Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1878-03-15

why am so reSOlute. It's many long
day since, going to school used to meet,
Michael minds her too, Pm sure, an old
post woman they used to call her the
Witch Of. Ballaghton. Stacy was very old,
entirely wisnered and whiteheaded, bent
nearly double with age, and she used to be
ever and always muddling about the
streams and bitches, gathering herbs and
plants, the girls said to work charms with;
Stacy had been well-raised woman, and
knew dale more than any of US. When
not tormented by the children, she was
mighty well spoken and the gentry thought
a dale about her, more than she did about
them; for she'd say there wasn't one in
the country fit to tie her shoes, and tell
them SO, too, if they'd call her anything
but Lady Stacy, which the rale gentry of
the place humored her in, but the up
starts. who think every civil word to an
inferior is a pulling down of their own dig
nifty, would turn up their noses as they
passed her and may be she didn't bless
them for it. One day Mike had gone home
before me, and coming down the back
bohreen, who should see moving along it
but Lady Stacy, and on she came mutter-
ing and mumbling to herself till she got
near nae and as she did. I heard Master Nix
on's hound in full cry and seen him at her
heels and he over the hedge encouraging
the haste to tear her in pieces The dog was
soon up with her, and then she kept him
off as well as she could with her crutch,
cursing the entire time, and l was very
frightened. but darted to her side, and,
with a waffle | pulled out Of the hedge,
did my best to, keep him off her.
''Master Nixon cursed at me with all his
heart, but 1 wasn't to be turned off that
way. Stacy, herself, laid about with her
stick, but the ugly brute would have finis-
he'd her only for me. Well, beat the dog
off, and then 1 had to help the poor, faint
ing woman, for she was both faint and
hurt. l didn't much like bringing her
here, for the people said she wasn't lucky;
however, she needed help, and gave it.
''When got her on the floor I thought a
drop of whiskey would revive her, and ac-
cordingly [ offered her glass. shall
never forget the scorn with which she
dashed it to the ground"
edo you want to poison me, ''she shout
ed, IS 'afther saving my life?'"
"When she came to herself little, she
made me sit down by her side, and fixing
her large, grey eyes upon my face, she kept
working herself backward and forward,
while she spoke, as well as can remem-
ber-what I'll try and tellyou-but can't
tell it as she did-that wouldn't be in
nature:
&c Elem she said, T wasn't always a
poor, lone creature, that every rufian who
walks the country dare set his cur at.
There was full and plenty in my fathers
house, when was young, but before I grew
to woman's estate its walls were bare and
roofless! What made them so? Drink
Whiskey! My father las in debt; to kill
thought he tried to keep himself so he
could not think; he wanted the courage of
man to look his danger in the face and
overcome it; for, Ellen, mind my words,
the man that will look debt and danger in
the face and resolve to overcome them, can
do so. He had not means, he said, to edu-
cate his children as became them, so he
grew not to have the means to find them
or their poor mother the proper necessaries
of life; yet he found the means to keep the
whiskey cask flowing, and to answer the
bailiffs' knock for admission by the loud
roar of drunkenness, mad, as it was wick
ed. They got in at last, in spite of the !
care taken to keep them out, and there
was much fighting, land blood split, but not
to death, and while the riot was afoot, and
we We're crying around the death-bed of
our mother, where was he? They had
raised a ten gallon cask of whiskey on the
table in the parlor, and astride of it sat
my father, fourishing a huge pewter fun
mel in one hand and the black jack, stream
ing with whiskey, in the other; and amid
the fumes of hot punch that flowed in
the room, and the cries and oaths of the |
fighting company his voice was heard
swearing he had lived like king, and he
would die like king
"'And your poor mother?' 1 asked.
sThank God! she died that night. She |
died before worse came; she died in the |
bed that, before her corpse was cold, was
dragged from under her, through the
strong drink, through the madness Of him |
who ought to have saved her. Not that |
he was bad man either, when the whis-
key had no power over him, but he could |
not bear his own reflections. And the end |
soon came. He didn't die like king, but |
he died, smothered in ditch, where he |
fell; he died, and was in the presence of |
Oh! there are things that have |
had whiskey for their beginning and their |
end. that make me as mad as it ever made |
him! The man takes drop, and forgets |
his starving family; the woman takes it,
and forgets she is a mother and wife. |
It's the curse of Ireland-a bitterer, black |
er, deeper curse than ever was put on it by |
foreign power, or hard made laws"
"God bless us!'' was Larry's half breath
ed ejaculation.
Il only repeat ould Stacy's words, ''said
Ellen, ''you see never forget them"
"'You might think she continued,
that 1 had had warning enough to keep
me from having anything to say to those
who were too fond of drink, and I thought
I had; but, somehow, Edward Lambert
got around me with his sweet words, and
was lone and unprotected. I knew he
had little fondness for the drop; but in
him, young, handsome and gay-hearted,
with bright eyes and sunny hair, it did
not seem like the horrid thing, that made
me shed no tear on my fathers grave!
Think of that, young girl; the drink does
not make man a beast at first, but it will
do so before it's done with him. / had