The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-10-20
Select Storg.
WYLDER'S ROCK.

WYLDER'S ROCK.
1t had been long and tedious litigation.
The Wylders had literally fought every
inch of the way, spent all they possessed
in contesting the suit, and lost it at last.
Philip Searle had spent good deal, too,
but then he was money-king-rolled in
gold, in vulgar pariance- he had won,
which meant more money, as he very well
knew, when he produced from amid some
musty old papers that uncanceled mortgage
of which he had known for years, but
never thought of pushing till he discovered
that the barren and hitherto considered
worthless acres of the Wylders Rock prop
erty rested on a stratum of solid wealth;
in short. were on vast coal-bed.
The Wylders had lost-and who were
they? The poorest and proudest family
in the country-the proudest at any rate
and they had possessed only competence
when they went into this legal contest,
which had swallowed it all, and ended in
total rout for them.
There had been five in the family when
the struggle began-the father, three sons
and one daughter.
Two of the sons, brilliant young men
and promising lawyers, had been killed in
a railroad accident on their way to the city
on business connected with the famous suit
Worry over the suit and the horror of
losing his beautiful boys in so terrible a
manner, had brought an attack of fever on
the father, and he had died the very day
the suit was decided against him, leaving
with his dying breath the stern charge to
his remaining charge never to give up
never to yield Wylders Rock to the
Searles
The Wylders really seemed an unlucky
family. The remaining son was sufferer
from spinal disease, confined to his couch
or wheeled chair most of his life.
A poor creature he was to resist any
thing, much less the enforcing of that de-
cision of court which had given his home
to another
oI will resist p' declared his young sis
ter. II will never yield p
And she looked as if she would be no
mean antagonist, girl of sixteen though
she was.
Slight, dainty and sweet, child in looks
as she was in years, there was yet spirit
shining out of her big black eyes, deter
mination in the lovely, curving mouth,
that boded i'll for the success of Philip
Searles plans if she could defeat them.
The money-king sat in his gorgeous
ibrarary, in close and confidential converse
with his only son, but just returned from
a three years sojourn in Europe.
He was young man of fine and noble
presence, handsome and gallant enough to
make the heart of any man leap with pride
to call him son.
Philip Searle had just been giving him,
in rough outline, what he called a sketch
of the Wylder case.
"You see" he said, 'it has been just
ike fighting nest of eagles all along
They have baked and hindered and re-
sisted the thing till am out of all manner
of patience. There is only those two now,
the sick fellow and the little girl, but she's
a regular little tiger-cat by all accounts.
[ have served the regular legal notice on
them; | have warned them to 60, and they
wont. IF it were men | was dealing with
should know what to do, but child and
a sick man"
"You wish me to go and see them p
questioned Raymond lightly. every well,
will 90 at once. | dare say | can induce
them to hear reason"
He spoke with the self-confdence his
indulged and fattered life had taught him.
He was in the habit of being yielded to;
not because he was dictatorial or selfshly
exacting, but because he was rich, young,
handsome, sunny-natured and warm-heart-
ed. Most men liked him, and most women
for that matter.
Wylder's Rock, from which the property
took its name, was a rugged, stony emf
nence, with evergreen clothed side. The
house, perched like an eagles erie, at the
very top, was picturesque, ivy clad stone
structure, built in the palmiest days of the
family, now seemingly at its decadence.
It had once been splendidly furnished
within, but now contained only the faded
remnants of its former magnifcence.
At the hour when Philip Searle talked
with his son Reda Wylder stood with their
one servant, an old woman of seventy, who
had always been with the family, before a
picture which hung in the low, wide en-
trance hall of the house.
1t was the portrait of an ancestress, a
woman who must have been superbly beau
tiful, with her night-like eyes, her snowy
skin, her diadem of silken braids. Robes
of silk and lace fit for an empress flowed
about the perfect figure, and In her hair
and on her breast were gems of price.
"You are her image, child-her very
image p old Annot was saying. eff you
were dressed like that you might get into
the frame there, no one would know the
difference
Reda laughed merrily.
II have a mind to try it, she said.
'The very clothes she wore for this picture
are up there in the cedar chest. | will
do it.
As she ran away Annot's old eyes fol
lowed her fondly.
"Light-hearted and lion-hearted like all
of her race r. she murmured, and went heI
way kitchenward.
A little later gentleman came slowly
up the walk, hesitated at the vine-clad
sunlit doorway, and glanced within the