t I, mother ?” answered the girl, look
ing with some surprise at the other’s anxious
entreating face. “I’m sure I feel just as re
lieved and grateful as any ot you. Those
wretched men have been a nightmare during
the last ten days. Tell me what you want me
to say.”
“.Nothing to-night,” answered Mrs. Connel
lan, puting her arms round the girl’s neck.
“But in a short time, in perhaps a few weeks
more, when he asks you to try to like him, to
become his wife, you will say‘Yes,’my child.
Won’t you ?”
“To become his wife ?” the girl repeated
faintly, gently removing her mother’s arms and
covering her eyes with her hands. “To be
come his wife ! You think he means to ask me
that ?”
“ I am sure of it, sure he meant it the first
evening he saw you.”
“ Mother, I don’t think I could say ‘yes ’ to
that—anything else in the world but that. It is
too much to ask of me. I couldn’t—l couldn’t
indeed 1”
Mrs. Connellan sat down by the table, buried
her face in her apron, and sobbed out bitterly
and coarsely:
“ The wretch—the sneak—the wanton worth
less thief 1 Because you have no Ono but an
old woman to look after you—because your
poor father's a cripple and can’t horsewhip him
through the town as he deserves—the coward
ly puppy dares to—to ”
“Hush, hush—oh, hush!” broke in Nora,
scared and shrinking. “Don’t talk like that,
mother, please. I don’t like it—beside, I don't
think it’s that at all. I’m sure it’s not only that
—sure-—”
“Then what is it, Nora? Tell me,” persisted
the mother, recovering her composure with
startling promptitude. “If you don’t care for
that little* Hop-o’-my thumb with his namby
pamby drawling ways, that I wouldn’t have
looked at when I was a girl—-not 11—if you’ve
learned to despise him as he deserves, why
can’t you say ‘ yes ’ to a fine, noble young fel
low, who, I can see, worships the ground you
tread on, who for your sake will save us all
from disgrace and bankruptcy, will clear the
property, take all our troubles and disasters
on his broad shoulders, and make us all just as
prosperous and happy as the day is long ? Why
can’t you ? What’s there to object to in him ?
He’s young, he’s not bad-loo'king, he’s well
made, tall, and strong. Any girl might fancy
him—why can’t you ? If he had crooked eyes,
bow legs, a hump on his back, like the man
Alice Murphy was only too glad to snap up—”
“ Mother, mother—you don’t understand—l
can’t, explain to you. It’s not anything like
But Mrs. Connellan, heedless of the interrup
tion, went on pleading eagerly.
“Nora, you can’t imagine what a clever, wide
awake young fellow he is, with more brains and
determination in his little finger than the best
of the Connellans had in their whole bodies for
the last three generations. Fancy—he told me
last night he’s been making at the rate of three
thousand a year, cattle-breeding, since his
grandfather’s death, and, beside that, he has a
nice little income from house property in Aca
pulco his uncle left him—quite a catch in these
hard times ! Nora, Nora, I don’t want to influ
ence or to press you too hard, my child, but I
can’t help telling you it will be an act of mad
ness and selfishness you’ll repent all your life
if you let this young fellow go when he’s ready
and anxious to help us out ot the mire and
make a family of us again.”
“ Mother, don’t say anything more now—give
me time to think a little. In a couple of days I
will speak to you again; let me go now,” she
pleaded, slipping away before her mother could
put out a hand to detain her.
“ Thank you for what yoa did to-day. It was
good of you/’ was all the thanks John Connel
lan got from her, in a low nervous whisper, as
she hurried from the parlor after tea.
The next morning the sun came out after
nearly a fortnight’s retirement. Nora, looking
from .her window after breakfast, saw John
standing smoking on the doorstep, evidently
waiting to escort her. She pulled off her seal
skin coat, with a pettish remark that she could
not bear such a weight of fur, and then, slip
ping out by the back of the house, went to Ratl>
turk by a short cut across the fields.
Three days’later, touched by the wistful anx
iety of her mother’e face, she whispered before
going to bed:
“ Mother, make your mind easy; I’m going to
try to like him.”
“My dear, brave little girl!” exclaimed Mrs.
Connellan, embracing her effusively. “My
precious child ! Stay of my troubled life! What
would become of me without you ? You won’t
have much trouble—you’ll like him soon enough.
I feel toward him already like a double mother.
Did you hear, Nora ? He’s going to have the
out-houses roofed at once; he says the cattle
are dying from damp and exposure, and he’s
ordered old Jim Donovan to mend the doors and
windows. And listen, honey—bestjjf all. your
poor father is to have a consultation of two of
the best doctors in Dublin; they’re coming down
next week, and it’s a hundred pounds at the
very least the job will cost the boy! Ah, he’s
a good son, and still better, Nora, that a
good son will make a good husband is known
the world over. An’, what’s more, I’m sure he’ll
send the twins to school after Christmas—in
deed, he half promised as much the other day,
and—and, oh, yes ! Jim is just after telhn’ me
too that he’s ordered in six loads of manure for
the wheat-field below the ”
“ He’s very good, he’s very good,” interrupt
ed poor Nora, half laughing, half crying. “ I’ll
do my best, mother—l’ll try to like him.”
“And when will you be after giving up that
wretched teaching, love ? It worries him aw
fully, I know; he’s been dropping no end of
hints about it—he says you look utterly fagged
in the evening. Will you give it up ?”
“No,” replied Nora sharply, with a hot face.
“ I will not—yet. Don’t ask too much of me,
mother. lam doing my best.”
(To be Continued.)
Mistook the Signal. —Janitor King,
of the Virginia City (Nev.) Court House, bought
a piece of cheese and put it in his overcoat
pocket and afterward laid the coat down for a
time. Then he put it on and went to a saloon,
where he played cards for the drinks. He no
ticed, as he thought, that Tom Gracoy, who was
looking on, nudged him very often as a signal
how to play his cards. He lost and accused
Gracey of misleading him. While Gracey was
denying that he haa touched him, a big rat
jumped out of King’s pocket. He had been,
feasting on the cheese and nudging the oard-
THE THAW.
BY THE QUEEN OF ROUMANIA.
(Translated for the N. 0. Times- Democrat.)
Frosi was without exception the handsomest
girl iu all the Upper-Rhine country—the village
of Pfaflers was really proud of her. But hor
lover, a “boy” as she called him, was also
handsome—handsomo as the imago of Christ,
erect as a pine tree, and any one who might
have chanced to seethe two walking some Sun
day along the narrow path bordering the preci
pices ot the Tamina, would have uncommon
pleasure in watching the attractive couple. The
descent of the pathway is abrupt, slippery and
dangerous, and when folks heard one day in the
village that Frosi had stumbled even while un
der the guidance of Matthes, the accident
might have been attributed to the steep and
slippery character of the path they had so’often
taken together. But the truth was that Matthes
also had eyes much too handsome, too dreamy,
and a girl who persisted in looking at them in
stead of looking where she was going, might
very easily make a miss-step. The other young
girls affected to turn up their noses, and de
clared that they never cared about Matthes be
cause he put on too many airs about his good
looks and his riches, and was for all that as
soft-headed a fellow as any in the country.
Matthes simply laughed at them; while Frosi
would frown, set her teeth, and mutter some
thing about sour grapes. When Frosi was an
gry, there was one little curl on the right side
of her forehead, which stood out sullenly, and
refused to be smoothed down like the rest of
her magnificent tresses, which were a shining
brown. Her eyes were dark-gray with black
lashes, and very deeply set; her nose was small
and slightly aquiline; her skin had a warm and
rosy tint.
“Thou hast the snow of the glaciers in thy
eyes, and their thaw upon thy cheeks,” Matthes
used to say to her, as he watched her with an
intoxication of happiness, and, even as she
blushed under his gaze, she could feel that he
was trembling from head to foot.
The wedding soon came off—such a splendid
wedding, with all the usual fun. The youths
shouted, sang, and made as much noise as pos
sible; at heart they were every one jealous of
Matthes, to whom the much courted Frosi, the
cold and proud Frosi, had given herself as
readily as the pheasant oi the fairy-tale drops
into the lucky fellow’s mouth, roasted and all.
Of course the pair were very happy, just like
two young turtle-doves. Everything was going
along as well as could be wished. I should say
so ! when one is rich and has a pretty wife into
the bargain, he ought to be happy. The Sum
mer was a beautiful one; and when the grapes
were ripe, the sun was still so warm that it
seemed, as if autumn could not come, and that
tho leaves were turning yellow without knowing
it.
About that time there was another wedding in
the country. Matthes had dressed himself up
in his best Sunday clothes, and Frosi was walk
ing round and round him impatiently. She did
not want to go ; she did not care to mix with
crowds any more. It was so beautiful at home ;
and she had never gone out to visit that she did
not come homo vexed and irritated by the stu
pid gossip she had been obliged to listen to.
She had put Matthes’ silver pipe in his pocket;
then Matthes took down from the wall his pistol
and powder-horn.
“ Ah! please leave that here!” said Frosi with
a prayer In her voice.
“ What an idea 1 go to a wadding and fire no
shots to celebrate it! ’
“But just to please mo I” I am so nervous
to-day!”
“ Why, all the boys would be saying that
FrosiJs Matthes has become afraid of powdor I
He thinks the pistol might burst 1”
Frosi’s eyes flashed.
“Let them say what they please I”
“Yes, I shall lot them say what they please ;
but I am going to shoot.”
“There will be some trouble !”
“I’m not a baby, Frosi, but a chamois hun
ter ; and I know how to shoot before you ever
learned your A B C.”
“It is the first favor I ever asked of you
Matthes ; and you can refuse me?”
“ Yes, I refuse you because I will not allow
any one living to lead me by tho noso—not even
you!”
They separated in anger. Frosi found her
eyes dim with tears as she watched ; she dashed
the tears from her long lashes with an angry
hand, bit her lip, and returned to the kitchen.
Ho had not even so much as turned round to
look at her. The day was long and sad. At
last the shadows of evening began to fall, damp
and blue, over the valley. From the Rhine a
thin mist rose to vail the pebbly banks. It
spread over the broad fields, whence came the
sound of cowbells as the kina were returning
home, while the mountains all grew purple as
they towered against the sunset.
And in the evening glow the young woman
stood watching with fixed eyes a silent convoy
that was coming out of the shadow into the
light of the road. Men were carrying something
covered up. A little boy ran forward in advance
of the party, and said to Frosi:
“Madame, do not be frightened; it is not
dangerous -only powder I Berndt pushed
Matthes, and the whole charge went off in his
face.”
Frosi pressed her bands to hor heart, trying
to catch her breath. But her fierce nature soon
re-assorted itself, and gave her back her self
rtnnt.rnl She rrfaboa to tho Itttep and throw
herself upon it, crying loudly:
“Matthes—O my Matthes 1”
But no response came.
“ He is dead I” she screamed.
Then from the mass of bandages issued a low
moan.
“ No, he is not dead I” answered the mon;
“only he can’t talk, he’s hurt his mouth so I’’
At last they were able to lay him upon the
bed, and some one helped Frosi to undress
him. The moist bandages were removed, and
Frosi was terrified at the sight, although she
was not thou able to perceive the full extent of
the injury. It was from the physician she first
learned that both of her husband’s eyes were
destroyed. Moreover the eyebrows had boon
blown off, the nose and mouth distorted beyond
recognizability. But Frosi had steel in hor
heart as well as in her eyes. She did not cry
out; she only remembered that nothing bnt ab
solute rest and quiet could save the life of Mat
thes. During all that long night-watch she saw
before her the figure of a mutilated man, incur
ably blind, whoso wife sho was; and still she
could scarcely persuade herself that so horrible
a thing was really possible. To her, the hand
some girl, in all the splendor of health, disease,
mutilation, and death had always been pecu
liarly terrible. She had alway thought to her
self that such things could not be endured a
moment. And now tho horror was right there
before her, as she watched by the couch of her
disfigured husband, who could not even stam
mer, and clung to her hand like a drunken
man.
Who could describe the long weeks, the long
months that Frosi.sat up all night, or if she slept
at all, only lay down upon a blanket beside the
bed ? Who could tell us by what singular intu
ition sho learned to understand the meaning of
every motion of the feeble hands, and to inter
pret the most indistinct sounds uttered by Mat
thes. The physician, tho pastor, and soon the
whole village also, admired and honored the
heroic Frosi in her accomplishment of all this
infinitely painful duty—encouraging the patient
with indelatigable patience, guessing all his
wants, consoling him when impatient at not
bekig able to make himself understood caused
him to cry like a child. At last his speech was
restored; but the sight of his empty orbits, his
tumefied face, his mutilated noae, his deformed
lips, and the black patches that covered all his
skin, was something so frightful that Frosi used
to close her eyes in order to keep from seeing
him.
Quite as terrible for her was the condition of
her husband in regard to helplessness. In tho
morning she would place him in a chair in the
sun, near the window. The snow lay glittering
outside, crackling under the feet of the very few
persons Matthes heard passing by. Then he
would want to know who they were. He wanted
to know everything. He became so curioue in
this way that she could not attend to the house.
She had to remain seated iu the room beside
him. She wanted to occupy herself at her spin
ning wheel; but Matthes complained that the
noise prevented him from hearing everything,
and she had to stop spinning to please him.
[Thus disfigured, irritable and jealous, the miser
able man becomes brutal to the woman who saved
his life by such unselfish care. Naturally enough
he makes himself an object of aversion to Frosi,
who Is not, after all, of a character to submit to ev
erything. She thinks of suicide, divorce, and final
ly goes to the pastor of the village to ask him to di
vorce them. The pastor settles the difficulty in a
more pleasant manner.]
Next day the pastor came to see Matthes, and
remained alone with him for a long time. What
passed between them Frosi never learned, nor
did she ever ask. But Matthes remained silent
the whole day afterward. Later in tho evening
he first broke silence, saying:
“ Como close to me, Frosi.”
She hesitated; she had learned to be afraid of
him.
“ I beg you, Frosi, come close to me—l can
not now go to you 1’"
Tho tone of his voice had so changed that she
found courage at last to approach him; lie put
out his hand to feel if she was there, touched
her—then took his hand away again.
“ I beseech you, Frosi, kneel down here a
moment, beside me.”
She obeyed, trembling.
“ Permit me. I wish so much I could see
you I” he said, passing his hands very gently
over her face, her shoulders, her throat; then
he took her hands in his and pressed them soft
ly for a long time, and as he did his head bent
more and more over her.
Frosi watched him anxiously; suddenly she
felt hie tears falling upon her hands.
“For God’s sake,” she exclaimed, “ what ie
the matter ? You are crying, but you know you
must not cry; it will bring all the pain back.”
She rose tip.
“If it comes back,” sobbed Matthes, “I des
erve it. lam a wretch 1”
“ Oh I do not talk to me that way 1”' begged
Frosi. “Icannat hear you, I cannot bear it.
Strike me again if you want to, but do not talk
that way.”
“ 1 would like to cut off my hands'for having
beaten you !”
“ Oh ! don’t talk to me in that way, Matthes !
You were jealeus. Had t been guilty of what
you imagined, you would have had a right to
kill me.”
“ Villain that I am 1”
“ Oh, Matthes, you hurt me now I”
Frost cried.
“ I knew that I had become a burden to vou, 1
and I could not bear to think it. But now lam
resolved to bear it—it will be my punishment.”
Frosi knelt again before her husband, and
twined her arms about him. Now, for the first
time, she did not see that he was disfigured ;
she forgot that he had ever ill-treated her. She
only knew thkt her lord and master had humil
iated himself before her, that he was tortured
by remorse ; and wished to heal bis sore now
as she had healed his wounds before, and saved
him from death.
A month and three weeks had passed; the
pastor knew the woman that rang at his gate.
His heart jumped. He had kept away from the
house on purpose ; experienced in human na
ture, he knew the value of speaking seldom ;
but when it was necessary 'to speak, then he
spoke energetically, and he did not like to make
a call unless sent lor.
Frosi stood once more before him, radiant in
her unconsi ions beauty. She stood erect and
proud, and seemed to have grown a cubit taller.
Her eyes had a gentle light; it seemed as if
they could look loving now.
“Pastor,” she said, “I love my husband
again I”
And she told him of the painful repentance,
and of how she had cured him by love alone.
“And now,” she said, as she finished her lit
tle story, “ we are happy ; we play together like
two overgrown children.”
The children who soon afterward climbed
upon the knees of their blind lather, to stroke
his cheeks, are now tall men.
“How many more of your children will I
have to baptize?” the pastor had asked at the
time of the fourth christening ; and Frosi had
laughed, with a warm thaw in her cheeks.
The ice of the glaciers had vanished from her
eyes forever.
HUMOR OF THE HOUR.
BY THE DETROIT FREE PRE33 FIEND.
MELANCHOLY ALL AROUND.
Old Gent—“ And how is your father, John ?”
John—" Ho is dead, sir.”
Old Gent—‘‘Dead I Dear mo, what a pity !
And how is your mother ?”
John—“ She is dead, too.”
Old Gent—“lndeed! Dear ms! What a
pity!—what a pity 1 But how is your wife,
John ?”
John—“ She died last week, sir.”
Old Gent—“ Why, goodness me—what a pity !
And your mother-in-law, how’s she?”
John—“ She’s heart.?, sir.”
Old Gent (abstractedly)—“Dear me! what a
pity 1”
REFERRED TO HIM.
A citizen rushed up stairs on the Jefferson
avenue side of Merrill Hall so fast yesterday
that a man on the landing inquired:
“ Has anything happened i”
“I’m getting out of the way of a man who
wants to borrow money, ’ was the reply, as he
passed on down on the Woodward avenue side.
In about five minutes a second man came
rushing up, and called to ths man on the land
ing:
“Anybody gone un ?”
“ Yes.”
" Have on a light overcoat and plug hat ?”
“ Wonder which way ho went?”
“Down the other stairs, I guess. He said
some deadbeat was after him to borrow money.
If you hurry, perhaps you ”
“ Oh. it’s no use,” calmly observed the other.
“I’m the deadbeat he referred to, and its evi
dent he has tumbled to the racket.”
“ MENDACIOUS DUPLICITY.”
“This is my wife, Sergeant,” said a citizen,
as he entered the Woodbridge street station the
other day with a woman on his arm.
Sergeant Bendal, not having his hat on, gave
her the military salute, and she slightly in
clined her head in response.
“ Sergeant,” continued the man, “ I was ar
rested last night. The papers say I was in the
company of a female pn the street, and that we
were both drunk and quarreling. I have tokl
my wife just now it was, but she won’t believe
mo. I now want you to tell her the exact
facts.”
The husband drew down his right eye to the
official. The sergeant coughed and hitched
about for a moment, and then said:
“ Madam, it is a terrible thing to suspect your
husband of mendacious duplicity and contuma
cious deception.”
“I don’t care if it is I” she replied. “I’m
bound to know just how this affair occurred.”
“ Very well, madam. As the court under
stood this case, your husband was on his way
home. He sees the patrol wagon drive up to a
saloon. He protests against the way the officers
handle a prisoner, and is pulled in as an ob
structionist. He was tried at the same time as
the man who quarreled with the woman. AH'
the reporters here that morning were drunk,
and so it comes about that the names were mix
ed. Go home, madam, and be happy.”
“ Are you sure that was the way ?”
“Dead sure, madam. Further than that, all
the printers were on a spree that day, too, and
can you wonder that they got John Green mix
ed up with John White.”’
“Now, does that satisfy you?” asked the
husband.
“ Y-e-s, but, sergeant, what became of the
woman m the case ?”
“ Taken home, madam —taken back to the bo
som of her family by tender official hands. Bhe
was a somnambulist, you see, and had escaped
from tiie house in her sleep.”
“ Well, that convineftß mo and I’ll Idee
make up,” she said as she gave her husband a
smack, “ but if you only told me that you and
the Judge were also drunk my mind would bo
entirely easy.”
LOOKING FOR GREEN.
A traveler for a wholesale Detroit house was
waiting in the depot at Pontiac the other day
when a stranger approached him and asked:
“ Isn’t your name Green, of Grand Rapids ?”
“ No, sir.”
“Ah I beg your pardon. I never saw him,
but expected him hero to meet me. Green is
going to travel with a circus this year, and was
to give me $25 to post him up on some new
catches.”
“So you’ve got something new ?” queried the
Detroiter.
“ Yes, a few things. There is one little trick
I gave to a drummer a few weeks ago, and he’s
made $75 on it already.”
“ Maybe you’d be kind enough to give it away
to me ? I’m one ot the boys, you know!”
“ Certainly. The trick is to tell the date of
any coin a man may have in his pocket without
your looking at it.”
“ But you can’t do that.”
“ Oh, yes, 1 can. Have you got any coins in
your pocket?”
“ Yes, twenty of them.”
“ Well, I can write down the date of each and
every one of them."
“ Say, I’ll bet you $lO you can’t I” exclaimed
the drummer.
“Done!” said the other, as he pulled out a
bill.
A very respectable-looking man was standing
by, and the money was placed in his hands.
“Now,” said the sharper, “you turn your
face to the wall and fold your arms. 1 will
write down the dates and we will compare
them.”
At the end of three minutes he had twenty
dates, and they put the coins on the seat to
make a comparison. The man had hit only two
dates out of the lot.
“ I’ll take that tenner,” said the (Detroiter, as
ho rose up and looked around.
But he never did. The stakeholder had slid
out, and the man with the trick was a bigger
chap than ho cared to tackle.
AMONG THE COWBOYS.
NOT A FANCY SKETCH.
(From the San .Francisco Chronicle.)
In the evening the boys sit around the stove
in the log house, some writing letters before
they start on the round-up, others braiding
ropes, mending bridles, playing cards, fiddling
or singing, and all smoking. The conversation
is sketchy, for your true vaquero is a man ot
lew'words and terse phrases.
“ Is Big Nose Jim goin’ to ride for the Horse
shoe Bar X this round up ?”
“No ; old Jack bounced him last beef gather;
roweled two bronks in the shoulder till he
lamed ’em. Always was ornery, anyway, that
Jim. Did you hear about the break he made at
the Fort?”
“ No.”
"Went into the post trader’s store an’ hol
lered for gin. Fatty, that used to work for
Cross A, was tendin’ bar, and he told Jim there
was nothin’ but whisky. Jim got riled, an’ shot
leaks into four barrels of liquor. Got off with
out a hole in him, too.”
“I say, Bill, thought you went back to the
States to stay last year.”
“So I did, but the gal I was goin’ to marry
took up with a granger, and her sister died of
hog cholera, so I lit out again. Didn’t suit me,
anyway. Went to bed with my spurs on, one
night, leeling kind o’ good, and the old man
called me a wild beast. I ain’t a darned chicken
herder to take that kind of talk and husk corn
for sixteen dollars a month.”
“ Where's Squintin’ Joe workin’?”
“Nowheres. He was going to run wild
horses with French Pete, but Pete is ridiu’ suoil
ed horses for Buffalo Bill’s show, and Joejis work
ing the tin horn game with the other daisies in
town.”
“ What is the tin horn racket ?”
“ Put it in a free lunch stew and blow so the
meat comes to the top.”
But the groat staple of conversation is horse,
horse, horse; and if it is not a sublime topic, it
is at any rate discussed in a worthier light than
the average English gentleman throws upon it,
for a compunctious conception of a horse is not
limited to his use as a gambling utensil. One
hears, too, a great deal of talk about saddles
and bridlee, ropes and spurs. Every “ waddy”
has bis own fancy about a saddle, although as a
general rule the stock saddle, modified irom the
old style Texas tree, is used by the common
riders, fancy men and “ broncho busters” pre
lerring the California saddle, with only one
cinch—a “centre fire,” as it is called. For
heavy work the back cinch of the common sad
dle is useful, keeping the tree from working up
on the horse's withers and giving the horse a
better grip when he throws himself back on his
haunches to stop a cow; but lor riding the
single cinch is more springy,, and is lor this
reason infinitely preferable or riding pitching
horses. It must not be supposed that because
the cowboy is a vouch looking customer he has
not his own ideas about elegance. His clothing
ought to 1 >ok rough, because he despises the
“ dude,” but be takes pride in his accoutre
ments, and will spend a months wages (from 3J
to SSO) on a pair of silver mounted spurs, give
S7O for a stamped leather saddle, any sum he
pleases tor a horsehair bridle, it he is uot an ex
pert at working hair himself, and his ch ippira
joes, or leather overalls, are o.ten covered down
the front with seal or some other costly skin.
Bits too, and silver oonebos, or mod iliions, on
the check piece of his bridle and bis spur
leathers absorb a “ swell buokoro’s” wages.
NUMEROUSLY married.
KING HENRY VIII. AND HIS SIX
WIVES.
The first wife of King Henry VIII. was the
Princess Catherine, daughter of Ferdin nd and
Isabella of Spain. She had been married in
1501 to Prince Arthur, eldest son of King Henry
VII. and heir apparent to the English throne.
Arthur died in 1502, and the Tting, unwilling
either to weaken his alliance with Spain or to
repay the princess’s dowry, obtained a dis
pensation from the Pope to contract the young
widow to his second son, afterward King Henry
VIII.
This prince succeeded to the throne in April,
1509, when but eighteen years of age, and was
married to Catherine in the following June.
They lived together in apparent harmony for
nearly eighteen years, but there is little doubt
that the gay monarch had grown very tired of
his wife some time before he made any attempt
to rid himself of her. She was six years his
senior, was of a very grave temper, and ill
health and the loss ot her children had changed,
her serious disposition into a settled melan
choly. Of seven children none had lived more
than a few days after birth except the Princess
Mary.
The king professed to regard the deaths of
these children as a judgment upon him for mar
rying his brother’s widow, and his scruples
were quickened, if they had not bcensugges ed,
by the charms of Anne Boleyn, a beautiiul
young maid of honor. In 1527 Henry first
avowed his intention of divorcing Catherine.
He applied to the Pope for a decree of divorce,
but could not got it. The question was wran
gled over by bishops, theologians and the Pope,
for several years without coming to any settle
ment, till the king, becoming impatient, was
privately married to Anne Boleyn, January 25,
1533. Two months later Cranmer, the Arch
bishop of Canterbury, pronounced this mar
riage a lawful one and the first union of the
king null and void.
Queen Catherine died in January, 1536, and
five months later Queen Anne was beheaded.
The king had become enamored ot the fair
face of another of the maids of honor, Jana
Seymour, and charges ot unfaithfulness and
dishonor were brought against Queen Anne.
As it was well-known in court that the king
wished to be rid of her, there was no lack of
evidence, and May 19, 1536, she was put to
death. The next day the king was married to
Jane Seymour. October 21, 1537, twelve days
after the birth of a son—afterward King Edward
VI. —Queen Jane died.
Henry’s fourth wife was Anne, daughter of
the Duke of Cleves, a Protestant prince of the
Netherlands. The marriage had been arranged
by Sir Thomas Cromwell, the king’s Secretary
of State, and was performed by proxy January
6, 1540. But King Henry, on the first sight of
his wife, conceived a vio.ent averaion to her, for
she was plain-looking, old and fat. He had the
marriage declared invalid immediately by act
of Parliament, and a few days later—July 28,
1540—married Catherine Howard, a niecoof the
Duke of Norfolk. She was a young woman of
but little principle, as the king soon had good
reason to suspect. In the latter part of the year
1541 she was tried, convicted of unchastity and,
February 12,1542, suffered death on the scaffold.
July 10, 1543, Henry married his sixth and last
wife. This was Catherine, widow of Lord Lati
mer, commonly known by her maiden name of
Catherine Parr. She was a woman of virtue
and good sense and had the good fortune to out
live the king.
AN ARKANSAW CONVERT.
AND A CLERGYMAN THAT WAS
DISAPPOINTED.
(From the Chicago Ledger.)
At the Memphis and Chattanooga depot, at
Memphis, Tenn., in 1862, when the Eleventh Ar
kansaw were making preparations to leave on
the next train, a well-known clergyman—good
hearted and beloved by all who knew him—was
talking very earnently to the boys, giving them
all sorts of good advice, which they listened to
all the more respectfully as they knew he was a
man ever ready to follow up good advice by
even better practice. Indeed, such as were not
too busy with preparations for departure paid
such attention to the good father’s advice that
he warmed up to a pitch of enthusiasm that
visibly affected many of his hearers, and many a
tear glistened on the rugged countenances of
battle-worn veterans.
One man seemed particularly moved by the
good clergyman’s eloquence, who leaned over
him with trembling hands and tear-filled eyes
to implore the blessing of Heaven upon him,
praying that he might become a Christian maa
and be a saving example to his comrades.
But no eloquence could arrest the movement
of time, and the good brother's words were cut
short by the whistle of the departing train.
Withdrawing himself from the embrace of the
clergyman, who followed him with an evident
reluctance to let so promising a case go even at
Ll.o 0.. H nf milila-rjr $1 iMnipl-iw a. nnr “saving ex
ample to bis comrades” jumped with them upon
the fiat cars, and at once the train was moving
slowly out.
As the good parson was following them along,
alternately wiping the tears from his eyes and
bidding one and another adieu, “saving exam
ple” suddenly remembered that ho had forgot
ten something.
“Say, parson, I have left myoven behind;
we can’t cook without it; please throw it up
here.”
“ What oven, my boy ?”
“There to the left of you.”
Picking up the little oven pointed out, with
an alacrity becoming one who would do any
thing honest if ho could thereby but reach a
human soul, the good man ran after the cars,
and succeeded in throwing it aboard, coming
back panting and a good deal jaded by the race,
but with a countenance beaming with satisfac
tion at having done a good deed, when ho was
suddenly accosted by an old negro.
“ Massa, what for you irow dat üben to de so
jers ?”
“ Why, Uncle Sam, an oven is very useful,
and the poor fellow had forgotten it.”
“But, massa, that’s my üben.”
“ Yours I”
“ Yes, ’fore de Lawd !”
As soon as the crowd around, who had wit
nessed everything, could suppress its mirth,
Sam found abundant corroboration of hia
claim.
The mortified clergyman looked as if he
could talk “Hebrew,' to the whole State of
Arkansaw.
HE WAS A CURIOSITY.
BUT HE PASSED IN THE GATES.
(From the Chicago Rambler.)
St. Teter was superintending the placing of a
new hinge on the Golden Gates wliou a hard
looking citizen came up and asked it his card
would be recognized.
“ Um, I don t know,” drawled St. Peter. “Ta
there anything down on the books against
you ?”
“I’m afraid there is,” answered the now
arrival despondently. “Fact, is, I was an easy
going sort of chap, and easily led into evil ways,
I killed my grandiather with an ax for one
thing.”
“ That's bad,” exclaimed the saint, reprov
ingly.
“ Yes, I know it was hasty, but I was always
impulsive and easily influenced. Then—l doii’l
recollect exactly—but seems to mo I robbed t
bank once and caused groat inconvenience to
denositors.”
“Dear me 1 that was very thoughtless of you,
my friend.”
“ I know it—l realize it now; but you see, I
didn’t think; and then—then my wife died sud
denly of hereditary toothache, complicated with
acute poison in her coffee. Some one saw me
put the poison in the coffee, and thought that I
did it with malice alorethought.”
“ Singular 1”
“Very. Oh, I almost forgot to tell yon I
used to swear and drink abominably. My repu
tation was far irom good. I never could under
stand it.”
“ This is very sad,” said the keeper of the
gate, pensively. “I’m afraid wo shall be
obliged to ask you to try some other hotel.
But were there no extenuating circumstances ?”
“I don’t know, really. I’ll tell you one thing
that you might consider an offset to my little
peculiarities; bend over and let mo whisper it.
I never wore a iur collar nor lur cuffs on my
ulster.”
A genial smile warmed St, Peter’s austere
countenance as he said blandly:
“My dear boy, you’re all right then,
of course. Walk right in. Gabriel I
Gabriel, give the gentleman one of those silver
plated harps and show him a front seat. He’s a
curiosity.”
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