The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1883-06-07
A Strange Rescue.

mansion.
The reflection of the brazen cloud
lit up the single, ivy-grown tower
the crumbling walls and the roofes
chamber of the ruin.
Folks held that MucklenowC
Grange was haunted, and hardy wa
the wight who ventured after night
fall up the steep and stony patti
that led to it.
Lights had been seen CHANGING
from it by several belated peasants
who had wandered into its pre-
cincts, and more than one haC
vouched that they had heart
screams as of some one possessed
issuing from its recesses, and the
thrifty Scotch neighbOrs whispered
to each other, with bated breath:
The place is no canny. Nae
mortal hand was at the Digging OF
and nae mortal ee suld see its down
fall"
But Eph Warren was a hardy
American traveller, who was striv-
ing by dint of seeing many lands
and watching many wonders to
crush a melancholy that had seized
upon his life.
One year back he had met Nellie
Fotheringay. 10th was plighted
between them, and Eph was among
the happiest in the land, when came
the terrible intelligence that had
blighted his life.
Miss Fotheringay, wealthy, high
ly accomplished and beautiful, com
mitted;suicide. Her body was found
floating in the East river, so dis
figured by decay and the ravages of
the denizens of the water that it
was only identified by some family
jewelry, and q letter, encased in q
sealskin pouch for preservation,
which declared the writer's lnten-
ton of ending a life that had be-
come hateful to her.
So Eph was on his travels, carry
ing into distant lands a heavy but a
stout heart.
AS he toiled up the road he fan
cied he saw light moving in some
distant corner of the ruins. He
stopped, concealed by the stunted
and gnarled trunk of a sycamore
tree.
cit is some reflection Of the
he said to himself, ''shin
ing on a broken window pane,'
And he was about to proceed,
when a sound issued from the ruins
that, bold as he was, called the
blood from his cheek, and seemed
to stop for an instant the beating of
his heart.
1t was girls voice, wonderfully
sweet, but faint, and sounding as if
it came from a great distance off.
Was he dreaming? or was it true
that the spirits of the dead came
back to earth to give messages from
another world to the loved ones in
this?
Still the sweet, faint spirit voice
sang, while the soul of ,Eph Warren
sped back to the long, mellow moon
light nights, when he sat in a dream
OF bliss with his darling on the
porch, amid the clambering honey
suckle, or drifted idly in his boat
down the waters of the Hudson,
while she sang in her low, sweet
voice, these very words:
''The sta.s are watching, the winds are play
ing;
They hear me still through the long night
My love, love you'll love you'll
with the burning, beating, tho inward
hushing,
Ever and ever in music gushing,
Like the, mystic tones from the sea-shell
rushing,
Oh, thus love you'll love you'll
The very tune he had himself
adapted from an old Hungarian
ballad he had caught in his wander
ings; and now, on this bare Scotch
hill he had heard it again, in the
voice that had so often thrilled his
heart with rapture, and which he
had believed was stilled forever.
cam l mad?" he murmured to
himself; ''or has the grave given up
its dead, to tell me the secret motive
of the fearful act that cut off q life
so full of love and happinessp'
There again dead stiffness about
him. The shadows were deepening
steadily, and he now distinctly saw
a light burning in one part of the
ruins. The night winds were rising,
and q faint star shone out twinkling,
reflected on the bosom of the river
below. The air began slowly to be
filled with mysterious sounds that
awake in all solitudes of the night
-whisperings, stealthy footballs,
rustlings as of shadowy garments
trailed through the gathering dark
ness.
81 will know what this is" said
Eph Warren, toiling upward toward
the light eff it is my dear, dead
darling, she can only mean me we'll
1 have nothing To fear now-for
God help me, 1 have nothing to
love"
He walked steadily and firmly
but with instructive caution; and as
he advanced he saw the light larger
and more distinctly. 1t came from
a window, surrounded and hidden
by heavy masses of creepers. He
could make out that this part of the
ruins either had not fallen into the
decay of the rest, or had been lately
buttressed and improved.
He stole up to the window, and
looked in on a sight that almost
made his heart stand still again.
Seated in a low chair, her head
thrown listlessly back, was his be
trothed-Nellie Fotheringay her.
self, in the flesh, but sadly failed
and looking almost like n corpse
Opposite to her stood a coarse feat
ured, large woman, regarding hel
with a stern glance. a middie-aged
man, elegantly dressed, stood be
side this woman. Warren could
see his face, and could trace in the
features a slight resemblance to Miss
Fotheringay, but the expression was