THE ICE OF
THE NORTH.
White, immaculate, storm-beaten beaches,
Lonely sea beyond seas,
beyond
ken,
From the ice of your farthermost reaches,
Re-echoes your challenge to men!
They have Sought
In despair they
ou with worship and wonder;
ave sent forth their breath—
And for answer—the crash of your thunder,
The shiver and silence of death!
~ You have wooed them, aroused them, and quelled them,
You have prisoned them fast in your floes
You have drawn them, betrayed and repelled them,
And their bones lie a-bleac
on your snows.
Is your diadem, gemmed with star-flowers
From those far-flaming fields of the sky,
But the sign of a Tyrant whose pow ers
Overthrow and destroy and defy?
Oh! imperious, pitiless regions—
Snow- panoplied hills that entice—
Are those silent impassable legious
But guarding a bosom of ice?
Or is it the radiant duty
Of your rapturous ai of delight
2 That crimsons with current of beauty
: The dark span of your desolate night?
Through the long voiceless twilights that darken
Your virginal, slumbering plain,
Do you dream of the sunlight, and harken
For the voice of the southwind again?
Oh! mysteries never beholden
By the ages, we question and wait
For the ultimate answer withholden
In the mist-woven mantle of Fate.
By your star-vestured beauty still haunted,
In the wake of your moons, we set forth—
RA fo
erilous silence undaunted,
ow the call of the North!
—Margaret Ridgely Partridge, in Harper’s Magaziae,
[he 0
—8
d dehoolmaster.
By DAVID LYALL.
No one would have thought, look-
ing at his benign face, or listening to
the calm and measured tones of his
voice, that the wind of tragedy had
once swept across the old schoolmas-
ter’s life.
When the beginning actually was,
nobody seemed exactly to know. The
place without the old schoolmaster
would have been inadequate, incom-
plete; in fact, altogether inconceiv-
able.
Those who had been his contempor-
aries had died out one by one, and
the only one who remembered the
coming of the schoolmaster in the
far back days was Captain Drew of
the White House, where he had lived
for seven and fifty years.
The schoolmaster had arrived in
winter, dropping down suddenly from.
nowhere, a tall, slender, dark-eyed
man, with youth in his step, but ex-
perience and sadness on his face. It
was long before the advent of the
School Board, in the days when edu-
cation was for the few, and not for
the many. The Loaning was glad to
welcome the pale-faced stranger,
when it was discovered that he had
store of knowledge—classical knowl-
edge, too, which he was willing to
impart at a modest fee.
These were the days when great
men were cradled in village homes,
and trained in unpretentious schools
by men who loved learning for its
own sake, and imparted that love to
others with thoroughness and care.
There was no standard then save
love alone, and the few for whom
books had the immortal message went
out when the time came to deliver
that message to the world with all the |
power that was in them.
Of such men, whose names are now
upon the roll of history and of fame,
the old schoolmaster had trained not
a few.
His pride in the gallant boys who
passed through his hands was only
equalled by their affection for him.
Indeed, he had a singular power of
winning hearts, and many wondered
how it was that one so gentle and yet
so strong, so fitted in every way for
the making of a home, should have
elected to walk solitary through life.
The school was a broad, low build-
ing of the black whinstone peculiar
to the neighborhood. It stood in an
ample playground in which a few
sparse trees that had survived the
hard usage of many generations of
Loaning boys made some slight shade
in summer, and broke the force of
the moorland gale in winter.
~ The schoolhouse was hard by, a
small, low, picturesque, though high- |
ly inconvenient dwelling, embowered
among green, its outside a picture at
which many paused to look.
Here the old schoolmaster had
lived for nearly forty years, minis-
tered unto for three parts of that
time by one Christina Fellows, a ca-
pable serving woman of the better
sort, who alternately mothered and
ruled him and hoped to close his eyes
in death.
- Christina had a hard face and did
not wear her heart on her sleeve; but
she had had her tragedy, too, and
had peritably been a brand plucked
from the burning by the schoolmas-.
ter’s beneficent hand.
~ Accused of theft in her previous
place she had been set adrift and
might have gone under had not the
schoolmaster taken her, without a
character, when the hand of every
man and every woman in the parish
@
was against her, and she had literally
not a place wherein to lay her head.
She had repaid that Christ-like act
with a life-long devotion, but even
Christina knew very little of her mas-
ter’s inner life.
‘““‘Gie him buiks,” she would say;
‘“‘he’s a terrible man for buiks. If it
wasna for me he wad read hissel’ intil
his grave.”
The School Board and all its new-
fangled ways, which in fulness of
time robbed the old schoolmaster of
his official position and placed him
on the retired list, was the main ob-
ject of Christina’s hatred and con-
tempt. | It was noticeable that from
‘ the day when the schoolmaster gave
‘up his active duties to another and a
$
excessive in a just action.
does astound.
and jurisdiction.
the truth,
Seigneur De Montaigne.
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younger man he perceptibly declined
both in health and in spirits. Hap-
pily for him they suffered him to re-
main in the little house, which did
not meet modern requirements or
satisfy the aspirations of the new
schoolmaster, who wished everything
up to date. This was a very happy
thing for the old man. Dig up the
old tree, root and branch, and there
is small chance of its safe or success-
ful transplantation.
The old schoolmaster and Chris-
tina dwelt together in their green
bower with a perfect understanding,
though in all these years the veil was
never once lifted from the old man’s
heart and life.
At the very last, it seemed as if
fate had relented and determined to
make late amends. It happened on a
bleak day in winter when the lower-
ing sky seemed to breathe out threat-
enings, while the scudding snowflakes
presaged the coming storm.
The Loaning moorland was very
bleak on such a day, and the few pas-
| sengers in the village omnibus, which
plied from the station in the after-
noon, were glad of the shelter of the
old leather cover, kept for hard
weather. There were three passen-
gers only, one an elderly lady, richly
though very quietly dressed, and
wearing a thick veil over her face.
When she lifted it at the inn door
to put a question te the landlord
there was a haunting sweetness in her
expression, and a dignity in her bear-
ing which instantly commanded at-
tention and respect,
She asked for a room, and for some
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MODERATION.
*& E may grasp virtue so hard, till it becomes
4 vicious, if we embrace it too straight, and with
> too violent a desire.
“A man may be both too much in love with virtue and be
I have known a great man preju-
dice the opinion men had of his devotion, by pretending to
be devout beyond all examples of others of hig condition.
I love temperate and moderate natures.
zeal, even to that which is good, though it does not offend,
‘Those who attempt to regulate the manners of men,
theology and philosophy, will have a saying on everything.
There is no action so private that can escape their inspection
They are best taught who are best able to
censure and curb their own liberty.
“There is no just and lawful pleasure, wherein the in-
temperance and excess is not to be condemned; but to speak
is not man a miserable creature the while?
is scarce, while in his natural condition, for him to have
- the power to taste one pleasure, pure and entire; and yet,
man must be contriving doctrine and precepts to curtail
the little he has; he is not yet wretched enough unless by
arts and study, he augments his own misery.”’—Michael
1
.
light refreshment, and gave her name
as Mrs. Grantley. About an heur
later she walked through the falling
snow along the village street in the
direction of the school, and turned in
at the gateway of the old schoolmas-
ter’s house. The daylight was fading
as she lifted the latch of the wicket
gate, and at the very moment Chris-
tina Fellows happened to be at the
sitting-room window, for the purpose
of drawing the blind after having lit
the cheerful lamp.
“There’s somebody at the yett,”
she said curiously. ‘A leddy, an’ I
dinna ken her. She must hae made
a mistake.” \
The schoolmaster, deep in his book,
returned an absent answer, and
Christina hastened to the door to
interview the stranger, and, if need
be, put her in the right way.
‘“Yes, Maister Thornton lives here,
an’ he is at hame,” she said in no
little surprise. “Will ye step in?”
The invitation was not very gra-
ciously given, but was instantly ac-
cepted. Christina preceded the vis-
itor to the sitting room door, which
she flung open.’
“Somebody to see ye, sir,” she said
excitedly; then, her curiosity getting
the better of her good manners, she
stood still to watch the effect, and if
possible get a clue to the stranger’s
business. \
The schoolmaster rose quickly to
his feet, and came forward smiling
benignly, blinking a little as the
lamplight shone full on the eyes from
which he had removed the reading
glasses. Then Christina Fellows be-
held a strange thing, from which she
shrank with the secret shame of a
strong, reserved nature incapable of
any emotional display.
The strange lady, with her veil
thrown back and her sweet face all
aglow, spoke the schoolmaster’s name
in accents of tenderness, and laid her
two hands on his shoulders.
“I’ve come at the long last, Tom,”
she said. ‘Thank God, it is not too
late.”
Then Christina, in a mortal panic,
not over sure that she had heard or
seen aright, closed the door in haste,
and retired wringing her hands to
her own domain. ‘Mercy me, sic on-
gauns! I wonder wha she is! It’s
hardly decent, but I maun wait or I
see.”
She felt, however, as if the end of
all things had come.
The schoolmaster’s face flushed,
and he took the hands from his shoul-
der and held them close, then stooped
to kiss them, and'she drew herself a
little away.
And immoderate
It
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“I know everything, Tom,” she
said nodding and smiling, too,
though her voice had an unsteady
note. ‘I have known it only three
days. In that time I have traveled
seven hundred miles, praying God
that when I came to the journey’s end
I should find you able to hear me
speak.”
“It is wonderful, Mary, wonderful,”
he said, speaking like a man in a
dream. “I never thought that you
and I should meet in this world,
though I have long been certain about
the next.”
She made a gesture of fine scorn.
“I know of the lies that parted us,
and of the noble part you played to
save the good name of a man whom
you thought I loved. He won me by
these lies, Tom, and you bore the
brunt. He was not even honest in
his death,” she said, and her voice
took a tense note of scorn. ‘If he
had been I should have found you
long ago, and so we might have had
a few more years together. It was a
Christ-like act. You practically laid
down your life, not for your friend,
but for your enemy.”
‘““Nay my dear,” said the old school-
master quickly.
you.”
“Well, but it was not wise nor well
done for any of us, for I have had a
hard life. But, please God, we shall
have a few days of happiness and
peace together; for since I find you
alone in this little house I will never
go away again.”
-She spoke like a woman who had
counted the whole cest, and whose
“It was done for}
quest was ended absolutely. She laid
her gloves on the table, untied her
bonnet-strings, and pushed it, with a
little thrill of laughter, to the floor,
and the lamplight on her bright hair
‘revealed not a trace of gray.
“You have kept your youth, Mary,”
he said, tremblingly, for in a moment
the gulf of the years was not only
bridged, but utterly swept away.
“Look at me, a broken old man!
Yet, if it pleases God to give me the
sweet of your friendship for the few
years that are left, I will give Him
thanks.”
She only smiled again with a deep,
mysterious sweetness in her eyes, and
sat down by the hearth as if she had
found the place that was her very
own.
Later in the evening an interview
took place between the stranger lady
and Christina Fellows, an interview
which not only appeased the ire of
that somewhat hard-visaged spinster,
but spread out a new vista before
her bewlldered eyes. A message was
sent to the Haws Inn, and the lady’s
belongings were forthwith brought to
the schoolhouse, and the new era be-
gan. .
It made a great talk in the Loan-
ing, it being freely rumored that a
mysterious rich relation had suddenly
swooped down upon the old school-
master and was desirous of carrying
him off to her castle in the south.
Christina, for her own amusement,
and to add to the dignity of the oc-
casion, assiduously fanned the flame
of village gossip, adding a few tit-
Bits of her own manufacture to the
astounding sum of the schoolhouse
romance.
But all Loaning imaginings fell far
short of the actual end of the story,
which presently shook the place to
its very foundations.
One fine February morning the
‘schoolmaster and his guest departed
from the Loaning, being accompanied
to the station by Christina, who bade
good-bye to them in tears.
Two days later this announcement
set the county by the ears.
‘“‘At Edinburgh, by special license,
on the 19th inst., Thomas Bradbury
Thornton, to Mary Caxton, widow of
the late Sir Charles Grantley, of
Garth Castle, Pembroke.” — British
Weekly.
HOUSE DESIGNED BY
SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN
Famous Mansicn in Belfast
Suffers Damage by Fire, Los=
ing an Ell.
Since the fire a few days ago, which
destroyed the ell or back wing of the
Edward Sibley residence, at Belfast,
the attention of the public has been
called to this grand old mansion
standing back from High street, with
its wide spreading lawns surrounded
by fine old trees, says the Kennebec
(Me.) Journal.
It is known to but few, however,
that this structure was designed by
none other than Sir
Wren, the famous English architect,
who also designed St. Paul's Cathe-
dral. The mansion was built in 1842
by the late Judge Joseph Williamson,
of Augusta. It came into the pos-
session of Timothy Thorndike, Quar-
termaster in the Twenty-sixth Maine
Regiment, in 1873, and later to his
daughter, Mrs. Edward Sibley.
The house is handsomely furnished
and is frequently the scene of society
affairs, Mrs. Sibley being a charming
hostess and entertaining royally.
The main house stands practically
intact, although somewhat damaged
by smoke and water. It is one of
the show places of the city and one
of which all are very proud.
WORDS OF WISDOM.
Reform is always headed for reac-
tion.
It isn’t safe to make love, even to
an engaged girl, for she can break it
| off.
A man’s idea of indulging his wife
is if she will spoil him.
The longer a man can stay away
from his family the more he can lie
about how he misses them.
If there were no telling of lies we'd
have to disbelieve the truth.
A man starts out expecting to get
rich and ends up thinking he is lucky
to keep out of the poor house.
One good deed can deserve another
a long time without getting it.
The more money a man will spend
on flowers for his wife the less he will
want to spend on necessaries for her.
A woman can forgive her husband
most anything if nobody else will.
A little cold nerve will get a man a
bigger reputation for ability than a
head full of brains.
Money doesn’t give a person vir-
tues, but it makes people act as if he
had them all.
A man might beable to spend some
of his own money on himself if he
had no family.
A woman is an exceptionally good |"
card player when she deals her parte
ner a poor hand and doesn’t blame
him for it.—From ‘Reflections of a
| Bachelor,” in the New York Presa,
Christopher
S
Sarsaparilla
Leads all other medicines in
the cureof all spring ailments,
humors, loss of appetite, that
tired feeling, paleness and
nervousness. Take it.
Get it today in liguid form or in tab-
lets known as Sarsatabs. 100 doses $1.
Made of Steel
For Miners, Quarrymen, Farmers and All
Men Who Do Rough Work
Every man should wear them. They
save shoe money. Jignisr than lea-
ther. Easily attached by any cobbler.
QOutwear the shoes. Your shoe dealer
has shoes already fitted with them.
Send for booklet that tells all about
them.
UNITED SHOE MACHINERY CO.
BOSTON, MASS.
EER ERE ERE.
The Way to Read.
It was Oliver Wendell Holmes, was
it not, who owned up to his perfer-
ence for reading in books to reading
through them? ' “When I set out to
read through a book,” that autocrat
wrote, “I always felt that I had a task
before me—but when I read in a book
it was the page of the paragraph that
I wanted, and which left its impres-
sion and became a part of my intel- |
lectual furniture.” If we were only
franker, most of us would confess to
being like Holmes in this matter of
our reading. To be sure, we have an
old-fashioned disinclination to set
down a book in the middle of it; we
feel it our duty to finish whatever we
have once begun at the beginning;
yet if we yield to our New England
conscience herein, we are only de-
terred from ‘beginning’ books I mean
neither reading straight through their
tedious opening pages, nor hastening,
like a woman, to learn by the conclud-
ing chapter how it all “turns out”
Open your book in the very thick of
it; that is the true way of getting at
its soul.—Atlantic.
18
How to ure Hiccoughs.
Hiccough is a distressing and‘\some-
times a dangerous complaint. Many
times a swallow of water will stop it.
If simple measures fail the following
has been found very efficacious. The
nerves that produce hiccough are near
the surface in the neck. They may
be reached and compressed by placing
two fingers right in the center of the
top of the breastbone between the two
cords that run up either side of the
neck and pressing inward, downward
and outward. A few minutes’ pres-
sure of this kind will stop the most
obstinate hissough.—Dr. Charles SS.
Moody, in the May Outing.
Hindoo Invasion.
Hundreds of Hindoos are pouring in-
to San Joaquin county, Cal., and prob-
ably in the hope of securing work at
once most of them have discarded the
turban for American hats, much to the
surprise of the more devout of the
race. Their religion has heretofore
kept them from discarding their tur-
bans, but the late arrivals appear to
have been coached in the art of be-
coming, to a ‘certain extent, American-
ized.
Comfort and
~ New Strength
Await. .the person ‘who! ‘discovers
‘that a long train of coffee ails. can
be thrown off: by_using'
POSTU
in place of Coffee
The comfort and’ strength come
from, a rebuilding of - new, nerve
tells, oY, the food ¢lements’ in the
roasted |” ‘wheat, “ised: in, ‘making
Postum:,
- And7the relief) from coffee ails
come from’ “the” absence~of taffeine
—the. natural | drug in “coffee.
Ten~ deyel. {rial ll. show’ any
one
“There’ s a ‘Reason’ ’ for
POSTUM _
il 1