Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1858-03-05
THE NEW SOUL OF JOHN MARKHAM.
rr THE AUTHOR OF 1.-THE aAsnEKsH EATERS u

sY THE AUTHOR OF 1.-THE aAsHEEsH EATERS"
Fifteen years had rolled away siuce
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. l saw
a staid man in black go by, gravely smil-
ing to the children, and knew he was the
settled clergyman, but not the one left
there. There were countrymen standing
by their carts in the market women
ehaffering with pennyworth purchasers
in the stalls carriages driving into the
street, filed with ladies on an airing,
from the watering-place near by; old
men and young men, women and girls
the manner of life was even as when l
left it the forms, the faces of that once
familiar life were forever gone.
All fifteen years make great differ
rnces in returning man. Wherever he
may nave passed them-in home as
,bserful as the one abandoned, amidst
he caresses of the beloved, surrounded
bvpeasant prospects, fondled by pros
p1ty-if he will go back to the old
aace, let him remember that chilly pain
IN the heart awaits for him there, when
he shall see how trees and houses and the
very street-stone stay, but the living pass
and are forgotten.
But when aman has spent his absence
as | spent mine-for had not been on
the Continent, listening now to Rose
Cherie, now to Thalberg, now to the
cathadrel cadences of Velino, where the
flood breaks from his resounding lips un'
der the ever-blue arch of the Italian sky
had not been waited to the Upper Cat
araets, bathed in the nepenthe of that al!
which lulled the old world Memphis gal
lants-whch lulls the Howadji now;
had not been living with friends who
shoulder to shoulder, worked with mt
hopefully in the daytime, or welcomed
me. at night to glowing household
hearth in a room where my children sa
upon my knee, where the rosy fre-ligh
danced with the shadows on the wall
where a woman beloved hushed down tn
business echoes in my heart with a ricl
old ballad in a soft young voice
lido not often call up those fifteen year:
for they are melancholy, maddenini
ghosts. But when l do, the music witt
which they stalk into my thought is sue
as this. A monotonous sound OF ham
mers-clink, clink, clink-always in tn
same measure, and broken only by tn
fall of stone fragments heavy clan
OF iron doors mercilessly shut in reveI
berating corridors, with nothing but m
owne pulse, coming afterward; for
spent my fifteen years in prison.
Do you ask how l came there {! Th
story is not long. one. l was juno
partner in the banking house of my eide
brother near Hartford. One evenin!
about nine o'clock, as l was leaving tn
steps of my lodging, heavy hand fe
upon my shoulder, and turned to see
sheriff's officer, with his assistant, stanC
ing close by me. On the opposite sic
of the street the lights shone merri
from the window of the woman love
Twas on my way to answer their invit
tior, and felt, as every true man feels
such an errand, gentle toward all h
manity. So / did not roughly pu'
aside the interloper's hand, as ordinari
l would have done, but quietly NOV
out from under it, and said, MY ma
there is some mistake here. You ha
taken the wrong person.
Any one who knows what it is to lc
so completely, in fearful dream, t
selfpossession on which he would stea
himself that he can no longer say II
is only a dream, but begins to knO'0 ii
it is actual, will realize how the awt
truth broke on me in an instant, as t
officer answered,
That won't do; you are John MAJ
ham, of Hartford. In the name Of
Commonwealth arrest you for forge
Just then on the opposite side of
street the curtain went down at the lig
ed window, and knowing in my soul Il
it dropped forever between me and
one being who in her held all things
which lived, / felt a quick cold shl
der of agony run through me, and
knees smote together like towards
said no more, but went with my c.
tor.
The first night in jail Ah, that '
terrible The clammy, echoing sto
Of the floor over which paced in
darkness did not hurt me in their ha