Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-04-13

why / had no memory of all those
years, these have been my motives.
All that man could do | have done.
1 have visited the asylums of the
state, and Homes of all kinds. /
sent circulars to asylums of all of the
neighboring states asking is they ever
had patient escape answering to my
description. An uncle dying just be-
fore my return had left my mother a
sum of money with part of which
l have prosecuted my search. l am
completely baffled in every direction.
Again and again 1 have gone over
the mysterious circumstances of my
return. No scrap of paper was upon
my person and my clothes were neat
and clean. My shoes were new but
betrayed walking.
My brain was numb and weak and
refused to control my limbs and was
very hungry but my muscles were
firm and my body in good health.
My hands were slightly bronzed but
not calloused by labor. / had not
been earning my way by manual la
Dor neither did I look like one who
had lived in confinement. My only
tenable theory is that after leaving
my bed that night / had wandered
away or been carried to great dis
tance and kept in some asylum for in
sane or invalids and there remained
for over ten years. Escaping at last,
subtitle instinct led me home.
This poor theory is all the one l
have. / am always haunted by the
thought that with the cunning of mad
man Itook upon myself some character
different from the one in which [ was
advertised and thus escaped detec-
ton. Perhaps / lived free and un-
fettered, perhaps menial, working
at base duties, and perhaps-a thief.
have read so many instances since
of these incredible freaks of mad
brains 1 know not what to think.
With all my journeying, with all |
have done and with all the best de-
tectives can do not one ray of light
has ever penetrated the darkness of
that soundless night.
My story is told. You see before
you an old man and white at thirty
six. am man without hope and
without motive save these | have
named. My Agnes is lost to me. 1
saw her once with her happy children
around her, and kept aloof that the
chill and damp of my life might not
touch her. She does not know of
my return, she never will while live.
My return has been kept a secret in
my native place. l know now the
force of the name Enoch Arden.
My broken-hearted father sleeps in
his grave. My love for my books
and study is gone. My motives for
my former reading have died. l am
studying, as you see, but only on cas-
es bearing a remote likeness to mine.
/ am possessed of the almost in
sane desire of piercing that impene-
trable gloom. | study the reports of
the insane and invalid asylums in the
vain hope that may find clew. The
shadow will never lift !
My mother and sister plead with
me to give up my search and be re-
signed, but ii cannot be. Strangers
think me still mad. Do you wonder
at me and my quest?
Think what it is to stand at the
very gateway of life, the dew of the
morning about you, fair girl ready
to walk at your side, ambitious plans
opening in your heart, vistas of de-
light stretching away to the future,
then to have a sable hand reach from
your life with the blackness of an
eternal night,-to slip into noiseless
sea soundless and pitiless to be wash
ed up at the end of ten years, your
love lost to you, father from whom
you parted in rage dead through
grief and remorse, your plans wreck,
tortured by the past and mocked by
the future, writhing worm beneath
the remorseless heel of fate, then say
to me if you can-forget it all and be
resigned. Upon me in my youth have
come these things and I cannot for
get."
l was dumb in the presence of such
man and such august sorrow. The
booming roar of the city's traffic
formed thrilling undertone to that
monotonous intense voice in which
he finished his story. With bowed
head and fearful eyes 1 pressed his
hand and stepped out into the rushing
life of the street.
Could it be possible that such lives
and stories jog the elbows of busi-
ness? Do such spectres walk their
land of dreams amid the hurrying
throngs rushing to trade, to hew, to
eat and drink and dance? [ look with
different vision now upon the street
with it's web OF Arachne threads of
purpose.
l have since framed theory after
theory to account for this mystery.
Why did not the keepers respond to
the offers of reward? What could
they hope for in keeping him? How
could he have escaped the search
made for him and how came he to
reach home so opportunely? 1t was
incredible. 1t so wrought upon me