The Baltimore County union., 1884-09-20

man pity.
He was a God-fearing and a God
serving man. He had long made his
peace with Heaven. Nothing stood be-
tween him and death-nothing rose
pleading between him and those who
were to destroy him but the sweet face
ofLily De We're, whom he loved. She
had knelt at Cromwell's feet and plead
ed for him. She wearied Heaven with
her prayers, but all without avail. Slow
ly now the great sun went down. Slow
ly the last rim was hid beneath the
greenwood. Thirty minutes more and
his soul would be with God. The color
did not forsake his cheeks. The dark
rings of hair lay on warm brow. 1t
was his purpose to die as martyrs and
brave men die. What was life that he
should cling to it? He almost felt the
air pulsate with the first heavy roll of
the death knell. But no sound came.
Still facing the soldiers with his clear,
gray eyes upon them, he waited.
The crimson in the West were paling
to pink. The kline had ceased their low
ings and had been gathered in the rick
yards.
All nature had sounded her curfew,
but old Jasper was silent.
The bell ringer, with his gay head
vet barred, had traversed half the dis
tance between his cottage and the ivy
covered tower when form went fitting
past him, with pale, shadowy robes
floating around it, and hair that the low
western lights touched and tinted as
with halo.
"Ah, Huldah, Huldah /" the old man
muttered; show swift she flies? l will
come soon, dear. My work is almost
done"
Huldah was the good wife who had
gone from him in her early womanhood,
and for whom he had mourned all his
long life. But the heeting form was
not Huldah's. 1t was Lily De We're,
hurried by sudden and desperate pur-
pose.
$50 help me God, curfew shall not
ring tonight! Cromwell and his dra-
goons come this way. Once more l
will knell at his feet and plead"
She entered the ruined arch. She
wrenched from its fastenings the carved
and worm-eaten door that barred the
way to the tower. She ascended with
flying and frenzied feet the steps; her
heart lifted up to God for Richards de-
liverance from peril. The bats flew
out and shook the dust of centuries from
the black carving. AS she went up she
caught glimpses of the interior of the
great building, with its groined roof,
| its chevrons and clustered columns; its
pictured saint and carved image of the
virgin, which the pillages of ages had
been spared to be dealt with by time,
the most relentless vandal of all.
,lnrgp psn75Al TJgpw,atbsyandd the g Eainbew
her death-white brow up-still-up-
past open arcade and arch, with griffin
and gargoyles staring at her from under
bracket and cornice, with all the hide
business and medieval carving the stairs,
flight by flight, growing Trailer beneath
her young feet; now cut slender net
work between her and the outer world
but still up.
Her breath was coming short and
gasping. She saw through an open
space old Jasper cross the road at the
foot of the tower. Oh, how far. The
seconds were treasures which Cromwell, +,
with all his blood-bought commonwealth
could not purchase from her. Up-ah
there, just above her, with its great
brazen mouth and wicken tongue, the
bell hung. A worm-eaten block for a
step, and one small, white hand had
clasped itself about the clapper-the
other prepared, at the tremble, to rise
and clasp its mate, and the feet to swing
off-and thus she waited. Jasper was
old and slow, but he was sure and it
came at last. A faint quiver, and the
young feet swung from their rest, and
the tender hands clasped for more than
their precious life the writhing thing.
There was groaning and creaking of the
rude pulleys above, and then the stroke
came heavy and strong. Jasper's hand
had not forgot its cunning; nor his
arm its strength. The tender, soft form
was swung and dashed to and fro. But
she clung to and caressed the cold,
cruel thing. Let one stroke come and a
thousand might follow-for its fatal
work would be done. She wreathed
her white arm about it, so that at every
pull of the great rope it crushed into the
flesh. 1t tore her, and wounded and
bruised; but there in the solemn twi-
light the brave woman swung and fought
with the curfew, and God gave her
victory. =.
The old bell.ringer said to himself:
"Aye, Huldah, my work is done. The
pulleys are getting too heavy for my old
arm my ears, too, have failed me. l
dinna hear one stroke of the curfew.
Dear old bell! 1t is my ears that have
gone false, and not thou. Farewell, old
friend"
And just beyond the worn pavement
a shadowy form again went fitting past
him. There were drops of blood upon
the white garments, and the face was
like the face of one who had walked in
her sleep, and her hands hung wounded
and powerless at her side. Cromwell
paused with his horseman under the dis
mantled May-pole before the village
green. He saw the man who was to die
at sunset standing up in the dusty air,
tall as King and beautiful as Absolom.
He gazed with knitted brow and angry
eye, but his lips did not give utterance
to the quick command that trembled on
them, for girl came flying toward him.
Pikeman and archer stepped aside to lei
her pass. She threw herself upon the
turf at his horses feet; she lifted hel
bleeding and tortured hands to his gaze
and once more poured out her prayer fo1
the life of her lover; with trembling lip
she told him why Richard still lived
why the curfew had not sounded.
Lady Maud, looking out of her lattlc
ed window at the castle, saw the grea
, | protactor dicmount lift the faintlnI