The Hawaiian gazette., 1874-12-23

I
very slow to punish or that he had other oil
heavier penalties for me, why was never struck
dead at the moment for that gross act Of cruelty
1 only know that allowed him to 90 away and
that dimly saw his tattered rags disappear
against the white snow up the h.road leading
to Holdaue. which place, must do myself the
justice to say, that had at the moment no doubt
Of his reaching, the hour being so early.
My step-mother entered the house. as the man
moved away, aud followed her in moment
he had scarcely been gone ten minutes when she
said, looking at me in her own kind, troubled
way
Richard, wonder whether We did quite right
in not letting the poor old man stays Who
knows what may happen to hini"
"Pshaw y l answered, think Of your beds
and remember you do not keep an inn! He will
get along all well enough; aud the roads are al
ways full Of such fellows with pitiful STORIES"
All, well, suppose so; but it is very cold,
Richard, to be out-very cOld-I wish your father
was home"
She said nothing more on the subject, and l
was glad that she did not, for the double reason
that she did not wake my sleeping conscience, Us
she might have done, and that l was thus enabled
to fall away into one of my cherished waking
dreams, in vhich l was bathing myself 10 the
light and warmth Of great FIRE. all the joyful
events 10 the next evening-Milly in bridal
white, with her face all bushes of love for me !;
an hundred friends around US, all happy because
We were so and myself arrived at that summit
of happiness on which the crown of king, with
no Milly to bind it on the brow. would have been
an insult. | had dreamed such dreams a thousand
times beiOre-at night in my lonely room-by
day, 10 my Office, if left alone ana u silence for
few moments-under the stars, when each SEEM
ed sending down some benson on my love but
never before SO fondly or wildly as the night
when the near approach Of my Hocss gave color
to some intensity of expectation.
My father fulfilled my mothers wish in brief
periOd-perhaps half an hourly returning. the
snow cruuching hard under the wheels aud his
breath frozen to great iccles in his beard He
came in 10 the FIRE. while Que OF the men led
away bis horse. My mother was evidently i'll at
ease, for she spoke to him on the one subject
uppermost in her mind. almost the moment that
he was seated. She told him what had been said
and done, quite as little as myself expecting what
was to follow.
am ashamed that | have one of you for
wife and the other for son :" he exclaimed. in.
dignantly, when he knew the whole. ALLOW an
old man, in poor Clothes to go away from the
door on such night as this Why. have heard |
OF two men aud a woman found frozen to death |
IN different places to-day! l am ashamed of you |
both ! Here, give me my hat again, and will
freeze the remainder of me in looking for him.
before such disgrace shall fall on the house of
Robert Mowy /"
20 Robert, did not think" nv stepmother
began, bat cut her short by taking the blame
that belonged to me, and springing from any seat.
My fathers words, Heaven-directed had opened
my eyes to the enOrmity of the wrong aud in
one moment had began to fear the worst.
Z" No, father l said. Il see now how cruel
We have been. No, for l did the act. Sit
where you are. | will follow the poor old man
all the way to Holdane, and help him if anything
has happened"
Well, go, answered my father. resuming his
seat " You are right new if you were wrong
before. Look for him. Stop, take one of the
men with you; and whatever you do. when you
ind him. bHng him back hers-uERE, trlsrs he
,elongs!'
bad scarcely ever heard my father speak so
leterminedly ; and certainly within fifteen min.
ties my ardent temperament had leaped to as
much suffering on the poor old mans behalf as 1
isd only ten minutes before enjoyed of prospec- /
i've happiness. Oh. father in Heaven! !" al ,
most mOaned, " to think of my expecting to be ,
o happy in having all that love 10 the world
I'd then turning poor old man away from the
DOR TO freeze and die on the public road !" l
ould scarcely wait until one of the men had r
quiPped himself to accompany me. and provided '
imself with lantern, for what horrible purpose 4
f close inspection neither of US cared to think.
1t was at nine when We left the house, and /
hree IN the morning when We returned to it. 5
uch intense cold had never before experienced q
I'd have scarcely ever since felt its equal. Iron
ands seemed drawn around our brows; the AZ
reaih froze on our lips our hands and feet greE II
mps of ice, as up and down, first one road and Z
len another, We tramped and struggled. slipped O
I'd slid our terrible way. All the way to Hol- p
lne and back the other road, nearly the whole b
stance side-rOad after side-road, wherever trav
was possible or human track showed itself to
lie light of the lantern. Not clap-pit that we
d not explore. not a dark object that We did
1t visit with fear and dawnlng horror" -
have said that hands and feet were ice but d,
, brain was burning FIRE. can only remember D
chaos of selfaecusatiOn and abject horror of ID
yself, rather diminished than increased by CON-
g upon the object Of our search at what after. sc
nd proved to have been past two in the morn te
2. We found him under lee of the woods. in 81
bit of side-rOad. halfway up the bill to Hol- cb
ne. seated at the foot OF a tree his thin rags ~;
avn close around bis chest and throat. where 20
e hands had stitened that held them-dead : ba
me dead and cold. almost as cold as the III
yht and our pity
Heaven would have been very merciful if that te
been the Torst-onfv a man rnnrda,a5 r., / 10