Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1864-02-05
From Chambers Journal for September, 1868
Sure to Win.
A GOOD oLD-FAsHIoNED ENGLISH
LOVE STORY.
IN rouR oHAprERs.-onAPTER l.

You wish 10 hear Inc old man story
my dear, and how your mother and
first made acquaintance ? Well, if il
will give you pleasure, SO be it. The cir
cumstances are still fresh in my memory
but il l trip, there sits the other partner
in the frm--God bless her comely face
ready to amend the record.
Just thirty years ago, last hilary term,
Colonel Josiah Stark, H.E.i.C.S., C.B.,
~ex-commander of that famous regiment
the Bogglywollah FenciSles, returned
home from India. Age seventeen, he
sailed away. with smiling, ruddy coun-
tenance and gleeful heart; age sixty
seven, he came back, with sallow, war
worn ysage and diseased liver. Truth
compels me to admit that the colonel was
neither prepossessing in appearance nor
amiable in character. Tall, broad-shoul-
dered, and grim, with large, irregular
features, and iron gray hair bristling like
bayonets, he did not strike you, even at
first sight, as a man likely TO do kind
action you felt instinctively that he would
have looked upon it as weakness. Woe
betide the beggar who asked of him an
aims if a man, the colonel growled out
a stern inquiry why a sturdy fellow like
the applicant wasn't at work, or serving
the king. aud ominously twirled his cane /;
if a woman prayed assistance and bread
for starving babes, be held her in con-
versation till a policeman passed, and
gave her in charge for yagrancy.
During his residence in India, Col.
Stark had shaken the pagoda-tree TO
some purpose. Yellow sovereigns, bright
and glittering with the efiigies of the first
gentleman 10 Europe; or pleasant, crisp
papyri, bearing the signature of one Dir.
Abraham Newland, were the fruit he had
gathered. When lhe colonel considered
he had amassed, not enough-no sensible
man ever does-but at any rate sufficient
to live upon in comfort for the rest OF his
days, he turned his thoughts towards
home. One crowning pleasure he re-
served to be still enjoyed, and this con-
sisted in setting up as the great man OF
the neighborhood in which he had been
born.
So Col. Josiah Stark retired from the
service, and returned TO England, bring
ing with him, as appendages of his state
item, one shivering Hindu servant cal
led Johtee Lall, attired in white gar
ments, with a tur0an like unto the hues
of the rainbow; item, one large and hea-
Wy bamboo, brass-tipped, many-knotted,
with whose weight and caliber Johtee
Lall, was painfully familiar, and 'tem'
one red.eyed, handsome white cockatoo,
reported well versed in oriental slang.
Finding, upon his return to Bayfield,,
a pleasant country residence called the
Ferns, about two miles from the town,
the colonel hired the place, furnished II
with the luxuries long residence in the
east had rendered necessaries, and INSTALL
ed himself and his household in this new
abode. Then came a difficulty. The
colonel, after realizing his property in
India, and laying out the plan of cam
paign for his future life, had overlooked
.tne fact, that he must have somebody 70
superintend his household. A weeks i
residence at the Ferns awakened him TO
the necessity. Why did he not engage
housekeeper? you will say. The idea
did just fit across his mind, admit and
with lordIy air he looked down the col
umns of the Times for the article he re-
uuired. As he read, vision uprose be-
fore him Of an elderly female in black,
with sharp nose and vinegar aspect,
who cast in her employers teeth, when
rebuked, the recollection of the dear de-
parted.
Never, no, never in all the years as
we was married. the colonel seemed TO
hear bis housekeeper wall, did my Mr..
Kenspeckle find fault with his victuals
Never would he have allowed anybody
10 saw an 'arsh word to his Harabella.
But alas the dear saint has long been
a hangel in 'eaven, and his poor lone
widder must suffer in peace
To which the colonel caught himself
replying: Oh it, ma'am, and wish
you did,
Or, yet worse, he might engage n
housekeeper with matrimonial views
and the colonel shuddered when be thot
of what terrible catastrophe this would
be. He was rich, single, and elderly
not old; l should think not, indeed
What if the limit of a mans years were
placed at threescere and ten, and be only
wanted three years TO complete that Pc