Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1901 — Page 2

The Doctor’s Dilemma

CHAPTER ll.—(Continued.) A little crumbling path led round the rock and along the edge of the ravine. I chose it because from it I could see *ll the fantastic shore, bending in a semicircle towards the isle of Breckhou, with tiny, untrodden bays, covered at this hour with only glittering ripples, and with all the soft and tender shadows of the head-lands falling across them. I was just giving my last look to them when the loose stones on the crumbling path gave way under my tread, and before I could recover my foothold I found myself slipping down the almost perpen~4icular face of the cliff, and vainly -clutching at every bramble and tuft of .grass growing in its clefts. I landed with a shock far below, and for some time lay insensible. As nearly as I could make out, it would be high water in about two hours. Tardif had set off at low water, but before starting he had said something about returning at high tide, and running up his boat on the heach of our little bay. If he did that 'he must pass close by me. It was Saturday morning, and he was in the habit of returning early on Saturdays, that be might prepare for the services of the next day. At last—whether years or hours only had gone by, I could not then have told yon—l heard the regular and careful beat -of oars upon the water, and presently the grating of a boat's keel upon the shingle. I could not turn round or raise im’ head, but I was sure it was Tardif. ** “Tardif!” I cried, attempting to shout, hut ray voice sounded very weak in my own ears, and the other sounds about me -seemed very loud. He paused then, and stood quite still, listening. I ran the fingers of my right hand through the loose pebbles about me, and his ear caught the slight noise. In * moment I heard his strong feet coming .across them towards me. “Mam’zelle,” he exclaimed, “what has you?” I tried to smile as his honest, brown face bent over me, full of alarm. It was so great a relief to see a face like his after that long, weary agony. “I’ve fallen down the cliff,” I said .•feebly, “and I am hurt.” The strong man shook, and his hand •trelhbled as he stooped down and laid It under my head to lift it up a little. His agitation touched me to the heart. “Tardif,” I whispered, “it is not very much, and I might have been killed. I ■think my foot is hurt, and I gm quite sure my arm is broken.” He lifted me in his arms as easily and tenderly as a mother lifts up her child, and carried me gently up the steep slope which led homewards. It seemed a long time before we reached the farmyard gate, and he shouted, with a tremendous yglje, to his mother to come and open it. Vever. never shall I forget that night. T oonld not sfeep; but I suppose my mind wanderer! a little. Hundreds of times I felt myself down on the shore, lying helpless. Then I was back again in my own home in Adelaide, on my father's sheep farm, and he was still alive, and with no thought but how to make everything i bright .and gladsome for me; and hundreds <of times I saw the woman who Vas afterwards to be my stepmother, stealing up to the door and trying to get in to him and me. Twice Tardif brought me a cup of tea, freshly made. I was very glad when the first gleam of daylight shone into my froom. It seemed to bring clearness to rtny brain. “Mam’zelle,” said Tardif, coming to my side, “I am going to fetch a doctor.” “But it is Sunday,” I answered faintly. I knew that no boatman put out to sen willingly on a Sunday from Sark; and -the last fatal accident, being on a Sunday, had deepened their reluctance. “It will be right, mam’zelle,” he answered, with glowing eyes. “I have no fear.” “Do not be long away, Tardif,” I said, -sobbing. “Not one moment longer than I can help,” he replied.

CHAPTER 111. I, Martin Dobree, come into the Grange, belonged to Julia; and fully half of the year’s household expenses were defrayed by her. Our practice, which he ■.story to tell my remarkable share in its events. Martin, or Doctor Martin, I was called throughout Guernsey. My father ■was Dr. Dobree. He belonged to one of the oldest families in the island, but our branch of it had been growing poorer instead of richer during the last three or four generations. We had been gravitating steadily downwards. My father lived ostensibly by his profession, but actually upon the income of my cousin, Julia Dobree, who had been his ward from her childhood. The house we dwelt in, a pleasant one in the and I shared between us, was not a large-one, though for its extent it wm lucrative enough. But there always is an immense number of medical men in ■Guernsey in proportion to its population, and the island is healthy. There was -small chance for any of us to make a fortune. My engagement to Julia came about so easily and naturally that I was perfectly contented with it. We had been engaged since Christmas, and were to be married in the early summer. We were to set up housekeeping for ourselves; that was a point Julia was bent upon. A suitable house had fallen vacant in one of the higher streets of St. Peter-port, which commanded a noble view of the sea and the surrounding islands. We had taken it, though it was farther from the ■grange and my mother than I should have chosen my home to be. She and Julia were busy, pleasantly busy, about the furnishing. 'That was about the middle of March. 1 had been to church one Sunday morning with these two women, both devoted to me and centering all their love - and hopes In me, when, aa we entered the house on my return. I heard my father calling "Martin! Martin!" as loudly as he could from his consalting room. I nnswered the call Instantly, and whom should I

By Hesba Stretton

see but a very old friend of mine, Tardif, of the Havre Gosselin. His handsome but weather-beaten face betrayed great anxiety. My father looked chagrined and irresolute. “Here’s a pretty piece of work, Martin,” he said; wants one of us to go back with him to Sark, to see a woman who has fallen from the cliffs and broken her arm, confound it!” “Dr. Martin,” cried Tardif excitedly, “I beg of you to come this instant even. She has been lying in anguish sinee midday yesterday—twenty-four hours now, sir. I started at dawn this morning, but both wind and tide were against me, and I have been waiting here some time. Be quick, doctor! If she should bo dead!” The poor fellow's voice faltered, and his eyes met mine imploringly. He and 1 had been fast friends in my boyhood, and our friendship was still firm and true. I shook his hand heartily—a grip which he returned with his fingers of iron till my own tingled again. “I knew you’d come,” he gasped. “Ah, I’ll go, Tardif;” I said; “only I must get a snatch of something to eat while Dr t Dobree puts up what I shall fiave need of. I’ll be ready in half an hour.” «• The tide was with us, and carried us over buoyantly. We anchored at the fisherman’s-landing place below the cliff of the Havre-Gosselin, and I climbed readily up the rough ladder which leads to the path. Tardif made his boat secure, and followed me; he passed me, and strode on up the steep track to the summit of the cliff, as if impatient to reach his home. It was then that I

gave my first serious thought to the woman who had met with the accident. “Tardif, who is this person that is hurt?” I asked, “and whereabout did she fall?’’ “She fell down yonder,” he answered, with an odd quaver in his voice, aa he pointed to a rough and rather high portion of the cliff running inland; “the stones rolled from under her feet so,” he added, crushing down a quantity of the loose gravel with his foot, “and she slipped. She lay on the shingle underneath for two hours before I found her —two hours, Dr. Martin!” Tardif’s mother came to us as we entered the house. She beckoned me to follow her into an inner room. It was small, with a ceiling so low, it seemed to rest upon the four posts of the bedstead. There were of course none of the little dainty luxuries about it, with which I -was familiar in my mother’s bedroom. A long low window opposite the head of the bed threw a strong light upon it. There were check curtains drawn round it, and a patchwork quilt, and rough, home-spun linen. Everything was clean, but coarse and frugal, such as I expected to find about my Sark patient; in the home of a fisherman. But when my eye fell upon the face resting oh the rough pillow I paused involuntarily, only just controlling an exclamation of surprise. There was absolutely nothing in the surroundings to mark her as a lady, yet I felt in a moment that she was one. There lay a delicate refined face, white as the linen, with beautiful lips almost as white; and a mass of light, shining silky hair tossed about the pillow; and large dark gray eyes gazing at me beseechingly, with an expression that made my heart leap as it had never leapt before. That was what I saw, and could not forbear seeing. I tried to close my eyes to the pathetic beauty of the face before me; but it was altogether in vain. If 1 had seen her before, or if I had been prepared to see any one like her, I might have succeeded; but 1 was completely thrown off my guard. There the charming face lay; the eyes gleaming, the white forehead tinted, and the delicate mouth contracting with pain; the bright silky curls tossed about in confusion. I see it now, just ns I saw it then.

I suppose I did not stand still more than five seconds, yet during that pause a host of questions had flashed through my brain. Who was this beautiful creature? Where had she come from? How did it happen that she was in Tardif’s house? and so on. But I recalled myself sharply to my senses; I was here us her physician, and common sense and duty demanded of me to keep my heau clear. I advanced to her side and took the small, blue-Vcinetl hand into mine, and felt her pulse with my fingers. “You ure in very great pain, I fear,” I said, lowering my voice. “Yes,” her white lips answered, snd she tried to smile a patient though a dreary smile, as she looked up info my face; “my arm is broken. Are you a doctor?” “I am Dr. Martin Dobree,” I said, passing my hand softly down her arm. The fracture was above tho elbow, and was of a kind to make the setting of it give her sharp, acute pain. I could see ■he was scarcely fit to bear any further suffering Just then; but what was to be

“HE PAUSED THEN.”

CHAPTER IV.

done? She was not likely to get much rest till the bone was set. “Did you ever take chloroform?" I asked. * “No; I never needed it,” she answered. “Should yon object to taking it?” “Anything,” she replied passively. ‘‘l will do anything you wish.” I went back into the kitchen and opened the portmanteau my father had put up for me. Splints and bandages were there in abundance, enough to set half the arms in the islapd, but neither chloroform nor anything in the shape of an opiate could I find. I might almost as well have come to Sark altogether Unprepared for my ease. I stood for a few minutes, deep in thought. The daylight was going, and it was useless to waste time; yet I found myself shrinking oddly from the duty before me. Tardif could not help but see my chagrin and hesitation. “Doctor,” he cried, “she is not going to dia?” ’ “No, no,” I answered, calling back my wandering thoughts and energies; “there is not the smallest danger of that. I must go and set her arm at once, and then she will sleep.” I returned to the room and raised her as gently and painlessly as I could. She moaned, though very’ softly, and she tried to smile again as her eyes met mine looking anxiously at her. That smile made me feel like a child. If she did it again I knew my hands would be unsteady, and her pain be tenfold greater. “I would rather you cried out or shouted,” I said. “Don't try to control yourself when I hurt you. You need not be afraid of seeming impatient, and a loud scream or two would do you good.” I felt the ends of the broken bone grating together as I drew them into their right places, and the sensation went through and through me. I had set scores of broken limbs before with no feeling like this, which was so near unnerving me. All the time the girl’s white face and firmly set lips lay under my gaze, with the wide open, unflinching eyes looking straight at me; a mournful, silent, appealing face, which betrayed the pain I made her suffer ten times more than any cries or shrieks could have done. I smoothed the coarse pillows for her t<? lie more comfortably upon them.

and I spread my cambric handkerchief in a double fold between her cheek and the rough linen—too rough for a soft cheek like hers. “Lie quite still,” I said. “Do not stir, but go to sleep as fast as you can.” Then I went out to Tardif. “The arm is set,” I said, “and now she must get some sleep. There is not the least danger, only we will keep the house as quiet as possible.” “I must go and bring in the boat,” he replied, bestirring himself as if some spell was at an end. “There will be a storm to-night, and I should sleep the sounder if she was safe ashore.” The feeble light entering by the door, which I left open, showed me the old woman comfortably asleep in her chair, but not so the girl. I had told her when I laid her down that she must lie quite still, and she was obeying me implicitly. Her cheek still rested upon my handkerchief, and the broken arm remained undisturbed upon the pillow which I had placed under it. But her eyes were wide open and shining in the dimness, and I fancied I could see her lips moving incessantly, though soundlessly. The gale that Tardif had foretold came with great violence about the middle of the night. -The wind howled up the long, narrow ravine like a pack of wolves; mighty storms of hail and rain beat in torrents against the windows, and the sea lifted up its voice with unmistakable energy. Now and again a stronger gust than the others appeared to threaten to carry off the thatched roof bodily, and leave us exposed to the tempest with only the thick stone walls about us; and the latch of the outer door rattled'as if some one was striving to enter. The westerly gale, rising every few hours into a squall, gave me no chance of leaving Sark the next day, nor for some days afterwards; but I was not at all put out by my captivity. All my interests—my whole being in fact—was absorbed in the care of this girl, stranger as she was. I thought and moved, lived and breathed, only to fight step by step against delirium and death. There seemed to me to be no possibility of aid. The stormy waters which l>eat against that little rock in the sen came swelling and rolling in from the vast plain of the Atluntie, and broke in tempestuous surf against the island. Tardif himself was kept a prisoner in the house, except when he went to look ufter his live stock. No doubt it would have been practicable for me to get as far ns the hotel, but to whnt good? It would ,be quite deserted, for there were no visitors to Sark at this season. I was entirely engrossed in my patient, and 1 learned for the first time what their task

is who hour afterMionr watch the progress of disease in the person of one dear to them. On the Tuesday afternoon, in a temporary lull of tile hail and wind, I started off on a walk across the island. The wind was still blowing from the southwest, and filling all the narrow sea between us aud Guernsey with boiling surge. Very angry looked the masses of foam whirling about the sunken reefs, nn<l very ominous the low-lying, hard blocks of clouds all along the horizon. I strolled as far ns the Coupee, that giddy pathway between Great and Little Sark, where one can see the seething fit the waves at the feet of the cliffs onTJoth sides three hundred feet below one. Something like a panic seized me. My nerves

were too far unstrung for me to venture across the long, narrow isthmus. I turned abruptly again, and hurried as fast as my legs would carry me back to Tardif’s cottage. I had been away less than an hour, but an advantage had been taken of my absence. I fould Tardif seated at the table, with a tangle of silky, shining hair lying before him. A tear or two had fallen upon it from his eyes. I understood at a glance what it meant. Mother Renouf, whom he had seeured as a nurse, had cut off my patient’s pretty curls as soon as 1 was out of the house. Tardif’s great hand caressed them tenderly, and I drew out one Tong, glossy tress and wound it about my fingers, with a heavy heart. “It is like the pretty feathers of a bird that has been wounded,” said Tardif sorrowfully. , Just then there came a knock at the door and a sharp click Of the latch, loud enough to penetrate dame. Tardif’s deaf ears, or to arouse our patient, if she had been sleeping. Before either of us could move the door was thrust open and two young ladies appeared upon the door sill. They were —it flashed across me in ah instant —old school fellows and friends of Julia’s. I declare to you honestly I had scarcely had one thought of Julia till now. My mother I had wished for, to take her place by this poor girl’s side, but Julia had hardly crossed my mind. - Why, in heaven’s name, should the appearance of these friends of hers be so distasteful to me just npw? I had known them all my life, and liked them as well as any girls I knew; but at this moment the very sight of them was annoying. They stood in the doorway, as much astonished and thunderstricken as I was, glaring at me, so it seemed to me, with that soft, bright brown lock of hair curling and clinging round my finger. Never had I felt so foolish or guilty. (To be continued.)

American Coal the Best.

“Ever since I was a boy I have been reminded of tbe old story about ‘copying coals to Newcastle,’ whenever I performed unnecessary tasks,” said Richard Harker of Newcastle-on-Tyue, England, In the lobby of the Shoreham last night. “To carry coals to Newcastle was supposed to be as futile a task as trying to sweep back the waves on the seashore. I have lived to see coals carried to Newcastle, however, and, being an Englishman, it grieves me to say that the coals in question came all the way from America. “Within the last few years an enormous amount of coal has been shipped from Norfolk, Va. r to various parts of England. Some oi it went to Portsmouth, to the naval station there, and many tons were sent to Newcastle. We have better facilities for handling coal there than any other place in the United Kingdom. For many years it has been the center of the coal mining industry of oux country and consequently the arrangements and appliances for shipping fuel to various parts of the country are away ahead of those of other towns. “The coal that comes from, the western portion of the State of Virginia—soft coal, I mean—is the finest fuel for steamships that is mined anywhere in the world- I The coal seems to produce more steam from a small quantity than any I have seen. It is now used extensively on the vessels of the British navy and from what I saw a week ago in Norfolk and Newport News I should judge that the shipment must amount to millions of tons per year.”—Washington Times.

A German Picture of the Future.

Scene —A schoolroom of the twentieth century. Teacher (to a new scholar)—“Jack, are you inoculated against croup?” sir.” “Have you been inoculated with the cholera bacillus?” “Yes, sir.” “Have you a written certificate.that you are immune as to whooping cough, measles and scarlatina?” “Yes. sir, I have.” “Have you your own drinking cup?” “Yes, sir.” “Will you promise not to exchange sponges with your neighbor, and to use no slate pencil but your own?” “Yes, sir.” . “Will you agree to have your books fumigated every week with sulphur, nnd to have your clothes sprinkled with chloride of lime?” “Yes, sir.” “Then, Jack, you possess all that modern hygiene requires; you can step over that wire, occupy an Isolated seat made of aluminum, and begin your arithmetic lesson.”

Ail Named the Same Date.

Hall—Well, good-by. Come and see me some time. Story—Awfully Borry, old boy; but I’ve got over a hundred engagements that day. Hall—A hundred engagements? Nonsense! . Story—Fact. Within a few days I’ve received over a hundred Invitations to friends’ houses and lu every case “some time” was the date mentioned.—Boston Transcript.

Looking tor Work.

"Yes, ma’am,” said the ragged fat man; “I’m lookin’ fur work. You ain’t got no odd Jobs o’ scrubbln’ or wnshln’ ter be did, have yer?” “Why, you Purely don’t do scrubbing or work of that sort,” said tbe housekeeper. “Sure not I’m lookin’ fur work fur me wife.”— Philadelphia Record.

Oldest Physician.

Gallus Ritter von Hockberger, Imperial aud royal counsellor of the Austrian court. Is believed to be the oldest duly qualified physician In the world. He was born on Oct 15, 1803. and Is therefore 1)7 years of age. He has been practicing for seventy-one years, and still gives medical advice. The way of the transgressor often leads to foreign shores.

REVISION NOT WANTED.

Business Interests Not Vavorable to Tariff Tinkering. Senator Hanna voices the septlments Of the members of the Republican party when he declares against any attempt at tariff revision. The manufacturing and commercial interests of the country were never In better shape than at the present time; there may be some danger to the speculative element, but little to the real interests. No one needs to be told that these conditions will be changed if the slightest meddling with tariff laws Is permitted. Uncertainty will take the place of confidence If there is to be any discussion of the matter, and with uncertainty capital will go back Into hiding. It Is well that this position of the Republican party against changing the dotting of an “1” or the crossing of a “t” in the Dlngley law be made clear before the convening of Congress. Democratic attacks on the tariff are to be expected, but If It Is known that the Republican majority stands united against any change, they will have but slight effect as a disturbing element In commercial and manufacturing centers. The favorite line of Democratic assault, of coififee, will be to place the products of “trusts” on the free lists. This plan has a sentimental value, for It appeals to the imagination of some, but it Is not apparent that It has any real value. Before It can be considered

Uncle Sam: “I rather guess that will stay there now." —Chicago Enter Ocean.

practically there- are two questions to be considered thoroughly aud answered: First—ls trusts are an outgrowth, of the tariff, why do they exist In freetrade England? Second—Might not the abolition of the protective tariff on certain products only fix more firmly the controli of trusts by wiping out all possibility of competition? The first phase was thoroughly discussed during the past campaign, and. the consensus of opinion was that the trusts existed* irrespective of protection. The other point is one that has not been convincingly discussed or Investigated. Partial investigations seem, however, to indicate that the abolition, of the protective tariff in many industries would completely crush out thesmaller manufacturer and thus render more secure their control by the trusts. Mr. Carnegie, before his retirement took the position that he had reachedi the position where he himself no longer needed protection, but made no reference to the effect of the abolition of protection upon the other and smaller manufacturers of iron and steel. The American Woolen Company, a trust, openly advocates the abolishment of the protective tariff, for the reason that it would fix its control of the market. —Cincinnati Times-Star.

Bryanistic Blather. “The Supreme Court,” says Editor W. J. Bryan, “has declared President McKinley Emperor of Porto Rico. It declares Congress greater than the Constitution. It denies the necessity of a written Constitution. It assails the foundation of the republic. It has Joined with the President and Congress to change the form of our government. “But theTe yet remalns’’and here we may Imagine Mr. Bryan pointing to his trusty Jaw—“an appeal to the people.” Having waited a full week before delivering his manifesto, Mr. Bryan might at least have read the Supreme Court’s decision. Evidently he has been too busy to do so. For what has the Supreme Court done? In the first place, it has decided that our new possessions are American soil, and that our title to them Is perfect—a fact strenuously denied by Mr. Bryan In his recent attempt to win the Presidency. as the friend of Agulnaldo. In the next place, the Supreme Court has decided that Porto Rico must wait Cor full political privilege* until the American people, through Congress, see fit to grant them. Doubtless there Is much to regret In the attitude of the Supreme Court. But, even so, there has been no coronation of Mr. McKinley, nor any other of the Imperial things Imagined by Mr. Bryan. Nor is Congress In any way authorized to govern these new possessions feudally, as Mr. Bryan falsely asserts. Once before Mr. Bryan tried to appeal to the people against the Supreme

Court, and the result is well known. The June sun of Nebraska’s plains must have been too much for Mr. Bryan. He should at least read the Supreme Court’s decision and face the facts of It as a man, not as a boy wonder or a campaign agitator.—Chicago Intelligencer. It Means Business. Two thousand freight cars ordered during the space of two weeks is the record made by the railroads of the country. That means business, both now and In the future. It presents evidence of the fact that not only are the railroads crowded with business beyond their capacity to'handle, but also that the officials of the railroads are confident that the rush of business Is going to continue. They are looking to the future in their extension of the equipment of their roads, and are getting ready for Hie continual Increase in the demand for transportation facilities which the ever-growing business prosperity of the country will bring about The demand for freight cars is thr other end of the industrial chain, which has its beginning in the crowded order books of the commercial travelers, all' of whom report that business was never so active or orders so numerous and so heavy as now. A Monopoly Smashed by Protection. Now It Is announced from London that “the Welsh tin plate Industry, which has already been stricken by*

American competition, is menaced: by early extinction, owing to the failureof the employers to agree on a scale of wages.” When these Welsh makers monopolized tiie market, as they did before theMcKinley tariff, they had a hard and fast trust of their own which dictated prices to the helpless Yankees, and wages to the helpless workmen. But American rivalry has changed* all this, ©ur mills, with Unproved machinery and better paid Kabor, have not only gained the -dimer lean market, but are cutting into the markets of the Welsh “combine” abroad. The comic side of it all Is that the protective duty of the McKinley tariff was vociferously opposed by the professional foes of monopoly. As a practical result It has smashed monopoly, and In the long run it Is certain to give the mastery in one more branch of the great Iron and«steel trade to-the United States, where It legitimately belongs.— Boston Journal. Wroag Kind of Reciprocation. Let us have no tampering U* the way of reciprocating treaties that do reciprocating the wrong way. To be sure such treaties carefully constructed assist American industries, but they do so, as the patterns rejected show, at the expense of certain other American Industries. This, then, is not reciprocity, but simply nothing more or less than the English tariff Idea of fair trade.—Racine (Wls.) Journal. An Axiom. Protection seldom falls to make the farmer happy. Contrast his condition under the Dlngley and McKinley bills with that under the Wilson and Mills bills. It Is an axiom that when the farmer Is prosperous, the rest will be happy.—California (Mo.) Herald. Prosperity at the Banka.

Owing to the great Increase of deposits, extra help is required at tbe windows of the receiving tellers.