Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-10-02
BY w. D. WALLACE.
THE NEW SOUL OF JOHN MARKHAM.


THE NEW SOUL OF JOHN MARKHAM.
Fifteen years had rolled away since last I
stood in the market place of the City of Hart
ford left il 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 20 by grave.
ly smiling to the children, and knew be was
the settled clergyman, but not the one left
mere There were countrymen standing by
their carts in the market women chafsrine
with penny.worth purchasers in the stalls !:
carriages driving into the street, filed with
ladies on an airing from the watering places
near oy old men and young men, women and
gnis-the manner Of life was even as when
LEFT 1t; the forms, the faces Of that once famil-
lar ilfe were forever gone.
Oh fifteen years make great differences in a
returning man. Wherever he may have passed
tnem-in home as cheerful as the one aban-
doned, amidst the csresses of the beloved sur
rounded by pleasant prospects, fondled by pros
Pery-f he will go back to the old place, let
him remember that chilly pain in the heart
awaits him there, when be shall see trees and
houses, and the very street stones stay. but the
living pass away and are forgotten.
But when q man has spent his absence as
spent mine-for bad not been on the CONT
nent, listening now to Rose Cherie, now 10
Thalberg, now to the cathedral csdences of
Venmo' where the floods break from his re-
a a
sounding sky; 1 had not been waited to the
upper cataracts, bathed in the nepenthe of that
air which lulled the old world Memphis galIants
when 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 room where my children sat upon
my knee, where the rosy fre-light danced with
the shadows on the wall, where a woman be-
loved hushed down the business echoes in INV
neart with rich old ballad in a soft Young
voice
do not often call up these fifteen years. for
tney are melancholy, maddening ghosts But
when do, the music with which they stalk
into my thoughts Is such as this a mouOtonous
sound OF hsmmers-clink, clink, clink-always
IN the same measure, and broken Only by the
1sIl oil stone fragments, a heavy clank of iron
1oors mercilessly shut in reverberating corri-
dors, with nothing but my own pulse, coming
aiterTard; for l spent my fifteen years in
prison.
Do you ask how / came therel The story is
not long one L was a junior partner in the
banking house Of my elder brother near Hart
ford: One evening, about o'clock, as was
leaving the steps Of my lodging, a heavy hand
fell upon my shoulder, and 1 turned to see a
Sherl1s oficer. with his assistant, standing
close oy me. On the opposite side of the street
the lights shOne merrily from the window of
the woman loved. was ON my way to an
sWer my invitation, and felt, as every true
man feels on such an errand gentle toward
all humanity. So / did not roughly push
aside the interlopers hand, as ordinarily /
would have done, but quietly moved out from
under II, and said, My man, there is some
mistake here. You have taken the wrong per-
SON" P
Any one who knows what it is to loose 20
completely, in a fearful dream, the self-pos-
session on which he would steady himself that
ne can no longer say, - lis only dream - but
begins to EnOD that it is actual. will realize
now the awful truth broke on me in an instant
as the oficer answered.
Inat won I do; you are John Markham of
Hartford. In the name of the Commonwealth
i arrest you for forgery"
Just then on the opposite side of the street,
the curtain went down at the lighted window
and knowing In my soul that il dropped for
ever between me and the one being who in her
held all things for which lived felt a ouick
cold shudder of agony run throug gh me, and NV
knees smote together like a towards. l said
no more, but went with my captor
The hrst night in Jail. Ah, that was terri
Die Inc clammy echOing stones of the floor
over winch L paced in the darkness did not
hurt me In their hardness. The foul coarse
pallet on which at intervals threw myseIf in
my oewlldered WEAKNESS, did not chafs me by
lts CONN narrOwness. was be yond burt from
such things; for in the FIVE minutes between
my lodgings and my cell had become aware
- "iousns 70 position whose sublime
aNiulness could not be equaled by ANYTHING
else on earth. Quicker by far than can write
YET In thls channel had my thought rum
my Drotner, three days ago, gave me Ia pri-
Vate heavy draft to be collected ut another
banking house, drawn in his favor by one of
nls CORES spondents and endorsed by another
Il remember that he looked restless when he
gave II to me; that he hurried from the room
immediately afterward. presented the draft
received the money; the books, which keep,
Dear no account OF it. He forged the paper 1
am the suspected one. 1 have no means of
proving my innocence, unless perhaps. by
proving his guilt. That, most like is i'm posi-
DIE AT any rate, what a terrible step for a
man TO take against his dead mothers only
other child And he has a lovely wife whom
1t would slay. Yet 1 myself havoc God
shut out her image from me II must not ace
it; L shall go mad
In this grove my thoughts rolled back and
forward through the night. Facing this alter.
native l stood till the day of nv triaI-iust
one month. My brother came often TO see me
he laVished tears and embraces upon me he
retained for me the best of counseI-yet he
always seemed like one in a delirium Of a fe-
yer, and ever, just as the turnkey swung back
toe neaVy door TO let him out, he would stop
ior moment, trembling, and with his lips half
opened, rs II about to say something more to
meIthen, without meeting my eye, be would
rush from the cell. Suffering as / was suffar
ing still more, was about TO be from the
consequences Of his sin Il could pity him deep
ly 4 could f0rbear with the COW srdice which
could not confess, for knew how priceless lib
erty must be to a man who, losing it, leaves his
other soul in that most heart broken of all
ldowhood-the widowhOod of a convict's wife.
She whom loved visited me many times-al-
ways bringing me sweet messages in her pres
enee from the birds, and the flowers and the
Tree sky outside always talking with voice
intensely sustained into cheerfulness, Of nv
aequlttal, and restoration to our old hopes /
told her was innocent, and she believed me.
could not tell her who vas guilty.
My trial came on. / need not pain myself
with long recital Of the thronged court the
weary questienings and cross-questionings, the
audible silence of the crowd when the pleas
were made, the moment whose shadow fell upon
me Nnen The foreman sOlemnIy said guilty
tnat other moment when was condemned to
the awful alienage of prison for the fifteen
years to come.
Then parted from home and friends. NV