Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1882-12-11
The CurfeW Heroine.

cottage stoop and stood with uncov-
cred head in the clear, sweet-scent-
ed air. He had grown blind and
deaf in the service, but his arm was
as muscular as ever, and he who list
ened this day marked no faltering in
the heavy, metallic throbs of the
great cathedral bell. Old Jasper
had lived through many changes.
He had tolled out his notes of mourn
ing for good Queen Bess, and with
tears scarcely dry, he had rung the
glad tidings of the coronation of
James. Charles /. had been crown
ed, reigned and expiated his weak
ness before all England in Jasper's
time, and now, he who under his
army held all the commonwealth in
the hollow of his hand, ruled as more
than monarch; and still the old man,
with the habit of a long life upon
him, rang his matin and sorrow.
Jasper stood alone now, lifting his
dimmed eyes up to the soft-dappled
sky.
The walls of his memory seemed
so written over-so crossed and re-
crossed by the annals of the life that
had gone before, that there seemed
but little room for anything in the
present. Little thought he that
Cromwells spearman's were camp
ed on the moor beyond the vii
lage-that Cromwell himself rode
with his guardsmen a league a
way; he only knew that the bell that
had been rung in the tower when
William the Conqueror had made
curfew law, had been spared by
Puritan and Roundhead, and that his
arm for sixty years had never failed
him at eventide.
He was moving with slow step to-
ward the gate, when a woman came
hurriedly in from the street and
stood beside him. lovely woman,
but with face so blanched, that it
seemed carved in the whitest of mar
I1o x,-.{h oil .fc liz,
pies. Her great solemn eyes raised
to the aged face in pitiful appeal,
and the lips were forming words that
he could not understand.
''Speak up, lass; | am deaf and
can not hear your clatter." !"
The voice raised, and the hands
clasped and unclasped, and wrung
themselves together, palm and palm.
"For Heavens sake, Jasper, do
not ring the curfew tonight! y
"What, ma ring curfew Ye must
be daft lassie.'
Jasper, for sweet Heavens sake,
for my sake, for one night in all your
long life forget to ring curfew! Fail
this once, and my lover shall live,
whom Cromwell says shall die at cur
few toll. Do you hear? My lover,
Richard Temple. See, Jasper, here
is money to make your old age hap
py. / sold my jewels that Lady
Maud gave me, and the gold shall
be yours for one curfew."
"Would you bribe me, Lily De
We're? Ye're changeling. Ye've
ma the blood of the Plantagenets in
ye're veins, as ye'le mother had.
What, corrupt the bell-ringer under
her Majesty, good Queen Bess? Not
for all the gold Lady Maud could
bring me- What is your lover to
me! Babes have been born and
strong men have died before now at
the ringing of my bell. AVA
AVA"
And out on the village green, with
the shadows of the lindens lengthen-
ing over it, strong man awaited the
curfew to toll his death. He stood
handsome and brave, and tall-tallel
by an inch than the tallest pikeman
who guarded him.
What had he done that he should
die? Little it mattered in those
days, when the sword that the great
| Cromwell welded was so prone tC
fall, what he or others had done
He had been scribe to the late lore
up at the castle, and Lady Maud
forgetting that man must WOO ano
woman wait, had given her heart te
him without the asking, while the
gentle Lily De We're, distant kins
woman and poor companion to her
had, without the seeking, found the
treasures of his true love and helG
them fast. Then he joined the army
and made one of those pious soldiers
whose evil passions had never beer
stirred but by sign or symbol of po
| perry. But a scorned woman's hatred
had reached him even there. Enc.
mics and deep plots had compasse6
him about and conquered him. To
night he was to die.
The beautiful world lay as a vivi6
picture before him. The dark green
wood above the rocky hill where
Robin Hood and his merry men ha6
dwelt; the frowning castle with its
drawbridge and square towers /; the
long stretch of moor with the purple
shadows upon it the green, straigh
walks of the village; the birds over
head, even the daisies at his feet, ht
saw. But, alb +! more wildly thar
all, he saw the great red sun with its
hazy veil lingering above the trees
as though it pitied him with more
than human pity.