Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1857-01-08

said, come, my friends, ! will sing you song
So he sang first one aud then another ballad
all mournful ditties that made the laSses weep ;
he was always fine singer Many time he
rode before me when he was n child and sang
all the way through the park His beautiful
voice went ringing through the empty halls,
aud winding up the stairs where the COW boys
hung listening
I" He was in the middle of ballad-we
could hear the last verse as we came up the
avenue. WHAT'S that p said the Squire
For the house was always mute as all empty
church. When we turned into the stable yard
the flames of the hearth fire flashed out through
the dusty, cob-webbed window. Good hea-
vens he cried the house is on fire ? Next
as he hurried along the passage came the gab-
BILE of cheerful voices lie flung open wide
the heavy door, and cried, in a voice of dis
may and rage What's all this Who dared
do this p
go 1t was l. father said Rupert, stepping
| forward, looking flushed, and even still more
fierce than his father. 1t was who did it
all | am going to leave you sir, on long
Journey and thought ! should like TO give my
brothers and sisters and old friends one fare
well feast, after years of starvation and if
you grndge it me- why then you can dc,iuct it
from my share of my mothers fortune, which
you mrst ray when I come of age
F" Villain It's false You've not shil-
ling unless you've robbed me- And he raised
! his whip to strike him.
! "' Don't strike me- said Master Rupert,
stepping back apace and turning from red to
white don't strike me or you will repent it
/ for many long day.
But he did strike him again and again,
right across his face, until the blood flew.
In one minute before could step between
! them, the son, who was head taller than his
| father, had him in his arms pinioned, snatched
ont of his other hand the big black pocket
book he always carried, and then full of the
price of twenty bulIocks, burst it open over the
| fire, shook out the notes into the cracking
| flames. then threw the book into the embers
and put his heel upon it, Some ':s the notes
| flew burning, like evil spirits, up the chimney
the rest were asheS in an instant
"'Thcre !" he cried, there That's how |
should like to serve all your cursed money it
! is your curse and ours
Before the Squire could recover himself,
Master Rupert was gone We heard a clat-
tering in the yard of horses feet. ran to the
window and saw him 10y the light of the moon
gallop down the avenue on his gray colt that
he must have had already sadded. We never
saw him again.
"The Squire took to his bed and lay there
nigh a week, scarcely eating anything. |
tended on him myself | could hear him
groan as passed his door but when came
| in he looked inst as usual--pae, and hard and
grim You could never tell what he meant by
his face
Some said he fretted for his son others
said it was for the money Master Rupert had
burned and the loss of the gray colt, the best
he'd bred. Anyhow he said no word, but was
up at the end of the week, moiling and striving
and screwing, and grinding worse than ever
| think myself he loved Master Rupert, for all
his hard lines to him for, once-when his
son had been gone six months-I found him
| in the old lawyers study standing looking at
| two picturss-one of himself taken when he
was abont ten years old, and another of Ru-
| pert when he was seven or eight, drawn for
his grandfather by some foreign artist | heard
| him mutter to himself, so changed : and |
half fancied there was a tear in his eye But
! turning him sharp round on me, he said grim
like, Could any one believe that pretty child
could have turned out such a villain to rob
his poor old father What F! he cried to me,
as muttered somethng-for the boy was my
favorite-' do you defend him p
60 Master Rupert was not a villain said |.
| if it was the last word was ever to speak
And with that / threw down the sample of
| wheat | had brought, went out, and never
went near him all day. But he could not do
without me. So the next time | had to go to
him he took no more notice.
"When we came to settle with the miller.
who took part Of our corn and sent us meal,
we found that he had paid Master Rupert
cash for brood mare that used to be called
his Before that time the Squire had taken
care of the money (as he said, for them of
| any calves or lambs sold belonging to the chill
dren
Two years afterward son of the head
plowman that had gone to sea wrote to his
mother saying he had met Master Rupert in
Calcutta, dressed in cavalry uniform that he
knew him in minute, although he was very
much altered But that Master Rupert de-
MED his name, and refused to own to ever hay-
ing seen Bob Golfer before But Bob was
quite clear that it was the young squire.
went and told my master, who said nothing at
the time, but it seems set to work with his
London friends to buy Master Rupert out |
did not know this at the time. Long after
ward, when the squire fell sick of the illness
he died of, found the letters under his pillow
First there was letter from some one in In
dia, saying they had seen the soldier Thomas
Rupertson, of the 6ftieth K. O Light Cavalry,
aud that he had entirely denied that he had
any parents living, or that he had any pre-
tensions to be a gentleman and further said
he should enter some other regiment immed-
ately if bought out. There was another letter.
saying that since the first had been written,
private Thomas Rupertson had died Of a wound
received in fight with some mounted robbers
Aud the chaplain inclosed lock of his hair
and portrait made on something like glass;
rl,, tonrrh h,. Indinn Ii