Newspapers / Charlotte Messenger (Charlotte, N.C.) / May 19, 1883, edition 1 / Page 1
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CHARLOTTE MESSENGER. VOL. I. NO. 46. PFARHYN’S WARD. “ I don't want to seem impertinent, old fellow, but I should really like to know how you happened to do it ? I should, by Jove!” “ Got married, you mean?” “ Why, yes; you were old enough ” “To know better, eh ?” interrupted Larry I’enryhn, knocking the ashes off his cigar. “Precisely,” answered his friend; “ and you see, nobody expected it of you, l>ecause you were always so cer tain of remaining a bachelor, and gave everybody your word for it" •• When I said 1 should die a bachelor, I did not think I would live to be married,” quoted Penrhyn, yet with a reflected cast in his eye to satisfy one that something more -ational was to be expected. It was a cool night, and there was confidence burning in the coals upon the hearth, and the two men sitting beside it, with the tobacco between them, were old cronies. Time and cir cumstances had drifted in between them, but for this one night, at least, they were together again, and sat talk ing as women are said to talk to each otiier of the hidden life, bat ns only men can, because of common morals, common manners and common follies. “ 1 really could not help it, Tom,’’ said Penrhyn, looking hard into the lire. “It really seemed the only thing to do at the time!” It was rather a strange reason to give for so grave an event, but looking inlo the calm, strong face of the man -taking into consideration the mass ive, intellectual brow, the Arm, yet tender mouth, one might taiQW that it “ould be nothing less thap worthy a true and honorable gentleman, how ever anomalous in form. “ You want to know all about it!” at last, he said, with a laugh, and blowing up a fog of blue smoke iround him ha settled deeper in his armchair as if the story were not a -hurt one. “Well, to begin with, my wife is the daughter of Halstead Scot, whom you doubtless remember.” Now, indeed, did blank surprise sit upon the countenance of Penrhyn’s friend, who did remember Halstead scot, whose stupendous rascality and breach of trust had convulsed a city, and of whose miserable self-murder the world yet talked about. “ I do not wonder that you are sur prised that I should have married the laughter ot such a man, especially as t hat man was not supposed to have a laughter up to the hour of his death ; hut hear the story, and reserve your judgment until you get the case. About six months previous to Scot’s suicide, when his irregular practice was only being hinted at, softly, among lie knowing ones, he came to my office •ne day and wanted me to join him in tl.e prosecution of some cotton claims igainst the government. “ 1 thought it rather queer that a •uan in his position should approach ue -scarcely a full-dedged barrister — with propositions of such magnifi ence, but, more out of curiosity than my actual idea of taking hold of the natter, I asked for time to look into lie case. “The papers were old,yellow, appa •ently without a flaw, and involving uillionsof dollars, yet I concluded that, n justice to my own clients, I could lot undertake to work in the case. Hie next thing that came was Scot’s 'uicide, and the papers rang with his utempted fraud, his forgery and the '•mplaints of the people whose moneys ie had held In trust and speculated «way. At this point in' the unhappy nan’s history, my real connection with aim began. The niornfng following us death there cams to me, through he mails, a letter reading, something n this wise: “ ‘Larry Penrhyn — l believe you 'o lie an honest man. I therefore give he inclosed papers into your keeping, eeling sure that the secret they con sin will be safe with you, and that you will protect from all painful knowledge the bemg whose life they •o vitally concern ‘ (Signed), Halstead Scot.' “ N'ow comes the most singular part if the story. The papers inclosed were * certificate of marriage between Hal dead Scot and Gabrielle W'yndham ; government bonds to the amount of 1 hirejr thousand dollars, registered in ! he name of Gabrielle Scot, and the oeciissary directions for finding that lierson. “Twodays later there came tome mother letter, written in a cramped, •Id-fashioned and feminine etyle. from which, aa I opened it, there fell out a printed slip cut from some newsyaptr, md riving an account of Scots un- CHARLOTTE, MECKLENBURG C 0.,. N. C., MAY 19, 1883. happy end. The letter itself was scant of words and ceremony, and briefly stated that Scot had informed the , writer that in case of his death I was , to act as Miss Gabrielle’s guardian, and ; requesting earnestly that I would see my ward at my earliest convenience, and this letter was signed—Patience ' Wyndham. “Fortunately for my curiosity and the exigencies of the case, I could get away from town just at that particular time, and as there really seemed no way of decently abandoning the trust without betraying the dead man’s confidence, I started off at once. “It was a romantic little country place at which I found them, with moun tains all around the half-hundred of houses; the church, the store, the tavern that formed the village, and near a little wa’erflfll, that was fa waterfall, not because some fellow with an rye for picturesque effect had built a 1 1 am across Its course, but be cause there was an, aVupt descent in the rock at th^t- point, I found Miss Patience Wyndham’s house. “ I had fetched her letter with me, and upon sending it in with my name, I was immediately admitted to the presence of a stately dame, whose at tire was copied from some Quaker ancestress, and whose very counte nance and manner bespoke her name— Patience. She asked me a great many questions about Halstead Scot, which I could but answer with the meager, unpleasant truths that formed my stock of knowledge respecting the man, and then it came her turn to talk. She told me that years ago, when she was but eighteen, her mother died, leaving her at the head of her father’s household. In one year after her father married again, and fifteen months later both he and the new wife had gone the way of all flesh, leaving Patience, at twenty, alone in the world, with an infant sister three months old to care for, and an income that only, with the strictest economy, could be made adequate to their needs. “Well, for twenty years this woman, putting her youth and everything that is natural to it under her feet, was mother, sister, everything to Gabrielle, who grew from babyhood into a lovely girl, doing only • her duty’ with uncon scious heroism, and giving me the record as if it were something scarcely worth the telling, only that it was necessary to explain. “ As I said before, the child grew up 1 to be a lovely girl, fair and graceful, i pure and good, and the faithful sister i found all recompense now for what at : first must have been all sacrifice, in ' this only thing of kindred blood left her. 1 “At length there came a young law -1 yer one summer-time to fish and hunt ’ in that quiet country place, and before ! Miss Patience quite came to realize the 1 danger the heart of her sister-child 1 was won from her. and the couple were married. “To lhake a long story short, 1 this young lawyer was Halstead Scot. Six months he spent hap ’ pily with his young wife, then he ‘ went away, and, although he wrote I her occasionally, he forbade her always to join him, and so the fair, frail crea ture faded day by day, until the hour ' when her baby came struggling into ! life, and then shut her weary eyes for j ever on a world wherein she had grown so sadly tired—wherein she had learned the bitterness of unfilled graves, and , death that renders not unto dust—and ! Patience Wyndham was once more , left to fill the mother’s office to a worse I than orphaned child. # ~ •* Fifteen years passed, and, stirred j by a feeling of remorse, by a reinern , i,ranee of his old romance or what not, i Scot came once more to the little village . under the mountains. He refused to ' H ee his daughter, and told Miss Wynd ham enough of his own career to satisfy 1 her that it was wisfst so, but the e week following his visit, a pure white ’ mouument.in form of a broken column, was erected over his wife's grave, and , every six months during the remainder 1 of his life there came regularly a f certain sum of money to Miss Wynd ham for the support of the young Gabrielle. 1 “ This was the whole of the story, * aa that sweet old saint told it to me, and naturally l grew extremely anxious ; to see the child of romance, over whom J I was so singularly appointed „ guardian. t *“The child does not know her father’s history,’ said Miss Patience, e ‘and I could wish she might remain al l ways in happy ignorance of it,’ and n then the child came in. a “She was fair-haired, slight, blue * eyed, graceful, shy. with nothing of ’ herfather about her in appearance or characteristics, and after a few days I came home, not in love with my ward, as you suspect, but thinking her a pure, innocent child, wonderfully born of such a father, and really not dis satisfied with my guardianship. “In fact, my charge was no burden to me while Miss Patience lived, and the thirty thousand dollars made all clear for the future, I imagined, with a man’s wonderful understanding of a woman’s needs; and so for three years, placidly the time went on; then there came a note from Gabrielle herself, announcing tlie serious illness of- her aunt, and I went, hastily away into the country. !“ I found Miss Wyndham dying; her noble sands of life were almost told, arid there will be few whiter robes in hepven than that she wears. She had not fear for herself in that passing away; only a great thought, reaching, out into the future, for -the young girl j whom she must leave alone in a world i where even her saintly eyes had seen | much neither good nor true. “I promised all that 1 coukl, and while the dying wpman seemed to trust me, she understood better than I how little equal to the protection ot a young girl’s life an uiynarrled man can be, and was but half-satisfied when the final moment came. “ Poor Gabrielle was distracted; she clung to me as to a brother. I pitied her, but I pitied myself more, bmause she took no thought, and I did, ot the future w'hich now loomed up before me like a terrible problem, to which the thirty thousand dollars offered not the slightest dew of solution. “ What to do with her now I did not know. I had no near female relative; I had not even the traditional old nurse to help me out of the dilemma. My business was suffering from neglect, and yet I could not leave this clinging grief-stricken girl alone and unsettled in this first space of her desolation. “I finally determined to ask a widow lady, who was a distant relative of Halstead Scot, to take immediate charge of his daughter, but before writing to her I thought it would only be kind in me to consult my ward in the matter, and learn if there were any other arrangement possible more congenial to her own mind. “ She came to the interview looking most fair and fragile in her black dress, and listened attentively to my proposition. Then the tears which lay very near to her eyes in those sad days pushed their way from under the terse-drawn eyelids, and rolled heavily over the white young chesics, and she said, in a trembling, pitiful way: “ ‘Then I cannot live with you, Mr. Penrhyn ?’ ' “I had rather pronounce the death sentence in a thousand cases than to be obliged again to meet the emer gency that stared out of those innocent eyes at me; but something had to be done then and there, and I had rather have tried modern strangulation in my own person than to have explained to this pure child the reasons why she might not live in my house as my sis ter, when there seemed no other home —no heart in all the world that held for her kindly feeling save mine. “So, and as I told you in the begin ning, it seemed to be the only thing to , do at the time, I asked her, at gently . and delicately as I could, to marry me. “It came very sudden to her, and especially so to me; but she con -1 sented, not that she was greatly in [ love with me any more than I with her, but because her quiet, straight , forward life had taught her none of the hollow sentimentality of pride that would have led her to question my sincerity, or the prospect of form ing a connection that held no romance ; but only the continued society and 1 friendship of one whom her aunt t had. 1 held in respect and trusted. “ Immediately, and beside Miss Patience’s new-made bed, blanketed 1 with a drift of sweet syringa bells, we were married, I feeling at last content that the sainted dead would rest now ; quietly from her labors, if her spirit might look down upon us two made 1 one.” “ And —I beg your pardon—bnt did ’ It turn out well?” asked the listening friend, his cigar burned down within a - hairbreadth of the blonde mustache, • and smothered recklessly with a long 1 white ash. 1 Turn out well' Why, Gabriel and I I have grown to love each other to a degree that makes the slightest separ ■ ation unhappiness to both. There are , two babies, and—Lord love you, man, • I guess it did turn out well r and the smoking Tom tumbled the long, white asli Into the gayly-painted saucer at ■ his elbow, and murmured, somewhat ! cynioally: •• After all. it was an experiment T THEBADBOYALLBROKEUP BADX.T WXICZZD BT POOLZVO WITH AM OLD PACBB. He Driven n Minister to a Pnneml—The Re- Nit ofSariaC to a Former “Bon* of the Read.” “ Well, what’s the matter with you, HoWY’ said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came injto the grocery qn crutches, with one arm in a sling, cine eye blackened, aid a strip of court plaster acroo one side of his face. “Where was the explosion, or have you been ih, a fight?" ! “Oh, there's not much the matter with me,” said the boy, id a voice that /ahuqtied all broke qp, as he took a big apple off a basket, and began peeling it with his upper front teeth. “If you think lam a wreck you. ought to see the minister. They bad to carry him home in installments, tne way they buy | -«wing machines. lam all right, but I they have got to stop him Up with l oakum and tar before he will ever hold water again.” “Good gracious, you have not had a fight with the minister. Have yon? Well, I have said all the time, and I stick to it, that you would commit a crime yet, and go to State pris n. What was the fuss about?” and the grocery man laid the hatchet out of the hoy’s reach for fear he would get excited apd kill him. “ Oh, it was no fuss. It was in the way of business. You see the livery man that I was working for promoted me He let me drive a horse to haul sawdust for bedding, first, and when he found I was real careful he let me drive an express wagon to haul trunks. Day before yesterday there was a funeral, and our Stable fur nished the outfit. It was only a com mon eleven-dollar funeral, so they let me go to drive the horse few the min ister—you know, the buggy that’goes ahead of the hearse. They gave me an old horse that is thirty years old, that has not been off a walk since nine years ago, and they told me to give him a loose rein, and he would go along all right. It’s the same old horse that used to pace so fast on the avenue, years ago, but -I didn’t know it. Well. I wan’t to blame. I just let him walk along as though he was hauling sawdust, and gave him a loose rein. When we got off of the pavement the fellow that drives the hearse, he was in a hurry, ’cause his folks was going to have ducks for din ner, and he wanted to get back, so he kept driving alongside of my buggy, telling me to hurry up. I wouldn't do it, ’cause the livery man told me to walk the horse. Then the minister, he got nervous, and said he didn’t know as there was any U3e of going so slow, because he wanted to get back in time to get his lunch and go to a ministers’ meeting in the afternoon, but X told him we would all get in the cemetery soon enough if we took it cool, and as for me I wasn’t in no sweat. Then one of the drivers that was driving the mourners, he came up and said he had to get back in time to run a wedding down to the 1 o'clock train, and for me to pull out a little. I have seen enough of disobeying orders, and I told him a funeral in the hand was worth two weddings in the bush, and as far as I was concerned, the funeral was going to be conducted in a decorus manner, if we didn’t get back till the next day. Well, the minister said inhisrtgular Sunday-school way, ‘My little man, let me take hold of the lines,’ and like a blame fool I gave them to him. He slapped the old horse on the crup per with the lines and then jerked up. and the old horse stuck up his off ear, and then the hearse-driver told the minister to pull hard aud saw on the , -bit a little and the old horse would wake up. The hearse-driver used to drive the old pacer on the track, and he knew what he wanted. The minister took off his black kid gloves and put his umbrella down between us and palled his bat down over his head and began to pull and saw on the ■ bit. The old cripple began to move along sort of sideways, like a bog going to war, and the minister pulled some more, and the hearse driver, who 1 was right behind, he said so you could 1 hear him clear to Waukesha* Ye e-up,’ i and the old horse kept going faster, j then the minister thought the procee ; sion was getting too quick, and , he pulled harder, and yelled . who-a,' and that made the old horse worse, and I looked through the little window in tpe buggy top be i hind, and the hearse was about two - blocks behind, and the driver was . laughing, and the minister he got pale and said, ‘ My little man, I gueas you better drive,’ aad I said, -Not much. Marv Ana; van wouldn’t let me run f. C. SMITH. PiMer. this funeral the way I wanted to. and now you can boss it, if you will let me' get out,’ but there was a street car ahead and all of a sudden there was an earthquake, and when I cometo there were about six hundred people pour ing water down my neck, and the hearse was bitched to the fence, and the hearse driver was asking if my leg was broke, and a policeman was fan ning the minister with a plug hat that looked as though it had been struck by a pile-driver, and some people were hauling our buggy into the gutter, and some nten were trying to take the old pacer out of the windows of the street car, ami thpn I guess I fainted away agin. Oh, it was worse than tetaecop ing a train loaded-with tattle. ” “\VeU,J mjqcery naan as he put, some eggs in a funnel shaped brownpaper for a servant girl. ■“ What did the minister- say when he oom« to?'* “bay! What could be say? He just yelled ‘ wfigq,’ and kept sawing with life hands, as though he was driving.' 1 heard that tbe policeman was going to pail him for fakidriving tiO he found it was ana wident. They told me, who ft they carried me home in a hack, that it was a wonder every body was not killed, and when I got hone pa was going to sass me. until the hearse driver told him it was the rainiflUr that was to blame. 1 want to find out if they got the minister's umbrella back. The last I see of it the umbrella vw running up bis trousers leg, and the point come out by the small of his hack. But lam all right, and shall go to work to-morrow, ’cause; the livery man says I was the only one in the crowd that bad any sense. I understand the minister is going to take a vacation on account of his liver; and nervous prostration. 1 would if I was him. I never saw a maa that I had nervous prostration any more than he did when we fished him out of the barbed wire fence, after we struck the street car. But that settles the minister i business with me. 1 don't drive with 1 no more preachers. What I want is a quiet party that wants to go on a* walk,” and the boy got np and hopped on one foot toward his crutches,; filling his pistol pocket with figs as he hobbled along. “ The next time I drive a minister to a fun ral, he will walk,” and the boy hobble! out and hung out a sign in front, of tbe grocery. “ Smoked dog fish at halibut prices, good enough for company.” T io Late. The law of heredity, by which living beings tend to repeat themselves in their descendants, is generally accepted by scientists .and physicians. Some assert that not only the physical but the spiritual traits of parents are re produced in their children. In the matter of health and disease there is no doubt that parents transmit their physical qualities, strength and weak nesses. One of the beet-known physicians r in Boston was called, not long since, to attend tbe bedside of a rich man i who bad been suddenly taken UL The doctor felt the patient's pulse and saw , that the case was hopeless. Turning , to one of the family, who stood anx iously waiting to hear his opinion, he ; said; “You should have sent fora physician , long ago.” “But we sent at once; as soon as he , was taken ill." I “Ah! yes,” repliei the physician. . sadly, “but you should have sent 101) . years ago.” The physician recognized the fact ’ that his patient, who died that day, i was in reality the victim of his ao i cestors’ careless or criminal violation l of the laws of health, years before he i himself was bom. i An Epitaph. * The following is an epitaph on • 1 tombstone in Chautauqua, county, » N.Y.: ! “ Neuralgia worked on Mrs. Smith, ’Till neath the eod it tod her; > ahe was a worthy Methodist, I And served as a crusader. | “ Friends came delighted at the cell. In plenty of good carriages; ’ Death is the common lot of all. And oomes more oft than marriages. ’’ 1 West Point, Miss., with twe thou- I sand Inhabitants, has recently raised i $50,000 for a national bank. $50,000 i for a cottonseed oil mill, increased its - ad valorem tax list SIOO,OOO in one j year, establishel a coftoit exchange, ■ voted $6,000 to a railroad, and U’Udk e lug of a $60,000 cotton factory, a ■* ■" ■ It is said that France has 219JT70 i homes without a single window.
Charlotte Messenger (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 19, 1883, edition 1
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