The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1883-06-13
A CRUEL BLOW.


those who should be regarded as
fools, but for some unexplained rea-
son are not. Here is beautiful
and lovely young woman suddenly
deprived of reason just on the eve Of
her marriage to the worthy young
man on whom the blow has also fall
len with crushing force. Two lives
blighted perhaps for ever by an act
that should consign its perpetrator
to a prison and lunatic asylum for
each alternate year of the remainder
of his life"
These remarks related to practi-
cal joke played by reckless and
imprudent young man, one Fred
Losher. the victim of his criminal
folly being his cousin, Florence Per-
cival, whose marriage would have
taken place the next day.
The railway train which was bring.
ing her prospective husband from
his home, three hundred miles away
was behind time about five hours
delayed by a heavy storm, which
had also prostrated the telegraph
lines, so.that no information in re
gard to the cause of the detention
could be obtained.
The train came in at last. howey-
er, all right, and without having sus-
tanned any serious accident. The
bride groom elect, Frank McAllister
alighted from the cars, going first to
the hotel, from whence, in half an
hour, he would have reported him
self at the residence of his betrothed.
That foolish cousin, however. who
had been sent to the station to OBJ
tain the earliest news of the delayed
train, came rushing back to the
house to bring the tidings, but ne
thought it would be capital joke,
as he afterwards said, to give his
cousin at first a good scare.
swell, Florence" he exclaimed,
Frank has been heard from at las.
The trains smashed-forty persons
killed-and he among then" /"
A bewildered, half conscious look
was followed by a fearful scream,
and poor Florence had fallen uncon-
scious.
DR.. Redfeld, the family physician
who chanced to be passing the door,
was Immediately with the patient,
and doing his utmost to arrest the
progress of those terrible convul-
sions, but with scarcely amy sue
cess.
A young brother of Florence was
the only person with her at the
time that startling announcement
was made; but his version of what
had occurred was so clear and posi-
tive that the reckless fellow who was
the author of the mischief did not
attempt to contradict or deny the
boys statement.
Had the life of the dear girl been
suddenly destroyed by the careless
discharge of a pistol, fired by some
one who did not stop to consider in
what direction he was pointing. the
CONSERVATION and sorrow of the fam.
ily could scarcely have been greater
Frank McAllister knelt at the side
of the insensible girl, giving vent ta
his feelings in an agony of grief.
In the meantime, the young block
head by whose criminal folly the
mischief had been done, was dodg
ing around in a dozen directions
telling everybody how very sorry ht
was for what had happened, and
asking each one to tell him what ser
vice he could render.
He subsided, however. and made
himself less prominent, after having
been repeatedly told that his imme
diate departure from the scene of tht
trouble would crafty everyone il
the room.
But the blow that had fallen up
on the heart of the afflicted love
was too severe to permit an imlnedi
ate reaction even in the way of re
sentiment against the author of tn,
trouble. The joyful hope that filled
his whole soul an hour before hae
given place to SORROW that seemed Il
have gone through every nerve Of hi
life.
The terrible shock was followed, a
the doctor predicted it would be, b.
q typhomania. that continued thre
weeks, the patients life in the mean
time, being suspended in balanc
1 which the weight Of a feather Nigh
i turn.
/ At the end of that time the mala
dy began to take q different form.
The cerebral excitement appeare'
Ito have exhausted Its force and to b
passing away, but the light of reasol
did not return. The one terribl
Thought, that her lover had bee
crushed to death, had gone throug
and possessed her whole mind, an
!, there did not seem to be any way {
remove it