Greenfield Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 18 January 1894 — Page 2

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BY THOMAS

--v 'I guess how it is with you," said .•xtt.pr, "That was vourmother."

'^he latter. "That was your mothe She waved her hand toward the tombstone. Elizabeth looked up at her as if inquiring of herself whether there should be confidence.- The lady's manner was so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decided there

should be no confidence. ''It my mother," she said, "my only friend." "But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?" "Yes, he is living," said Elizabeth Jane. "Is he not kind to you?" "I've no wish to complain of him." "There has been a disagreement?" "A little." "Perhaps you were to blame," suggested the stra iger. "I was—in many ways." sighed the meek Elizabeth Jane. "I swept up the coals when the servant ought to have done and I said I was leery and it's low he says, and was sfegry w:th me."

owing to my history." "What, is your history?" Elizabeth Jane looked fullv at her questioner

"Perhaps it will be better soon. said her friend, gently. '"So I would not go far. Now what do you think of this I shall soon

want

to live in my house, partly as house-1 made it impressive, keeper, partly as companion would but rich euough.

vou mind cominir to me? But. perhaps—" "Oh, yes." cried Elizabeth Jane, with tears in her eyes. 'M would, indeed—I would do anything to be independent, for then, perhaps, my father might get to love me. But. ah!" "What?" "I am no scholar. And a companion to you, dear madam, must be a scholar." "Oh. not necessarily." "Not? Will it do if one can't help talking in the up-country wav? It makes me sorrv, but I can't help using work-folks' words sometimes, when I don't mean to." "Never mind. I shall like to know them." "And—oh. I know 1 shan't do!" she cried, with a distressful laugh. "I can't write a lady's hand. And, of course, you vant some, one who can do that." "Well, no." "What, not necessary to write ladies' hand?" cried the joyous Elizabeth. "Not at all." "But where do you live, ma'am?" "In Casterbridge. or rather I shall be living here after twelve o'clock today."

Elizabeth Jane expressed her astonishment. "I have been staving at Budmouth for a few days while my house was getting ready. The house I am going into is that one they call High Street Hall—the old stone one overlooking the market. Two or three rooms are fit for occupation, though not all I .sleep there to-night for the first s&time. Now. will you think over my proposal, and meet me here the first mine day next week and say if you are. still in the same mind."

Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of a change from an unbearable position, joyfully assented, and the two parted at the gate of the churchvard.

CHAPTER XXI.

As an every-dav maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains practically unmarked till some mature experience enforces it, so did this High Street Hall now for the first time really show itself to Elizabeth Jane, though her eyes had glanced over it on a hundred occasions.

SIS

HARDY.

CHAPTER XX—CONTINUED. and had already discounted the chance of her being a customer.

The lady seemed to warm toward her for that reply. "Do you know the impression your words give me?" she said, ingeniously. "That he is a hot-tempered man—a little proud —perhaps ambitious but not a bad man." Her anxiety not to condemn Henchard, while siding with Elizabeth Jane, was curious. "Oh, no certainly not bad," agreed the honest girl. "'And he has not even been unkind to me till lately—since mother died. But it has been verv much to bear while it has lasted. All is owing to mv de- until this very evening, when the new fects, I dare sav and mv defects are I lady had arrived, the house id been empty a year or two, while before that interval its occupancy had been wist-: irregular. The reason of its unpopufound larity was soon made manifest. Its that her questioner was looking at rooms overlooked the market-place, her turned her eves down and then and the market place only and such seemed compelled to look back again. a prospect from such a house was "My history is not gay nor genteel.''

she said. "And yet 1 can tell it, if you reallv want to know." The lady assured her that she did want to know: whereupon Elizabeth Jane, told the taie of her life a* she understood it, which was in general I parativeiy practiced manner had •the true one. except that the sale at made upon the simple girl's mind the fair had no part therein. was so deep that she enjoyed stand-

Con trarv to the girl's expectation, ing under an opposite archway her new friend was not' shocked. merely to think that the charming This cheered her and it was not till lady was inside the confronting she thougl) of returning to that .walls, and to wonder what she was Jiome in which she had been treated doing. Her admiration for the roughlv of iate that her spirits architecture of that, front was enthe inmate it feel. ''Idon't know how to return." she murmured. "I think of i/oing away. But what can do? Where can 1

Elizabeth Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so new to her in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.

When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render was chimneys, attics and roofs invisible,

Elizabeth Jane, also with a lover's feeling, thought she would like to look at the outside of High Street Hall. She went up the street in that direction.

The hall, with its gray facade arid parapet, was the only residence of its sort so near the center of the town. It had, in the first place, the characteristics of a country mansion—rooks' nests in its chimneys, damp nooks where fungi grew and ii*regularities of suface direct from Nature's trowel. At night the forms of passengers were patterned by the lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.

This evening motes of straw lay around ar»d other signs of the premises having been in that lawless condition which accompanies the entry of a new tenant. The house was entirely of stone, and formed an example of dignity without great size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still k'jSS consequential, yet the oldfashioned stranger instinctively said, "Blood buiit it. and Wealth enjoys it", however vague his opinions of those accessories might be.

Vet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been wrong, for

not considered desirable or seemly by its would be occupiers. Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights there. The lady had obviously arrived. The impression that this woman of corn-

tirelv on account of screened. Though for that matter the architecture deserved admiration, or at least studv on its own account. It was Palladian. and like all architecture erected .since the Gothic age. was a compilation rather than a

somebody design. But its

reasonableness It was not rich, A timely con-

sciousness of the ultimate vanity of human architecture, no less than of other human things, had prevented artistic superfluity.

Men had until quite recently been going in and out with parcels and packing cases, rendering the door and hall within like a public thoroughfare. Elizabeth Jane trotted through the open door in the dusk, but becoming alarmed at her own termerity. she went quickly out again bv another which stood open in the lofty wall of the back court. To her surprise see found herself in one of the little-used blind alleys of the town. Looking round at the door which had given her egress, b\ the light of the solitary lamp fixed in the allev, she saw that it was arched'and old—older even than the house itself. The door was studded, and the keystone of the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a comic leer, as conld still be discerned but generations of Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open mouth and the blows thereof had chipped off the lips and jaws as if they .had been eaten away by disease. The appearance was so ghastly by the weekly lamp glimmer that she could not bear to look at it—the first unpieasant feature of her visit.

The position of the queer old door and the odd presence of the leering mask suggested one thing above all others as appertaining to the mansion's past history—intrisrue. By the alley it had been possible to come unseen from all sorts of quarters in the town—the old play-house, the old bull-stake, the old cock-pit, the barracks, the pool, wherein nameless infants had been used to disappear. High Street Hall had had its conveniences undoubtedly.

She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward, which was up the alley, but hearing footstens approaching in that quarter, and having no great wish to be found in such a place at such a time, she quickly retreated. There being no other wav out, she stood behind a brick pier till the intruder should have gone his ways.

Her rnind dwelt upon nothing else doorway that as he paused with his but the lady, and the house, and her hand upon the latch the lamplisrht fell own chance of living there, all the! upon the face of Henchard. rest of the day. In the afternoon But Elizabeth Jane clung so closeshe had occasion to pay a few bills in ly to her nook, that she discerned the town and do a little shopping, nothing of this. when she learned that what was a in as ignorant of new discoverd[to herself had become she was ignorant

Had she watched she would have been surprised. She would have seen that the pedestrian on coming up made straight for the arched

W'tic about the st#jets. and disappeared "all was undergoing re- Elizabeth Jane came out '""ipming thereto live time into the, alley and

Yp people knew it.' best of her w^y home.

Henchard passed her presence as of his identity, in the darkness. a iecond macro the

Henchard^ chiding, by begetting in her a nerAous fear of doing anything definable as unladylike or low, had operated thus curiously in keeping them unkhown to each other at a critical moment. Much might have resulted from recognition—at least a query on either side in one and the same form: What could he or she possibly be doing there?

Henchard, 'whatever his business at the lady's house, reached his own home only,a few minutes later than Elizabeth Jane. Her plan was to broach the question of leaving his roof, this evening the events of the day had urged her to the course. But its execution depended upon his mood, and she anxiously awaited his manner toward her. She found that it had changed. He showed no further tendency to be angry at her homeliness or her speech he showed something worse. Absolute indifference had taken the place of irritability and his coldness was such that it encouraged her to departure, even more than hot temper could have done. "Father, have you any objection to my going away?" she asked, "Going away? No—none whatever. Where are you going?"

She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to say anything at present about her destination to one who took so little interest in her. He woul 1 know that soon enough. "I have heard of an opportunity of getting more cultivated and respectable," she answered, with hesitation. "A chance of a place in a household where I can earn my living, and have advantages of study, and seeing refined life." "Then make the best of it, in Heaven's name—if you can't get respectable where you are." "You don't object?" "Object—I? Ho—no! not at all." After a pause he said, "But you won't have enough money for this respectable scheme without help, you know? If you like I should be willing to make 'ee an allowance, so that you be not bound to live upon the starvation wages refined folk are likely to pay 'ee."

She thanked him for this offer. "It had better be done properly." he added, after a pause. "A small annuity is what I should like ye to have-^o as to be independent of me—and so that I may be independent of you. Would that please vc?" "Certainly." "Then I'll see about it this very day." He seemed relieved to tret her off his hands by this arrangement. and as far as they were concerned the matter was settled. She now simplv' waited to see the lady" again.

The day and the hour came: but a drizzling rain fell. Elizabeth Jane, having now changed her orbit from one of gay independence to laborious self help, thought the weath good enough for such declined gloiv as hers, if her friend would only face it —a matter of doubt. She went to the boot-room, where her pattens had hung ever since her apotheosis took them down, had their mildewed leathers blacked, and put them on as she had done in old times. Thus mounted, and with cloak and umbrella, she went off to the place of appointment—intending, if the lady were not there, to call at the house.

One side of the churchyard—the side toward the weather—was sheltered by an ancient thatched mud wall whose eaves overhung as much as one or two feet. At the back of the wail was a corn-yard with its granary, and barns the place wherein she had met Farfrae many months earlier. Under the projection of the thatch she saw a figure. The lady had come.

Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl's utmost hopes that she almost feared her good fortune. Fancies find room in the strongest minds. Here, in a churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of weathers, with a strange woman of curious fascinations never seen elsewhere there might be some devilry about her presence. However, Elizabeth Jane went on to the church tower, on whose summit the rope of a flag-staff rattled in the wind and thus she came to the wall.

The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that Elizabeth forgot her fancy. "Well." said the lady, a little of the whiteness of her teeth appearing with the word through the black fleece that, protected her face, "have you decided?'" "Yes, quite," said the young woman, eagerly. "Your father is willing?" "Yes." "Then come along."' "When, ma'am?" "Now—as soon as you like. I had a good mind to send to you to come to my house, thinking you might not venture yp here in the wind. But. as I like getting out of doors, I thought I would come and see first." J.7, "It was my own thought." "That shows we shall agree. Then can you come to-day? My house is so hollow and dismal that I want some living thing there.'' "1 think I might be able to," said the girl, reflecting.

Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind and raindrops from the other side of the wall. There came such words as "sacks," "quarters," "threshing," "tailing," "next Saturday's market," each sentence beincr disorganized by the gusts like a face in a curved mirror. Both the women listened. "Who are those?" said the lady. "One is my father. He rents that yard and barn."

The lady seemod to forget the immediate business in listening to the technicalities of the corn, trade. At last she said, suddenly, "Did you tell him where you, were going to?"

-No." "Oh—how was that?" "I thought it safer to get away first—as he is so uncertain in his temper." "Perhaps you are right. Besides, I have never told you my name. It is Miss Templeman Are they gone—on the other side?" "No. Thev have only gone yp into the granary." "Well—it is getting damp here. I shall expect you to-day—this evening, say, at six." "Which way shall I come, ma'am?" 'The front way—through the door. There is no other."

Elizabeth Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley. "Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you may as well keep silent upon it till you are clear off. Who know but that he may alter his mind?"

Elizabeth Jane shook her head. "On consideration I don't fear it," she said sadlv. "He has grown quite cold to me." "Very well. Six o'clock, then."

When they had emerged upon the open road and parted they found enough to do in holding their bowed umbrellas to the wind. Nevertheless, the lady looked in at the cornyard gates as she passed them, and paused on one foot for a moment. But nothing was visible there save the ricks, and the humpbacked barn, cushioned with moss, and the granary, rising against the church tower behind, where the smacking of the rope against the flag-staff still went on.

Now, Henchard had not the least suspicion that Elizabeth Jane's movement was to be so prompt. Hence when, just before six, he reached home and saw a fly at the door from the Golden Crown, and his stepdaughter with all her little bags and boxes getting into it, he was taken by surprise "But you said I might go, father?" she explained, through the carriage window. '•'Said!—yes. But I thought you meant next month, or next year. 'Od seize it—vou take time by the forelock. Tl.-i?, then, is how vou be (joing to treat me for all my trouble about ye?" "Oh, father—how can you speak like that? It is unjust of you!" she said with spirit. "Well, well. Have your own way," he replied, in a nettled tone. He entered the house, and, seeing that all her things had not yet been brought down, went up to her room to look on. He had never been there since she had occupied it. Evidences of her care, of her endeavors for improvement, were visible all around, in the formcf oks. sketches, mans, and little arrangements for taste! ul effects. Henchard had known nothing of these, efforts. Ife gazed at thorn turned suddenly about, and came down to the door. "Look here." he said, in an altered voice—he never called her by name now—"don't 'ee go away from me. It may be I ve spoke harshly to ee— but I've been grieved beyond everything by vc—there's something that caused it." "By me?" she said, with deep concern. "What have 1 done?" "1 can't tell you now. But if vou'll stop, and go on living as my daughter, I'll tell you all in time."

But the proposal had come ten minutes too late. She was in the flv, was already, in imagination, at the house of the lady whose manner had such charms for her. "Father," she said, as considerately as she could, "I think it best for us that I go on now. I need not stay long I shall not be far away and if you want me badly I can soon come back again."

He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision, and no more. "You are not going far away, you say. What will be your address, in case I wish to write to 3rou?

ffiir

Or am

I not to know?" "Oh, yes—certainly. It is only in the town —High Street Hall." "Where?"

She repeated the words. He did not move or speak, and, waving her hand to him in silence she signified to the flyman to drive up the street.

CHAPTER XXII.

We go back for a moment to the preceding night to account for Henchard's attitude.

At the hour when Elizabeth Jane was contemplating her stealthy reconnoitering expedition to the abode of the lady of her fancy, he was not a little amazed at receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta well-known handwriting. The self-repression, the resignation of her previous communication had vanished from her mood. She wrote with some of the natural lightness which bad marked her in their early acquaintance. "High Street Hall. J'! "MY DEAR MIOIIAEL Don't bo surprised. It is for your good a»d mine, as I hope, that I have come to live at Casterbridc—for how long I cannot tell. That depends upon another and he is a man, and a merchant, and a mayor, and one who has the first right to my affections. "Seriously, Michael, I am not so light-hearted as I may seem to be from this. I have come here in consequence of hearing of the death of your wife-*-whom you used to think of as dead so many years before. Poor woman, she seems to have been a sufferer, though uncomplaining and though weak in intellect, not an imbecile. I spoke to her once in passing through .the town. I am glad you acted fairly by her. As soon as I knew she fyas no more, it was brought home tf me very forcibly by my conscience that we ought to repair our former mistake as soon as we decently coultl. I hope ym are of the same uiintjl, and that you will take steps to this, end. As, how-

A si

ever, 1 did not know how you were situated, or what had happened since our separation, I decided to come and establish myself here before communicating with you. "You probably feei as I do about this. I shall be able to see you in a day or two. Till then farewell.

Yours/M! LUCETTA."

Henchard ha:l already heard that High Street Hall was being prepared for a tenant. He said with a puzzled air to the first person he encountered, "Who is coming to live at the hall?" "A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir," said his informant.

Henchard thought it over. "Lucetta is" governess or housekeeper there, I suppose," he said to himself. "Yes, must put her in her proper position, undoubtedly."

It was by no means with the oppression that would once have ac-* companied the thought that he regarded the moral necessity now: it was, indeed, with interest, if not irmth. His bitter disappointment at fine ing Elizabeth Jane to be none of his, and himself a childless man, had left an emotional void in Henchard that he unconsciously craved to fill. In this frame of mind, though without strong feeling, he had strolled up the blind alley and into High Street Hall by the postern at which Elizabeth had so nearly encountered him. He had gone on thence into the court, and inquired of & man whom he saw unpacking china from a crate, if Miss Le Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the name under which he had known and married Lucetta.

The man replied in the negative— that Miss Templeman only had come. Henchard went away, concluding that Lucetta had not as yet settled in.

He was in this interested stage of the inquiry when he witnessed Elizabeth Jane's departure the next day. On hearing her announce the address there suddenly took possession of him the strange thought that Lucetta and Miss Templeman. were one and the same person, for he could recall that in her season of intimacy with him the name of the rich relative whom he had deemed somewhat a mythical personage had been given as' Templeman. Though not a for-tune-hunter. the possibility that Lucetta had been sublimed into a lady of means by some munificent testament on the part, of this relative lent a charm to her image which it might not have otherwise acquired. He was getting on toward the dead level of middle a^e. when material things increasingly possess the mind.

But Henchard WHS not left long in suspense. Lucetta was rather addicted to scribbling, as had been shown by the torrent of letters after the fiasco in their marria.ee arrangements. and hardly had Elizabeth Jane gone away when another note came to the mayor's house from High Street Hall.

"I am in residence," she said, "and comfortable, though getting here has been a wearisome undertaking. You probably know what am going to tell you, or do you not? My good aunt Templeman, the banker's widow, whose very existence you used to doubt, leave alone her affluence, has lately died, and bequeathed a great deal of her property to me. 1 will not enter into details except to say that 1 have taken her name. "I am now my own mistress, and have chosen to be tenant of High Street Hall, that at least you may be put to no trouble if you wish to see me. My first intention was to keep you in ignorance of the changes in my life till you should meet me by accident, but I have thought better of this. "You probably are aware of my arrangements with your daughter, I and have doubtless laughed at the— what shall I call it?—practical joke (in all affection) of my getting her to live with me. But my first meeting with her was purely an accident. Do you see, Michael, why I have done it?—why, to give you an excuse for coming here as if solely to. visit her, aid thus to form mv acquaintance naturally. She is a dear, good girl, and she thinks you have treated her with undue severity. 'You may have done so in your haste, but not deliberately, I am sure. As the result has been to bring her to me, I am not disposed to upbraid you.

ME "In haste, yours always. "LUCETTA." The excitement which these announcemenfs produced in Henchard's gloomy soul was to him most pleasurable. He sat over his dinin«r-table long and drcamilv. and by an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments which had run to waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth Jane and Donald Farfrae gathered around Lucetta before they had grown dry. She was in a very coming-on disposition for marriage of that there could be no doubt. But what else could a poor woman be who had given herself to him so unluckily at first? There was no doubt that conscience no less than affection id brought her here. On the whole he did o". blame her. "Thj a'tful little wornvi!" he said, smiling (with reference to Lu cetta's adroit and pleasant maneuver with Elizabeth Jane).

To feel that he would like to Lucetta was with Henchard to start for her house. He put on his hat and went. It was between eight and nine o'clock when he reached her door. fe$JThe answer brought him wa3 that Miss Temple man was engaged for that evening, but that she would be hapry to^ssc him the next day. (TO BB CONTINUED.) HI

"A

WHS

-.g&aawrt

"Airf," YET AWFUL.

Fremli^t's Famous Statue "Maiden and Gorilla" in W

New York World.

Fremiet's sculpture of a go, carrying off a maiden is worldmous. Even the marble is sufficient ly horrible. 'The ferocity of th'_/^ huge beast and the deadly terror of his victim contribute to make it repulsive. Yet the lover of art can

It was more lifelike than Fremiet's marble, for the girl's features wen the features of the banker's brich That group was placed on exhibitic .*v in this city, Saturday, at the Edr A Musee. It is almost inexpressilhorrible. It stands in a dim lighted chamber in the mi^ of a grove of trees. The ful moon is comingasup above the

I

He grinds his teeth, gnashing his jaws in a very ecstacy fit rage. He is a very Satan of beasts, a mammon of gorilias. There was a f-rowd about this group all last, eveirng. Some women look at it--most of them looked only for a moment. "'Dread-, ful! horrible!" they exclaim, and hurried a wav.

PEOPLE.

Odd. but true, that Boston ha^

statue of Theodore Parker in a ws^ house waiting for a pedestal a site.

The youngest child of a Revo tionarv soldier is suppposed to, ex-Judge Jeremiah Smith, an structor in the Harvard Law Scl/ He is fifty-six years old. EJ.is fa1 was Judge Jeremiah Smith, of' Hampshire, who was one of the, prominent figures in the early' tory of that State, and who en the Revolutionary army at tfc of 17, His son was born whi was seventy-eight years olefi/ present Judge Smith "has bi member of the New Hampshll preme Court, but resigned .« count ofill-healthin 1874,

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not but admire the sculpture, while he feels a thrill of disgust. There was published not long ago, r? in a German art journal, a story A about this bit of sculpture. The story was true and the names of the |j people were given. The story ran thus "A friend of Fremiet's was Sj engaged to marry a beautiful girl ,'j who lived in Munich, but the girl

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was poor and her parents sought richer husband for her. While he lover was absent his sweetheart was perforce, married to a very vulgar $ and ugly but immensely wealthy banker. When the discarded suitor learned that, wild with anger and jealousy, he modeled in wax a group,.: that showed to the life the abduction of a beautiful trirl by a gorilla.'"

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TO

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Sir

THE MAIDEN" AXP THE O0KH.LA. horizon. C'asped in the gorilla's right arm and pressed tight to his shaggy bosom is the foriri»ot a girl. H$r eyes are, closed, for she has swooned, but even in her foarl'ul ch'ead she seeks with all her feeble power to free herself from the embrace of the monster. Her shapely figure, scantily draped, seems to be not a feather\s weight in the gorilla's powerful I irrasp. One hand she presses against the gorilla's hairv chest, in the vain

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attempt to free herself. Either the I monster's tusks or his nails havS torn long gashes in her so If white. flesh. Her lonu" hair floaty-' in the" wind she is limp, almost inanimate. L-ler bosom heaves gently.,is the last, sighs of her life escape her.

The beast himself is a nightmare. If drunkards saw him in their dreams, no need for lectures on temperance. His long, museukir.' left arm hangs to his knees. Tn that hand he holds a rock that he ha^ grabbed up to hurl at his pursuers. For he is pursued. The feathers of an arrow that has struck him in his ruthless flight, and part of the arrow shaft project from his paunch. He has his death wound. Moved by hidden mechanicism. he turns, now to scowl upon those he has left behind, now to gloat ove- the hapless maiden in his grasp. His eyes roll as much in anticipation as in anger and in the agonies of the fate that be feels will take him away all too soon.

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Butter worth, of Yale, who the game for his team at Springfield last Saturday, is the sou of Ben But terworth, of Cincinnati.

W. D. Howells is said to have' enough literary work mapped ouV and contracted for the next year tc? assure him, with the royalties onj published books,, an .income- of 000.

What can'a young man of bd twenty-five years of age wantf $4,000" worth "of shirts? AmoiPr, liabilities of the eldest son ofV Robert Peel, who has just becoi bankrupt, is an item of that amount His debts amount to some $250,00 while his assets are praetically

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