Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1899 — BETWEEN TWO LOVES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BETWEEN TWO LOVES

BY CHARLOTTE M. BRAEME.

CHAH KR I. The trails of the preJtjr roimly town of j ' Harbuiy. in Krut, were ali plat-ani***! with the name of Martiu liay —Martin Bay the Uadiral. the Reformer: “the | Voice of the People." a> he liked "be-it to oil himself; the philaunhr..|»ist. the hater of Qneon and aristocracy. the teacher of treason: the man v.ho worked for> yet lived upon the people: the man who had genius, half niaiaiah. half poet, fu!! of great thoughts ali distorted, of grand ideas all wrong: a man whose Iq** had been tiMrbel by the divine fir** of eminence, who could stir the hearts of the people as the wind stirs the leaves; a man who had tnagnifieeut conceptions of what the world might l»e made; yet failed utterly in making them practical. He coukl l*o tracked easily as the Ha tiling fire that lays bare the prairie: wher ever be went he was followed l»y loud murmurs of popular discontent, and then came riot and imprisonment. In quiet hamlets, in ato-py villages. In peaceful towns, in fadwfits. workshops aud itrrets, his words fell, jmd set fire to those who listened. At Harbury there bad Iho-k a trial for bribery at the elect idbs, “There is sure to be a flaw in the armor there." thought Martiu Ray; ’it is the very place for a paying lecture by the "workingm-tu s friend.’*’ So the walls of the old town were placarded with the uaute of Martin Ray. and the people thirsted to see the new champion of popular rights. T*he largest placard of all was that opposite the house of Amos Hatton, the last descendant of what had on«v been • wealthy and powerful family, kor generations they had faded and decayod; j they had no louger houses or lands, tear even position; and Amos llattoa had been compelled to apply himself to one of the professions. lie was a solicitor, with a small but paying practice; and. being n stanch Conservative, the uame of Martin Ray in large letters opposite to Isis j door displeased him greatly. When he came down t« breakfast on j this fine May morning, then the were looking him defiantly in th-‘ face, I while his pretty daughter IXiris was g.«z- j lag at them intently. “Papa," she askel, “what is a Radical?” The old lawyer’s face flushed hotly. “I will not answer you until I feel calmer; to say the least of it, it is most j atrocious to place that name then"." The girl looked at ii with softened eyes. “Martin Ray is not a had name. papa. I should like to hear hint." satd Doris. *T have uever heard a really eloquent speaker. May lgo to the lectureY" “I shall be ashamed if you do," replied the lawyer. But Doris toughed. “Not quite that. Sir John Darke is going, with his wife and daughter. I ahould like to go also." “Well, you eau go. I Kiris that is. if your cousin will accompany you. Just once will not matter, au«l it « : ll prove to you what nonsense sorb men talk. I Jo. bat do not mention the man’s name to me again.” Doris Hatton was well pleased to go. She bad all her life hear*! her father ■peak of Radicals as of a class of beings quite different front oth< r men. Here was n chance of seeing the enemy. Partly because she had nothing else to do, partly because fate or destiny Sisl her, Doris Hatton went to the lecture. Looking over the sea of faces, changing, brightening, or darkening under the fire or scorn of his words. Martin Ray j ■aw one that lived in his heart for evermore—a pale, refined, pretty face, with great, earnest eyes and a tender mouth, the face of a girl who must be a heroworshiper by nature. It was like playing on some grand harp; touch what chords he would, the respouse was certain. After : f white the girl’s face held hint captive—he found himself s|*eaking to it, thitikiag Of it, watching it as it changed and paled. It was no longer himself and his audience. but himself and this girl. He was •spinning to her his doctrine, imbuing her mind with his ideas. A!1 night Martiu Ray dreamed of one face, one pair of eyes. He tried to get an introduction at the house, hut failed completely; Arnos Hatton would not receive hint. Still Martiu Ray could not tear himself from the girl, and he found means to meet her and to tell her how well he loved her. Doris Hatton was always inclined to take a romantic vie** of matters, and she made of the man a i*erfect hero. She loved Martin Ray with perfect love, such as he could have won from no other creature living. There was a long struggle in her heart between allegiance to her father and this swift, sweet, new-born love; but, as this new teacher told her. the old landmarks were swept away; they existed no longer— m* father liaJ a right to interfere with the marriage or his children. Through the sweet month of Mty. while the hawthorn bloomed on the hedges and the clover grew, he contrived to see her every eveniug. He found that Hanbury was a good school. He founded n nocicty. and taught the p>s»p!e what were workingmen’s rights and wrongs. He labored houestly enough, aud in the "Intervals of work he secretly wooed Doris —Doris, who believed in his dreams and his visions, and who foresaw a time when all men would be equal, when poverty and toil would be done away with, anil universal peace, charity, harmony and comfort reign. Martin Ray. her hero, was to bring about this. Amos Hatton stormed end raved when he received one morning a letter front Martin Ray. asking for his daughter’s hand. Nothing could exceed his *» rath nod indignation. “I*u have .good blood in your veins,” he cried to the trembling girl. “You have ancestors who fought aud died—died, mind-yon—for the king and country, and who has boasted that, if no one else were found wilting, he himself would behead wrery sovereign reigning.” qtnnot hrip Vou

!j. "I must love him; no one understands him but me.” “You must choose between us, Doris,” said her father, trying to speak calmly. “If you marry hint 1 will never look upon your face again; I will never speak to you or hear your voice; you will be no child of mine; I will cast you off from me.” She uttered a low ery of pain and despair. “I wonder.” she said, “if ever a girl had to choose between her father and her lover I*-fore?” “Yes,” he replied; “hundreds. As a rule, they Choose the lover; but you ought to be au exception, Doris—you ought not to he of the common run of girls. I exj*eet more from you. I will not take your answer yet; you must think it over. It is not for a few days or months that you have to decide, but for life, Doris. My dear, try to disabuse yourself of the notion that Martin Ray is a hero. He is nothing of the kind. lie is a paltry, rftisP erable schemer, who lives upon the hard* earnings of the people he misleads.” “You cannot understand his aims, papa!” she cried, despairingly. Amos Hatton gave his daughter a few days to decide upon her fate in life. She took the decision into her own hands and married Martiu Ray—but not with her father's consent or blessing. She stole from the house one sunny morning never to outer it again. She kissed her father •*n the evening before and never saw his face or heard his voice again. She married the mail whom she believed to be a hero, and reaped her reward.

There w as some little surprise and consternation in Harbury when it was known that Doris Hatton had married the youin; demagogue whose appearance had created a social whirlwind. Few understood the attraction that such a man would have for a romantic, sentimental girl. IK>ris thought no lot in the world one-half so brilliant as hers. Aiuos Hatton wag a broken-hearted mau. He had but two Children, and be loved them with the deepest possible love. Ilis son Arthur, a handsome, spirited l*oy, eight years older than his sister, has chosen the army for a profession; and quite early in his career he had received tn excellent military appointment in India, where he was rapidly accumulating fame and fortune. Doris, his fair daughter, was the very pride of his heart. For her the old lawyer had worked and toiled, only to see himself forsaken for a man whom he hated and despised. His heart was hitter uml his wrath was great. He wrote to his son in India, telling him what had happened, and bidding him to drive all memory of his sister from him forever. Then Amos Hatton made another will, in which he left all his property to his sou; and when he spoke of Doris it was as of one dead. Everything that had ever belonged to her—piano, books, pictures, clothes, ornaments —was sent after her. In the lawyer’s pleasant, old-fashioned house in Harbury not a trace was left of the daughter once so beloved.

The three years that followed his mnrriage were perhaps the most brilliant of Martiu Ray’s life. The worship and adoration of his young wife stimulated him. He positively began to believe himself what she imagined him to be. One morniug when Amos Hatton opened his newspaper he saw a long account of a grand political meeting in London, and the eveut of the day was the speech of Martin Ray. He read it. Bitterness, anger aud regret filled bis heart; he suffered terribly. Ilis emotion brought on ■ fit; and when his clerk went into the office be found him with his head on the table. The doctor who was hastily summoned said that he had been dead for an hour.

The news of his decease was sent to ludia. where his son Arthur grieved heartily for him. According to his will, everything that he possessed—house, furniture, pictures, plate, business, railway shares, mining shares—was sold,’and the money was sent to his son. Arthur took it, and doubled it in a few years. He thought of his little sister Doris with something like remorse, but made up his mind that when he returned to England he Would seek her out, and at least share the money with her." ~ So Amos Hatton was buried, and in due time forgotten. Doris mourned long, and deeply for him. She still believed iu her husband as a great hero and an excellent man. None of her illusions had been dispelled, and her happiness had beeu crowned by the birth of two little daughters— beautiful children, the eldest of whom she had uanied Leah, and the sets*ud Hettie. She was wonderfully happy, this sweet Doris, who thought no husband aud no children equal to her own. Cut off from all her former associations and friends, thrown entirely on her husband for society, no wonder that her life narrowed and her world became centered in him.

It did not take her many years to find out that her idol was of clay, to discover that he was no prophet, no martyr, that he cared little for the consequences of hia seditious language and the fire he put into the hearts of the people, provided only that he made money and lived in comfort, that his eloquence was a great natural gift which he would just as cheerfully hare turned to any other purpose. that, stripped of all the ideal qualities she had ascribed to him, he was simply a shrewd man of powerful intellect. rather more egotistical and more selfish than most of his fellows. ' - Some wives live and die without either seeing their husband’s faults or discerning their weaknesses. It was not so.with Doris. The time came when she stood appalled at what she had done—when the clap-trap sentiments that she bad once thought so heroic and grand appeared to her in their true light. The knowledge brought on a severe illness, and Bhe died, leaving her two little daughters, Leah and Hettie. Bnt before she died she wrote • letter to her far-off brother, owning to him that her marriage had been a fatal mistake and praying him to take charge of her ckildrew-to ton them, to

r w-" - v • ' • " % .-■ - ■ V."-. . rescue them, it he could, from a fatal and unwholesome atmosphere and do the .best he.could for them.. -ct v He was Colonel. Hatton when be received the letter." He placed It with hU papers, intending to do what she asked, and in the whirl of his busy life forgot' nU about it.

CHAPTER 11. No two girls eYer had a stranger education and a more unequal life than had Leah and Hettie Ray. Sometimes they found themselves in the midst of comfort and -luxuryJ Then would come poverty, squalor, common lodging bouses, common clothing, the want of even the necessaries of life. During their mother’s lifetime they had been more settled, they had lived icmger in one place, they had been more uniformly comfortable, but now they never had n home for more than three months together. . Then came a time of great trouble, of which they |6oirtiinately knew but little. When Leah was eleveu and Hettie ten, Martin Ray, rendered desperate by what seemed to him long-continued peace and order, made a speech which brought him under the iron grip of the law. He was tried and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment; and, in spite of all that friends could do, the sentence was carried out. “

An old patron took pity on his youthful children. Sir John Falkner, a leading Radical, came to the rescue. He scut the children to a boarding school kept by a poor relative of his own —a Miss Fairfax —who resided at Kew. He forbad* any mention of theit father’s imprisonment; and the children were told that he was away from home —absent on special business, and would not return for a few years. They believed it implicitly. They had some kind of an idea that their father was a great statesman, born to sec the wrongs of the world right. If they had been told that he had gone to dethrone the Czar of all the llussias, they would have believed it just as implicitly. Martin Ray was released from prison when Leah was in her fifteenth year and Hettie still almost a child of fourteen. He was not grateful *to Sir John. He rented apartments in Manchester, lie intended to educate the girls after his own fashion. Leah, who was gifted, clover aud brilliant, he had meant to bring out as a lecturer; a beautiful young woman lecturing on polities would be a novelty that would pay well. As for Hettie, there was plenty of time to think over what should be done with her. Leah was well read and thoughtful. She was a girl of magnificent talent, full of energy and the restless fire that proclaims genius. He had never told her what his intentions were with regard to her; but one day he called her into the miserable little room he dignified by the name of study to communicate his plans to her.

“You have grown very beautiful. Leah,” he said, looking at her qujte calmly—“very beautiful; and it is time .you knew for what purpose heaven has sent yciu that same beauty.” The girl smiled and blushed. She did nut remember that her father had ever used such words to her before. “You have a grand mission in life, Leah. You must not be as other girls; you must not think that dress, gayety. enjoyment, love and marriage are.the end and aim of your existence. You have a far more important future in store for you.” She looked up at lnm in wonder. “I did not know that I had any mission, father,” she said quietly. “What is it?” “The greatest, Leah, that ever fell to a woman. I have been preaching and teaching all my life. I have given tip everything in this world for the cause of the people—all my hopes, my ambition. I have served them, lived for them, spent my life for them; and now, even as from the prophet of old, my mantle has fallen —and it has fallen upon you.” “I do not understand,” she replied! “What am I to do?”

“I will tell yon,” he said. “You must take my place. I can preach and teach no longer; you must do it for me. You are young and beautiful; you have great talent; you have a dear, vibrating, sweet voice, that will make its way to the very hearts of men; you have the fire that belongs to genius; you have a brilliant imagination—indeed, I may say thßt you have every requirement; and a lady orator will he a novelty such as is not seen every day.” “What do you want me to be, father?” she asked slowly. “A Teacher Of the people,” he replied* grandiloquently. (To be continued.)