Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-09-04
HEATHER.
BY WILLIAM BLACK
AUTHOR or "JupITH ~u,krsrFARE." "A
PRtNCEss or rHutE, MACLEOD
OP DARE" t1C

wv tAhE' ZIG
ious II that were possible, to get glimpse
of green fields and blue skies. For, of
course, he could not always be at his
books and this, as he judged, must be
the nearest way ont into the country and
he could not do better than gain some
knowledge of his surroundings, and per-
chance discover some more or less Sc
Guided sylvan retreat where, in idle time,
he might pass an hour or with his
pencil and his verses and his memories of
the moors and hills.
But the further out he got, the more
desolate and dcsolating became the
scene around him. Here was neither
town nor COUntry-or rather both were
there, and both were dead He came up
on II bit of hawthorn hedge the stems
were coal black the leaves begrimed out
OF all semhlance to natural foliage. There
were long straight roads, sometimes front
ed by stone wall, and sometimes by a
block of dings-dwelling- APP
parently, but of the most squalid and
dingy description, the windows Opaque
with dirt, the closes" foul, the pave
ments in front unspeakable. But the
most curious thing was the hfeless aspect
of this dreary neighborhood Where
were the people Here or there two or
three ragged children would be playing
in the gutter, or perhaps in dismal little
she an old woman might be seen, with
some half withered apples and potatoes on
the counter. But where were the people
who at one time or other must have in
habitated these great, gaunt, gloomy
tenements. He came to dreadful place
called SaraCen Cross, n very picture of
desolation and misery, the tall blue-black
buildings showing hardly any sign of life
in their upper flats the shops below being
for the most part tenantless, the windows
rudely boarded over. Itseemed as if some
blight had fallen over the land, first oblit-
Grating the fields, and then laying its
whitening hand on the houses that had
been built on them And yet these mel
notwithstanding buildings were not wholly
uninhahite t. here or there a face was Wis
ible, but always of women or children
and perhaps the men-folk were away at
work somewhere in Il factory Anyhow,
under this dull gray sky, with duh gray
mist in tine air, and with strange silence
everywhere around, the place seemed a
city of the dead; he could not understand
how human beings could live in it at
all
At lag. however, he came to some open
spaces Mat still bore some half. deCiDher-
able marks of the country. and his spirits
rose little. He even tried to sing 80
say, will You marry me, Nelly Munro ~
to force himself into Kind of liVClness,
as it were, and to prove to himself that
things were not quite so bad, after all.
But the words stuck in his throat. His
voice sounded strangely in this silent and
sickly solitude, And at last he stood
stock-still. to have Il look round about
him, and to make out what Kind of place
this was that he had entered into.
Well, it was a very strange kind of
place 1t seemed to have been forgotten
by somebody, when all the other land near
was being ploughed through by railway
lines and heaped up into embellishments.
Undoubtedly there were traces of the
country still remaining and even of agri-
culture here and there line of trees,
stuntcd and nipped by the poisonous air
a struggling hedge or two, withered and
black: or patch OF corn, of pallid and
hopeless color and meadow with cattle
feeding in it. But the road that led
through these bucolic solitudes was quite
new and made of Cinders in the distance
it seemed to lose itself in a network of
railway embankments, while the back
ground of this strange simllacrum of a
landscape-so far as that could be seen
through the pail of mist and smoke
seemed to consist of further houses, iron
works and tall chimney stacks. Any
thing more depressing and disconsolate he
had never Witnessed-nay, he had had no
idea that any such God forsaken neighbo
hood existed anywhere in the world and he
thought he would much rather be back at
his books than wandering through this
dead aud spectral land. Moreover. it was
beginning to rama thin, perlinacious
and clammy air; and so he struck away
to the right, in the direction of some
houses, guessing that there he would fiji Il
some way of getting back to the city other
than that CHASTITY one he had come by.
Blythe time he had reached these houses
"a suburb or village this seemed to be
that led in a struggling fashion up to the
crest Of a small hill-it was raining heavi-
ly. Now ordinarily gamekeeper in the
Highlands is not only indifferent to rain,
but apparently incapable of perCeiviny
the existence of it. When was wet weather
at Inver Mudal ever known to interfere
with the pursuits or occupations Of
anybody Why, the lads there would
as soon have thought of taking shell
ter from the rain as a terrier would. But
1t is one thing to be walking over wet
heather in knickerbocker stockings and
shoes, the water quite clean, and the exer-
else keeping legs and feet warm enough,
and it is entirely another thing to be
walking through mud made Of black Gin
ders, with clammy trousers tapping coldly
round ones ankles. Nay, so miserable
was all this business that he took refuge
IN an entry leading into one of those
Glands y of houses and there he stood,
IN the cold stone passage, with chill wind
blowing through it, looking out on the
swimming pavements, and the black and
muddy road, and the dull stone walls.
and the mournful skies. A bare headed
ragged little boy came crouching in for
shelter,
"What place is this Pr he asked he