Newspapers / The Durham Recorder (Durham, … / Jan. 31, 1866, edition 1 / Page 1
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1 ui l wml l l II l iiiii III III II 1 1 ii yh ii i ii i ni in Yti i i in hi m i l-jt f i w r. i mnvw Jt- 'L I III llr;i: . vi'. U ' THE CONSTITUTION AND T II E. L A WS-THE GI'AUDIANS OF OUR LIBERTY" ' " ' ""' t 1''- V ' Vol. XLV. HILLSBOROUGH, N. C, JANUARY 31, ,"1866.0 , J? No.: 2322.v I TUB DRUNKARD'S WIFG. " Harry, if this is (he way you continue to come home night ader night, I cannot bear it much longer I will nut bear it." Then the man addrestrd lifted up hi heavy eyes, a lie keil with a curse and a hilly smile Well, what are you going to do about itr I'm going to do aoinething, Hen.y, and that before long. I've tried to be a faith ful and loving wife t you I have driven to keep your house in order, and to wel come you herebut my spirit is breaking lown 1 shall have to give up soon." "Pho! don't you know you're going to reform me? Isn't it the duty of a wile to May bv her husband through good and evil?- . . - " Yes, where the evil does Dot come through yielding to vice, debauching soul and body. If Uod sent you sickness, or if through your own miscalculation or heed lessness, you became suffering and poor, I would go with you hand in band, were the path eer so rugged. But as it is, yoo are defiling what I loved, and yourself destroy ing ever spark of affection that 1 ever pos tered. I a in tmi proud to perform menial ffices for a drunkard, 1 freely runlets. M ere jtm a por wandering beggar, sick, and stajrgtring weakly ta my door I could wash jour very fret, and willin-ly da what lay in uiy power to save you but I cannot and will not bear your staggering drunk enly to your bed, sitting op till morning dawn, lialf-craxed with appreherisiont seeing you in this or that danger, and to tloefbcrs that art too revolting lo be thought (. I was educated to habit of neatnets ; and when I married yuu, I thought 1 should go with one who would aid me in being pare who would keep me from earning in contact with anything grots or demaralii ing. Instead of that 1 married but a boy id man' statue," she added bitterly-". " whh a weaker than a rhiid mind led by the nod of a drunkard and the dramtetler, and respecting his wife so litale that he arr lo come reeling into her presence with words that no wife should hear." You are aick of me then, eh?' mur mured the diunken (nan, drowsily. ' I am sick tf your ways, Henry, and hue been for fears. Mr better nature re volts against your bloodshot eyes, bloated lice and foetid breath. "Oh! Henry" she tried passionately we have been married ten tears, and at 1 view that re lation, we should be ten times happier and l-.ve each other ten tune more than when we first promised that which united our lesiinie. Instead of that I find rovielf wishing I ktd never teen you.M You do, eh r" Yes, I do. I never laid this before, but I am desperate. I have tried all means my woman's intensity could invent to re form voa. For years 1 never met yoa but wiin m net oo matter wnai your condi tion, I thought, surely my gentleness will reprove mm, anu in unie reiorra nim W hen I remonstrated it was not with an err yoa can testify to that, and, oh. Hen iv, bow often you promised to reform. I irn forgave you what woman seldom for gives, a blow, because you were not con scious throegh drink, of what voa did. I wai patient alter I laid two of in) darlings under the soil, becue their blood beint poisoned by your vile habits, they had not the strength to ra'ly when diu-ase came. And etrn hen your occasional sprees, as you call them, became weekly, nightly, I was iiatient but that was the patience of tiUpair. Now 1 lute decided. I will no lunger til oy a ururiaru urn mtiune auu 1 declare to you that it would be u happy hour to ine to feel that you have gone oter that 4iuorkiii lor iiie iai tune. Hie woman' face waa pale pata as that r I. . . .L r i a corpte. ii was eviueni inai a paasion a deep, white-heat passion, had master ed her better mood. It elowed and film ed to her sunken eyes it trimbled in her fingers, convulsively working; it swelled in her veins that stood out on her broad forehead, and in corded aaassei spring from her delicate wrists. The man all this time was looking down. He was very handsome, but his flesh was pallid, his eyes as he raised them, luster less, his lips without color. Sometimes he seemed to writhe as his wife spoke; he was not so much under th influence of drink as she supposed; but there came a t .. I. : I. ! - r i P. I i . . .ii . I. ioo m ins iace as ne imeu it, in&i oiancn? ed her own still more. So it would give you pleasure, would it, to see the last of me r" The candle-lilit flickered it wa burn ing down to the frame that supported it, and at every expiring effort, a lurid red- uea Uatlieil over the small room over thoe two white laces-over the innocent beauty of a little girl lying in profound slumber near bv. u " Henrv, I with it had pleased God to let me follow you to the graveyard, rather than to see ynu the wreck of what you once were. Better the death of the body than the ruin of the soul." Well, ray lady, if that's been your wish. f ou neeiin t have been o long telling it. 've been williiif auf time within the last five years to leave, and glad of the chance. Pio wife shall say to me that when I went over her thrrshhold fur the last time, it would be a happy hour fo. her. I wish voa every pokible joy of your release, madam; I am now going out of your door for the latt time. A he spoke he sprau: from the room. The cold wind streamed in for a brief se tond. and put the candle-light out the chamber was buried in darkness. Not a sound came from the woman'' lips, as she sit there, for a I ng time. Then, when thuught had racked her soot beyond the power of silent endurance, she m waited and sobbed and wept as if her very heart should break. " Mamma," cried a little voice in the darkness" arc ynu here, mamma? is that yuu crying?" ..... "Iluih, my darling hush ana sleep; it is very late." "lias papa come yetl I want to kiss him." Oh! how that innocent question smote her heart! She had itriven one whom her little child could still love, still carets with infantine tenderues, from his home. For a uiomcnt her pule almost stopped with horror, as she rememeereil the cauu, steady way in which he tout leave of her. She horned t stiike a light. It shone direct ly upon the portrait of her husband, a he ... i.;. . i i. was u his marriage uay , anu ciatptng ner hands, she stood breathless, scanning those a!mot faihlets lineaments. Then t fear ful thought took possession of her; "Oh! 1 was too liatty' she cried. " 1 have said too much, and may have bis death to an swer for." Springing to the entrance, she flew down the stairs, unlatched the door, and stand ing an the stone step, called the name of her husband repeatedly. Oh! which way could he have goner" she wailed, striving to look through the thick darkness, and feeling the shsrp drops ot a fine rain striking agiintt her face. Out she sped in the stormy night; ran breathlestly. first to one corner, then to another; but not a sound, save the distant baying of watch dogs, could she hear. Al most frantic, she flew up the street, peer ing into the dark pnrhei of the houses. It was nearly midnight, and she met no one the way. Urcalled in hrelf, at last, bv the wet clinging of the garments around her limbs, and the chill tremors that shot through her frame, she lobbingly took her way homeward and entered to find her little Miry grieving and calling for fa ther and mother. "Hut why didn't you bring papa? I want to kiss papa," cried the child. "My Mary will'never kiss papa again, I fear," murinured the sorrowlul woman, soothing the child in her arms. That night of long intense agony 1 That watching lor the morning! When it came that pale, liiggard face, that looked out irotn the window, so tearless so stony yet so awfully tricf struck! A violent fever succeeding prostrated the mother, and when sho arose from the brink of the grave, they dared not tell her till months of convalescence had established her health again, that two weeks after Hen ry Remington left his home, a bloated and disfigured body, supposed to be bis, though there weie but few marks of recognition on the corpse, was foond in the river . ' K?en then, as she learned the sad truth, reason almost fled, and from that hoar He len Remington! was a changed woman. Gathering her household treasures, she sold the prtty tenement that was her own, a gift from her father, and bought a very small cottage with a few: humble rooms Thuher she moved with her tittle daugh ter, whose artless prattle about papa stung her pour heart sometimes almost to mad ness. Relatives and friends offered her a home, but though most keenly sensible of their kindness she refused them all. She wished no eye but that of God to be wit nets of her "daily grief, and thus chose a life of independence, embittered though it would ever be br remorse. .Ten years passed by, and yet, Helen Remington lived in her desolate home with ber daughter, a mourning and sorrowful wojian, bearing about her the conscious nets that her passionate words, her want of Christ-like forbearance, had sent a soul unprepared into eternity. , She still dress ed in deep mourning, and those who saw ber taid that such sorrow must be genuine, for her dark eye was sunken and dim, and the hair, though yet abundant, was mixed with threads of ailter. Ella now growing into womanhood attended the village academy. It was a long dittance I rum ber home; but one day she returned with her face flushed more than usual, and standing in f rout of ber fa ther's portrait, she exclaimed, , 0! bow like it was!" What are you speaking of, Ella i" ask ed her mother. "As I was coming home, mother, I saw a gentleman who looked so much like poor father. And he kept his eyes on me till I had passed him." " Who could it be, I wonder; Where did you see him, Ella?" , " At the corner of the avenue, opposite out academy. He was in a carriage, and the horses there were two stood quite still, as they had been standing a long while. lie looked at all the girl as they raine out, but at me, I fancied, more than the rest." "It was only your imagination, my dear," said her mother quietly, though ber Lean was strangely stirred. V But, indeed, mother, he looked so much like father's portrait you can't think how exact it was like! only he was more port ly, and not as fair. Dut he had the same color in his cheek." Helen Remington's heart beat faster but it ws not because ot hopes or fears. No the never-to-be-forgotten scene of that last night came up so vividly before her, that a low cry of anguish escaped her lips, and the hurried from the room. The next day Ella came borne with a new story. The stranger, who was so like her father, had visited the school, and con versed with the teacher, who, at his re quest, had sent home a small sealed note by her. Ella was very pale, and trembled a her mother opened the mystic paper. No sooner had Mrs. Remington glanced at the handwriting than all consciousness left her, and she fell back in a fainting Qt. El la, lrightenel, and unknowing what course til pursue, ran for the nearest neighbor, and in a short lime her mother's room was filled with sympathizing though inconsid erate friends. The paper, child, the notf,' were the first words the mother uttered, when she came to consciousness. "Blessed note he is not dead then. I did not kill him. I am not a murderer. See here is hit own handwriting!" Mf Dcaa Wife I am no longer s drunkard will you receive me back to your love now that I have conquered my self? Most humbly do I ask this boon, conscious that I do not deserve it but I promise that, in time to come, I wilt be a faithful, loving, temperate husband to you, ucm helping me." At that moment the door bell nog. El la ran into the room where her pa!$ moth er sat. There were tears on btr cheeks as she cried, t , j ;l:'t.;.r.. ,rt.i , v Methet fee has come-ray father, whom we all thought dead he wants to. s?e you." ( Leaning on the arm tf her daughter, the repentant long suffering wife tettered down the stairs he heard the step sprang in patient); forth and wife and daughter were clasped to. bis bosom. j , , ; . Have you forgiven rae?" was the sob bing question. " I sent you from me with cruel words no Christian should utter. O ! my husband ! that this Act resulted in mer cy! is ef God's most loving kindness alone. I hare died a thousand deaths since I though: we buried yon after the waves had given you up.' Can you ever forget my cruel, unchristian words?" a "Freely, dear Halen, and onlp wonder how it was possible you bore t with me so long. Most freely, since it has led to my reformation. God be praised I ant a slave no longer. You need never fear that I shall fall again into that accursed sin for I have, as I trust, placed myself under a powerful Protector even under the eare and guardianship ef our Lord Jesus Christ." " But where have you been all this time, father?" asked Ella.'lier geitle eyes shin ing with happiness. , " In a foreign land. In the first heat of resentment.I walked to the city, I did not reach it till near morning, and there find ing an old sea captain, a friend of mine, ready to sail to China, I recklessly took passage with him, as he had often impor tuned me to do. Once out upon the great ocean, leaving home as I thought forever, reason came to me. 1 began to reflect op op my past life, and 1 could see nothing but crime against society, my wife ana family, and my Uod. There I made a re solve, that with help from on high, I would become the man you once thought me, He lenthat I would never return tilt I had conquered myself. Many dangers awaited me, but I passed through them all. I went to the golden country, and while there a lone, wretched, sick, and miserable, I found the great gift that has made me what I am the sift of redemption through our Saviour. Now, I will make home happy. Here will 1 erect au slur of praise and thanksgiving to Him who has so wonderful ly kept and returned me to you." The whole village was in an uproar as th news spread. Countless conjectures arose as to whose was the body they had found, but the indentity was never estab lished. Henry Remington was welcomed as ne from the dead. So flowers blossomed once again along the path of her who had been that most un fortunate of all beings a drunkard's wife. Waickma and RtfUtlor. , MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR WORTH. (CoocluJed.) frsepjun's bcrxav The condition of society produced by the sudden emancipation of the black race in numbers over one third of the entire population of the State, and the exemption of this class from the operation of our laws, civil and criminal, except as administered by a military tribunal, instituted by the Government of the United States; and al so claiming and exercising jurisdiction over all white citiaens in matters criminal aud civil, wherever blacks may be concern ed, is at once anomalous and inconsistent with the ancient constitutional authority of the several States. This tribunal, known as the Bureau of Freedmen, was establish ed daring the late unhappy war for " the supervision and management of all aban doned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and Ireedmen irom rebel States or from any district of coun try within the operations of the army, un der such rules and regulations ss might be prescribed by the head of the Bureau, and approved by the President," and was " di rected to continue during the war of the rebellion, and for one year thereafter." Its authority is derived from that claene of the Constitution which authorises Con
The Durham Recorder (Durham, N.C.)
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Jan. 31, 1866, edition 1
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