The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1875-11-03
WHOLE NO. 1867

Oi an unframed ueaTL- W In MN Il
was a vagary; with her it was life
I The Sunday conference brought NJ
satisfaction, and sleep found her poo
pillow always wet; but like the Mary
Wilson of colonial days, she clung tC
the man who had done her heart the
greatest wrong.
y Night now fell earlier. 1t was darS
when she took her place to intercept
Joe on his way to the mill; so dars
that her tall figure was not distin.
guishable from th- gateway agains;
which she leaned waiting. For days
she had not met her lover, and the
thought had forced itself more strong
ly upon her that she was summed.
As she stood straining her ewes in
to the blackness that bid everything
footsteps approached. The new com
ers were two, and they stopped as il
for farewell so near to Mary that shs
held her breath to avoid discovery
Good by!" spoke Joe's voice from
out the deep shadow that concealed
all surrounding objects. Meet me
at the same place tomorrow"
Mary elung to the railway, listen
log for the answer. 1t came, in tones
only too familiar:
Good by, Joe. Don't forget any
thing you have promised me You
are a forgetful fellow, and | don't be-
live you care half as much for me as
you Pretend Here there was a
sound Of physical protest on Joe's
part, with suppressed laughter from
the girl. "Do go alOngl That's
enough for to night"
Mary sunk to the ground with a
moan, as her lover walked through
the gate and Aggie tripped off to-
ward the town She lay there, daz-
ed by the sudden revelation, until the
cold wind that blew away the clouds
from the face of the stars had chilled
her poorly clad form. Her heart
was frozen, too, and she arose hating
and yearning for revenge against the
lover who had cast her of, and the
friend who had robbed her of her
lover even while accepting her sacri-
Gee of comfort. She would no more
of it.
The Indian spirit that had slumber-
ed fOr generations now asserted its
immortality and claimed full posses
sion. Her ancestral brave planned
the massacre of the Ashton colOnists
with no more bitter cruelty than this
metamOrphOsed factory girl plotted
with herself against the two PERSONS
for whom an hour before she would
have given up life itself. She arose
from the frozen ground, transformed
as if by the evil influence latent in
the blood of her race. If it had wait
ed long and quietly for this opportu-
nifty, it now boldly asserted it's do
minion. 1t might have been an i'm
placabie Indian that strobe off under
Mary Wilson's faded shawl to her
lodgings. Her thoughts were too
wild for civilized brain for the days
of looms and railways.
She pondered through the long
night. "At the same place." be had
said. That place was the other side
Of the deep and slow moving canal
which supplied power for the mill.
They came straight up the path
They must have crossed the foot
bridge together-thus her thoughts
ran-should they ever cross it again?
1t was clear and simple. To move
one end of the plank so that the vi
bration Of body crossing should
dislOdge it from the bank; to watch
the faitbless lover and the false
friend step upon it, and to see them
reel and plunge together into the chill
blackHess belowl
Suddenly as the purpose had form
ed itself in her mind, the details came
with terrible slowness. 1t was as if
the blow that had awakened her
worse nature had stunned instead of
quickening her intelligence The
idea of vengeance had presented IL
self naturally and promptly as she
arose from the ground, on which she
had sunk with no feeling but that of
woe and seli-pity in her heart; and in
place of the rapid suggestions that
had before cOursed through her brain,
and the mingled tears and means that
bad expressed her pain, there was
low one dull and solid impulse pre-
vailing over all else, and working it.
self out by slow, labOrious, ana cruel
methods
The change was hardly thal which
takes place when an insane mania
seizes the mind Mary Wilson was
no N id, as science knows madness.
In her short season Of unconscious
ness a new and strange soul and q
fearful viii seemed to have entered
the vacant brain sRd heart, leaving
the former occupants 10 wander
through infnity with no power over
or claim upon the bodily tenement
that had been stolen from them
Even more despOtie than the posses
sion Of seriptural narrative, the de-
mon that had entered into the poor
girl lett no sense of present deity
to be worshipped or to be sought in
prayer. All was dark and blank but
the one dreadful purpose to which
she was moved with the persistency
Of an implaeable savage impulse.
What was the impulse that drove
her away from her lodgings, away
from the sound of the rafting mill,
aud away from tse village streets
crowded tbTiee day with hastily
passing throng? Could she have
solds Could she have accounted for
those wanderings through the frozen
woods; those hours spent crouehing
under the bank of the rayiBe, where
the rush of the Black river over its
powders drowned all the sounds Of
civilization, and the sighing spruees
shut out every sight. She knew on
" that she hated the faces Of her fel-
low beings, their voices, and their So
ciety, They were nothing to her un-
I'll she had done what she must do,
aud then what would they be-
Thought reached no farther, il she
might be said TO think.
The same power that had impelled
her as in a dream all day. brought