Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 144, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1903 — Old Blazer’s Hero [ARTICLE]

Old Blazer’s Hero

By DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.

■ • CHAPTER Vll.—(Continued.) Will hod been determined to be found •111 early. In takipg a wife lie bad not 'proposed to cripple himself. His friends •ailed him “the married bachelor,” and lie was proud of the title. It bespoke Pbe fact that he had surrendered nbthhg of Ills libtrtibs; that the yoke which fretghed on most men who married had tonud no place upon his shoulders. His wife was little to blame, therefore, M she discovered the fatal error into which she had fallen a little earlier than moat women would have done. And no#, Itforc she had found time even to begin to reconcile herself to her situation, she and her husband were put to open shame. The blow fell dull nt first, asd it was an hour or two before she began to laow what paitr it carried. The maid «ame to tell her that dinner was ready, Put she would uott rouble even to make a pretense of eating. In a while a tear •r two began to flow, and when once she Had given wny so far she had lost control I •f herself, and flying to her bedroom she lacked the door and cast herself upon She bed in an abandonment of grief* The weary, dreadful day crawled on, minute by minute and hour by hour, when this burst was over, and she paced, ler room to and fro as she looked at the v future. More than once a gustjj.f wrath.’ passed over her spirit and stirred the sick waters of despair. But she would Pave none of that, and wrestled against Kerself with all her forces. Sire had no sight to anger—no right to reproaich; she Pad thrown those rights nway. All the while her heart cried out for ler mother. Pride held her back, but paTe way at last before the imperious eall of nature. The friendly darkness Pad fallen, and no one would see her eome and go. She was not certain that die was not a prisoner, aqd even that fear spurred her a little in the way of ler own desires, for she wanted to test ft and to know the worst, if there were a worse than had happened already. So •he slipped on bonnet and shawl and left the house, no effort being made to reatrain her. She sped swiftly homeward —the toother's roof had. always covered Pome—since her marriage ns before it; and as she went there was such a proniPte of the peface she longed for in her mother's arms that it impelled her to run. Rlanlr disappointment at the door. Mother and daughter had had but little intercourse of late, and the estrangement lad grown so far already that Mrs. Howarth had gone away on a customary summer visit .of a week to her sister without letting her daughter know of it. Her father was indoors, said the domestic, and would be glad to see her. No, she made shift to answer, sjie would call again when her mother had returned. She dared not face her father with the news. The night had grown black and tempestuous. She had had no leisure to notice this before, but she saw it as she turned, and the gloom and threatened storm added their quota to the weight which rested on her. She sank upon a Pillock beneath the tall overhanging ledge and hurst into a new passion of tears. Only a minute later she heard Petween her own sobs the sound of a quick footstep on the path, and rose to ler feet to find a somber figure bending •rer her.

. “My poor creature,” said a pitying and familiar voice, “what’s the matter? Don’t le afraid of me. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.” Ned Blane!

" CHAPTER VIII. Perhaps, if Mrs. Hackett had had but time to think of it, there was nobody by whom she would rather hnre l>een found in a situation so painful aud humiliating, since it was fated that she should Be discovered at all. Ned Blane, to her mind, was wise, tender, discreet and lrave —and that is not a combination of characteristics at all to be looked for in every young man who may by chance eorprise a woman in distress; and she waa an old friend into the bargain. She ahrank from him, however, in n new distress so acute that for the instant the pain of it killed the old one, and she seemed almost to recover possession of lerself. “It is nothing.” she said. “Go away. Mr. Blane. Leave me. Pray do. lam going home.”

At the first sound of her voice he knew ler, and the tone scorned to enter his laart like a knife. He discerned a tragedy at once. “Nothing!” he said in a foice of real anguish. “Oh, yea, dear, there is much Aa matter. Tell me can I help you?" In' all her life she had never heard tfca voice *of a heart in pain until that ■sonant. She had heard the voice of littte sorrows often enough, hut here she was In touch with something terrible. The voice shook her from head to foot with an instant revelatiou. “Nothing,” she said, breathing unevcn- % and trembling. “I am not very well, aai I am foolish. Oh, pray go away. Ms. Blane. Let me go home nlonfe. I MB batter. It Is all over now.” “Let me see you home.” he answered Is a voice suddenly dry and common- ■ Mil. “I won’t distress you by talking. Take my arm.” ■ba yielded and walked by his side ghaaugh the darkneaa, with a sob catehtag har breath uov and again. There mm enough in ti# encounter to fill both for the girl, she knew how before. The omm had never m i >l*l , ggg aoddenly she blushed hotly in the and withdrew her hand from his i mmm a» swiftly that the motion startled Mas. Ha had called her “dear." What had h# to apeak to her in soch a ■mag? What right had aha. a married amwaw, to take the arm of a man who aMmaaed her in soch terms? “1 will go home alone, if you please. Hr Blane," she said “As you please," ha said, aa coldly as > ■ A

he had spoken lhst. “Your wish is my law.”

There was not a touch of gallantry in the tone. Nothing, indeed, could have been further away from it, hut she disliked the words, and slipped away with a chill “good night,” and a “thank you” murmured with half-turned head when she was a dozen paces from him. He stood stock still until her figure was just melting into the darkness, and'then walked after her, accommodating his pace to hers, and merely keeping her in sight—a moving shadow. When they left the grassy path, and came upon the road of hard beaten cinder which marked the beginning of the town, she could hear, his footsteps at a distance behind lipr, and knew that he was following. She was warm with indignation against him now, and the unlucky word rankled woundingly. Blnne, for his part, was unconscious Of having used it. The man in possession was in the hall when she entered, walking up and down. She escaped upstairs. It was beginning to grow late to her fancy—that is to say, it was nearing 10 o’clock—but she resigned herself to. a further waiting of two or three hours for her husband’s return. She heard his step on the path nnd his key at the latch with n heart which beat half in relief-and half in fear. It was something to have him hack so early; but the news with which she had to receive him seemed as shameful to tell as it had been to suffer. "Mary,” called the jolly, rollicking voice from the foot of the stairs, “where are you?” Then there was an exclamation, and “Hill®! whnt do you do here?” Her place was by her husband's side. If her sense of duty could not carry her so far now how had it led her to the altar? But she moved reluctantly, and came upon the pair pale as a ghost, and with eyes red and swollen with crying. Huckett was reading the document Abram had presented to him by the light of a lamp, and he had thrust his felt hat on one side to clutch a disorderly linudful of curls.

“Will”’ she said, laying n hand upon his shoulder. He.turned with a grimace intended to make light of the thing, and went back to his reading. .r ' “Old Lowther, is it?” said he. half to himself. “He promised to wait, the villain. Well, who sups with the Lowther should have a long spoon, and mine’s of the shortest. I’m afraid he’ll get the best of it. Look here!”—he addressed himself to Abram—“you keep dark. I’ve got two or j three gentlemen coming to supper and .t»i take a hand at cards. I don’t want you in the way. You understand ?”

“Right you are. governor,” responded Abram. “I’m willing to make things agreeable. You can have the plate ip. if you like, so long as I see it come out again.” , Hackett .laughed nt this, though rather comfortlessly.

“All right, my lad,” he said. “You stick to the kitchen.”

“Will,” said his wife, when Abram had retired, “you won’t have people here to-night?” She laid a timid hand upon his arm, and looked up at him appealingly.

“Why not?” he asked, staring at her in affected astonishment. “I must. They'll be here in five minutes, my dear, and you must get a bit of supper ready/’ “There is nothing in the house,” she answered miserably. “It is too late to send out. and I am ashamed to send to the tradespeople already.” He stood gnawing at his mustache for a minute, and bent his eyebrows as he stared gloomily at the floor. “Oh, I’ll nut that nil right,” he said, recovering himself, and turning with his usuni jaunty swagger. “I shan't be away more than ten minutes, and you'll tell the fellows to wait, l’nu going down to the hotel, and I’ll get the landlord to send something up.” “Will.” she broke out sobbing, “where is all this to end? You entertain your friends when we haven’t even bread to eat ourselves that we can pay for honestly.”

“Look here, Polly,” said Hackett, turning upon her with an expression which had first surprised her on her wedding day. and had since then grown familiar; "my business is my business. Leave me to it and mind your own. And don’t take that tone with me, for I can't stand it, and I’m not going to try.” She dropped her hands with a gesture of despairing resignation, and turned away.' Mr. Hackett was a grent deal too desirous of his own good opinion to permit the discussion to close in this manner. When a man is indubitably in the right, and is profoundly conscious that there is nothing in his career for which he can blame himself, he naturally likes to say so.

"I won’t have those airs,’* said he therefore. “any more than I’ll have that tone.” Miserable as She was, she found strength enough for a flash of disdain at' this. The scorn in her eyes was weary and sad enough, but it was none the less real on that account. "And I won’t be looked at in that way, either,” lie went on, in a tone more frankly wrathful than he had ever used before to her. “Don’t you try that sort of air on me, my lady, or you’ll find it won’t pay, I can assure you. If you think I married in order to have, a .perpetual wet blanket in the house, you are very much mistaken, let me tell you. And here’s another thing. You’ve been pretty shy -of my friends ever since we married; and lately, whenever one of them comes into the house, I TnTftff-Hlflf rftll f° away and hide your self. Nmr, I m Hbf-gnlpg to stand that, either. You’ll come in to-nlgßTTmdJLske your place the head of the supper I table, where you ought to he.- Hind that, now.” Bhe never changed the weary look of anger and diadain which had Itqpelled him to tag this injunction to hi* list of complaints, and be. growing resiles* under it, had turned away from her, and,

opening tl e hall door, Jtad delivered tha greater part of his speech half in tha.j house and half out- of it. The young young gentleman not only wanted ta stnnd ; well with himself, but had, perhaps, even a stronger desire to stand well with other people; and if he Ju»d suspected the presence of Ned Blane outside it Is likely |hnt be would have moderated his tbnei; for although it is undeniably a pleasant thing to bully tha) feeble, and to have one’s way with full assurant'eyor courage, where thqre is no danger, the most triumphant swaggerer would prefer to execute his prices, in private. * *

CHAPTER IX. Little ns his presence was suspected, Ned Blane stood in then darkness, under the shadow of the hedge, and. heard more than enough of his successful rival’s speech nnd tone to make liis blood boil and his heart ache anew. By the time Hackett’s diatribe was over, however, rthe boiling flood had nil subsided strangely. He was hitter within until his heart loathed its own bitterness, but he was completqbr master of himself, and he knew it. The honestly Incensed husband slammed the door behind him at the ‘mind that, now;’ and so escaped without retort, and at the same time gave force and point to his injunction. He strode angrily down the little gravel path and fumbled for a moment at the gate. In his wrath he shook at it so noisily that lie failed to hear Blane’a footstep, and it was something of a shock to him to see the somber figure looming so closely on him in the dark.

“Hillo!” he said, starting back nervously. “Good night, Will!” said Blane, passing an arm through one of his with singularly firm deliberateness. Ned’s arm clenched on his old companion’s so firmly that Hnckett fplt though he were in custody, and made a half-unconscious movement to extricate himself, but the arm which encircled his felt like a bar of iron. r

“Don’t you think,\Wlll,” said Blane, strenuously but quietly-controlling Hackett's footsteps ' ( to the measure of his own, you’d better kpep those little endearments private—eh ?” “Oh!” cried Hackett, gladly seizing on the chance this gave him, “you’ve been eavesdropping, have you, Ned? Come., now! that doesn’t do you any special credit, does it?” v “Now I’ll warn you,” said Blane, iyith a curious dryness and coolness of tone which very much chilled his involuntary companion, “there’s nothing I should so dearly like at this minute as for you to give me a reasonable chance of quarreling with you on my own account. Will yon take that back, if you please?” “Well,” said Hnckett, who liked less and less the iron pressure oil his arm, "I don’t recognize your right, you know, to make any comment on what Vcm happen to overhear between my wife and me.”

“Will you take it back, if you please?” Blane asked again, awthe other spoken. >1» $ “Haven’t I taken it back?” Hackett demanded. “I said you happened to overhear, didn't I? I have taken it back.” “Very well. And now for my question again. Don’t you think those little eq~ dearments between man and wire are best kept private? Tell me now.” “I don’t see what it lias to do with yOu nt all, Ned. You need not be a meddlesome fellow. Let a man mind his own concerns, will you?" “I don’t see what it lias to do with me. either,” said Blane. The iron grip on Hackett’s arm began to tremble perceptibly, and while the captive -wondered what this might mean he found himself suddenly released, but confronted face to face. “I do see one or two things,” Blane was saying. “I do see that you’ve married one of the best girls in the world, and that you’re ns worthy of her as I am to be an angel. I do see that you bully her and snarl at her, like the mongrel you are. Business of mine? You may thank your stars, my lad, that it’s u« business of mine, for if it were you’d suffer.” “Now, come, Ned,” said Hackett in an almost genial and altogether allowing and friendly way; “you go too fast and too far. You do now, really. I’m in the most abominable heap of trouble. I’ve had shameful luck lately, and lug seemed to go as it ought to go. And I’ve had news to-night that enough to put any fellow out of temper.” “Go your way,” Blane answered, with something very like a groan. “I’ve done with you.” “I shan't bear any malice for what’s passed between us, Ned,” said Hackett. “Very well,” said -the other. “Least said soonest mended.” “Ned's queer,” thought Hackett to himself as he went on his way. “He’s very queer. He used to be prowling a good deal about old Howarth’s house himself. Is that it?” So the one effect of Ned Blaue’s interference was that it gave Will Hackett a needle to prick his wife with, and he made up his mind to use it. (To be continued.)