The Osceola times., 1882-08-12


Baden-Baden. For the entire season hs
had taken that same place at noon, and
siolidly lost or won till five or six in the
afternoon every day. Sometimes his luck
was good, and he gained enormous sums
at other times fate frowned, and his loss
es were equally as startling.
II made not particle of difference tc
/ him how his luck ran, however. He saw
the croupier's shovel pass out shining
cargo, or his rake remove a ylitterine
winrow of louis-d'ors with the same vac.
ant expression and apathetic mien. He
was seeking excitement, poor fellow but
neither the fiuctuating changes Of roulette
and rouge-et-noir, nor the goblets ofbran-
by that the walters brought to him from
/ time to time seemed to satisfy his crav-
| ing. Simply, whenever the croupier's
rake or shovel diminished or increased
his pile of rouleaux, he finished his brandy
at a draught, and made fresh investments.
Such horrible life could not long con-
tinue without giving external evidences
of its results. Baston gradually grew thin,
pallid, dry and mortuary in complexion
and feature. His hair and moustache be-
gan to be visibly sprinkled with gray.
His nose and chin sharpened, his hands
grew tremulous, great wrinkles appeared
about his eyes and cheeks, and under
meath the former the skin assumed a dull
lead colored look. In word, the deca-
dence of life, falling upon his soul, affect
ed his body, and, though only two-and-
thirty, he bore more marks of age than a
healthy man should at the age of two-and-
fifty.
The brandy that he took, nevertheless
did its work upon his physical system.
The point of his nose became liyid, and
minute purple veins meandered just be-
meath the surface of the skin. His eyes
lost the humidity that gives those organs
their brightness and glitter. Always
clean shaven and scrupulously elegant in
his attire, he still had the air Of descen-
ding man, going swiftly and surely to a
ruin worse than death.
After play, he dined-almost always
alone-in the restaurant of the Converse
ton Haus, and in the evening he loitered
about the lobbies of the theatres. Altho'
as have said, everybody knew him, it
was rather to avoid than seek his compa-
ny. This, however, produced no more
effect upon his spirits than any other out
ward circumstance. Having no belief in
or love for humanity, human sympathy
was as much matter of indifference as
human hate.
This extraordinary and fearfully alb
normal condition is, happily, rare. Few
spirits are so organized as to suffer a
blight which may be termed, perhaps, a
spiritual death, except through longer and
more persistent agony than most men
have to undergo.
Of ha
kind. He had placed his whole life in
one passion, and saw everything through
the medium of that passion. Hence,
when cruel desillusionne, he decided at
once that all women were like Maggie
Lowell. To flippant nature, such dis
enchantment seems impossible; but only
because the thoroughness of the enchant-
ment seems equally so.
With less evenly balanced intellect,
Baston would undoubtedly have taken
his own life; but where the souls vitality
is already gone, there is little temptation
to self murder. So he lived on, mechan-
ically, and his :weary hours were only
marked by the evil and unwholesome
incidents of the gambling tables.
A heavy, dun fog lay upon the bosom
of the Hudson, yelling the shores from
sight, and making the vessels that lay
motionless in the stream look ghostly
and distorted. The sounds of the city,
and the noise of sailors at work, came
confusedly and indistinctly over the wa
ter The swift, smooth tide flowed down
past the piers and slips where deep dark
currents eddied around among the spiles,
bearing fragments of drift,-straw, wood,
bottles and other buoyant rubbish-that
went bobbing about in circles for awhile,
until, gaining the stream, they hurried,
fast and silent, down the river to the bay,
and out toward the broad ocean.
A light breeze occasionally waited the
heavy mist hither and thither, disclosing
for moment the gray sail of a schooner
or the high, black hulk of frigate,
which faded away again on the instant,
like the phantom ships of old nautical
traditions.
From the western shore of the harbor
the muflled and distant sound of oars rat
ting in the row locks and splashing in
the water, indicated the course of row
boat.
An old and dilapidated seine skiff rusty
worn by rough usage, crept slowly out
from Communipaw and threaded its way
among the countless stakes of the shad
nets that bristle above the surface of that
portion of the bay. 1t was rowed by
father and son, lanky, tow headed, brown
faced men, with hairy arms and hands,
and misshapen from constant pulling at
oars and net ropes. Rough of manner,
uncouth of gesture, low of ambition, and
slow of comprehension, these fishermen,
nevertheless, had a full share Of natural
kindness of heart and human sympathy
that characterize the humble everywhere.
They worked together in storm and in
shine, and shared their gains and their
bread, without the chickering's that so
frequently mar the relations between
more cultivated men.
Rowing from stake to stake, they
hitched up the net, ring by ring, and as
soon as a fish appeared above water,
hanging by its gills in the wide meshes,
removed it and placed it in a bed of eel
grass on the bottom of the boat.
"Tauten up that line little more,
Jenny" said the father, in a rough, but
good-humored voice, "the net says here"
"Hold on by that stake, then, till get
for'ard. Seems to me its darned heavy
this mornin'"
Cant you hist it? Here, 81 me holt
onto it,"
Jenny had, in fact, been pulling with
all his strength of thew and sinew to
raise the net where it sagged down by the
stake, but in vain. His fathers strong
arm was brought to bear also, and after
a tug or two and "Now then p the net
heran To arise hut slowly and heaY-