Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1879 — ONLY JUST SAVED. [ARTICLE]

ONLY JUST SAVED.

Willie Stansfield was a clerk in a London and Indian bank. He was an orphan, and had but one or two distant relatives. Not very many friends either could he boast of, but two he had, both sincere and one powerful. Mr. Manley, a lifelong friend of his father, had procured him his present appointment in the bank, of which he, Mr. Manley, was a Director; and Mr. Turner had known him from boyhood, and counseled him on all important matters. “Willie,” said the latter, “what is this whisper which reaches me that something more than kind feeling has risen up between you and Laura Manley?” A question of this character put to youngsters of threo-and-twenty generally disconcerts them a little, but Willie replied, pretty readily: “There may be people in the world so clever that they have penetrated both into Miss Manley’s heart and my heart, and there discovered a secret,” he answered; “but that one Single person ever saw the smallest outward manifestation of affection between us, I most positively deny. “ You will see in a moment, Mr. Turner, how awkwardly I have been placed. I confess it at once, I am strongly attached to Miss Manley, and I do not think I am uucared for by her; but what an outrageous thing for me to entertain the smallest hope of any useful result! Here is Mr. Manley, who was my father’s friend and has b'een mine, no doubt. He is a man of great wealth, and of high position and influence. He has only one child, Laura. How d» you think he is likely to view any advances towards her by his humble protege—the clerk in the bank at £l5O a year? You will yourself say, Mr. Turner—” “ That you had better speak less excitedly, Willie. That vehement temper of yours does not show signs of mending. ” “It never will, Mr. Turner,” continued the young gentleman, “ and, what is more, I do not much care about its mending; I would always rather speak out, and to the mark. Well, you are quite right,” he added, in a softened tone; “ I have no wish to conceal anything from you; but this feeling between Laura Manley and myself is a thing I do not venture to think of. The moment my thoughts turn that way I wrench them in another direction. Every feeling of duty toward Mr. Manley requires me not to see Laura Manley, not to think of her, not to go where she is, never to let any association recall her; but, O, Mr. Turner—” “Well, Willie?” “I love her with all my heart.” “Rather an unfortunate ending to your long speech, and not suggestive of much hope of your carrying out your good designs. Do you imagine Mr. Manley has any suspicion of this matter?” “No. He cannot have the slightest.” “I fancy he has.” “What? Mr. Turner, forgive my being so warm-tempered—l will be as calm as possible. If any dastardly creature, if any despicable person, man or woman—but no, no, I am wrong—do tell me, my kind, good friend, why do you surmise—” “There, pray let it rest. I quite understand. You will not, on any account, seek to deepen the present mischief—for mischief it is, you know, Willie—but will do your utmost to efface it?”

“Mr. Turner, look here; this is the principal reason why I am doing all I can to induce the bank to give me an appointment just vacant in India. My application is to come before the Directors to-morrow. Mr. Manley, as you know, has been in the country for months. I have written to begging him to support my request; if he does, it is sure to be granted, but—” “Well, why do you hesitate?” “ Why, though Mr. Manley is my very kind friend, he is such an odd-tempered, impulsive man, that I never can rely upon him in any particular matter. If he should refuse me in this, I shall not hesitate to tell him frankly tha£ it will be a proceeding so inconsiderate, showing su«h a thorough want of real interest in my welfare—such a complete callousness—” “ Mercy on me, Willie—spare me another outburst! Let us await events.” These soon revealed themselves. The speakers were in Willie Stansfield’s lodgings when the above conversation took place, and Mr. Turner was leaving, when the postman brought a letter. Stansfield read it, and then flung it into the corner of the room. I thought as much I ” he exclaimed, in a fury. “Of course he refuses. Read it,.Mr. .Turner. Just tell me what you think of that. Mr. Manley pretends to be my friend. He once told me that he assured my father, when he was dying, that he would never lose sight of me. And what does he do ? He gets me a trumpery berth in a bank, and invites me now and then to liis house; but the moment I ask him a real favor, which would cost him nothing, but which would give me something like a chance in life’, he turns away. Oh, I hate such hypocrites! I will write and tell-him so.” “ I wish it had been otherwise,” said Mr. Turner; “ and I own Ido not altogether understand it” he added, as though some special thought perplexed hiw; but, Willie, I cannot hear of your writing Mr. Manley, as you propose—it would be both foolish and wrong.” ' ’ “ Maybe, but I shall do it.” “Then you quarrel with me also. Stansfield.” “ I shall be very sorry, but my mind is made up.” “ So is mine, and if you send this letter you will not see me again for a long time.” And Mr. Turner left. Then the letter was written, and a vastly stupid letter] H was, of course. In tact, Willie

Stansfield was slightly demented at this time. His love-affair, his desire to act honorably to his patron, and even to go abroad as a help to himself to do so; then Mr. Manley throwing him back, as it were, into the meshes from which he desired to escape; and, finally, his general discontent at his present life and the prospects of his future, all these things brought about a degree of mental effervescence hardly consistent with perfect sanity. He did not stop at writing the letter to Mr. Manley. He must needs go head over heels into mischief, into almost ruin, it seemed, indeed. He saw the Secretary of the bank, and spoke in such unmeasured teams that the Secretary plainly told him the board would not improbably think he had better leave the company. That afternoon Stansfield went home in a worse state of mind than ever. It was two days after this that Mr. Turner, hearing Mr. Manley had come to London, went to see him at his club. They were well known to each other. ■ “ I am glad to see you, Turner,” said Mr. Manley, “ more especially because you perhaps can throw some light on the movements of that stupid boy Stansfield. Where’s he run off to?” “ Run riff ? Really I don’t know. I liaven't seen him for a couple of days. In fact, I quarreled with him over a threat of his writing you in what, I saw, would be a most unjustifiable strain, about you not supporting his wish to be sent to India.” “Unjustifiable! The letter came, sure enough, and was simply abominable. One would think I had done him some deadly injury. Now just see how vexing this affair is to me. I confided to you that it had crossed my mind there was some feeling between this lad and my daughter Laura. When Stansfield’s letter arrived, asking me to support liim for the Indian appointment, Laura and I were at breakfast, and after reading it, I said, * Laura, you will be glad to hear young Stansfield is just off to India. Ho wants to make his fortune in a hurry. It is a good berth he is going to, and the only drawback is that both the previous occupants died of yellow fever, but Willie may be more lucky.’ Well, after I had witnessed the eftect of my little speech, I had no doubt how matters stood, and I thought, ‘ Well, I suppose I ought to be very angry. I ought to denounce these two young people, and threaten them with my bitterest anger if they should for an instant think of one another again. But for once in my life I will take time to consider. The world would speak out finely if it knew what is in my mind at this moment. What do I care for the world? But,at all events, Master Willie must not go to India, and I will write and tell him so. Yet I must be cautious I do not let him see what is in the background, and which may never get to the front. I must simply decline to aid him, and he will well know I have hii interest at heart.’ “ But now it’s all over,” exclaimed the old gentleman, with heightened color and flaslring eyes. “He has gone his own way, his own headstrong, foolish way, and lie has ruined himself.” “Did I understand you he is not forthcoming ? ” asked Mr. Turner. “ Just so. He’s made off like a scamp —not that he is one, but what will people think? The dreadfully-stupid boy, after writing me as he did, must go and downright bully our Secretary at the bank, who gave him a hint that harm might come of it. Whereupon, it would appear, the idiot returned to his lodgings, paid his few debts (for he was a thrifty and honorable young blockhead), put his trifling possessions together, and disappeared with them in a cab.” “ Truly deplorable. But now the thing is to find this crazed lad. We must take all necessary steps—the police—advertisements—” “ Not one, so far as I am concerned, Turner. That youth might in time have been my son-in-law, rich, blessed with a dear and loving wife—every kind of happiness at his—but no, we are parted. He may be a fool; he may be a madman. To neither will I trust my Laura. My decision is irrevocable; pray say no more. Willie Stansfield must do something very praiseworthy, indeed, before he returns to my favor.” He thought of these words in many an after year. “ What a hopeless couple of men to deal with! ” soliloquized Mr. Turner, as he wended his way home. “ One the impersonation of violent temper, and the other of obstinacy. And so this quarrel, which might so easily be arranged, is to cause ever so much suffering and injury, without any prospect of a termination. It is truly It was; but. as to bringing Willie Stansfield back, that was out of the question. He had already started for America.

There is something doubly alarming and horrible in those instances of wickedness for which no motive can positively be assigned. As I, in my mind’s eye, five years after the conversation just related, see a human being on whose faee is stamped indelibly cruelty of the vilest order, crawling about a railway embankment in the United States, I have a shuddering conviction that some diabolical monstrosity is about to be perpetrated. And so it is. The wretched creature is carrying a huge bar of iron (stolen from some store at hand, I suppose), and with it he slips down the embankment, at the risk of his life, until he reaches the entrance to a tunnel. There, across the rails, he deposits his burden. He is careful so to place it that by no possibility shall the engine of the doomed train now fast approaching clear its path of the incumbrance. He chuckles as this assurance strikes him fully. Then he smites the bar a heavy blow with the palm of his hand, and dreadful madness glistens in his coal-black eyes, as he mutters, “ Fine, fine! ” A minute after, and he is over the embankment again; and, half an hour subsequently, when all is confusion and horror and suffering, he quietly tells the story of his deed, and is borne away with loathing to await the time when it shall be pronounced whether he shall be put out of life as a malignant criminal, or be henceforth well housed and cared for as an interesting lunatic of peculiar propensities. Into that train, now coming on to its fate, there stepped at the terminal station an eldarly gentleman and a beautiful girl. They had come to America from England for the benefit of the young lady’s not over-strong health. “What a lot of fog we do get here! ” said the gentleman, testily. “We starred because it was a charming morning, and now we are in a damp mist, getting darker every minute. A blessed invention, those fog-signals, for I am sure the engine-driver cannot see his hand before him.” Papa,” said the young lady, timidly, and with the dreamy air which we associate with the looking back on long-past events, “did you notice a gentleman who entered the train as we were just starting?” A young man with brown hair and dark gray eyes? Yes, Laura; and I thought how wonderfully like he was to that headstrong lad, Willie Stansfield, who will turn up again, I suppose, oneof these days.” Do you thjnk, papa, it could possibly have been he?” * / “There is no saying, We always assumed he went abroad, He may be here—may be in this traiq, I well remember the last words I Bftjd to Turner •W W? to?* must ft} wmetbing

very praiseworthy before he could return to my favor. I dare say, like the rest of the world, he is striving and struggling. Laura, this is indeed a wretched day for traveling.” But Laura’s thoughts were upon the brown hair and the gray eyes. “This is the station, Laura, before we come to the long tunnel. On we go again. How we all of us cry out for change! Restless creatures we human beings are! Bah! The idea of my moralizing !” and the hard-headed business man laughed at the notion. “I don’t see anything to laugh at, papa. I feel a little dull myself, at the moment. Do you know, I fancy lam in a more critical state than you think. I may not live, you know, papa. I may net. If I should die, you will not bury me here? You will take me home, and—” “My Laura, my Laura!” exclaimed her father, drawing her to him and embracing her, “what has come over you? What sudden alarm is this ?” They were alone in the carriage, and the old man’s tear dropped unchecked. “It will pass away, I dare say, papa; but a curious presentiment came over me, and I felt weak. I will talk of other things. I wish this journey were ended, for I am rather frightened at such darkness.” “There is nothing to fear, my girl. This line is admirably worked, and all contingencies are provided for, and—” No. Not that of a heavy bar lying on the rails, placed there after the last train has been signaled “All right.” Crash ! The huge engine reared up as if in rage, and fell back on the foremost carriages. The hind part of the train was jerked off the line, the carriages falling around and upon one another in hideous confusion. Only a few of the center carriages escaped injury. How many passengers were killed I cannot tell you now. In a sense, they were favored above the cruelly wounded, for the summons was immediate, and was immediately obeyed. Mr. Manley rose from the embankment, on to which, by some eccentricity of movement of the falling carriages, he had been thrown. For a minute all w’as confusion in his mind. Then memory returned. Where was Laura? She remained in that shattered compartment upon which another carriage was partly resting. He could just hear her voice now, crying for her father. The old man shouted for help, but there were far w’orse cases, and no help came. A cry then arose that the train on the other line was just due, and, the way being blocked by the debris, another accident was imminent. A loud wail of despair issued from the poor father, as fruitlessly he strove to remove the great mass of fragments in which his daughter was intombed. "Who was this who, attracted by the doleful cry, approached to render aid? Mr. Manley did not know at the moment. He simply saw a young and powerful man, and he clutched him by the shoulders, and then, even sinking on his knees before him, the old man besought him by all he held dear, by all his hopes of present and future, to save his child. “ Save my Laura, my Laura, sir, and all I have shall be at your command ! ” What a start the young man gave! One more close look into the suppliant’s face, and then to work. What superhuman force was this which cast aside this huge bar and that great beam? See how the fragments fly, as though they were but pieces of a child’s plaything ! To the right, to the left, the masses roll; the work is more than half done, when the cry arises that the whistle of the unstopped train on the other line is audible. Stand aside. No use working further. Death must have his additional victims. On comes the train. Only at the last moment did Willie Stansfield succeed in clasping the frame of Laura Manley, and bearing it away. Saved 1 Who could take her from him now?