Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1858-10-08
Interesting Gale.
THE NEW SOUL OF JOHN MARK.
HAM


Fifteen years had rolled away since
last | stood in the market place of the
City of Hartford. | left it when the
turf was green, and the thrushes were
making music in the elms; the turf was
green, and the birds were singing now.
| saw staid man in black 90 by, grave
ly smiling to the children, and | knew
he was the settled clergyman, but not
the one ] had left there There were
countrymen standing by their carts in
the market; women chaffering with pen
ny worth purchasers in the stalls; car
riages driving into the street, filed with
ladies on an airing from the watering
places near by; old men and young men,
women and girls-the manner Of life
was even as when | left it; the forms,
the faces of that once familiar life were
forever gone.
Oh +! fifteen years make great diifcren-
ccs in a returning man. Wherever he
may have passed them-in home as
cheerful as the one abandoned, amidst
the caresses Of the beloved, surrounded
by pleasant prospects, fondled by pros
perity-if he viii 90 back to the old
place, let him remember that a chilly
pain in the heart awaits him there, when
he shall see trees and houses, and the
very street stones stay, but the living
pass away and are forgotten
But when man has spent his absence
as spent mine-for had not been on
the Continent, listening to Rose Cheric
now to Thalberg, now to the cathedral
cadences of velimO, where the food,
break from his resembling lips under the
ever blue arch of a resounding sky;
had not been waited to the upper cata
racts, bathed in the nepenthe of that all
which lulled the old world Memphis gal
lants-which lulls the Howadji now;
had not been living with friends who
shoulder to shoulder, worked with me
hopefully in the day time, or welcomed
me at night to glowing household hearth
in a room where my children sat upon
my knee, where the rosy fire ght danced
with the shadows on the wall, where a
woman beloved hushed down the bust
ness echoes in my heart with rich old
ballad in soft young voice
| do not often call up those fifteen
years for they are melancholy, madden
ing ghosts. But when do, the music
with which they stalk into my thoughts
is such as this: monotonous sound Of
hammors-clink, clink, clink-always in
the same measure, and broken only by
the fall Of stone fragments, heavy
clank Of iron doors mercilessly shut in
reverberating corridors, with nothing
but my own pulse. coming afterward (;
for spent my fifteen years in prison.
Do you ask how I came there? The
story is not long one. | was q Junior
partner in the banking house Of my cid
er brother near Hartford. One even
ing, about 8 o'clock, as / was leaving
the steps of my lodging, heavy hand
fell upon my shoulder, and | turned to
sec Sheriff's officer, with his assistant,
standing close by me. On the opposite
side Of the street, the lights shore mer-
rily from the window Of the woman
loved. ] was on my way to answer my
invitation, and felt, as every true man
feels on such an errand, gentle toward
all humanity So | did not roughly push
aside the interloper's hand, as ordinarily
/ would have done, but quietly moved
out from under it, and said, my man,
there is some mistake here. You have
taken the wrong person"
Any one who knows what it is TO lose
so completely, in fearful dream, the
self-possession on which be would steady
himself, that he can no longer say, 'tis /
only dream" but begins to hn0p that
it is actual, will realize how the awful
truth broke on me in an instant as the
officer answered.
That won't do, you are John Mark.
ham, Of Hartford. La the nanlo Of the
Commonwealth, | arrest you for for
gerry"
Just then on The opposite side Of the