Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1858-11-16
MisrGllanp.
THE NEW SOUL OF
j O H N M A r K H A M


Fifteen years had rolled away since l
stood in the market place Of the city of
Hartford. left it when the turf was
green, and the thrushes were making mu-
sic on the elms; the turf was green, and
the birds were singing then. l saw
staid man in black go by, gravely smiling
to the children and kraw he was the
settled clergyman, but not the one left
there. There were countrymen standing
by their carts in the market; women chat
fering with penny worth purchasers in the
stalls carriages 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 differences
in 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 prosperity-ii he
will go back to the old place, let HIM re-
member that 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 a man has spent his absence
as have mine-for had not been on the
Continent, listening now to Rose Cherie,
now to Thalberg, now to the cathedral ca
dences of Volimo; where the floods break
from his resounding lips under the ever
blue arch of resoundlng sky. had not
been waited to the upper cataracts, bathed
=. Al. &c thot oh 1,,la
the old world Memphis gallants-which
lulls the Howadji nov; l had not been liy-
ing with friends who, shoulder to shoulder,
worked with me hopefully in the daytime,
or welcomed me at night to- aglowing hearth
in a room where my children sat upon my
knee, where the rosy fre-light danced with
the shadows on the wall, where women
beloved hushed down the business echoes
of my heart with rich, old ballad in a
soft young voice.
l do not often call up these fifteen years,
for they are melancholy addening ghosts.
But when do, the music with which they
stalk into my thoughts is such as THE, a
monotonous sound of hammers-clink,
clirk, clink--always in the same measure,
and broken only by the fall of stone frag-
ments!.a heavy clank of iron doors mer-
cilessly shut in reverberating corridors,
with nothing but my own impulse coming
afterward; for I spent my fifteen years in
prison! -aa. 3. sssa-.1
Do you ask how came there? The
story is not long one. 1 was junior
partner in the banking house of my elder
brother near Hartford. One evening abou
nine o'clock, as was leaving the steps o.
my lodging, heavy hand fell upon my
shoulder, and turned to see a Sheriff.
officer, with his assistant, standing closely
by me. On the opposite side Of the stree
the lights shown merily from the window
of the woman / loved, / WAS on my wa,
to answer my invitation, and I felt, a
every true man feels on such an errand
gentle towards all humanity. So did no
roughly push aside the interloper's hand
as ordinarily would have done, but qui
etly 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 loos
so completely, in fearful dream, the self
possession on which he would steady him
self, that he can no longer say, "Tis onl
a dream." but begins to EnOsO that it is &C
tual, will realize how the awful truth brok
on me in An instant as the officer an
] swered:-
: THAT won't dol you are John MARKHAM
: Of Hartford. In the name of the Com
monwealth arrest you for forgery"
just then on the opposite side of tn
street, the curtain went down at the lighte
window, and knowing in my soul that
dropped forever between me and the on
!. being who in her hands held all things 70
. Which lived, felta quick, cold shudde
: of agony run through me, and my knee
smote together like towards. said n
more but went with my captor. =
The first night in Jail Ah, that wa
: terrible! The clammy echojng stones q
q ~ n -. -. ,,I,;,L I ,,aocd ~ .ho a. u