The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-04-21
The Dead Mans Bell.

surgery bell.
'SWorse than any child said I. az
3 never heard such a bell; it doesn't ring,
it tolls" 1t might have been knell,
such was its solemn, deep-toned clangor.
"Why on earth don't you change it for
something more professional? It's
enough to brighten your patients into
fits" E
I'll tell you when I come back, he re-
piled, and Tom Morley went 20 the sur
gerry to see what was wanted.
l had taken Crawford on my way in a
Tourney to Exeter, because l knew Tom
Morley, who had recently come into
some considerable property in that little
town where he was practising as sur
geon, and because there was some queer
circumstances connected with his settle
ment in Crawford, of which wished to
learn the particulars; and he was such
bad correspondent, it was no good
writing to him. His house was very
old fashioned one. 1t stood askew in a
crooked street of a crooked town, and
every room seemed arranged cornerwise,
as to consist of beams, and angles, and re-
! cesses. s# aE
"Well," said Tom Morley, returning to
! f. now about the bell Why don't
change it for more musical one? Be-
cause / owe nearly all have to that bell.
Come and look at it." 30
/ followed him up stairs, and along a
winding dark passage on the first floor,
till we came to it, q large and heavy iron
bell covered with cobwebs, remarkable
for nothing, to my mind, but its size and
it's hideous noisiness. Tom set it swing
Iirg till it produced a deafening peal so
that my head ached. ad o ~
"There." said he, with evident relish
for the horrid noise. sas long as have q
surgery, hope that will ALWAYS be my
surgery bell It has been the unconscious
: instrument of furnishing crime. of aveng-
ing the dead, and of causing justice to
ibe done the living" aaaa
We came down stairs again, and when
comfortably seated bv the firesida, Tom
Morley told me the story ~
You must know that this poky little
house, and that big gahled barn next to
it on the right hand side, which is snffi-
GENTLY assuming TO be dlgnified with the
title of " edifee" once upon time form
cd one house--one great crooked bit OF
unsiehtliness that might have been built
during an earthquake by a Manx archl-
tect 1t could not have been crookeder.
The then owner of the place used to live
in the large house, whilst his butler and
the hutler's wife (the owners hnusekeep-
err Inhabited the smaller one in which
we are now sitting, At that time the
great house was fine one in it's way,
well furnished. and we'll kept up but
o,r Nrhi
need not mention) the property came
into my fathers possession, n ar twenty
wears ago, he made two houses of it,
lived in the big one himself, and let the
little one.
Il My father, Mr.. Isaac Morley, was called
a bad landlord; he seldom had a tenant
stay in the smaller house long; in fact,
hi allowed it to go almost t, wreck and
ruin for want of the necessary external
repairs; but then he suffered the large
Q house, which he inhabited himself. to
7 fall into simailar state of decay. It was
J. not that he was poor man, but because
J he had morbid dislike to part with his
> money Some people called my father a
y miser; if having money in his own house,
O and gloa ing over it with some degree of
9 satisfaction, make person miser, peo-
u Iple were justified in calling him one.
But he was not a miser in the ordinary
e sense Of the term. His boarding at home
e had grown ont Of misfortune which
# nearly ruined him in early life; local
d bank in which much of his money was
deposited had failed; and from that time
e he said (foolishly, no doubt he would
never trust another AS to his gloating
2. lover his money, that is little, after all
e because it is just as miserly to gloat over
q a balance in bankers book as over a
o. heap of gold and notes in cash-box
g Bat my father differed from the mise1
If genus more especially in this particular
# he never pinched or stinted himself fol
. the sake of his cash box / do not say
this difference was much in his favor
but he was my father, and, though he
se was strange man in many things,
tie should be sorry to say the contrary
to He married late in life; my mother
lived only two years with him, and dice
IN giving me birth. My father took
ID strange and unreasonable dislike to me
!, as being, in some sense, the cause of my
- mothers DEATH 1t worried HIM to think
:. about his loss when he saw me, and al
le the sight Of me reminded him of that,
b. was sent away to be brought up with m,
mothers sisters children. The quarterly
re payments my father RENTED for ny
er board and education were a substantial
:" help to my aunt. had -comiortabl,
:. home, and, though saw little of m,
AZ father, we were never on unfriendly
IL terms. In due time he consulted my
wishes about my future life, apprenticec
t me to a surgeon, and paid the necessar,
n expenses for my studies.
p Folks in Crawford were divided il
ID opinion as to whether Isaac Morley real
IL Uas rich and rniserlv ar only moor anl