Greenfield Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 1 March 1894 — Page 2

second lover. She let out in jei k\

phrases a leading word or two of the

8

BY THOMAS HARDY-

CHAPTER

growing more apparent at each syl-

ago-about the first lover and the

rarding the irises oi Lucetta

lv, regar eyes as though to catch their exact shade. "The two lovers—the old and the new how she wanted to marry the second, but felt she ought to marry the lirst so that the good she would not, that she did—exactly like the Apostle Paul." '"Oh, no she didn't do evil," said Lucetta. hastily. ''But you said that she—or, as 1 may say, you"—answered Elizabeth, dropping the mask, "were in honor and truth bound to marry the first."

Lucetta's blush at being seen through came and went again as she replied, "You will never breathe this, will you, Elizabeth Jane?" not." "Then I will tell you that case is more complicated—worse in fact—than it seemed in my story. I and the tirst went to be married, and thought we were married. He was a widower, as we supposed. He had not heard of his first wife for man}' years. But the wife returned and we parted. She is now dead, and the husband comes addresses again, saying, complete our marriage.' abeth Jane, all this new courtship of me

XXX—CONTINUED

"I must go rather a long way ]ier estimate of the propriety of Luback," said Lucetta, the difficulty cetta's conduct, Farfrae had been so of explaining herself satisfactorily nearly her avowed lover that she felt to the pondering one beside her she could not live there.

paying me 'Now, we'll But, Eliz-

amounts to a bv hirri: I was

absolved from all points by the return of the oilier woman." "Have y::ii not lately renewed your promise?" said the other, with quiet surmise. She had divined Man Numbcr'One. "That was wrung from me by a threat of revelation." "Yes, it was. But I think when any one gets coupled up with a man in the past so unfortunately as you have done, she ought to become his wife."

Lucetta's countenance lost its sparkle. "He turned out to be a man I should be afraid to marry." she pleaded. "Really afraid. And it was not till after my renewed promise that I knew it." "Then there is only one course left to decene.v and honesty. You •must remain a single woman." "But think again. Do consider

"I

ertain," interrupted her aspect of a recent crime.

correctness of environment was, indeed, almost vicious. Owing to her early troubles with regard to her mother, a semblance of irregularity

Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as if she could plead no more, holding out her left to Elizabeth Jane. "Why, you have married him," cried the latter, jumping up with pleasure after a glance at Lucetta's fingers. "When did you do it? Why did you not tell me, instead of teasing me like this? How very honorable of you! He did treat my mother badly once, it seems, in a moment of intoxication. And it is true that he is stern sometimes. But 3'ou will rule him entirely, I am sure, with your beauty and wealth and accomplishments. You are the woman he will adore, and we shall all three be happy together now." "'Oh, my Elizabeth Jane!" cried Lucetta, distressfully. "'Tis somebody else that I have married! I was so desperate--so afraid of being forced to anything else—so afraid of any revelations that would quench his love for me, that I resolved to do it off-hand, come what might, and purchase a week of happiness at any cost." "You-—have—married Mr. Farfrae!" cried Elizabeth Jane.

companion, hardily "I have guessed Small as the court incident had very well who the man is. My! been in itself, it formed the edge or father and I say it is him or nobody turn in the incline of Henchard's for you." fortunes. On that day—almost at

Lucetta bowed. She had recovered herself. "The bells are ringing on that account," she said. "M}' husband is down-stairs. He will live here till a more suitable house is ready for us and I have told him that I want you to stay with rne, just as before." "Let me think of it alone," the

Any suspicion of lack of respecta- that minute—he passed the ridge of bility was to Elizabeth Jane like a prosperity and honor, and began to red rag to a bull, Her craving for descend rapidly on the other side.

had terrors for her which those whose from rash transactions, the velocity names are safeguarded from, suspi- of his descent in both aspects becion know nothing of. "You ought came accelerated every hour, to marry Mr. Henchard or nobody—j He now gazed more at the pavecertainly not another man," she went: ments, and less at the house fronts, on, with a quivering lip, in whose when he walked about more at the movement two passions shared. "I don't admit that." said Lucetta. passionately. "Admit or not. it is true."

girl quickly replied, corking up the one, and Henchard, looking out of •turmoil of her feeling with great control. "You shall. 1 am sure we shall be •happy together."

Lucetta departed to ioin Donald

Now the instant decision of Susan ifiiHenchard's daughter was to dwell in /that bouse no more. .Apart from

below, a vague uneasiness floating into a reverie, till, turning his face over her joy at seeing him quite at from the window, and towering home there. Not on account of her above all the rest, he called their atfriend Elizabeth did she feel it for of the bearings of Elizabeth Jane's emotions she had not the least suspicionjbuton Henchard's alone.^

It was still early in the evening

when ghe hastUy

,.\P ., and went out. In a few minutes, You remember that trying case icnoffiBg the ground, she had found of conscience I told you of some time

^ut

a sujta5ie

enterjnpr

tt

?^uSne plain one, packing up the other to Oh, yes, I remember the story ^eep

of your friend, !aid Elizabeth, dity-,|0

CertainiV not, if sa\ uui.^^ pursued unremittingly, might serve

CHAPTER XXXI,

The retort of the furmity woman before the magistrates had spread and in four-and-twenty hours there was not a person in Casterbridge who remained unacquainted with the siory of Henchard's mad freak at Weydon Priors Fair, long years before. The amends he had made in after-life were lost sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act.

Had the incident been well known of old and always, it might by this time have grown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall wild oat, but the single one, of a young man with whom the steady and mature (if somewhat headstrong) burgher of to-day had scarcely a point in coinmoil. But the act having lain as dead and buried ever since, the interspace of years was unperceived and the black spot of his youth wore the

It was strange how soon he sunk in esteem. Socially he had received a startling fillip downward and having already lost commercial buoyancy

feet and legginsof men,and less into the pupils of their eyes with the blazing regard which formerly had made them blink.

New events combined to undo him. It had been a bad year for others besides himself, and the heavy failure of a debtor whom he had trusted implicitly completed the overthrow of his tottering credit. And now, in his desperation he failed to preserve that strict correspondence between bulk and sample, which is the soul of commerce in grain, For this one of his men was mainly to blame that worthy, in his great unwisdom, having picked over the sample of an enormous quantity of second-rate corn which Henchard had in hand, and removed the pinched, blasted and smutted grains in great numbers. The produce, if honestly offered, would have created no scandal but the blunder of misrepresentation, coming at such a moment, dragged Henchard's name into the ditch.

The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind. One day Elizabeth Jane was passing the Golden Crown, when she saw people bustling in and out more than usual when there was no market. A bystander informed her, with some surprise at her ignorance, that it was a meeting of the commissioners under Mr. Henchard's bankruptcy. She felt quite tearful, and when she heard that he was present in the hotel, she wished to go in and see him, but was advised not to intrude that day.

The room in which debtor and creditors had assembled was a front

the window, had caught sight of Elizabeth Jane through the wire blind. His examination had closed, and the creditors were leaving. The appearance of Elizabeth threw him

tention for a moment more, His countenance had somewhat changed from the flush of prosperity the black hair and whiskers were the same as ever, but a film of ash was over the rest. 'Gentlemen," he said, "oVef and

a-TTv.

on her things

lodging, and arranged to

enter it that night

Returning and

noiselessly, she took off her

^vess^nd arrayed herself in a

as

jier best for she would have

very

economical now. She

wrote a note to leave for Lucetta, who was closely shut up in the draw-ing-room with Farfrae and then Elizabeth Jane called a man with a wheelbarrow and seeing her boxes put into it, she trotted off down the street to her rooms. They were in the street in which Henchard lived, and almost opposite his door.

Here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence. The little annual sum settled on her by her stepfather would keep body and soul together. A wonderful skill in netting of all sorts—acquired in childhood by making seines in Newson's home—might serve her in good stead and her studies, which she

her in still better.o By this time the marriage that had taken place was known throughout C'asterbridge had been discussed noisily on curb stones, confidentially behind counters, and jovially at the King of Prussia. Whether Farfrae would sell his business and set up for a gentleman on his wife's money, or whether he would show independence enough to stick to his trade in spite of his brilliant alliance, was a great point of interest.

f""

The creditors, farmers almost to a man, looked at the watch, and at the money, and into the street when Farmer James Everdene spoke. "No, no, Henchard, he said, warmly. "We don't want that. 'Tis honorable in ye, but keep it. What do you say, neighbors—do ye agree?" "Ay, sure: we don't wish it at all," said Grower, another creditor. "Let him keep it, of course," murmured another, in the background —a silent, reserved young man, named Boldwood, and the rest responded unanimously. "Well," said the senior commissioner, addressing Henchard, "though the case is a desperate one, I am bound to admit that I have never met a debtor who behaved more fairly. I've proved the balance-sheet to be as honestly mode out as it could possibly be we have had no trouble there have been no evasions and no concealments. The rashness of dealing which led to this unhappy situation is obvious enough but as far as I can see, every attempt has been made avoid wronging anybody."

Henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them perceive. and he turned to the window again. A general murmur of agreement followed the commissioner's words, and the meeting dispersed. When they were gone, Henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him. Tisn't mine by rights," ho said to himself. "Why the devil didn't they take it? I don't want what don't belong to me." Moved by a recollection, ho took the watch to the maker's just opposite, and sold it there and then for what the tradesman offered, and went with the proceeds to one among the smaller of his creditors, a cottager of Dummerford, in straitened* circumstances, to whom he handed the money.

When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned, and the auctions were in progress, there was quite a sympathetic- reaction in the town, which till then for some time •. past had done nothing but condemn him. Now that Henchard's whole career was pictured distinctly to his neighbors, and they could see how admirably he had used his one talent of energy to create a position of affluence out of absolutely nothing— which was really all he could show when he came to the town as a journeyman hay-trugscr, with his whimble a'id knife in his basket—they wondered, and regretted his fall.

Try as she might, Elizabeth Jane could never meet with him. She believed in him still, though nobody else did and she wanted to be al-! lowed to forgive him for his roughness toward her, and to help him in his trouble.

She wrote to him ho did not reply. She then went to the house— the great house she had lived in so happily for a time— with its front of dun brick, vitrified here and there, and its heavy sash bars: but Henchard was to be found there no more. The ex-Mayor had left the house of his prosperity and gone into Jopp's house by the Priory Mill—the sad purlieu to which he had wandered on the night of his discovery that she was not his daughter. Thither she went.

Elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on this spot to retire to, but assumed that necessity had no choice. Trees which seemed old enough to have been planted by the friars still stood around, and the back-hatch of the original mill yet formed a cascade which had raised its tei'rific roar for centuries. The cottage itself was built of old stones from the long-dismantled priory, scraps of tracery, molded windowjambs and arch-iabels being mixed in with the rubble of the walls.

In this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms, Jopp, whom Henchard had previously employed, abused, cajoled and dismissed by turns being the householder. But even here her stepfather could not be seen. "Not by his daughter?" pleaded Elizabeth Jane. "By nobody—at present that's his order," she was informed.

Afterward she was passing by the corn stores and hay-barns which had been the headquarters of his business. She knew that he ruled there no longer, but it was with amazement that she regarded the familiar gateway. A smear of decisive leadcolored paint had been laid on to obliterate Henchard's name, though its letters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog. Over these, in fresh white, spread the name of Farfrae.

Abel Whittle was edginghis skeleton in at the wicket, and she said: "Mr. Farfrae is master here?" "Ya-as, Miss Henchet," he said. "Mr. Farfrae have bought the concern and all of we work-folk with it and 'tis better for us than 'twas, though I shouldn't say that to you as a daughter-law. We work harder, but we bean't made afeared now. It was fear made my few poor hairs so thin. No busting out, no slamming of doors, no meddling with ver eternal soul and all that and though 'tis A shilling a week leas, I'm the richer

I

VV^

above the assets that we've been talking about, and that appear on the balance sheet, there be these. It all belongs to ye, as much as everything else I've got, and I don't wish to keep it from j'ou, not I." Saying this, he took his gold watch from his pocket, and laid it on the table then his purse—the yellow canvas money-bag, such as was carried by all farmers and dealers—untying it, and shaking the money out upon the table beside the watch. The latter he drew back quickly for an instant to remove the hair guard made and given him by Lucetta. "There, now j'ou have all," he said. "And I wish for your sakes 'twas more."

^WT^yf^\^^Wr

V®

man for what's all the world if yer mind is always in a larry, Miss Henchet?"

The intelligence was in a general sense true, and Henchard's stores, which had remained in a paralyzed condition during the settlement of his bankruptcy, were stirred into activity again when the new tenant had possession. Thenceforward the full sacks, looped with the shining chain, went scurrying up and down under the cat-head hairv arms were thrust out from the different doorways, and the grain was hauled in, trusses of hay were tossed anew in and out of the barns, and the wimbles creaked, while the scales and steelyards began to be busy where guess-work had formerly been the rule.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town. The first, of weather stained brick, was at the end of High street, where a diverging branch of that thoroughfare ran round to the lowlying Dummerford lanes, so that the precincts of the bridge formed the merging point of respectability and indigence. The second bridge of stone, was further out on the highway in fact, fairly in the meadows. though still within the town boundI ary.

These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each I was worn down to obtuseness, partS ly by weather, more by friction from generations of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year made restless movements against these parapets as they stood there meditating on the aspect of affairs. I In the case of the more friable bricks to and stones even the fiat faces were worn into hollows by the same mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at each point, since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate wrench the coping off and down the river, in reckless of the magistrates.

men to throw it defiance

For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of the town those who had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in crime. Why the unhappy hereabout usually chose the bridges for their meditations in years preference to a railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so clear.

There was a marked difference of quality between the personages who haunted the near bridge of brick and the personages who haunted the far one of stone. Those of lowest character preferred the former, adjoining the town they did not mind the glare of the public eye. They had been of comparatively no account during their successes, and, though they might fe 1 dispirited, they had no particular sense of sham.' in their ruin. Their hands were mostly kept in their pockets: they wore a leather strap round their waists, and boots that required a great deal of lacing, but seemed never to get any. Instead of saying the iron had entered into their souls, they said they were down on their luck, -lopp in his times of distress had often stood here so had Mother Cuxsom, Christopher Conev. and poor Abel Whittie.

The miserables who stood on the remoter bridge were of a politer

There and thus they would muse. If their grief were the grief of oppression, they would wish themselves kings if their grief were poverty, wish themselves millionaires if sin, they would wish they were saints or angels if despised love, that they were one of the courted Adonises in the country round. Some had been known to stand and think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had allowed their poor carcasses to follow that gaze, and they were discovered the next morning in the pool beneath, out of reach of their troubles.

To this bridge came Henchard, as the other unfortunates had come before him, his way thither being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of the town. Here he was standing one windy afternoon when Dummerford church clock struck five. While the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears across the damp intervening fiat, a man passed behind him, and greeted Henchard by name. Henchard turned slightly, and saw that the comer was Jopp, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to whom, though he hated him, he had gone for lodgings, because Jopp was the one man in Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen corn-merchant despised to the point of indifference.

Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp stopped. "He and she are gone into their new house to-day," said Jopp,

stamp. They included bankrupts, yet but I can't stand doing nothing, hypochondriacs, persons who were what is called "out of a situation" from fault of lucklessness the inefficient of the professional class— shabby-genteel men, who did not know how to get rid of the wearv time between breakfast and dinner. and the. yet more weary time between dinner and dark. The eyes I of this group were mostly directed over the parapet upon the running water below. A man seen there lookinging thus fixedly into the river' was pretty sure to be one whom the world did not treat kindly for some reason or other. While those in straits on the town ward bridge did not mind who saw them so, and kept their backs to the parapet to survey the passers-by, those in straits on this never faced the road, never turned their heads at coming footsteps, but, sensitive to their condition, watched the current whenever a stranger approached, as if some strange fish interested them, though every finned thing had been poached out of the river years before.

iUKi'J'V^1^

1

*X «t*Stf

"Oh," said Henchard, absently. "Which house i--- that?" "Your old one." "Gone into mv house?" And starting up. Henchard added. "My house, of all others in the town!" "Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn't it can do yc no harm that he's the man."

It was quite, true he felt that it was doing him no harm. Farfrae, who had already taken yards antf stores, had acquired possession of the house for the obvious convenience of its contiguity. And yels this act of.his taking up residency within those roomy chambers while he, their former tenant, lived in a cottage, galled him indescribably.

Jopp continued: "And you heard of that fellow who bought all of the best furniture at yonrsale? He was bidding for no other than Farfrae all the while. It has never been moved. out of the house, and he's already got the lease." "My furniture too! Surely he'll I buy my body and soul likewise." "There's no saying he won't, if you be willing to sell." And having planted those wonnds in tire heart I of his once imperious master, Jopp went on his way, wh'le Henchard stared and stared into the racing river till the bridge seemed moving backward with him.

The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper gray. When the landscape looked like a picture, biotted in with ink, another traveler anproached the great stone bridge. He was driving a gig. his direction beI ing also townward. On the round I of the middle of the arch the gig stopped. "Mr. Henchard?" came from it in the voice of," -Farfrae.

Henchard turned his face. Finding that lie had guessed rightly. Farfrae told the man who accompanied him to drive home. I while he alighted, and went up to his former friend. "I have heard that, you think of emigrating, Mr. Tien heard." he said. I "Is it tr-rue? I have a real reason for asking."

Henchard withhold his answer for I several instants, and !h.-n said: "Yes. it is where you ago, vou and here. 'Tis isn't it? like this

a no

true. I am were going when I got you turn and tu Do ye mind how on the bridge wh

'1 v*r\T',v *s^wa, -.,

going tu a few revented •o bide about, we stood

I per­

suaded ye to stay? You then stood without a chattel to your name, and I was the master of the house in Corn Street. But now I stand without a stick or a rag, and the master of that house is you." "Yes, yes: and it is so. Such is the course of things!" said Farfrae. arresting his facial movements. "Ha, ha. true!" cried Henchard. throwing himself into a mood oi jocularity. "Hp and down! I'm used to it. What's the odds, after all?" "Now listen to me. if its no taking up your time." said Farfrae 'just as I listened to you. Don't go. Stay at home." "But I can do nothing eise. man," said Henchard, scornfully, "The little money I have will just keep body and soul together for a few weeks and no more. I have not felt inclined to go back to journey-work

and my best chance is elsewhere. "No but what I propose is this— if ye will listen. Come and live in your old house. We can spare some rooms very well I am sure my wife wouldn't mind it at all—until there's an opening for ye."

Henchard started. Probably the picture drawn by the unsuspecting Donald of himself under the same roof with Lucetta was too striking to be received with equanimity. "No, no," he said, gruilly "we should quarrel." "You shoulc hae a part to

3-our-

self, said Farfrae, "and nobodv would interrupt you. It will be healthier than down there by the river where you live now."

Still Henchard refused. "You don't know what you ask," lie said. "However, I can do no less than thank ye."

They' walked into the town together side by side, as they had done when Henchard had persuaded the young Scotchman to remain. "Will you come in and have some supper?" said Farfrae, when they reached the middle of the town, where their paths diverged right and left. "No, no." "By the bye, I had nearly forgot. I bought a good deal of your furniture." "So I have heard." "Well it was not that I wanted it so very much for myself: but I wish ye to pick out all that you care to have—such things as may be en-* deared to ye by associations, or particularly suited to your use. And take them to your own house: it will not be depriving me we can do with less very well and I will have plenty of opportunities of getting more." "What—give it to me for nothing?" said Henchard. "But you paid the creditors for it." "Ah, yes but may be its worth more to }jou than it is to me."

Henchard was a little moved. "I sometimes think I've wronged ye!" he said, in tones which showed the disquietude that the nightshades hid in his face. He shook Farfrae abruptly by the hand, and hastened away as if unwilling to betray himself further. Farfrae saw him turn through the thoroughfare into Bull Stake and vanish down toward the priorv trill.

(T0

BJ3

CONTINUED.)

The. biggest sawmill in America, just sold at Tupper lake, N. Y., contains $150,000 worth of machinery.

A BAD BAlil'.

Funny Phases of An Iufantile Usurper's Wild Career.

Mark Twain's Puddin'hcad Wilson In th« Century.

Tom was a bad baby, from the beginning of his usurpation. He would cry for nothing he would burst into storms of devilish temper without notice, and let go scream after scream and squall after squall, then climax the thing with "holding his breath" —that frightful specialty of ths teething nursling, in the throes ol which the creature exhausts its, lungs, then is convulsed with noiseless squirmings and twistings and kickings in the effort to get iW breath, while the lips turn blue and' the mouth stands wide and rigid,| offering for inspection one wee tooth set in the lower rim of a hoop of red' gums: and when the appalling stillness has endured until one is sure the lost breath will never return, a nurse comes flying, and dashes water in the chiWi face, and —presto! the lungs fill, and instantly discharge a shriek, or a yell, or a howl which bursts the listening ear and surprises the owner of it into saying words which would not go well with a halo if he had one. The1 baby Tom would claw anybody who came within reach of his nails, and" pound anybody he could reach with his rattle. He would scream for water until he got it, and then throw cup and all

011

the floor and scream

for more. He was indulged in all his caprices, however troublesome^ and exasperating they might be he was allowed to eat anything he1 wanted, particularly things that would give him the stomach-ache.

When he got to be old enough to begin to toddle about and say broken words and get an idea of what his?) hands were for, he was a more consummate pest than ever. Roxy got, no rest while lie was awake. Hewould call for anything and every-, thing he saw, simply saying ''Awnt' it" (want it), which was a comma,nd..f When it was brought, he said in a frenzy, and motioning it away with: his hands' 'Don't awnfc it! don't awnt it!" and the moment it wasi gone he set np frantic yells of "Awnti it! awnt it!" and Roxy had to give! wings to her heels to get that thing back to him again before he could get time to carry out his intention, of going into convulsions about it.

What he preferred above all other things was the tongs. This was because his father had forbidden him: to have them lest he break windows and furniture with them, The moment Roxv's back was turned ho would toddle to the presence of the tongs and say "Like it!" and cock his eyes to one side to see if Roxy was observing then "Awnt it!'" and cock his eye again: then "Hab it!" with another furtive glance and finally, "Take it!"—and the prize was his. The next moment the heavy implement was raised aloft the'next, there was a crash and a squall, and the cat was off on three legs to meet an engagement Roxy would arrive ju^t as the lamp or a window went to irremediable smash.

Veterans Recalling War Times. Washington Post. General Joe Shelby, who has been here for ten days, called on General Schofield at army headquarters yesterday. Shelby commanded a cavalry brigade in Price's army during the raid in Missouri, and often came in unpleasant contact with the troops commanded by General Schofield. On one occasion Shelby swooped down on Schofield like a Western bl-itzard and carried off his colored cook, When they met yesterday Shelby asked his old time adversary if he remembered the loss of his cook. "Yes," said General Schofield. "ITe was the best cook I ever had in the field, and I was greatly vexed over his loss." "He died a few years ago in St. Louis," said Shelby, "and he had the biggest funeral you ever saw, white or"black. 1 thought I had struck you in a tender spot when I nabbed your cook," he added, with a laugh. "Yes." said the Commander-in-Chief, musingly, "he was a great cook but, General, if you will remember, I got even with you for that act the next day." "Well, you rather did make things' even," remarked the Missourian. "Did he punish you much?" asked a friend, addressing Shelby. "Did he? Great Scott, he wiped the earth up with me," exclaimed Shelbv in a candid enthusiasm at the recollection of his own defeat.

He ltncw the Game.

Life

Deacon Heavyweight—And so you are going to leave us, parson?" Rev. Mr. Thankful—Yes. I have had a call to another parish, where, by the way, the salary is somothing larger. I am sorry to leave my flock but I must obey the call.

Deacon Heavyweight (dryly)— Wall, it maybe what you call a call, but it seems to me a good de„al more like a raise. .- S.-s

A Big Walnut Tree.

Baltimore American.

What was supposed to be the largest walnut tree in Northern Maryland was felled on the farm of CoL Enoch Noves, near Port Deposit, last week. The tree at the butt measured over six feet in^diamete* and nearly 18 feet in circumference. Its height 80 feet. The age of the tree, uccording to tradition, and close calculation, was nearly 300 years. Col. Noyes intends to sell the tree, which, ~ho thinks, is worth over $400.