Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1876-01-26


squire.
His servants told him and he smiled
q quiet smile. "Take her money;
nothing more is needed for such as
she."
She looked down vacantly upon the
preferred money; then she stepped
back few PAGES, and raising her hand
to heaven, called down its
Judgment upon the master of the
house: pleading that the punishment to
which he had doomed her boy might
visit him. And the caressed and tcted
master of this beautiful house, looking
from the window, saw this scene and
smiled.
Five years went on, and still Lindley
Warwick lived his brilliant and luxu-
rious life fattered, admired, and
sought after; committing none of his
fathers sins, only leading his life of
cold and pitiless selfish indulgence.
But when these five years had passed,
he came once Unexpectedly and quite
alone to his London house. He went
out on the morning after his arrival, in
a hired cab, with his face mufhed in a
white silk comforter; and when he had
been closeted for long time with a
famous physician, he returned and
ordered tho house to be locked up
again, as he was going down to the
country.
He came here at once, and-even
before he took off his great coat and
muf1er that was about his face-he
summoned into his presence four old
servants who had lived here through all
his life.
It was to this room they came, and he
stood there on the hearth, his face
turned half away while he talked to
them. They had been surprised
enough at his unexpected and solitary
arrival-he who used to come in state
when every room in the house had.been
prepared for the guests who came with
guests who came with and followed him
but what much greater surprise
awaited them !
He told them that every servant in
the house was to be dismissed except
themselves; that either of them who
objected to this, or would not obey
him to the letter in what he was going
to require, could go at once, before he
spoke further, but if they stayed they
must strictly, and on their oath, OBJ
serve his orders. He told them
there would never again be guests
in the house to require their labor and
attendance; that except their
own premises, only these three rooms
would ever be occupied again. He
told them that from that day he intend
ed never either to see or be seen by man
or woman; and, showing them loaded
pistol with double barrel, told them
one bullet was for anyone who should
dare to intrude or look upon his face,
and the other one for himself, after
wards. In those three rooms, he should
live apart, he said, and he would have
doors which no prying eyes could pen
citrate, and locks no hands but his could
He would give the rest of
his orders in wiring, he said, after the
other servants were dismissed.
So at once began this terrible life of
suffering solitude; and though NO one
ever, from that day, penetrated into the
young squire's presence, and though
he had told his secret to no one, still it
was understood-for the quietness of
the whisper was horror, not Doubt
that slow disease was eating his life
away, and must first of all destroy the
beauty of which he had been SO keenly
and sensitively proud.
Year after year life went On for him
in this awful solitude. Into these rooms
he gathered about him all he could to
make such life bearable and sent for
the choicest pictures in the gallery to
hang about him.
When he rang this bell, the old man
servant found his written orders passed
under that locked door; when he rang
the chamber-bell, the door between the
two rooms was locked, and the curtains
hung heavily between, but that outer
door was open, and the man could ar
range or take away the meals, Through
these meals the young squire had no
attendance), light the lamps or fires,
or what not. When the inner bell
Of all rang, the chamber was at
liberty, and the servant who when about
his tasks FASTENED over them, knowing
that his master sat the while locked. in
that little ante-room beyond. For he
never went from that door down into
the park (though he had it made on
until the whole household