Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1879-10-24


look out upon the world.
Mr.. Fordyce's grandmother had small,
inexpensive black eyes She had deeply
sorrowed and suffered, and here and
there amid her descendants appeared
large dark eyes, with a weight of sorrow
in them-limpid, melting eyes, calcu-
lated in their turn to produce sorrow
and suffering.
Mr.. Fordyce bent those eyes on Meb.
His voice grew tender and gentle. In
his musical generalizing he had alluded
to the power of the human voice to stir
the heart. "You look tired, Mrs.
Wright"
"1 am always tired-lately."
This old friend of the days when she
played the church organ and took les
sons in French and water -colors--he
seemed so well fitted to sympathize with
her.
Two or three bright, irrepressible tears
fell over her cheek. Agitatedly she laid
her hand upon the sofa arm. Mr.. For
dyce's chair was at the end of the sofa.
Very reverentially Mr.. Fordyce bent
over the hand.
"You don't wear the moss agate
now"
81 can't; my fingers have grown so
large-with doing my own work"
Mr.. Fordyce's hand rested for an in
stant on Meb's.
She drew away her hand; but Mr..
Fordyce understood that his sympathy
was not offensive.
After this, constraint slightly stiffened
Meb's manner. They talked of agate
and onyx, opal and jacinth, and all the
secondary stones. Mr.. Fordyce said
design once cut in jacinth was never
obliterated. He was sympathetic and
grave and tender to the very last step
over the front-door threshold. Then he
whisked through the gate and buttoned
up his coat with the comfortable assur-
ance of a man who had successfully en-
acted the part of lady-charmer, his pay
going on all the same.
Meb stepped into an adjacent room to
ascertain by the mirror how her hair
looked and whether the cardinal loops
under her chin were not disarranged.
Gentlemen of Mr.. Fordyce's taste were
not inappreciative of cardinal loops
against background of white illusion.
AS she turned away satisfied, through
half-open door, she saw pair of coarse
boots-h set against the wall, and
toes pointing accusingly outward. Ola
worse looking pair of boots it would be
difficult to conceive-worn in the wet
and dried hard and red, hard wrinkles
above the short instep. A revulsion,
strong as Nemesis seized Meb.
She crcpt into the other room and sat
down alone. What had she said to that
man Fordyce? What liberty of percep-
tion had she accorded and he taken?
What sympathy had she been so deficient
in self-respect as to solicit, and he so
daring as to accordp
She sat down again. The snow had
melted off the circular verbena mounds.
Winn helped her set those borders. He
had always helped her. She covered her
face with her hands, conscious only of
her own ingratitude.
The prolonged whistle of locomotive
ut the station startled her-only a call
for switch.
Meb sat for a few minutes, her face
buried in her palms; then parted her
hands and looked QUITO see soaked
snow stitfening; water-filled foot prints
and wheel-marks growing blue and
chilly; the streets full of returning
Shop-hands. From out the moving
figures one stood within the gate. Or
ton
Orton was employed in very humble
capacity at the office. The company
had habit of falling back upon him
when bad news was to be communi-
Gated.
Meb had strength to open the outer
hall door; then sank back upon the
lower stair.
Don't tell me, Orton, don't! Is he
deadp"
"The Lord help you, Mrs. Wright;
we don't know how bad It's. The Bu-
cephalus is off the track-down Deep
Gully-thirteen carr. down. Thay hadn't
taken him out when the last telegram
came"
Meb clutched her nails into her cold
palms.
Unjust go; has the wrecker startedpn
"Just gone; but Ellis III find an en-
gine to take you up. Perhaps you'd
better not go, though. 1t may be pretty
bad" T. fa.1 -
Mrs. Weir entered, put on Meb's hat
and shawl, drew on her overshoes, sup
ported her to the door and took the key.
Meb grasped Orton's arm, and was
conscious in a dazed sort of way of slip
ping over ice and water to the depot.
The Flyer was just steaming through,
fired up to 60 out on the Riverview
Branch for a few empty cars. 1t was
short work to run her on to the turn
table and come up headed for the Gully.
Superintendent Ellis handed Meb into
the cab. Engineer Babcock nodded,
speechless, and turned to his engine,
pulled out the throttle, struck the bell
-knell-like in the clear air-and the
Flyer shot out across the plain, the plain
with its withered brown mowings,
patches ofdark plowed land, and shallow
pools rejecting the purple twilight.
On now to the Gully! Every racing
rock and three in tbe approach left Meb's
heart beating faster and more suffocat-
ingly.
The Flyer" as she came to stand
still, seemed to shiver through every
heavy driving-wheel, through every pol
ished rod and cylinder.
The stoker, first on the ground,
reoched up to take out Meb.
The moon, not a yard above the east
ern horizon, let fall weird, oblique
light. Two or three engines stood on
the track venting steam. The great
wrecker rose wraith-like. it ropes and
timbers creaking under the strain.
shouts of men-a chain rattling on iron
boards cracking-out on the track a
hand-car bearing something covered by
a rubber blanket; and beside it a
shawled, crouched figure from which
came the Irish wall:
go, Tim, spake to me vance more;
jist vance more, Tim!"
Tim had been Winn's stokcr.
Two little country doctors surgeons,
say-who, in default of anything to be
done for poor Tim, had been sitting on a
bowlder, came toward the "Flyer." +"
WHis wife O-tn Rahnnnk ENo