Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1883 — THE YORKE BEACH. [ARTICLE]

THE YORKE BEACH.

‘ It’s somebody with a name six syllables long,’ said the landlord, looking into the lining of his coarse straw hat, as if he expected to find the troublesome epithet there “It ain’t a professor, nor yet a philosopher, nor a pedestrian”—with a gasp at each of the hard words— I “but it’s something that begins with a IJ. And he’s hunting for shells—all sorts of queer ■outlandish shells, as isn’t to be come across every day.” “Do tellF’ said the wife. "Perhaps he’s going to grind them into fertilizing powder or macadamize a road with them.” “Then he’s an editor,” said Mrs. Utubbs. “’Tain’t quite that, neither,” said Mr. 'Stubbs, slowly. ‘ But it's something very wise and learned. So I told him he’d better go to Torke’s. The young woman there has a mortal nioe collection of out-of-the-way shells. And I’ve heard of their selling shells to them as fanoied them, for all they’re such high-toned gentlefolks.” That had been Mr. Silas Stubbs’ advice, and Mr. Oleve, the paleontoligist, had ta ken it, and was even then walking along the shingly beaoffwhere the waves curled in foamy fringes almost up to his feet,and the trails of blackish seaweed showed the water-mark. Judge Yorke—he had been judge, nobody knew how many years ago, of some petty oourt in a southern city, before the Yorke estate had melted in the fiery furnace of litigation, and he had fled northward in search of some business which never oame—sat out on the veranda, with the air of a prince. He was white-haired -and rubiound-visaged, and his slippers were down at the heels, and his red dash-

mere dressing gown was patched with quite a different pattern, and his wristbands were frayed, and the lack of buttons on his shirt-front was made good with a pin. Bat when he saw the stranger lift the xatoh of the riokety gate he advanoed to meet him with a patronizing urbanity which was little short of overwhelming. He 'istened to Mr. Clove's self-introduction with a royal smile; he welcomed him as it the old house were a palace; he made haste to introduce him to “Mrs. Yorke.” Mrs. Yorke was a tall, golden-haired young woman, with her lovely tresses tucked untidily into a net, her dress decidedly the worse for wear, and her exquisite face burned by the impress of the sun and wind. But the flash of her brilliant blue eyes was like the sunshine itself. “Will the gentleman stay to dinner?” Yorke asked the judge; “because we Slave only some porgies But if he oares for suoh simple fare he is welcome. Mr. Gleve accepted the simply given invitation. The judge was like an old piece of mucked poroelajn—cracked and damaged it might be, but still genuine. Mrs. Yorke was a beauty, but quite young •enough, the guest decided, to be her husband’s grand-daughter; and, besides, he wanted to know what on earth pogies •and samphire could be. There was no carpet on the diningroom floor and the windows needed cleaning. but the china was fine and they had j some blackberries, early apples, and a lew fine apricots in a;oenter piece of silwsr, with “Y” engraved on the handles, and Mr. Clave discovered tfikVthe porgies were a ooarse-grained fish with a good •deal of bone to than, also that samphire was a gelationous vegetable, not unlike grass, which was gathered on the sea beach ana boiled with butter and vine. An old Degrees, whom Clove mentally decided must be at least 100 years of age, waited and*kept offthe flies with a brush of peaoock’s feathers. “Shells? Yes, there are some fine shells,” the judge believed, “along the coast. Mra. tork knew—Mrs. Yorke could tell him. Paleontology was a stady which must always oommend—-itself—” And the judge fell blandly and oourteCuslv asleep, with a smile on his face.

Mrs. Yorke laughed. Did you sky you wanted to buy some AaUS? I will try wad have some collected for you by this time to-morrow.” “Could I collect them for myself?” Mr. Cleve asked, with the eagerness of a specialist. Mrs. Yorke’s beautiful brow darkened. “No,” she answered, . curtly. "The coast is ours gs far as Kooky Point, and our people don’t like to be interfered with, If you will come here this time to-morrow, I will have flo‘ worth of shells for you.” And to his amazement Mr. Cleve was compelled, perforoe to aooede, though in his innermost heart he doubted whether Mrs. Yorke was a judge of what would be $lO worth of shells. And then the judge waked up and pretended never to have been asleen, and Mrs. Yorke sang some delicious little Louisiana ballads to the guitar, and the oldnegress hobbled in with a melon ent in slices and sprinkled over with sugar; and before Mr Cleve knew it the clock was striking eleven. He walked home in the moonlight with the tumultuous rush of the rising tide in his ears, while Mrs. York's French ballads echoed musically through his brain, and her luminous blue eyes and burnished coils of golden hair haunted his recollections.

"It is the strangest, sweetest free I ever saw!” he muttered. “I believe I am more than half in love with her. If only that dilapidated old piece of Southern chivalry, the judge, would die I should like to make that woman my wife.” And then he smiled out there in the moonlight, at the fantastic improbability of the idea. By the next morning’s sunrise he was up and out on the glyrious beach of sparkling sand, with the sea wind fanning his face and a whole battery of electricity tingling through his pulses. Nothing seemed too much or too difficult to achseve. Heclimed dizzy peaks, he walked miles, he stood ou solitary promontories, where gulls flew shrieking around his ears—until at last he found himself on a level stretch of sand, not far from the old Yorke mansion. "Eureka!” he exclaimed to himself, as he stooped to pick an exquisite shell, rose-tinted and molded in rare curves, whioh lay blushing at his feet. At the same moment a boat containing a tall figure wrapped in an old black serge oloak, came rooking around the point, and a voice oried, sharply: "Halt there! Hands off! Yob are trespassing on the Yorke beach! Put down that shell or I’ll shoot” And the barrel of a pistol glistened in the sunshine. "I beg your pardon!” stammered Mr. Cleve, promptly dropping the shell. "I wasn’t aware that " The Loreley of the tides uttered a cry. ‘•lt’s Mr. Cleve,” she Baid. “And it’s Mrs. Yorke,” retorted our hero.

The golden-tressed beauty put down the revolver in the stem of the boat, sprang litely over its gunwale, and came up the boaoh with her cheeks all mangled with blushes. ‘Yes,” said she, it is L "I believe you are a gentleman, and I may as well be frank with you. We are genteelly poor at the house. All the inoome we have is derived from the sale of these rare shells, whioh I pick up myself, for we have no servant, exoept old Oardac, and she is too old and stiff to oome here. My father-in-law has not been quite himself since my husband was killed in a railroad accident three years ago ” "Your husband!” repeated Cleve. "Killed! Then you are not Jndge Yorke’s wife?” “I?” cried the bine-eyed enchantress; “I the wife of that old man?” - And then, with the crimson flush of her unpalatable confession still on her cheeks, Mrs. Yorke broke into a peal of girlish langhter. Cleve took the basket from her arm. "Let me help yqu,” said ha "I am a judge of these beauties. lam gathering shells to illustrate a new volume on the subjeot of paleonthblogy, and 1 want all the rare specimens to be found along these ooasta” And the landlord of the "Fisherman’s Betreat” could not' imagine what made his guest so late to breakfast on that particular morning, l and so distrait When at last he did coma As for the beautiful Mrs. Yorke, she went home with a new light in her eyes, surveyed herself in the glass; and after she had fastened up the braids of her hair in a new fashion, set herself to work to repair the damages in her afternoon dress. "Beosuse I love tlus lonely spot,” said she; "there is no reason that I should be a semi-savage. But there has been so little worth existing for of lata” And she sang soft, glad roundelays to herself, like a rooin, as she sewed. The judge looked sleepily at his daughter-in-law across tbe lunca-table.

"Did that very Delia smiling. “Here are $lO that hepdfifalc We are going tom#rotj[tf| it is pleasant He is a great paleontoiogistfpeia.” "Is he indeed?” said file judge, bis dim old eyes brightening at the sight of the gold coins. "Then, beach may turn out a mine of wealth yet—eh, Cisay?” Mrs, Yorke smiled and patted the wrinkled, white old hand. “I think, papa,” she said—“l am not certain, but I think there are good times in store for me yet.” The judge said he was glad to hear it and then fell-mildly to sleep in his chair. When Mr. Oleve proposed to Cecelia Yorke, she made no scruple to confess that she liked him. "But there’s papa.” she said, gently but firmly. "I can never leave him. I promised my dead husband always to be a true daughter to papa.” “And I honor you for it my love.” said the paleontologist "He shall be an honored guest in our city home all winter, and in the summers we will come out here and drink in the salt breath of the Atlantia” But the veiy next night the judge fell asleep in his chair and never woke again, and Cissy’s work was over. She was married quietly to Mr. Cleve and went to the city "Do you know, Cissy, what they say about you?” said the paleontologist one evening after a grand scientific leception. “What?” said Cissy, lifting the lark-spur-blue eyes ttf his face. "That you are the beauty of the season,” said Mr. Cleve. “I!” oried Cissy in amazement “I always thought myself well-looking enough, but I never thought myself beautiful.” “I did,” said Mr. Cleve. “Even on that first day at the seaside, when your hair was rough and your dress untidy.” And Cissy smiled and colored and did not know whether to laugh or he vexed.