1 I I .1 . m1 mist I VOL. XII. NEW BLOOME1ELD, PA.', TUESDAY,' ATJGXT8T UO, 1878. NO. 31. II.Yi I THE TIMES. In Independent Fauillj Newspaper, IS FDBLtSHXD BVB1IT TUESDAY BT P. MORTIMER & CO. BUBSCllIl'IIUM PRICE, (WITUIK TUB COUNT!. One Year Jl 2 Six Montks 75 (OUT OF THB COUKTT. One Year, (Postage Included) fl Ml 8ix Months, (Postage Included) 83 Invariably lu Advance I Advertising rates furnished upon appli cation, i geledt 'Pocti'y. WATER THAT HAS PASSED. Listen to the wntermill Through the livelong day, How the clanking of the wheels Wears the hours away. Languidly the autumn wind Stirs the greenwood leaves, From the fields the reapers sing, Binding up the sheaves. And a proverb haunts my mind, Like a spell Is cast ; " The mill will never grind With the water that has passed. " Take the lesson to thyself, Loving heart and true, Golden years are fleeting by, Youth Is passing, too. Learn to make the most of life, Lose no happy day ; Time will never bring thee back Chances swept away. Leave no tender word unsaid, Love while life shall last ; "The mill will never grind With the water that has passed." Oh, the wasted hours of life That have drifted by 1 Oh, the good we might have done, Lost without a sigh ! Love that once we might have saved By a single word ; Thoughts conceived, but never penned, Perishing unheard ! Then take the proverb to thine heart, ; Take, and hold It fast " The mill will never grind With the water that has passed." 1 A Forgery and Wliat Came of It. THERE wa9 a tremendous sensation in the Thirty-first National Bank one morning at nine o'clock. The sens ation was not a pleasant one. It was of that sort which makes a human being feel as though he were suddenly stricken with a chill. The under-clerks spoke in whispers, as they do who are in the presence of a dead body, and the second assistant moved about with the pale face and glittering eyes of one who is labor ing under intense excitement. No one epoke to him, and the lower-clerks glanced askance at him under their eye brows. The cashier of the bank had been ar rested the night before for forgery, and the second assistant was the one who caused the arrest. . Unfortunately the cashier was guilty. He was a young man of extravagant Bfe, eon of one of the leading stock holders of the bank, who had put hlra into the bank to steady blni down and mattl him learn business habits. But the young man was a spoiled rich man's son. According to the rule of the sur vival of the fittest, there was no place In the world for him. Providence, how ever, who does not invariably work ac cording to Darwinian rules, for reasons best known to himself, left the youth alive till he half-ruined his father, half broke bis mother's heart, and wholly committed a forgery on the Thirty-flrnt National Bank. The youth's father, for the sake of the mother, fought desper ately to get him off, to no purpose. ' The second assistant, Birney Graham, pur sued him with an energy which seemed almost maglignity. The defaulter was convicted and sentenced to proper pun ishment. It served him right. I don't apologize for him. When a thief is caught stealing, he ought to be punish ed, unless hels starve, and steals a loaf of bread. ' - & The president of the bank had a daughter Alice, aged twenty, blonde, petite, as pretty as a baby, and with the vill and haughty Bpirlt of a Lady Mac beth. That to cap the rest. She was as pretty as a baby, I sny, but the Lady Macbeth will and spirit in her gave her delicate pink and white face a look as unlike a baby's as possible. Iudeed, so far from resembling a baby, Alice Mar lay, blonde and petite as she was, had much the look of a graceful, high-bred, high-spirited boy. The Jaunty, boyish look made her all the more beautiful, all the more admired. Oh, yes ! Just so. When a pretty girl of eighteen looks boyish, that's all very line; when a middle-aged woman looks nianish.that's something very different. But I wander from my strnngely-twls. ted story. I do not wish to do tlmt. Tills beautiful, proud Alice Marlay, daughter of the bank president, was be trothed to the defaulting cashier. Ou the morning her betrothed was sent to punishment, a gentleman called to see Alice Marlay. lie was a tall, slender man, young to be sure,but with a sharp, cold face which wore a faintly sneering expression, as though the man doubted whether there was anything good, or true, or kindly in this life. It was a painful look for a young man to wear. He was a handsome man, too, only for the mocking, cynical look. The man Mas Birney Graham, second assistant at the Thirty-first National Bank, the per son who had pitilessly pursued the er ring cashier till he was convicted and sentenced. As Birney Graham sat there now, leaning his cheek against his hand, gazing steadily out the window, he seemed a man who would have hunted his own brother to death, so cold, so merciless he looked. Surely this man had a bitter experience of no common sort. The faintly sneering ex pression deepened in his face, as he heard light footsteps approaching. Was the coldness of his face the coldness of a lava-bed, died out upon the surface, but smouldering with volcanic fires be neath ? There are two kinds of cold faces, you know. Birney Graham bowed profoundly as Alice Marlay en tered the room. She did not return the bow. She laid one delicate hand upon the back of a chair, and stood looking at him with a haughty, angry face. Each faced the other steadily, with glittering eye, and there was that in the look of each which said : , . " I stand here, , your enemy till I die." . , ... ' , , ,N , .. -,' ,; Neither said it in so many words, though. The girl at length spoke first, and she said this ; . , , , , " What have you came here for V" " To see you Miss, Alice, what else V" " If I had known you were here I wouldn't have come in," shsaid. " I think you would, Miss , Marlay," he answered, calmly. She shrugged her shoulders impatient ly, but did not reply. f What he said was true. Birney Gjahani seemed to have a strange, strong power even over people who didn't like him. The sneer deepened in his face again, and he bowed mock ingly. . ; ! ;.. " I came here to receive your expres sion of gratitude, Miss Alice, solely. By my own efforts alone, I have been en abled to send a dangerous character to a just punishment, and at the same time save your father's bank no end of loss. I am sure you must be boundlessly grate ful to me. To hear you say it with your lips this Is why I am here, Miss Alice, exactly." He was curiously like a flint, cold and hard as adamant of Itself, but with the power of striking fire into the heart of other materials. Alice Maylay flushed, and then paled again with anger. " I did not care much after I came to know him, for him you have hunted down," she said, in a low, husky voice, " although he was ' angel compared to you. I knew of what he had done bt fore you made it public, and I never would have married him. He was but a poor weak creature, blown about by every impulse. The man I marry must be a strong man. If you thought to 1 wound me deeply there, you have fail ed, thank God I But I hateyou, Birney Graham, as I never thought I could hate any human'beiug. All the world know I was betrothed to that man. This one pities me, that one laughs at me, another one says "H is good enough for me, because I thought myself above my betters.' My name is on the tongue of every gossip, and In the newspapers. Oh ! I could murder you." ' She covered her face and burst into tears, not gentle, girlish tears, but pas sionate, burning tears. ' " You could murder me y" questioned Birney Graham, coldly. "Do! Death at your hands would be sweet." ' .Alice looked up again, tier tearB dry. " But for you," she said, "it would have been hushed up. What was any thing I had ever done to you that you should have humiliated me like this'i1" " I have done nothing but my duty," replied the cold, sneering voice of Bir ney Graham. " My dear young lady, I fear you don't understand the law. If I had concealed your friend's misde meanors, knowing what he had done, I should have been as guilty as he was. It is what the law calls' compounding a felony, MIbs Marlay. It's really strange, but ladles never will understand law, I think V" " I never thought you were worth minding before," said the girl, in hot, scornful tones. " But you have caused my name my name, Alice Marlay, to be on the tongue of every gossip in this city. For this, for the bitter humilia tion you have brought on me, hence forth I pursue you as you pursued him. You smile your cold, wicked smile, do you y You shall see what a weak girl can do. Mark my words, Birney Gra ham I From this day forth, I shall fight you till I die." A faint, almost imperceptible flush rose into his face at last. " What had you done to deserve this, Miss Alice y I will tell you. Years ago, long before that little delicate blonde face of yours began to haunt idiotic young men, the founder of your race in America, an iron-faced miser, took from my ancestor a little home he had nearly made his own. That was the beginning. From that day down, your race has somehow seemed to eat up mine. Yes, from that day until the same accursed fate brought me across your path, and caused me to love your fair face, from the moment I saw it. That would have been nothing, only you smiled so sweetly on me that it made me forget the great gult which the world placed between us. You drew me on, a poor, awkward, honest fool, until I had not a thought or a hope apart from you, then you turned on me and laughed at me. In one moment you changed all the honey of my life to the gall of bitterness. Miss Maylay, what had I done to you, to deserve this y Was it all nothing, think you f I come of Highland blood ,and a clansman never forgets. If you had not done what you did, if you had not humiliated me and nearly broken my heart, then I should haVfc spared you when my turn came. I have not one regret, understand. If it were to do over again, I would do it over again. That is what I came here to tell you." She raised her arm slowly, as if it had been a weapon. " Go out of this house," she said. . ' ' ' . ! ' Somehow Birney Graham never pros pered. He was not superstitious, Heaven knows ; but sometimes he half-confessed to himself that Alice Marl ay 'a hate seemed to follow him like an evil eye. Alice Marlay's father was his friend, but Mr. Marlay shortly resigned his presi dency of the bank,and retired from busi ness. A new president and new officers were chosen, and Birney Graham lost his place. He understood how it came about when he happened to remember that the new president was the father of Alice Marlay's most Intimate friend. What harm could Alice Marlay do him y had he asked mockingly y He found out what many another has found to his sorrow, that a woman can do a man no end of harm, wheu she sets her head to it. , : , : ... , ." Birney Graham had no home worth speaking of. A childish, peevish old father wbo ate opium, depended on him for support, while a half-sister, cross and. vixenish as only a disappointed woman can be, hung like a mill-stone about his neck. These two, the peevish father and the waspish sister,constituted the guardian angels of Birney Graham's home. Truly, as he had told her once, be had not so much peace or joy in this life, that Alice Marlay should have thought worth while to take that away from him. He had few friends. He re pelled people by his cynical coldness, and as time went on, he became more disagreeable and unmerciful than ever. He said to . himself he did not care whether he had any friends or not. He told himself a falsehood. He did care. Nobody can say the like and tell the truth. He obtained another situation, not so good as the one he had lost, but he was glad to get even that. ' Then hard times came suddenly, all the world was turned upside-down and driven out at sea, and Birney Graham along with it. The luck less young man could obtain no work to keep himself, his peevish old father and his vixenish sister alive. ' The childish complainings of his father, and the bag gings and goadings of his sister, drove him nearly frantic. It was not a pleas ant situation for a gentlemanly young man to be placed in. It had been five years since he had the talk with Alice Marlay, but it seemed to him that her hate pursued him. Only for her, he would have still held his place at the Thirty-first National Bank, perhaps a better one. He felt like cursing her and himself, too, whenever he thought of her. At last, with the worry and anxiety, the complainings, and goadings, and naggings, Birney Graham fell sick. As if to insult his pride and sufferings, one day an Overseer of the Poor whom Birney Graham had snubbed many a time, because he was coarse and talked bad grammar, came in and said: "Young man I think you'd better be took to the 'orsepltal." " I'll die first 1" said Birney Graham, desperately. He sprang upon his feet and walked about the room. Presently he informed his peevish father and his vixenish sister that he believed he wasn't so sick after all. He really thought he would take a walk, and maybe something would turn up. He staggered feebly down into the street. The lamp-posts seemed doing a witches' dance. Birney Graham was half,dellrlous with worry and fever. He started to walk towards the fields and the country, thinking crazlly that he would at least get out of the city, where they could not send him to the hospital, " I mean to walk and walk till I fall down and die," said Birney Graham to himself. The cool November air struck his cheek and entered his lungs and stimu lated him unusually. He wandered on and on, out towards the open country, over a smooth turn-pike road, which led he knew not whither. At length when the sun sank Blowly behind the western hills, Birney Graham sank, too, unable to go any farther. Next morning a rich lady's coachman told his mistress that there was a tramp out iu the stable, sick and not able to move on. " The country's full o' them tramps, mum," said the coachman. The mistress was a slender petite lady, with a dellcately-beautlful,though sharp, haughty face. It wasn't the sort of face a beggar or an erring sister would have appealed to from choice. " Haul him to the - station, and put him on the train to go back to the city, where he came from,'? said the lady, sharply. ' " It'll kill him, mum, for to do that to him. He's very sick; mum." " But what '11 we do with him herey" asked the lady, still more sharply. "He's very clean' and decent, mum, and there ain't no smell of liquor on him," said the coachman, very humbly. " Oh !" said the mistress, sarcastically. " I shall air the best bed-room, shall I y and make a fire in it.'" The man looked at first as if he was uncertain whether his mistress would discharge him ' or give him a whack across the shoulders with her riding whip, if he spoke his mind, but present ly he did speak it nevertheless. " If you'll excuse me for saying It, mum, he could be brought in here on the kitchen floor, and a bit of rug put under him. He'll die before this day's out, if he don't get warm and suthin' put in his lnsldes. You wouldn't want it said that you let a human creature to die wheu you could have saved its life, would you, mum " The lady colored faintly at this. " Where is the fellow V" Bhe asked. The man lay on the stable-floor. An old blanket was rolled and placed under his head. Alice Marlay followed the coachman silently, and stood and gazed a moment at the seemingly dying tramp. For this was the country home of Alice Marlay's father, and the lady was Alice Marlay herself.lingerlng on in the coun try late in autumn. She stood and looked at the unconscious tramp, as I said. He was very pale,wlth long black hair, and he was frightfully thin and wasted. He was entirely "clean and decent," as the man had said. "Yes, have him carried into the kitchen, Brown, and take care of him for the present," said the mistress. " As soon as he is strong enough, you can send him to the hospital." The tramp half-opened his eyes and murmured wonderlngly: " I mean to walk and walk till I die. They can't send me to the hospital when I'm dead." Something familiar in the look and voice of the tramp arrested the atten tion of Alice Marlay. She stooped and looked at him narrowly, and almost shrieked with surprise. " Heaven be merciful 1" she exclaim ed. " Last time I saw you, Birney Gra ham, you laughed at me to my face, when I spoke of vengeance. Now your life depends on my word. I have only to let you die, Birney Graham. I told you I would hate you and injure you your life long." Something in her voice and words seemed to rouse and fix his fluttering faculties. He opened his black, wander ing eyes and fixed them steadily on her face, with a light in them which was a half-recognition. God knows what could have been passing through the man's head, in his wild, weak delirium. I don't know what he meant, and he himself never knew. . But, with his burning black eyes still fixed on the face of Alice Marlay, this is what he said : "The hyena will open graves to ob tain food I" The strong-willed mistress of the man sion shuddered. "Get him into the house as quickly as possible, Brown," she said, in a scarcely audible voice. A low couch was brought and the man was lifted upon It. The mistress superintended the removal. , "Be careful there I" she said, In her sharp tones. "Are you lifting a pig y" She lifted his head herself. The man was carried Into the genial warmth of the coal Are, made as com fortable as might be, and a doctor sum moned immediately. Then the sharp tongued mistress of the great house dis appeared. She went to her own room and locked herself in. What she thought about during an hour there, no mortal knows, but when she reappeared, she was very pale, and her delicate, proud face looked like the face of one who has been fighting the fight with herself and lost the battle. " Housekeeper," said Miss Marlay. " Have the best bed-room prepared, If you please." " The best room V echoed the house keeper, doubting if she had heard straight. "That was what I said," answered Miss Marlay. Birney Graham lay In the best bed room for weeks, " hovering between life and death," as the people who write novels say. One day he suddenly came to himself and turned his head weakly on the pillow, towards Brown, who sat beside him, and said : "Is this the hospital?" " Does it look like an 'ospltal V asked Brown, indignantly. Birney Graham thought about it two or three minutes, before making up his mind. " No, it doesn't," said he, final ly. " Whose house is it y" " Marlay, Miss Alice Marlay," said Brown, speaking as though he thought the patient had lost the sense of hear ing. " Wasn't Alice Marlay married long ago'i"' asked Birney Graham, still more feebly. " No, she wasn't, and ain't," replied Brown. Birney Graham turned his face to the wall again in silence. Brown went out and announced to his mistress that her patient had come to consciousness. Miss Marlay returned with Brown, a changed, softened look on her face. She had watched Birney Graham day after day, held his thin hand in hers, and bathed his hot brow, and all these days and. 0 .
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