The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-02-12


And why should they not love, these
two? Does not love rule the court. the
camp, the grove? Are rivers and ships
upon their boSomS outside its wide do
main? And is month too short time
for Dan Cupid, whose bow is ever ready,
and whose arrow so often wounds but to
bless, to do his work in?
| When the ship has reached the sea, the
| gale is at its height. 1t is a typhoon,
and the Dolphin will not venture out
till it ia oter. Time hangs heavy on
| hand while thle gaze is exhausting itself,
and the captain grants shore-leave to
| those of the men whom he can trust,
now that blue-Peter is flying. 1t was
then that the boat in which Hartcll and
Blinkey were going ashore was upset,
and Blinkey, with her kriss, while in the.
wave, killed the sharl. that would have
devoured her lover. Her brare deed
was seen from the ship, and she was re-
ceived with deafen:ng cheers when she
was brought on deck by the reseuing
| crew. Who could separate the pair after
this And good Capt. Taylor officiated
as priest at the wedding, which was
held ON the quarterback, and at which
every hand on board was present, save
and except Jack Garrow, as they had
christened Portuguese sailor who
| joined the ship at Singapore, who sulked
and skulked in the forecastle during the
! ceremony.
The ship arrived at London, and
Charley Hartell and Blinkey go to live
with Il relative in Houndsditch, where
he finds employment in his craft and
| settles down, the successor at length OF
his friend, who, in his turn, goes to sea.
| They are thrifty and prudent; and when
bouncing boy, the image of his father,
with the complexion of his mother,
makes his appearance, they seem to have
| nothing left to wish for. But one sad
| evening, when the baby is three months
| old, Charley comes home with face of
deadly pallor, and is assisted, by the
| policeman who brought him, to his bed
for Blinkey has but just gone out for a
| few minutes OH some household errand.
| \ surgeon was sent for, and is at the
| bedside when Blinkey returns. One
| glance is enough Charley is wounded.
Her heart is rent with agony, but she
makes no cutlery, nor fiints away. The
| surgeon examines the injury, and, though
| he speaks gravely, he bids her not de-
spair. Jack Garrow's knife has indeed
pierced him in his back, but he may yet
| recover. Professional skill is supple
mented by the tcnderest nursing, and
Hartell still languishes; but no external
weakness betrays the fears of his devoted
wife, who prosecutes her labor of love
with unwearied assiduity and apparent
cheerfulness. She had just performed
some usual duty i'll the alienation of
her husbands sufferings, one evening
| during the second week of his illness,
when she hears call at the door, which
see hastens down to answer. On her re-
turn to the sick room she is Mortified at
seeing the figure of a man, whom she in
simultaneously recognizes as Garrow, re-
treating rapidly, though noiselessly,
through the open window. To seize her
kriss and pursue the murderer, is the
work of but a moment. She overtakes
him as he is about to descend ladder
placed against the Roof of the penthouse
over which he had gained access to the
apartment. Sailor-fashion he must go
down the ladder backwards; but, before
he has quite disappeared beneath the
edge of the sloping roof, she has over
| taken him and drawn the kriss with I'M
flinching nerve across his face. But he
has already the start, and makes his es-
cape good in the darkness, which is now
| complete.
I could not, if 1 would, paint poor
Blinkey's anguish on re-entering the
| chamber This time the knife of Gar
row had drained his cup of jealousy and
| vengeance to the very dregs, and Blinkey
was widow. With what admirable for
afiliction, and struggled under the sever
ity of her fate, the reader must be left
to conjecture, for space is growing short.
| Would to heaven that | had not to record
the death, SO soon after, of her child.
Before the first year of Blinkey's
double bereavement had described its
circle, that dread scourge, the Asiatic
cholera, had broken out in London; and
hers was the neighborhood in which its
ravages were most severely felt.
Let us suppose an irregular, five
| sided figure, of which the boundaries
shall lie the Hackney and Cambridge
roads, Bishopgate street, Hounds-ditch
and Whitechapel. Here we have an area
which. at the time, assumed the proper
ton of about one-thirtieth part of Lon
don, while the population amounted to
one-eighth. In so crowded locality it
must be supposed that epidemic diseases
are always present with the inhabitants,
| in some form or other. A fever pro-
duces very much such an effect in place
like this as round-shot would do upon
IL close column of fToops-a score are
stricken down where only one would
have fallen had the column been in open
order.
| Passing through the streets ut this
time, and observing the general closing of
the houses and shops, a stranger might
well have imagined that a great public
calamity he'd occurred, in the death of
some one held in high estimation, and
that an imposing funeral cortegc would
present itself to view, if on inquiry he
was not informed that every house habits
own separate cause of mourning. He
would have found, too, that not less
than six hundred interments day were
the average number for the seven or
ing unenclosed i'll the ncghborhood
Trooping on from early morning till late
at night, hcarsc and mute, and plume,