The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-12-24
TOLD AT NIGHrFALL.

! Charles livingstone, painter-were sit
| ting IN the studio window of his delight
! full little villa at Frascati, near Rome.
high over the rounded tops of woods
now lurid in the setting sun. Beneath
a leaden sky the gloomy Campagna
| stretched like dead sea, and with It's
far rim cut the disc, a portentous blood
red ball, slowly, slowly sinking.
Gay and I had been old friends and
school-fellows in England. He was
two or three years older than himself,
| but that had made his friendship foI
me all the ten6erer, and mine for
him reverential. Besides, had looked
on Guy as a kind of genial young saint.
i had always felt rather wicked IN his
! company, because he really seemed,
quite naturally, never to do anything
wrong, or to have so much as q wrong
| thought. He would have chosen art as
his profession, knew, had he been
| allowed a voice in the arrangement
| OF his Owe future; but the bill
Ions old father who ruled his destiny
made a civil engineer of him, without
the slightest reference to any possible
fancy or protest of the Lads. Natural
| ~, Ehe did not take kindly to HE work,
| though he buckled to it conscientiously.
! When l came to Italy to study art,
Guy and kept up a pretty brisk cor
respondence for about twelvemonth.
Bat IN my second italian summer his
letters suddenly ceased to arrive. ]
wrote to him in vain hope of answer for
| six months, and then let the CORES
pondence go with sigh,
| easily ascertained that he was alive
and well, but could find out nothing
| else about him that was more reliable
than the gossip retailed out by certain
English military men, who had tapped
! their lazy flight across the sea one win
ter, and perched in Rome. SCOT into
| a scrape about woman, and didn't be-
| have well to her, or something of the
! sort" drawled out one of these amiabIe
! gentlemen. And this was all I could
discover about poor Urquehart.
| But at last / heard from Guy himself
once more. L0l he had inherited a
small fortune from a distant relation
he had thrown civil engineering over
board he was coming to Rome forth.
with to study art in earnest at last and
we must spend the ensuing summer in
Villeggiatura together, eating figs at
! Iusculum. At the time my story be-
| gins, he had been about six weeks in
! Rome, and had already painted one OF
two capital little pictures.
No village in the world drives such
a roaring trade in scandal as grand old
| Rome. You have seen how Uruue-
hart's character went before him, as
| Sir Peter Teazle's stayed behind, for
! the comfort of the community, and
| what mercy it met with. Now, when
| circumstances are served up IN this
mixed way, there are generally certain
| facts which one may trace like pebbles
! through disturbing waves. I felt con-
vinced that I should do so in Urdue-
hart's cPse, if ever II pleased him to
| give me his confidence.
But I could not try to thrust myself
into any chamber of his past not freely
opened to me. 1 could not helL
guessing that there was a shut and
locked door, behind which Iurked the
solution OF a mystery. This mystery
was the great and grievous change in
my friend, not to be accounted for by
the mere lapse Of two or three years.
And this change was all the more re.
markable that it was not always obvi-
| GUS. No two men could he more IN.
like than UrqUehart TO Urquehart in
different moods. 1t seemed to me as il
much had flowed into his heart by some
rent where much good had run ont, but
that the poison had never mixed with
the healthy juice of his life.
On this September evening, as we
sat togo thor, Guy had been mutterine
some very bad sentiments, which would
have grieved me more if I had not at
tributed them in fpart to some unripe
! peaches and the state of his stomach.
Guy" said I, suddenly, GIVE
found key to much that makes people
| gasp and stare at Won 3"
What do vou mean ?" returned he,
rather roughly.
Most persons" I went on, "are
half-angel, half-devil, they say. But
your angel and devil seem to share
their lodging on the most curious terms
OF mutual forbearauce. They seem tc
take you turn and turn about, il
watches, as it were. Your angel never
torments your devil, or interferes with
his mode of enjoying himself, his Wal
pursis nights with his man and YOU
devil, with equal politeness, never in
trudes himself on the angelical PRAYER
meetings. They could not possibly
come IN contact without disturbing the
harmony OF the system but they seen
to agree to differ, like certain polite
married couples"
UrqueEart took his pipe from hi,
mouth, and blew out a long smoke
wreath. Then he leaned head anC
shoulders out of the window, and stareC
far away at the sun, row like a cIot O.
blood on the livid horizon, till ever
that crimson speck was absorbed. Ths1
he brought himself back 10 his former
position IN a corner Of the ricketv ole
sofa, and from that duslky corner spake
You hooked q fine fat fish there
my young friend, with your moral
critical line. Your sagacity really de
serves patting for having snapped III
such good head of game. Still, yor
don't know how the devil got into me
bow should you? He mad hardly sci
claw on your friend when we were boy.
together, and I rather the better boy O.
the two."
"You may well say that, old fellow
At that time land what little time acc
it is, after all y you really seemed inca
pabie Of evil, or even of COMPREHENSIVE
1t. You trusted everybody implicitly
because you yourself we're"
now listen
So as the night fell, and "the case
ment slowly grew q glimmering square
in the blackuess, Urquehart's tale wa.
told.
fourteen months ago, I was Iodeine
for the summer in q farmhouse in )
village, no matter where. The only
house there belonging to gentlefolks, ex.
cept the wretched old parsonage, was
Squire Ringwood's. 1t was a big.
stupid-lOoking, mansion, OF a hill, star.
ing down overbearingly at the poor little
tenements huddled together below and
the burly squire himself was for all the
world like his house, as he sat on his
tall horse, and looked pompously over
his vast waistcoGt at frightened crew OF
village children. The squire had az
ugly, sickly wife and daughter. and
they had an humble companion thai
was an angel of beauty. Ifell in love
with her at church. Oh, the little
church in the west countrie. hid in the
bOwerv orchard hollow On, the sud.
den delicious gust that Uttered the
graves with blossoms f-your mothers
grave, Charley; has the dear woman
tie violets planted there? or did they
die like the faith and hope she set il
me +? / fell in love with Fanny Vale be
fore knew her name; learned that