The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-02-19
he way of holiday until it was promised

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fathers fate had come down to him with
an impressiveneSs which increased Win
his years. But of course it had only
been tradition, after all of the tangible,
actual sorrow of that fatal time and its
results he had known nothing, realized
nothing. Youth, strong health and
commensurate good spirits made him,
notwithstanding his reflective nature, a
happy, CHEEKY fellow, who was bent on
making the most of his holiday now that
it had come. youngsters in similar
circumstances to his own were off with
excursion tickets to the Lands End, and
he arranged to join them.
Very soon the sight of mighty cliffs,
of foaming, thunderous seas, of vast
stretches of bleak Cornish moor, and the
stories of the wild places and all the
legendary lore clinging to that ancient
western land, began TO take possession
of young Ronald, and stir what there
was of the poetic and dreamily imag-
NATIVE in his nature He drank in eag-
erly all descriptions and accounts which
he could get of the lonely districts and
inaccessible solitudes by which he was
surrounded. Rod and line mainly oc-
cupied the attention of his companions,
and, though he was no fisherman HIM
self, he would accompany them for
miles along the moorland streams where
they sought their sport. They met so
little success, however, in their efforts
to catch the willy trout that, like most
novlces, the young men attributed their
failure to the fish, or rather to their alb
sence. The Devonshire rivers, it was
declared, would afford them fairer
opening for their skill; so they harked
back eastward, and found themselves
after while whipping the pools and
rocky channels of the West Dart. They
took up their quarters at the small inn
IN an out-of-the-way hamlet known as
Two Bridges, some eight miles from the
town OF Tavistock, and found the soli-
tude of this unfrequented and almost
mountainous region compensated for by
the better luck which attended their
fishing. Indeed, to Ronald's dreamy
nature the romantic and desolate char
acter of the scenery had an especial
charm, and while his friends were oc-
cupied with their favorite pastime he
would often wander far afield explor-
ing the remotest Businesses of stream
and fell.
The account which he sent home to his
mother of the last Of these solitary ex-
petitions graphically brings this story to
a climax us. - b. 'H
"The day." he wrote, "was still and
cloudy; gray mist hung heavily on all
the highest tops, and crept far down
their sides in graceful, fantastic, ever
changing folds. Such as light move
ment as there was occasionally in the
air-it could not be called wind-carried
the Hghtest sound to and fro with a
wailing sort of echo. The never ceas-
ing rush of the river over its rocky bed
was audible long after l had wandered
away from it, and at intervals the
voices of my two fishermen friends fell
family on the ear. Presently, however,
curve in the way across the hillside
over which was walking shut off all
sound even of voices or running water,
and L experienced keener sense of
loneliness, perhaps, than [ had ever
known. Very rarely, I take it, could
nature have appeared so utterly
motionless; not blade of grass stirred.
There was hush ON everything which
was almost terrifying-fit prelude, it
would seem, as l look back upon it, to
the storm of emotion which was SO soon
to Overwhelm me. Another turn in the
track plunged me, if possible, into vet
deeper silence and solitude. l was on
the verge of a dreay, rugged, bowlder-
strewn valley, in the depth of which
appeared what at first looked like three
large patches of scrubby underwood,
but which on approaching them proved
to be composed of stunted, diminutive
oak and mountain-ash trees, their dead,
bare tops, all spread and flattened out
as evenly as though they had been cut
by some gigantic scythe-which /
guessed to be the mighty, seldom lulling
blast of an all-prevailing wind sweeping
up the hollow. The trees grew amid
massive blocks of granite, covered, as
were the stems, with dense and
overwhelming growth of lichen and
parasitical plants. A yet closer
acquaintance with it showed the spot to
be one of the strangest had ever seen
or dreamt of The gaunt, bleached,
outspreading arms of the trees had some
thing skeleton-like and ghostly in their
aspect; weird demons of the forest they
might be, stunted gnomes struggling
with outstretched misshapen limbs to
free themselves from the superincum-
bent weight of the split and tortuous
rocks which held them fast, earth bound
asiit were, between their clefts and ifs.
sures. A CHASTITY, ghostly, uncanny,
awful spot, indeed, and seen under the
gray gloom of the waning autumn-day,
and in the silence and the mystic soil
tude surrounding it, most impressive.
can not describe the sensations with
which approached the outskirts of this
wood, for despite its forbidding char
acter, 1 felt myself irresistibly drawn
toward it. 1t seemed to exercise on me
facination, spell, which cowed my
will, and while almost curdling nv
blood, yet impelled me forward, knew
not how or why! 1t was spot to flee
from rather than penetrate; it might be
likened to witches trysting- place, the
haunt of evil spirits, of demons, elves
and COLLINS, who all had found en-
bodiment in the shrunken and mis-
shapen trees. ... t........ ...
81 had strolled off on this wandering
and desultory excursion without any
definite purpose, hence came upon this
place purely by accident; but, once there,
and realizing its strange appearance, l
! was nOtwit standing tho faa1ino of ouo