The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-07-02
THE SETTLERS TRAGEDY.

LTD NutSl-iOohih
now, amt it It's the best piece OF land
you've seen anywhere in this days
drive, ana that's good deal to say, ana
likewise, it was once the prettiest tarm
along this road. Why, sir, L mind the
time when that porch was all glory with
roses, like 'ouse in hopera bouffe Tor
all the world. An right HIN the front
there, where You see all them docks an
mullen a-growin', that was chock full o.
beds of Lunnun pride, an chinay asters,
an roses, an stocks, an mariRolds, an
sweet mignonette you could smell the
place mile off of summers night. All!
She was fine girl, she was, that lived
up there an terrible story that 'ouse
tells. 1t amt just pleasant to be on the
next lot to it.
Mr.. Wellbeloved, for / had stumbled
in my Canada ramble on person of that
name, thus spoke of Lighthouse and lot
which had attracted my curiosity. On
one of the best stretches of arabic land,
lying well up the gentle swell of the
valley, with good exposure, backed by
fine woodland, was-a singular sight IN
that raw, yet thriving settlement-a
concession which seemed to have
been swept by some spirit of ruin and
decay. The Lighthouse stood, but its
roof was rotten its slight porch had
been shattered or displaced by snow its
windows remained unbroken, but one
could see from the dragging paper
blinds which had once made them gay
with color, that there was no housewife
within TO mend or change things; and
all over the eight or ten acres of land
which had been cleared about the house,
there grew as high as the unremoved
stumps wealth of weed, such
as is only the crop of absolute desertion
and death. BY this place, on one
side, my friend Wellbeloved, at whose
house / had drawn up for many mid
day meal, titled thriving farm; the evil
dence was visible in the roll of ripening
wheat dotted with the disks of the black
ened stumps, and in the cattle that
loitered from the suns heat under the
circle of young naples he had left in a
corner of one of his fields where spring
welled up from among some boulders,
and by the grunt of well-fed pigs which
wandered down the road and cooled their
heated sides in the marshy bottom, where
/ found the road like floating stage
of logs. Moreover there was Mrs. Well
for number nine in the cradle was "the
most bothersome child; that it was, God
bless it, she had ever knew ;" and two or
three fine, strapping boys that came
home to the noontide meal from some
hoeing work at the back of the concession
with an appetite for the pork and corn
that made me enviOus.
! Wellbeloved was Londoner, and had
been in Canada exactly six years. He
was "just turned forty" having married
at twenty, and now possessed graduated
scale of voracious infantry which must
in the metropolis have severely worn his
energies and Mrs. Wellbeloved's patience,
but which, out here, was his most prom
Using source of wealth. The elder boy,
nearly nineteen, had added hundred
acres to the original government conces-
sion, and as the others grew up more
would follow. Already Mr.. Wellbeloved's
house and barns began TO take on an air,
if not of wealth or even comfort, of suf-
ficiency, which, as one looked into his
bronzed face and clear eyes, and listened
to his cherry voice, gave promise that
the time might come when the patriarch
should bless his sons and daughters, and
his sons-in-law, and daughters in-law
looking ont upon n scene of civilized
beauty and fertility, and dividing among
them no mean inheritance. Such scenes
have been witnessed in earlier settle
ments, and in the antecedent district of
Lake Simcoe, along whose cultivated
shores | had travelled to Muskoka; and
such scenes will be remembered over
and over again as the tide of population
laps on and into the forest wilds of
Ontario.
"Wen," / said "what's the story of
that place. 1t seems odd that it should
be deserted like this. Why don't you
take it upl"
"Me, sir No, thankee. I'd not own
a rod O. that soil for its PAWN in gold
No, no ! There's blood on that land
and let some stranger come an wipe it
hout."
He wiped the beads from his forehead
(the day was hot and began:
The man that took hup that conces-
sion was gentleman, leastways, sir, you
know, gentleman by birth. Is father
were Lunnun lawyer, you've card Of
i'm, old Bytheway that used to ave the
big cases at the hold Bailey. The
hold man, he made money an spent it,
an this ere boy he made none,
an spent what is father made. T. were
sent to Heton, then to Hoxford, an
afterward e went where e weren't sent
-leastways not by direction-to the
Devil. The young 'ooman that lived
an died in that 'ouse We're acquainted
with me. Lucy Burridge, that were her
real name, though she were called
Lucinda Burrinda, the helegant
olanseWs'-she were in the corpus dc
bailey at the Varieties Theayter in the
Strand, / dessay you know hit! = = y
Yesl Well, sir, were scene-shifter in
that theayter for seven years, an five
years afore that at Dru1y Lane. L could
tell you some queer stories If you
want to know somethin' Of life, YOU get
up in the wings night after night, and
watch the stage, you'll see somethin' of
the bad han the good o. 'uman nature.
, Why, sir, I've seen cruelty, an wicked
ness, an jealousy, an revenge, an kind
ness, an forgiveness, an charity, played
far more real behind the canvas scenes
were a-shiftin than it were on the stage
or before IT, One NIGHT I SOC n vo,,no