The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-05-30

may speak now that he has got his now
cottage, and then she will be safe. But
William is doomed not to speak: for on
the night Of the snowfall the Hartford
Bridge boys" swoop down on to the
Squire's coverts, and handle Will SO
roughly, before the rest of the keepers
and grooms can come to his rescue,
that he is carried down on a hurdle to
his fathers cottage to be nursed for a
month, leaving poor Patty doubly dis
consulate for the loss of her lover, and
for the knowledge that she is now more
than ever at the young 'Squire's mercy.
However, Christmas passes without any
fresh encounter, and by careful keeping
out of his way she manages to tide over
the time till he goes to college again
not to be back till summer.
Easter m round; a late Easter,
but a bright Easter to Patty-for COM
ing home from the village on Easter
Eve, with some Of the other servant
maids, over the moor, at the head of
the n stand, at first sight to the
girls terror, and then to their relief,
two men-old Stratton, the head-keep-
er, and Will Halfacre-ready to pilot
them safely through the darkness of
the frs. And as the old man warns up
into some keeper Saga-now under
that very tree some one had killed some
mi else that was deer stealing-Wil-
liam drops behind with Patty, and
speaks!
Hootl boot! your warning to them,
wise old owl! coursing through the trees!
You knowhow hard it is to find food for
two young ones in the old church tower
at Eversley, and avoid keepers trapsl
Yap!yap! your warning, crafty MI. Fox!
You too have your family cares, and
rabbits are scarce and cubs are hungry /!
But the wisdom Of the owl and the craft
Of the fox are UNDECIDED; and the young
couple live a lifetime OF love in that
short homeward walk.
Happy at last was Patty. But still q
cloud hung over her little horizon. The
wedding day was not to be till after mid
summer-tll after the pheasants' nest
ing season was well over, as till then
Will would have to be up and out all
night and every night and awho knows"
said he carelessly," that the Hartford
Bridge boys mayn't pay US some more
visits?"
Mays thirty-one days we're long to
Patty, especially as the Hartford Bridge
boys had one heavy brush with the
keepers of the Great House, and then
another, till Patty began to fear for her
SWANS life. An impulsiye lover was
Patty-having once loved, her love
vas her very life-and when the
third brush came with the poach-
ers the poor child was well-nigh
wild. A month still of the pheasant
season and the most dangerous of
all-how could she survive it? What
could she do to help him? Pray? She
had prayed morning, noon, and night.
Could she ask her young mistress to
intercede with the Squire to get Will
something else to do? No-she dare
not. The Squire at that moment was
red hot, externally and internally, with
govt, and he had already given Will
two chances. He would never give him
another. What was to be dcne?
While she was rocking her poor little
heart strings and brains to find some Sc
curer life for her beloved, day there
appeared at the hall door, where the old
Squire was sitting in the warm south
sun, watching the hounds exercising on
the grass plot, the well-known face of
Dinah Lee-the Mother-in-Israel of
North Hants gypsies. Every one was
kind to old Dinah and the Squire, even,
after cursing her and her tribe for
sheep ~stealers, and goodness knows
what else, chucked her o shilling, and
sent her around to the buttery door,
where, as luck would have it, she met
Martha.
OF all people Dinah was the one Pat
ty wished most to meet, for o story of
her grandmother's had been running in
her head for the last few weeks, to the
effect that if "some one" did Something"
on st. Johns Eve, it would render him
or his friends invisible. And ere Di-
nah could say a word Patty had drawn
her into the buttery room, crossed her
palm with a silver sixpence, and asked
the result: which was simple enough,
for Dinah had seen the cricket match
nigh upon a year ago and
my pretty honey would marry a tall,
dark man, but not till he had passed
through many dangers even to the dan
ger of death, from which he might or
might not recover"
Too futtered to see the incoherence
of this prophesy, Patty then preached
her more important question.
"Was there not some way Dinah
could tell her that wouldmake her lover
invisible, so as to save him from all
these dangers"
eyes," but Dinah could not let out
the secret to everybody. She was
"poor, and had to live"
In o few moments the little hoard of
money from Patty's box up stairs was in
the old gypsy woman's hand, in answer
TO which came these directions:
con st. Johns Eve, between eleven
o'clock and midnight, if you would find
invisibility, take a platter of wood, and
let there fall into It some seed Of the
king fern which done in fasting and in
silence, will insure you to walk bothd day
and night, in heat or cold, rain and fire,
without being seen"
"But where am I to find the king
fern2"
ASK your man, honey" was the only
answer vouchsafed; and, to avoid fur.
ther questioning, Dinah slipped away,
deaf to all entreaties and even to the
| enticements Of the larder.
On that same day Patty found out
where the king fern grew, under the
summer-house hill and twas only the
next that Will, inviting of the pur
pose, and provided her with a specimen
Of the fern itself, q wooden platter, ane
a full description of where to gather
more down in the damp shaughs.
Verify life seemed unbearable ii
! Patty for the next few days, overwrough
with fear for her lover. All the super
stition of the old Southern Saxo1
blazed out in her, SO that though Dinal
had not absolutely said the fern seet
would render Will inyisibla to til,