Richmond Hill Public Library News Index

The Liberal, 25 Jul 1912, p. 2

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’ Address? ' “136617,” Limited. v7 IL. Montreal. a quantity of Bovril with boiling water in the usual manner and cool it in the ice box. Many hostesses are serving this bouillon which is always excellent. ' The best way to buy Bovril is in the 1 lb. bottles. These are by far the most economical, being retrailed usually at $1.75, and contain eight times as much as the bottle usually sold at 350. We will gladly send on application a very useful leaflet on invalid and reneral diabetics. which explains why lBovril aids _digest_i9n and enables vou “yum. .. \nluuAvD vuu to absoer t1}; full ngur‘iahment from your ordinagy diet. I was born at Halesowen, in the Black Country. My father was a chain-maker, nnd I worked with him from the earliest time I can remember until the day of his death. He was an ignorant nian, violent in temper, and given to drink. Every Saturday he would come .home halt mad, and would thrash me Without mercy. Sometimes he would thrash my sister also; but he never neglected me. and I was glad to get into a coal-hole. or any other place of refuge, when heard his step. , 'Many a time my sister crept upstairs to the zarret to console me after he had waled me all over with the buckle-end *0! his strap. She used to sit on mv bed. and take me in her arms and'cry over me; and if she could find a crust of bread or a cold potato she would bring it to me, pressing me to eat it. while she whis- {ered such words of hope as her simple eart could prompt. We had no mother. She died in child- hed. and I only know of her from my- slster’s telling. My sister described her as. a“ little frail woman, silent. and suh- museum to my father; though his evxl ways and evil passions rendered her very unhanpv. Only once did my mother re- sent his violenoe, and then not on her own account. A delicious summer drink is iced Bovril. Mix a spoonful in a cold split soda water. This is both cooling and strengthening. Cold bouillon served alone or with toast' or crackers is an exquisite; aftgrrloon frefreshmeut, Make That is another night I shall never for- get. Alice and I cowered together in the dark beside the empty wrate, and listen- ed fearfully for the sound of my father's heavy foot. We heard the church clock strike twelve, and one, and two, and yet he never came. but about a quarter to three a woman opened the door and called A SUMMER DRINK WHIBH STRENGTHENS With the men at Telson’s works one jug of ale meant many. 0n the night of my apprenticeship my father and his boon companions held a great carouse. which ended, as was frequently the case. in a qtgrrehand atfight‘ Such was the life we led, until I was turned fourteen. when I was bound, or rather sold for a wallon of beer, to a chain-smith called Black Jack. as an ap- mjentice. My father had cursed her for an impu- dent slut. and had threatened to fill her clov with red-hot Cinders; but the land- ladv. odious, lewd woman though she was. oomng in, cried shame upon the crowd of brutes and cowards, and offer- imr to break a quart jug over the skull of any man who would lay a hand on the weuch, had given my sister the bread anfld the grapes {and sent her home. If there is a heaven. my sister Alice is there, and amongst the chosen few. She was a perfect woman, and the great God, who made the west wind and the brier rose, never made anything more worthy or more sweet than she. On the night I speak of she had gone down to the drink- ing den where my father sat amongst. his savage matesâ€"drunkards, gamblers, child- beaters, 'and wife-heaters ali~and had forced her way into the reeking tap-room tonplead for me. - Years afterwards I saw a. child upon a doorstep in New York, with‘the fever in his face and the ague in his limbs. and I nicked him up and took him to my lodgings, and nursed him for many weeks. I did that more for my sister’s sake ‘than .for his or for my ownu My sister, seeing this, ran between them, ‘ccreaming with terror, and tried to push my father away. Maddened with drink, he seized the child by the hair, and lifted his heavy hand to strike her, when my mother sprang up, snatched a knife from the table, and laid his cheek open from eyebrow to lip. He drew back then, and taking up the poker threatened to beat her to a jelly; but my mother put little Alice behind her, and swore that she would send the knife through his heart if he moved an inch forward; so, cursing her my father staggered out of the house, and did not come back for a month. He lever struck my mother again, but after her death he seemed to wreak his spite “Lon us. , w, «w fly...» I trio to eat the grapes, but my throat was too sore to swallow them. My lax muscles ached and quivered, every bone of my body was sore, and I could feel eachqepgvrate rle _aa_ my»r9ugh shirt fret- A“. ted it. I was lightvheaded, too, and full of sick fancies, so that at- one time I thought, the dog was swelling to a mou- strous size. and then began to cry out that the dead mother was tapping at thg window. It was on Sunday night, while my sis- ter was' still a child. My mother, who was very religious, sat am the table read- ing her Bible. when my father came home in one of his most fiendish humors, and cursing her for a canting hyrocrite, threw the Bible into the fire and struck her in the face with his fist. We led a miserable life. From si; In the morning until nine at night my sister worked at the nail-making, and I helped my father in the smithy. Nearly all _my father’s wages went in drink or gamma and the few shillings Alice earned went the same way. so that we never had clothes to cover us, nor food enough to feed our growth. I have seen my sister take off her only under-pettieoat and sell it to buy a. piece of bread for my supper. I have known her to walk a mile to the out side after ten at night and sell a. basket of empty whisky bottles for a piece of coal, when the frost was keen and never a bit of fire in the grate. And once when I had been down with a low lever, and was cryinu from weakness and want of food, she jumped up suddenly, kissed me, bade me be patient for a. lit- tle while. and went out. She came back In an hour, and brought me some white bread and a small bunch of grapes. I ‘cun remember that occasion as if it were a thing- of yesterday. Alice, kneel- ing on the hearth with her arm around me. and holding up the grapes between me and the fire, so that l'might see the light shine through them; and I, with my head so heavy and numbed. hanging against her shoulder, and my eyes burn- ing and smarting with fever, and, in the Icorner of the room, my father's bull- terrier crouched, snoring. with his broad bl'aclk' muzzle on_his paws. 7 THE WHITE LADY; CHAPTER I. OR, WHAT THE THRUSH SAID. St. Peter I did hammer to it. I hammered the idea into my mind, I hammered every other idea out of my mind, and as I vradua-lly settled to my resolution my strokes fell slower. slower. and at last Black Jack broke out into a scream of curses, and ordered me strike faster or he’d fell me. But instead of striking faster I held the hammer poised for a moment above my head, and then, turning very slowly. pitched it with a sudden jerk of the wrists mm a heap of ciqders‘ seven-311 _yp.rds_gway. -J. 1,“, , I, v. v...“ he uvvvl“l ,VGIAMI! WWW]. Black Jack straightened himself up. and let his hand-hammer lie upon the seething link, while he staregl at me with his great mouth gaping vnde. and m. bleary eyes starting out of his head. The fellow: at the next two are: the are you waiting tune to hammer But though I had thrown the flower away I could not. forget it. nor the strange sweet gaze of the lady who had given it to me. As I swung the huge hammer my mind kept running on. I though: of the gardens where such flowers could grow; I thought of the houses where such ladies lived; I seemed to realize for the first time that there was a world outside our smithy yard, that there were green fields. and clean streets, and gentle and good people, somewhere. And then I scowled round upon the drudging, swarthy counterparts of myself who toiled and sweated there amongst the glare and reek, and I thought of my past, life, and all its miseries, and of the future which had nothing to make it bearable but re- venge. “What are you waiting for?” I asked myself, until “What are you wait- in - for? What, are you waiting forfflWhat, I turned the flower about and about, and the more I looked at it the more hit terly I felt the contrast between myself and the gentleman who had just passed me. and who had called the lady Braids. Perhaps she was his sister, I thought; and then I remembered my own sister, and her homely face, and ugly frock. and big, misshapen hands. and with a sudden impulse I flung the lily over the railway fence, a_nd wen} 3)an ’go my work: And so they went out of my life. as they had come into it, and left me stand- ing shamefaced and silent, with the spot- less li‘ly in nly grimy flap What was I to do with the thing? I could not take it info the smit‘hy: the men would have laughed me to scorn. I did not ‘."ke to throw it away. It was tigne for {ne‘to go back_to my vyork. The lady turned half round, and say- ing “No; perhaps that would ofiend him." held out to me one of the lilies which she carried. I took it awkwardly enough from {he little gloved hand. over which a bright gold bangle had slinped almost to the thumb. and I would have said “Thank you,” but my tongue seemed olped to my teeth. ~__ -_ WNW - ....., .. wwbv. When they came close to me the stran- Eers stopped. and the gentleman inquired the way to the railway station. I pointed out the way. It was very hot. as I have said. and the sweat was running over my blackened skin. I never knew before how black it was, nor how low I was. nor how coarse and ignorant I was; but I knew then, and when the lady looked at me I' felt ashamed to be seen. It was a peculiar look. She raised her eyelids slow- ly. and her large, dark eyes seemed to shine with incrensing. light, _re_Ipin(;l_ing .0, -1 41,, me of the sun when he gradually lifts his face above a. cloud. For a second she looked at me in this way; then, as she pausiged 013,} hea_rd he; say: 7 "Give him a shilling, Braida,” said the gegtleman. Day after day, and year after year, abuse and blows were showered on me. so that I grew up silent, sullen, and bit- ter. I had never been to school, I could scarcely read or write, I had no compan- 10118 and no pleasures. Indeed, the only motives I had in life were to please my sister and to become a man. How I could Dlease or repay my sister I had no idea, except by stolidly holding to my promise. What I was to dowhen I was a man I had no idea, except that I was determined to give Black Jack a thrashing. The bone of this righteous not sustained me under a thousand trials. I prepared for it with the secrecy and cunning which my friendless and solitary life had made my second nature. Every Saturday night I walked to a village a few miles away, where I was unknown, and took lessons in boxing from a. groom who had been a Dugilist. Every evening after work I went down by the canal and wrestled with the colliers’ lads and bargees. These exer- cises, added to the oouscant training af- forded by my use of the sledge hammer, caused me to develop rapidly into a lithe, active. and clever athlete, with muscles of brass and sinews of steel. A dozen times a day I pinched my wiry arms and thighs, and thought of the reckoning that Black Jack would be called to on the day when I was twenty-one. No one sus- Dected my design. How often soever I was insulted, cuffed and kicked by Black Jack. or by other lads, I never retaliat- ed. for I would not show my strength. and the latter being used to me, and Krowmg with me, hardly noticed my growth, nor did Black Jack seem to give the matter a thought. A boy I was when I was bound to him, and a. boy I was until I was turned twenty, when a, curi- ous thing occurred. It was one day in the heat of the sum- mer, when the labor in the chain works Eets almost past endurance, and even the keenest and the strongest are compelled to rest at times, and I was strolling along near the railway lines during the dinner hour, when I met a gentleman and a. lady. I think I noticed them first of all because of their unnatural cleanness. The gentleman was tall and handsome, and walked with a proud but easy bearing, gs of one used to power, and confident In his own strength. The lady was as bright, as dainty, and as delicate as the lilies she carried in her hand. I stared at her as a savage might have stared at her; but of course I was a. savage. nu ,, .. seems "’ out, "Is there onybody at. whooam?” And Alice said “Yes.” And then the woman asked. "Is yowre Will wakkenP”. And Alice again said "Yes," upon which the woman said. "Coom aht; I’ve soomut to tell thee. wench,” and I listened at the window and heard her say, "Ahm rext sorry fur thee, wench, but, we Gonna fend sich things. Theer‘s been a row at. th’ Black ’orse tap, an' one 0’ th’ fellies her stabbed thee feyther, and ’e’s deead.” He was dead. Thev brought him.home after the inquest, and he was burled m the little smoke-grinned graveyard beside my mother. May he rest in peace! Sav- aee as he was, and cruelly as he used us. he was my father; and he knew no better. Father being dead, we had to give up our cottage, and my sister. as brave as ever, Went out to service, and sent, me gnoney out of her poor wages. I went into lodgings with Black Jack, and soon found that I had lost a bad father and found a worse. The next six years of guy life may be soon told. Hard work and ill-usage in the smithy by dav and hard fare and ill-usage in the home by night. Amongst all my workmates I had not a. single friend. My sister had got from me a, promise that I would neither drink nor gamble, and I ke t my word, and was dgsmsed and hated or it. “11qu téllové’,‘“hawmhoiwa'nd tired he CHAPTER II. for?” becamg a kind?“ Esmond hurried forward and held out his hand to Victor Ross. "1 have wronged you, Dr. Ross.” he said, manfully, “and here and now I beg your pardon most. hugbly, for it, Will you shake hands?” Meanwhile, as I was walking. it would be well to decide upon some course, and whither should I go but to London? So turning south-east from Towceater fields, I took the road to Buckingham. (To be continued.) I went slowly at first, being isiifi‘uand drowsy; but the sweet air soon revived me, and the thought that I was quit of 1:11? old sad life made me feel quite cheer- u . I.had already got quite clear of the Black Country, and my road lay through green closes and wide fields of standing corn. The cottages along the highway were clean and bright, with flowers trained over their lattices, and pigeons fluttering above their thatched roofs, and in the trim gardens before them the broad-faced sunflowers and flaunting hol- lyhocks made a. brave show. I folded my arms and looked at Black Jack with a smile. “No,” I said, answer- inr his look, "not another stroke. I hawe finished. I will never lift a hammer again for you. ‘You dog!" The ale-house where I slept stood on the outskirts of a pretty hamlet between Ban- bury and Pinkney. I lay late, and the July sun was well up in the akv before I had finished my breakfast of brown br'ead and plile and t_aken _th_e road‘_a.ga.in_. Better to die here of hunger. I thought. with the scented elder flowers above and the daisied grass below, than to live for a century of brutish slavery in the smoke My] sulnhur of the chain sheds. “No,” returned Ross, bitterly. "You and I are bitter enemies to the death, Fred- erick Esmond. You have won from me the only woman in this wide world whom I have ever loved or ever shall love. To pretend that I havea feeling of friendship stopped, and looked on in amused sur- prise. Black Jack threw down his hammer, and came round to my side of the ,an- vil. “Tak’ 001) that theer tool,” said he, I’ll kick thee while thee teeth drops a ." I could laughed out loud with delight. At last I had him; he was fairly in my reach. "Jack." I said, and I noticed a sort of half shiver in my voice as I spoke; "Jack. if you are man enough to hold your hands up, hold them up now." That did it. Jack made a lunge at. my face. I expected it. I had arranged years ago how I was to meet it. Stopping it with the right, I feinted with the left, and edged in. He swung his left back to floor me, and then I gave .him the right straight in his teeth. with all the force of six years’ training, and all the rage of six yeal‘s’ persecution behind it. It was the only blow I had the chance to deal him. He dropped like a poleaxed bullock beside his own anvil, and the biggd gugshed from his mouth in a. stream. The other men ran up to his assist- ance. and a dozen of them surrounded me with menacing looks. But this also I had promised myself. “Now, men." I said with a sneer “this is my holiday. Which of you’ll stén out inm the coal~yard for a round? Come. now, you know me. Take that black piv away to his stye, &nd then I’ll fight any six of you, one down and the other come on.” I believe they thought, I was mad, and so I was, in some sense. But amt any rate they did not molest me. and so I threw my can amongst, them and. calling them “dirty curs.” walked slowly across the yqfli ang out-at the gate_ igtp theiroad. When I got into the road, I looked once at the spot where the lady stood to Pive me the lily. and then turned my face to the south and set of? at a. swinging pace. which I main-mined for hours. Indeed, I do not think I stopped at all until I had gone more than thirty.miles. It was then about ten o'clock at night. I bought a loaf of bread, and went into a roadside ale-house, where I got lodgings for the night. CHAPTER XXXVIII.â€"-(Cont’d) CHAPTER III. That Very (lay Frederick Esmond took his wife and child travelling on the con- tinent. Nothing could induce him to re- for you, by touching your hand. would be an untruth. I can only add, I wish the duel had not been postponed;â€"I am a dead shotâ€"you would have fallen. and then she would have been free.” As he spoke he turned on his heel, and in so doing stumbled and fell, discharging the revolver which he still held in his hand: and in an instant the red life-blood was flowing from a wound in his temple. All that human aid could do was done to save Dr. Rose by the surgeon. who was fortunately on the spot, but, without. avail. “Is it. death?” he whispered. “Yes.” answered the surgeon. hfl‘he wounded man beckoned Eamond to 1m. He heard, and the look of gragtitude in his eyes she never forgot. His last prayer was granted; he died, looking upon the beautiful, noble face he had loved better than anything else in this world. “Forget and forgive the words I have just uttered, as you wish to be forgiven," he murmured, with difficulty, whispering : "I have a last prayer to make you, you will not refuse, she will not refuse, she is so kind and good. Remember, I am dying.” - “It ‘is only this," murmured Victor Ross, his pride and hauteur humbled to the dust now: “As my eyes close in death. let them rest on the face that has been my load-star through life. Plead with Irene to come and kneel beside me. It will be but a. few fleeting moments; it can do her no harm, and I shall drift to the shores of that unknown sphere~in peace.” “You will do this, Irene?” said Esmond. Without a. word she took her place be- side the dying man in the long rush grass. and whispered holy words to him, pray" ing that Heaven would receive him through the beautiful gates that were standing ajar. "'If'there is anything Irene or I can do for you, rest assured it will be done." an- swered Frederick Esmond, gravely. 7 .25¢ "I have closed the villa, locked you! apartments and thrown the key away," he said. "We will leave them to the due of years. The, world is wide; we can mak for ourselves a beautiful home elsewheres‘ and commence life anew. And in the; new life," he added. “we will make solemn compact to have no secrets from each other. All that we have undergone might. have been spared if you had trustd ed me at first, Irene.” turn to London, where he had sufi‘ered so much. The services of Nannette [ere dispensed with. she was pensioned and sent away. Frederick Esmond could not endure that any one should be around him who knew of that dark epoch_in gheir lives. "oii’ificififig u} a London paper one day. they read of the marriage of Dr. Lenuox and Jessie Reynolds. The duchess would close the letters with a, smile, murmuring, "I am glad Irena is so happy. Ah well, what more content- ment has life to offer than perfect love. Without love, life is a dreary waste, a desert. Wit-h love. it is a. paradise on earth. A certain court. proceeding which had been duly filed was taken quietly from the docket, therefore never came to trial; Thus, the bonds that. united Irene and Frederick Esmend, happily. were never. severed. Marie Montalti, the Italian woman. who came again in search of Mrs. Eamond, and ran across her while travelling. mak- ing another appeal to her for money. was met by Irene’s husband, who threatened her with being summarily dealt. with if she did not leave the country at once. wh‘eh she was only too glad to do when she found out the exact situagion 9f affairs. The Duchess of Heath often heard from Irene. Bright», crispy, newsy letters they were. but always containing this one sen- tence first and last: How happy she was in the love of her husband and little Ruby, often declaring Frederick was more fond of her than when he was only Mi): Middleton’s lover. V V THE END.

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