The Yazoo sentinel. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1878-1916, 1885-05-07

He took my hand, but he spoke never
a word, aud / stood before him, mys-
teriousl7, awfully conscious Of what he
had 10 tell me, bat petrifed, staring
yacantly before me, incapable Of moving
. limb or utte-.ng sound.
/ know that I was drawn gently to-
ward a warm freside, and heard dream.
iiy, and afar on as Il were, something Of
an accident--a man overboard-my hus.
band one Of the party TO the rescue-all
being lost. / heard his praises whis-
pered; have dim recollection OF weep
ing around me, and Of throbbing hands
in mine, and compassionate faces bend
ing over me, and thea / was wandering
homeward again.
Oh, that awful night To warrAer In
wintry darkness and desolation thTous
lonely hiII.sides and dreary woods,
while the wind howls through the
gloom, sweeps in raw, angry gusts over
bleak expenses OF snow, and in tle black
leathery tree-tops, towering like giant
hearse-plumes into the drifting sky,
sings the requiem Of all we love on
earth
And as, through that pitiless night
heedIessly and wildly-not because /
wished TO 60 thither again, but because
had no greater reason for going any
where eIse--I made my way back home,
those bells, just as they arc ringing
now, kept up a Joyous peal, to me like
some malignant spirit Of the stormy
night, hooking my misery.
And they mock me still. They mock
mo every week, and they will ever do
so. They shook out their monotonous
tale the night before he went away,
and they pealed out the blast when
the tidings came OF his death; and, all
unaltered, they ring on still, though my
heart is slowly breaking, and though
/ never hear them but steal away and
weep.
1t will not be for long. He is gone.
His child is gone, too. Born on the
day succeeding that terrible night, it
was born but to die; and I care not how
soon I may be removed from a world in
which all my life's happiness seems to
have eliminated in one rapturous year,
and then gone out forever under that
dark relentless tide.
-
Nearly three years has elapsed since
wrote the preceding, and I am sitting
now beneath a canopy of lilac ano
laburnum.
The lawn before me is again smooth
as velvet, and the streams OF sunlight
that pour down through the bright,
young verdure of the gnarled and
knotted old elms, CLEAN once more on
gay as the brightest Of early
summer flowers can make them.
/ had thought, and I often said, that
nothing in this world could ever again
awaken my interest, or very seriously
affect the profound melancholy OF my
life. Events proved that was wrong. |
I sat one evening by the open window, |
1t which, in fine weather, was wont to
sit by the hour together, gazing along
he valley and living again in the past,
when an aged clergyman drew up to the
yate--a gray-haired, handsome old gen.
,leman, with face which, as / have
Iince learned, is at all times CHEEKY and
but which, as he came toward
ne, was lighted up with radiance posi-
lively beautiful.
It was with strange fiutter at my
leart went into the room, into which
ervant had showed him, and it was
With dizzy, half.stupefed brain that 1
istened to what he had to say. What
great Joy" could there be for me, save
he restoration OF him whom the sea
lad swallowed up2 And yet he had
ONE to break to me "tidings Of great
oy."
Sudden tidings OF Joy, he said, were
ometimes as disastrous MS tale Of over
calamity; and as was in del
,ate health, he had come to beg me to
repare for an unexpected pleasure.
iently and kindly he talked on; but the
livery tones of the good old man grew
ainter and DREAMER, and before / had
lore than vaguely apprehended the
TRANCE story he had come to tell, 1
wooned. When / recovered he was
till by my side, assisting and directing
" maid in her efforts to restore me.
nd then / wept and begged him to tell
10 again, and to be explicit, assuring
i'm that / would be calm and strong
ow. whatever be might say. And. 40
ordiDgly, ne told me-told me my hus-
and lived; that the boat in which,
it'll three sailors, he had put off to
I'VE a drowning man, had drifted away,
I'D they had got lost in fog; that they
ad gone thus for two DAYS and three
avs in the open sea; and that they had
nally been picked up by vessel bound
n three months outward voyage, and
Q had found no manner Of CON-
Iunicating with me.
And while / listened with still bewil-
cred brain the door opened and in an
lstant was clasped in the arms Of my
'ng-lost husband.
Seasons have changed several times
noe then, and every week those old
els clang ont through the valley rs
lough they had known of the misery
lev had so cruelty Knocked and would
ow ring the more heartily in participa-
on of my happiness.
One wild night, when on keen and
Iustering wind. heavy clouds were drift
II across landscape sheeted in frozen
low, l heard their sound come swelling
id diving ttaough the gloom, and an
resistible impulse seized me. clad
yself warmly and, to the establishment
nv husband. begged for a walk along
10 narrow roadway leading up through
,e woods. We went together, and from
10 midst Of my happiness restored, l
stood and looked around at the