The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1882-11-30
IN THE HILLS.

IndC OLD AnStlce Gurcell loved ner
nome was not to be wondered at. She
had been born in it, and so had her
mother before her. She had remem-
brance of no other, and it was as much
a part of her existence as the sky and
air. 1t would have seemed no stranger
to her to be without coping of blue
sky than it would to see four different
walls from these about her and to call
them home.
And, certainly, if beauty could give
one reason to love a spot, Anstice had
reason enough. For was not the long,
low stone house perched on crag, so
that it looked like nothing but lichen
on that crag? And did it not overlook
purpling hilltops below and far away,
and elm-fringed intervales, with silver
streams looping and doubling through
them? And was not old Greyhead
towering above her, with all his
woods and precipices and storm-scored
sides, and casting shadow over her /:
and Redcap, taking the sunset fires on
opposite upper heights and greater
peaks, looming blue in the horizon? /?
And did she not know when the
weather was to be fine by the vapors
round great Monasset? And, when
tempests of rain or snow set in, did
she not feel that Monasset and Redcap
and Greyhead stood, like three power
full genii, and shut her in and kept
watch and ward over her and her
grandchildren, in their sad fortunes,
as they had kept it over her ancestors
for generations?
For her only son had been smitten
with strange unrest among these
mOuntains-an unrest new to the Pur-
cells (and he twice a Purcell, since
Anstice had married her cousin land,
, spurred by the fear of poverty, per-
k.haps, and his children's fortune in the
future, should Greta give him chill
Edren, he had gone away to sea, ten
years ago, as if only boundless hori-
IONS, after these imprisoning hills,
could fill his yearning for space. He
had left Margaret his young wife, with
his mother; for, although the P urcell
acres had shrunk with every genera
tion, there was yet pittance which
would support the household till he
could send back or bring back the
riches that ne meant to have. But the
moment when she saw his bright black
eyes flashing through her tears, as he
ran down the rocky path to cross field
and wood, and take the coach, and
turned moment to wave his hand
joyOusly, was the last in which Anstice
had ever seen him. The bark Alba
tross, the owners after a time wrote
her, had gone down, with all on board.
For season, then, it did not seem
TO old AnStice that she lived. The
world was blotted out, the crags and
hills, Greyhead and Redcap and the
rest were not, and she saw only the
gray waste of waters for days and
weeks and months, till she was awak-
ened from her apathy by the sound of a
childs voice in the night, the quick,
amazed cry of newborn baby. OF
one? OF two of them! She rose tot
teringly to her feet, looked about her
in Acknowledgement, then hurriedly
dressed herself, as she had not done for
so long, and went out into another
room. "Greta," she said, "you have
given me back my boy.' And Greta
used to think in after days that An
stice really felt as if the babies were
her own, and she herself was only Il
well-meaning nurse. But she never
grudged the care of her boys to their
grandmother, great as the comfort of
that care was to herself. She knew
what their love of their mother must
needs be; and she used to tell them
that it was because of them, stung to
madness by the thought Of their COM
ing to live the life Of poverty and care
that he saw stretching out to old age,
that her own son had gone away to
come back no more. A woman, this
sweet Greta. who shut her sorrow
up in her own heart, AID never
whispered it except to her babies,
in the watches of the night,
when she would say to them how
beautiful, how bright, how brave a
man their father was how he loved
ler and she had worshiped him how
hey must grow like him and make
laste to be strong and good enough
% take care of their little grand
mother, and let her herself away to
her husband. The only trouble that
Wer came between her and Anstice