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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Times, 1900-07-06, Page 7-lrJ J�w1) 4 -WIVE F NDIS goo -4+11114--,-e00 BY IfQN A 11 E 1 WG`JL OR ll Wa smtr--ee0i� --o+Ss Ciopyrigitt, 1899, by Jeannette 11, Walwoetir. 00 retlring be had topped his bed- room candle with the extinguisber and had excluded every ray of light from the moon flooded world by drawing the heavy brocatelle curtains. His eye 1 balls were hot and swollen with the 1 tears that lay too deep to moisten his dry lids. In the first second of his startled awakening he did not speculate upon the dim light that pervaded his large room briefly nor upon its gradual with drawal. Ile was wide awake now and self reproachful. He had fully meant only to take a short, needful rest be, ' fore joining the watchers down stairs. IIe had thrown himself upon his bed half dressed. He lighted his candle now and passed beyond the high carved footboard. He would look once more upon the dear; familiar face from Which he had drawn strength and in, splration all the days of bis short life. Couscience smote him for a coward. He had` purposely turned himself on retiring so that he should not see even the pointed tips of the easel that held the portrait. Death is very awe inspiring to the young and the lusty. The revolt against it is natural and strong. It is only as we grow older and the prizes we have failed to grasp show their tinsel side that we . come to think of the great Mower and his personal tittitude with ,a friendly tolerance born of a sense of the Inevitable. The boys at Andover college would ?cave stared and perhaps protested to hear Tom Broxton called a coward. Among his fellows he was esteemed one who was not a provoker of quar- rels, but quite incapable of quailing in the face of danger. And yet with his first glance toward the easel that held his father's portrait he recoiled with an audible cry of ter- ror, but only for a second. Then he advanced resolutely toward it. • The easel was not as it had been When he fell asleep. Drooping over the broad, calm brow of the pictured face L it beld was a bunch. of white cosmos Sowers precariously clinging to the frame of the portrait by a twisted stem or two. Tom touched the Sowers with a skeptic finger. Were they real or a .part of his troubled fancy? They fell to the floor at his touch, and from .about the green stems a twisted paper uncoiled in their descent. He stooped arnd picked the paper up. • Some one of his many kindly inten- tioned friends bad stolen in with flow- ers and more empty words of condo- lence, be told himself, and held the pa- per behind his candle. Again that low suppressed cry of terror from the boy's :startled lips! Whoever had woven that • loosely bound wreath of white cosmos, his mother's favorite flower, with which to - Crown his father's brow had wrapped .about It a bit of his father's own hand - Writing, a careless, heedless mistake. Even as he pondered the mystery of the cosmos he was greedily reading the Contents of the paper. ' It was only a page of an unfinished letter, but the date made it precious. ,The habits of a lifetime had held good In the hour of extremity. His father never failed to date. Only two nights before that letter had been begun—and ended—when' the pen bad dropped from a nerveless hand. And yet, even as he read, Tom was conscious of a perplexing discrepancy. His guardian had said no letter had been written to him. But thoughts of his guardian were violently shoved aside. This letter, unfinished, but priceless—where bad it come from? . He read and reread it standing there before his father's pic- ture, unconsciously crushing the for- gotten cosmos under his feet: "My boy, soon to be my lonely boy, the last of the Broxtons, I have prayed very earnestly to be permitted to stay until you reached my bedside, but the sands are running out of my glass too rapidly. Let me try to write what I may not be permitted to say. "My son, 1 am leaving you in a perilous condition—young, unformed, the possessor of accumulating wealth, by no one uut yourself. "I desire you Oa tee day of your ma- jority to take the management of your affairS into your own bands, subject, of course, to advice from your ex - guardian. You will owe it to yourself to obtain a clear insight into the man- agement of affairs during your minori- ty. No honest steward will object to this accounting. As for your guardian, while I trust him iniplicitly-1"— Tom turned the paper over Impa- tiently. ,Surely there must be some- thing more. Not an added syllable! Wbere had this up.finished letter, so precious and so all important, been found? Who had conveyed it to his bands? Ile had himself searched every dra.VV- er and every compartment of his fa- ther's desk and found nothing. He had questioned Mr. Matthews with queru- lous insistence, only to be assured by him that his father had left nothing for him personally in writing, and yet here, twisted ruthlessly about the stems of flowers 'which came no elle knew whence, were his father's last, most precious utterances of advice and He folded the piece of twisted paper into proper shape and laid it away in an inner pocket of his waistcoat.- The flowers Which he had crushed under his heels sent up a sickly fragrance. A strong gust of wind set his cendle edam. It guttered and died out sud- denly, only to add to his sense of shud- dering isolation. He could have cried aloud for human colnpanionship, fot the sound of a fellow creature's voice. He bethought hitn of • the friendly watchers down staire. . On second thoughts he should not like to face his father's faithful friends with white lips •and trembling limbs. He would quiet his nerves by spending a few moments in his father's own room. Amid its familiar surroundings Ile could relight his candle and regain its lost self control. He passed through the connecting door into the larger room so intimately associated with his - beloved dead. By the mantelshelf there used to be always a supply of matches. That same faint, reeeding radiance puzzled him as he drew aside the curtains that separated his own room .from his fa- ther's. Some one must have left -a win- dow open on the balcony. A cold puff of outside air greeted and chilled hint as he stepped over the threshold, but by this time he had himself well in hand. Ile found the matches and, re- lighted his candle. It was not his first visit to his fa- ther's room. He had gone there straightway on -his agonized home com- ing. It was there he had wrestled with the first sharp pangs of his bereave- ment, kneeling by the bed and clamor- ing piteously for one word of recogni- tion from its pale and unresponsive sleeper. He had passed through It since when it had looked decorously desolate, with the cold, white, tenantless bed and its handsome furnishings primly set to 4) fusion. "l! diger', fathet'i To think. that 1 should know fear in your presence— Yon, who had such high scoria for cow. ardice and cowards! I ani not worthy to be called your soul" A. volee: came to liirn in greeting from the other endof the loug room. It. was old Mr, Braddock, who had insist- ed upon sitting tip with his old friend Rufus. He shuffled toward the young mourner now with a face groin 'which every vestige of color had, Sed. Ile nodded nervously toward. .his three companions, who came In a. slow pro- cession in his rear. "These gentlemen and I have been going over the premises, Wheaten, to: see if tiny doors or windows had been left open. It grew quite obilly sudden - 1y." The old: man tubbed his hands nervously about each other. "quite so,' the man nearest his. right elbow echoed. "We distinctly felt a cold puff of airy" the man on his left added. "Some window openon the veram, da," Tbomas suggested. "We have made a thorough Inspee- tion. We find neither door nor window left unbolted. But the house Is very large and very drafty," "The library may have been over- looked." Tom glanced toward the 'heavy chenille portieres that fell betweenthe parlor and the library. On the other side of them were the foldiug doors, paneled with ground glass, which gave the soft effectiveness of moonlight when lights burned on the library side. Emboldened by the manifest fears of his companions, he drew the curtains and fell backward with a low cry. Then indignation smothered his fear. "Some one in the library, standing at my father's desk." Ile essayed to slide the glass doors backward into their sockets. They would not yield. "1 locked them myself from the li- brary side," said 111r•. Braddock chat, teringly. "1 did not want any one to intrude here without our permission or knowledge." He glanced toward the casket. "Then we must go around by the middle parlor," said Tom curtly. He led the way hurriedly. The older men kept pace with him valiantly. Withtheir own scandalized eyes they had corroborated the boy's stained announcement that his father's desk was being tampered with. A dim light showed through the ground glass doors. A stooping figure was nluiuls discernible in front. of the large table in the center of the study, the table at which Tom bad seen his father sit through what seamed to his childish fancy interminable hours of pen work. A smaller door to the study was reached by the circuitous passage of the drawing room suit. It yielded to Tony's impatient touch upon its knob and opened inward—upon a room wrap-. ped in utter darkness! "Have any of you matches?" he ask- ed sharply. Three ' matches were responsively struck against as many boot heels, and the room was soon well lighted. Scattered in reckless confusion over the open desk were papers that had been hastily drawn out from the pi- geouholes'for inspection, by whom and for what purpose were the mysteries that confronted Thomas and his friends. "This passes comprehension," said old man Braddock, with •tremulous tit; teranee and protuberant eyes. "The study was in perfect order when I locked that door on this side. Rufus would tarn in bis coffin at such dis- array. He was so very orderly." "Sone one has been tampering with my father's papers for purposes of his own. Will yon help me search the house for the miscreant, my friends? I should like just to discover the place of ingress and egress. After we have fetmrl it we eau search the house in- side thoroughly." , An hour later' he stood alone on the low flight of steps that led clown tato his mother's flower garden. The first -gray tints of dawn were resting pallid- ly on the trees of the lawn and upon the tangled riot of blossoms which sweetened the cold chill air of early morning. Baffled and humiliated, he had left his companions in a futile search to watch by the master of the house while he wrestled alone with his perplexity. The circuit of Broxton Hall bad been made carefully by the four men. Its Iower expanse of broad veranda, pierc- ed by numerous doors and windows as capacious, had been found guiltless of one derelict lock or bolt. Securely fas- tened and uutampered with. each had shown ttself intact. The upper story of the rambling old mansion had re- peated the same story—not the swing- ing of a shutter nor the yawning of the smallest door to adthit an intruderl At the end of the search the mystery of that crouching figure and disorder- ed desk wits greater tlhan at Its begin- ning Weary of conjecture that only con- fused, of suggestions that diel not'sug- gest, Tem had withdrawn himself and now stood drinking In great drafts or fresh air. It cooled the hot feverish- ness of his body and spirit. The phautasies of the night seemed to quail and shrivel before the pure, calm ma- tinee of the morning star that still field sway In the slowly flushing skies. reaeo came to the boy's troubled spirit as he stood there accepting heal- ing at nature's beniguant hands. The night just gone was one he should nev- er forget, but it bad not put hint far- ther away from that noble brewed sleeper, from whose eilont lips had seemed to fall a gentle rebuke for leis craven nerves. Then the sun rose above the horizon In his chariot of crimson and gold, grid a new day was fairly Installed, the last (day for hint to be privileged to rays to take their departure,. Me 'he stood there alone On the broad steps of the house, overlooking the beautiful expanse of the Broxton lawn, so he stood alono lu all the wide world, not one creature to. cull kindred, Shull wouder that bo clung svitli ravening. tenderness to the silent sleeper in the house behind his Me{, Ile retraced his steps find re-entered the room where• bie father lay. Ile flung open the windows and tneved resolutely toward the easkot, Tlie ut- ter peaeefuitleSe, the majestic repose of the sieepor. filled Iris soul with a strange quietness.. At that nroment,ho remembered tbe seal ring which his ,father had always impressed upon the wax of his letters. it was on his finger when he died. He should like it for his very own, Ile drew the white draperies from the broad chest to secure the ring. In the p 1!id clasped hands le single white eusmos flower bad drooped to its death. 'rile seal ring was not upon his fa- ther's grand, The flower bad not been in his quiet clasp when they laid him In the casket, Who would unravel the knot of thls twofold Mystery? Ills mother's Bible tufts open,. rights. On neither one of those pre- vious visits had he observed the eon- spicious object that now arrested his attention immediately on entering thtt His mother's Bible, the one out of which he had read his Sunday's task, an unwilling little rebel, many a weary Sabbnth afternoon at Ids father's knee, was propped upon the center table un- der the dimly btireing radiattee of a night taper. It was open. A single blossom of white cosmos marked the "Put not your trust in princes nor In any son of man." He did not reasoe. about the presence of the 131ble, He did not cast a second look at it. Whethet be wtiS to brand himself everlastingly as a coward -did not eost him one anxious thought. Ile descended the long epiral stairs divided hitt from liUMan compahlon- ship with feet that seemed to have suddenly grown old and very tired. The distatice between him and the 11V. Ing seemed to etretch out Inter:Mutt. bly. Ile was tit one (rely with death and mystery. With cowering tisnect he crept into . the long parlor Where his father lay in toetly state. One look at the noble, CHAPTER. IV. Tun FIGURE IN MGM Having nearly arrived at the mature age of 16, Miss Olivia Matthews con- eidered herself qualified to give her fa- ther advice on all .ihatters of impor- Tom Broxton was matter of impor- trincs,, one which came up with Increas- ing frequency and growing Importuni- ty as his term at college rounded to its On the subject of what was or what was not best for Tom the small moni- tor assumed large airs of gravity and decorum which tempted one to smile into her dimpled face. Not that she would have countenanced such levity for au instant. She took herself. in ber relation as semiguardian to the last of the Broxtons quite seriously., Ever since that dismal day on which they had laid the dear colonel to rest under the weeping willows of the Mandeville churchyard and brought Tom to stay temporarily at the Matthews cottage while "arrangements for his future" were perfecting she had corn° to look upon him as in some sense her personal That had been four years ago. The years have healing properties for the young which they lose in later years. A correspondence had been one of the MCMULLEN'S POULTRY b and LAWN FENCING are not surptissod, in tint WOULD, stood, over fifteen years of very so, testing on PAM/ and. RAu.m.A.Y. Special offers made Olio year on 1 VINO - These goods are all numufaetured by The Ontario Wire Fencing Co., Limited, of Natoli, lint For Sale by the Hardwaxe Iii/erchants and General Dealers throughout Canada* Also by the Can, Hardware jobbers, Gen. Agents—The B. Greening Wire Co., of Hamilton. and Uontreal. Agent for Railway Fencing—Ames Cooper, Montreal. gareorrespondence witlar the manufacturers invited. draniss V ante A Travelling GENERAL AGENT'. anNIMINIMMONIS An experienced canvasser, or a man with good character and address, with the necessary ability to travel from town,. to town and appoint agents. No canvassing. Salary and exr.. penses paid. Position permanent and promotion according to The Bradiey-Garretson, AliTifORD, ONT., Inevitable consequences of 011ie's self elected guardiauship and Tons's crav- ing for friendship. Ills 11 months of senioeity. which couuted for little on the calendar, were entirely reversed in their social rela- tions. In their letters be figured as quite 11 years her junior. She never forgot his birthday. It was always re, membered by a gift chosen with a view to a men's ever recurring demand for neckties, gloves or the like and al- ways sent accompanied by a neat lit- tle 'homily on the approachine- Years of responsibility, prettily indital on her best society stationery: Presh from the perusal of nn effusive letter of thanks for the latest donation of gloves and advice. Olivia sagely -wrinkled her brows and looked ncross the breakfast table at her Other. "Just to think, papa. the dear boy Is 18 years old! I suppose he will be put- ting on all the efts of a grown man when he gets back. I can hear the beating of restless wings in each letter more distinctly. That is as it should be. If I were a Man, I know should strain at the leash violently long before the college doors closed upon me." Her metaphors were somewhat mixed, but as she was preparing her father's second cup of coffee with just so much sugar plus so much cream metaphor had to look out for itself. The lawyer. deep in his own mail matter, glanced up quickly, showing n "Who is strainin,g at the leash, my "011, that was just a figure of speech! I was talking about Tom. I've got an abeurdly grateful letter from him, thanking me for his gloves. If I bad Sent a shoestring, he would have WII.X- ed just as eloqUent over it. Tom Is a time will toue all that down." She was consciouS of a very abetraet- ed auditor. Her father's head bad been lifted juet so long as his hand had been ex• tended for the cup of coffee. He was (Mee more poring over his morning's mail with knitted brows. Her innitese cat, always disereetly observant of the progress of the meel, gently reminded her by. relvet pawed carees that 00 WaS waiting to be served. Her canary bird, swinging In its gilded cage In the sunny bow window, Shrilly motopo- Heed the realm of sound. father's absorptioe in letters which properly belonged to his office work Was at infringement of her most cherished household regulation. She in- terfered deseotically. "Pepe, yOti know I regard tbe break- fast heur as tny exclusive property. Thu are breeking my rules." The dark face opposite her wee lift- ed. The light of a 'mighty love illumln- ' NI its gloomy oyes, Lawyer Mattliewe pushed his letters from him in hetip end smile& "Yeti are right. my einem or henets, as you tilwAys tire. I beg your pardon foe my rude lunttetition. I am nil yours. You were saying"— "Nett:log very profoinui." She .smiled with restored good immor, "I have been wondering whnt we 'are going to back to Mandeville foe good. He can't live alone in that great barn of a house. He wmad meet a ghost et every turn. And be could not live here Mandeville would chorus Improp. or! Whnt on earth ean we do with the poor boy," Twice during her reMeritS ber fa. ctilin face within the ens se co look upon his beloved's face. tie Was ginel filet the unnerved watehere had hug With it sense ot iittietiess Ana eon. thetnSelvee of the earhott ten In Office Stationery THE TIMES is Up -to -Date. ; A superior stock of BILL HEADS, STATEMENTS, ENVELOPES ALWAYS ON RANT). We employ skilled workmen, have the latest designs in type, execute first-class work and charge reasonable prices. Give us a trial a thr your next stationery. io , THE TIMES OFFICE./ RIPAN Doctors A Go Pres eri F r ma MULES Ten for five cents, Druggists, Grocers, Reagan:Ott, Saloons, News•Stands, General Stores end Barbers Shops. They banish pain, Itidece sleep, and prolong life. One gives relief I No matter views the Matter. one Will do you gond. Ten sattiples ;tta. one thousand testt. menials sent by mail to any address on receipt of price, by the Rims Chemical Co., te.Spruce St., NeW York City.