The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-09-01
Thr0ckmOrtOn's Shadow.

News of the death, in Mississippi, has
been received of Major John r. Throck-
morton, of Louisville, q man of leisure
and of style-a bachelor of sixty-fve, a
famous beau of q quarter of century
ago, and the lover of the beautiful Sallie
Ward at the time when the bewitching
Southern girl captured the son of the
Puritan Governor Lawrence, of Massa-
chusetts. When the young bride went
to her New England home Throckmorton
followed. 1t is asserted that jealousy of
Throckmorton, which Mrs. Lawrence
was too proud to resent by explanation,
was in reality the cause which led to
the separation of Lawrence and his
wife. Sallie Ward came back to her
fathers house, and diverse was
granted Lawrence on the ground of de-
sertion. The lady gave no explanation.
Throckmorton still lowered around de-
votedly, but was not rewarded by the
ladys hand. She married DR.. Hunt, and
after his death became the wife of
wealthy pork man named Armstrong.
When this gentleman died it was rumored
that at last Major Throckmorton was to
be blessed for his lifetime devotion, but
the handsome widow drives about in the
finest private turnout the city affords,
and has paid no more attention to the
addresses of the Major than in the days
of her girlhood. The beauty of the
Kentucky belle, Sallie Ward, made her
fame worldwide, and the persistency
with which the Major followed her gave
him certain interest in the eyes of the
multitude, but it was another woman
that held him up to the gaze of mankind
"a woman who Swallowed him more con-
stantly than he haunted the path Of the
famous belle.
ThrockmortOn was pleasing and frlv-
olous man of the world when he first met
the schoolgirl, Ellen Goodwin. He was
about thirty years of age; she was fifteen.
Her family was at least the equal of his,
and to an older sister he had been paying
attention. The girl was impulsive, in
teresting and innocent. He deliberately
set to work to feign love and to gain her
heart. Having gained it, he threw 1t
aside without concern and went his way.
Soon after q yelled figure appeared on
the streets of Louisville-a girlsh form
that moved silently after the man
wherever he went. She never spoke to
him, neither upbraided nor reviled.
When he entered the hotel she stood at
the door; when he emerged FROM the
clubhouse she was waiting. In New
York, in New Orleans, she was at his
side, phantom-like. He jocularly spoke
of her to his friends as his "Hell's De-
light"
u len years passed. Her old friends
decided hercrazy for keeping the thing up.
Fifteen years rolled around, the police
> knew her, they watched her faithfully as
some harmless, demented thing, and
passed her from beat to beat, as she
plowed her way homeward in the wee
sma' hours of the stormy night. No
human ever offered her harm or insult,
although she often stood all night before
the places where her guilty lover was
hidden.
Twenty years were gone; old friends
had died-father, mother, schoolmates.
Her hair had thinned and whitened; her
form stopped, cough sounded hollowly
on the pir, her step was more feeble; yet
none the less it tracked a portly, gray
haired, fashionably attired man from
mansion to mansion on New Years Day,
from theater to club room night after
night.
Twenty three years passed. Even the
little children grew to know the plain,
shabby, black-robed woman, and tiny
fingers pointed at Throckmorton's ghost.
Young girls looked wonderingly after her
% she passed them silently. Wives
sighed or smiled pityingly-they were SO
secure and sheltered-when her garments
brushed their own. Mothers grasped
their girls more closely-suppose this
woman's wrong should be the fate of
their sweet daughters in the days to
come. So, for twenty-three years, the
phantom, silent, certain, logged the be.
trayer's steps. At last friends Of his had
her arrested as q lunatic, and, through
their misguided precaution, the man and
woman were brought face to face in the
court room at Louisville. Then it was
that all the city woke up to the knowl.
edge that this woman was neither crazy
nor fool. Her language was eloquent,
her manner refined, her face firm. The
whole sad story of her life was told-her
vow to follow him until the hour of retri-
button. her persistent Watching, her
silence and revenge. Before the woman
he had wronged Throckmorton quailed,
and his bravado was not equal to the
cross questioning TO which he was ex-
posed. At last, one evening, while was
walking on Jefferson street, near the
court house, great shout assembled |;
cheer after cheer went up. The old
court house rang with applause; men