Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1883-12-27
CHAPTER TX.

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air around them.
CHAPTER TX.
UNE NUT BLANCHE.
Zone of the most ancient superstitions in
the world attaches great Importance to the
number three; and in fairy tales it is always
the third son OF tue hing VINO. IN the END, mas
all the luck. Sometimes this third son
appears almost q fool unto men in general
we know not If any such coincIdences
happen in modern times.
1t was very late the same night, but
Margaret was not weary. Something
in the air of Foulhaven communicated
its own buovancy and lightsomeness to
her spirits. She sat in her room with a
lamp upon the table which stood near
the window. When she looked out she
could see, by drawing the curtain
around her, a starlight view of the gar
den. The sensation which she at first
experienced. of its being a weird and
uncanny place. was now even height
ened. She could only see i: dimly, but
on opening her window little she heard
the rushing murmur of the stream as it
hurried, first to the town, and thence
onward to the sea. Presently Margaret
withdrew from the contemplation of this
mysterious-looking garden-for it was
mysterious-such a garden as Shelley
might have loved to describe, or which
might have inspired Schumann with
some deep and mystic Nachtstuck-and
turned into the room again, thinking
that, surely, if this house possessed an
hereditary spirit or demon, it must be
some kind of water-sprite.
Seating herself at the table, she took
up some loose sheets of paper, some of
the precious MSS. which Rupert had
confded to her keeping. The upper
most sheet bore the title Gin a grabbed,
Greek-looking hand, faithfully followed
to the end of the production. and re-
minding her in some subtle manner of
the poor little author himself) of can
East Coast Memory" 1t began:
at is the eastern wave which washes
the shores of my English home, and
bleak, cold, briny wave it is; bleak,
too, are the winds which come scream
ing across the German Ocean. leaping
at last upon the land with triumphant
howl. bending the tree-boughs piteously
westward, so that the poor things look
as if they strained every energy to flee
the spot, but being rooted there-like
me-they can only hold ont their shiv-
ering fingers in constant appeal to
kinder valleys, and more clement
skies"
Margaret raised her head at these
words. 1t seemed very strange to her
to think that these lines had been en-
tirely written and imagined by a boy of
fourteen. y
She thought of Tom Pierce in his six
teenth. year, who could not write the
shortest note without abundant ortho-
graphical mistakes, and anguish mental
and physical. and she smiled. She
read the passage over again. 1t seemed
to her that with very little alteration
they would be poetry Was the boys
poet without knowing it? Perhaps if
he tried to put these same thoughts into
verse, they might lose their vigor, and
he turn out a mere rhymster. But she
was struck by the image he used, OF the
winds coming screaming across the
ocean Gas if he persouitied them in his
mind) and leaping exultingly upon the
land at last. there to continue their.
cavages. She wa, sure she had heard
worse SMILES.
As she thus unused, a clock down.
stairs chimed quarter after midnight,
and as the sounds died away, and per-
feet stiffness supervened, she, listening,
heard first as it were vague disturb
ance. and then the sounds as of cries
and means coming from the direction
of that other room at the end of the pas
sage in which Rupert slept. To lay
down the papers and spring to her feet
| was the work of second. In another
moment she was out of the room. and
speeding down the passage. This must
be one Of those attacks of which his,
mother had spoken the boy
would suddenly awaken out of sleep, in
pain. mental and physical, and in q
state of unaccountable fear and terror,
as of some imaginary assailant-parox-
ysms in which, Mrs. Lascelles said, no
one was of any use except the doctor
she herself, in her anguish, least OF all
for it was strange thing that though
Rupert in an ordinary way adored his
mother, vet, when he was in this state
he seemed not to know her, and moth
ing that she could do or say was of any
avail to calm him. Margaret, on hear
ing this account, had determined on the
spot to see if she could not be of some
use, could not influence his mood when
! the occasion came. )
She was now the first to enter his
room. turn up the light, and bend over
him. She found him trembling, SILVER
ing, alternately hot and cold, uttering
incoherent, breathless explanations, UNI
| able to suppress the cries of terror or
apprehension which appeared constantly
to rise from his lips, as if he imagined
himself pursued by some dreadful thing;
| and again, ia such agony physically that
the drops stood on his brow. Mrs. Las