The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-04-10
FABLE THE sECoND-Cosr,xrr,

for year, and take a holiday of hi
own; and when the years out, and b
is broken bit out of his own WAYS
he'll stay on another, and another, an,
another, for as long as he's spared
He'll always be Blackthorn, of Lev
Croft, you see; the land will always b
his, whether he lives there or no, onl,
the trouble will be off his hands. d,
you see? He'll lose neither the Ian,
nor you. So the long and the short O
it is, I'm off tomorrow to Huncheste
to buy you plain gold ring. Wen b.
married here, and then start for Mill
port, all three, as soon as Prestons
send down their man to see to the farm
and I've put him in the way Darling
we will all be so happy there, as happ,
as the days are long.
And so she knew, or thought, as wei
as he. But she had grown so happ,
already during her season of troth
plight that she would willingly have
heightened it out without limit; and
now that marriage was brought fac,
to face with her as a fact, the very idea
of any greater happiness than the pres.
ent assumed sort of awe. One car
but be happy-how can any change
make rs more?
stephen" she said. looking I'D into
his face, whatever YOU wish, | wish
too. If trying will do it, YOU shall be
fha banniaSt n,on in fbn
Darling! You'll make me that with
out trying" said he. "Giye me Your
finger, please. No; not that. the fourth.
of the left hand. Where's my measur-
ing tape? Oh. here
The surveyor got to work, and meas
ured that vast estate which lies be-
tween the knuckles and the first Joint
of the fourth finger of the left hand of
girl.
The morning after this happy even
ing, Farmer Marrish, though it was but
eight o'clock, had gone over well-nigh
every inch of every field, had seen
every man and woman at his and her
task, and had done a good deal of hard
head-work besides. For he was one of
those farmers, rare and often misunder-
stood folk in those simple times, who
put brains into the soil. He never did
a single thing without knowing the rea-
son why; and so Though this does not
by any means follow he prospered
while others failed. So one can only
judge that the brains he used were en-
cellent brains. Returning to the house,
a square, squat, stone building, without
a green leaf about it to break its stare,
and standing between a straw-yard and
a garden without blossom, he cooked
for himself, in a saucepan. about pint
of exceedingly thin Cruel, and ate it,
from the same vessel, with an iron
spoon. The meal was cheap, if not sat-
isfying; but then there was the gratifi-
cation of feeling, with every mouthful,
that it might have been beef or bacon,
SO that, not being either, at every
mouthful something was saved, and
therefore something gained. There was
nobody to-wait upon him, for Farmer
Marrish kept no more hands about
house or land than were needful for
profitable work. and what profit could
there be in keeping cook or
parlor-maid when he had hands
of his own, and only his own
mouth to feed? He had breakfasted on
that thin Cruel. getting thinner and
thinner, every day since he was one and
twenty, and, tough it made the BODY
lank, it made the pocket swell. He
dined mostly on bread and cheese, or
cold bacon. that wanted no cooking at
all. except on Sunday. when he made
potatoes and the weeks odds and ends
into hot stew. to avoid waste; and he
supped on Cruel again, with single
tumbler of rum. He did keep ale for
his men. because in those days to work
on wateswas a thing undreamcd of;
but even those ready and uncrit;cal
Omnibibants. who he'd as a generalrule
that beer was beer. were driven to
grumblc. at times. of the SmallneSS of
Welstead brew. He would dine with a
neighbor when invited, and would then
spare no expense, since the expense was
not his own; but he kept no company
at all. 1t need hardly be said, seeing
that half the parish at least, and not a
few of the tradesmen of Manchester.
were in his debt, that nobody in all that
country was more respected than he;
nay, it was whispered that he had the
vicar himself under his thumb, and that
he could buy up the DigbyS themselves.
who constituted the arstocratic element
of that part of the world. Nobody had
ever got the better of him in bargain,
and no eyes had ever seen the color of
his money except his own.
And yet this man. sordid and grasp
ing as he was, and apparently with no
thought beyond adding guinea to
guinea and field to field, vas made by
nature with passions of all kinds of in
tensity such as is given to few to feel.
If one side of him had not been miser.
the other would have gone through life
at a gallop, or rather, at a storm. His
magnificent self-command had come
from his setting out with the fixed re-
solve of dying worth certain sum: or
rather, of making certain sum in time
to enjoy it for a certain number of
years before he died. For he was no
fool; he did not treat the making and
. boarding of money as an end. He
fully meant some day to have his fling,
and he preferred to have it at the latter
end of life, when he should be able to
afford it, rather than at the beginning,
when he started upon Welstead a COM
paratively poor man, in whose eyes
Tom Blackthorn was a millionaire.
However, as the time went on, crerH
amor nunini, passion gradually went
to sleep, and when the sum at which he
had aimed al the outset was made and
saved even before the time. he found
that he ought TO have aimed at few
Thousand more before he began to