The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1865-07-05
MISCELLANY.
JOHN RODMAN.


| For deed he had not done John Rod
man was arrested, tried, found guilty,
and was sentenced to ten years imprison-
ment.
Ten years, beginning at twenty-five
The best years of his life. Circumstan-
tial evidence, which has doomed many a
man, doomed him. That, and false
witness, who took his oath to lie, with
Gods name upon his lips, and his guilty
hand upon Gods holy Bible 1t was a
horrible fate and what was worst of all
no one believed him innocent-friends.
brothers, casual acquaintance, all shook
their heads and said, at was danger
Gus thing to trust wild young man with
so much money"
Only Eva Fay, his young betrothed,
sent him a tiny note, blurred with her
tears, wherein shone these words--bea-
con lights TO that unhappy man on that
dark sea of sorrow.
My darling whatever others think l
will trust and love you until die
Could she have come TO him, could she
have spoken words of hope and tender
ness, with her white hands in his own. he
could have borne his hard fate far better.
But they would not let her enter the pris-
on walls.
WHO could blame them thinking what
they did And she was too young, too
gentle, to resist them by force or strata
gem, So the girl OF sixteen could only
break her heart in silence, and her over
bow beneath the just law which for once
had done injustice.
They parted, and the years rolled on
one after another. In the world strange
changes happened, and there were deaths
and marriages and births Old faces
went, new ones came. Inventions set the
world ablaze. Wars and rumors of wars
shook the earth. In the prison, one mon
otonous routine divided the days, and the
nights were only marked by the exchange
of sun for gas-light.
John Rodman's soul was crushed; con-
sidered felon by all he grew to feel like
one-to shrink from the eyes of honest
men, and have no hope on earth or in
heaven save in those prison walls
Sometimes he said, 'Tea years will
end at last And then he asked himself
For what My lie is wasted. l can
not begin again
And untimely SHOWS fell upon his hair,
and wrinkles drew themselves upon his
brow And when at last the prison door
was opened to let out the poor wronged
man, he felt older than most men do at
fifty. He stood in the world without
cent, or decent clothes, Or any place
TO hide his head; and bowed beneath
the sense of his great wrong and bitter
loss
There came out with him an old thief
one Of his Jail companions-a bald, bold
man, with a spot Of gratitude somewhere
in the midst OF his heart. lie followed
John Rodman and came up to him in a
lonely place, at the bleak corner of a
road, where he had stopped, puzzled, try
ing to collect his thoughts,
I say, what are you going to do he
asked.
Dor said John, gloomily. Earn an
HOIlcsI HHlllp VI uhilS VI sell.
Can't let 'em know you've been in
ther,' said the thief, pointing prison ward
'or you can't do the first; and before you
put your neck in moose, come to our
place. You will find friend there, and
a welcome. You was good to me in
there, and l like you,' and he ended with
an oath.
John Rodman shuddered. He knew
what haunts that man made his home in,
and a horrible dread of himself came oy-
er him. He had been called a thief so
long that it seemed quite possible that the
actual life of one might lie before him.
He grew cold from the heart out.
81 shall earn an honest living some
how said he. 'All l want is bread, and
IA shelter. Goodbye
Goodbye said the thief. Its s.
Alley, if you want to come there, you
may yet"
And they parted-John Rodman tax
ing the road toward New York. ...
His first thought, when he quite under
stood that he was free, was of Eva. Not
that he might woo oil win her after ten
years of disgrace, but only to see her
once and tell her how, through all those
years, he had remembered and worship
ped her. He hardly guessed himself, how
he had changed. The brooding hang
dog look, the thin, bent frame, the un-
kempt locks that blew abont his face
the hat with hole in ID, the RAGGED knees