Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-03-26
FACE TO FACE.
a Fact Related In Seven Well.
Told Fables.
BY r. E. FRANCILL0N
AUTHOR OF "A GREAT HEIREss," "oUIrs
AT LAST" "a REAL QUEEN" "EARLs
DIVE" ETC, ETC.
FABLE THE sECoND.-CoSrrsUEp.

Tor year, and take a holiday of his
own; and when the years out, and he
Is broken bit out of his own WAYS.
he'll stay on another, and another. and
another, for as long as he's spared
He'll always be Blackthorn, of Levs
Croft, you see; the land viii always be
his, whether he lives there or no, only
the trouble will be off his hands. Do
you see? He'll lose neither the land
nor YOU So the long and the short of
it IS, I'm of tomorrow TO Hunche ster
to buy you plain gold ring. Wen be
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 happy
as the days are long.
And so she knew. or thought. as well
as he. But she had grown so happy
already during her season of troth-
plight that she would willingly have
heightened it out without limit; and,
now that marriage was brought face
to face with her as fact, the very idea
of any greater hapPin IS than the pres
ent assum d sort of awe. One can
but be happy-how can any change
make Us more?
stephen" she said. looking up into
his fac, whatever you wish, l wish
too. II trying will do it, YOU shall be
the happiest maa in the world.
Darling. You'll make me that with
out trying" said he. Give me Your
~ IL
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 four h finger OF The left hand of
a 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 good deal of hard
head-worh 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
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,
square, squat, stone building, without
or, en- leaf about it to break its stare.
and standing between a straw-yard and
a garden without a blossom, he cooked
for himself. in a saucepan. about Il 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 gratiii-
cation of feeling, with every mouthful,
that il 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
prolita bic work. and what profit could
there be in keeping a cook or
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, though 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 a 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 water was a thing undreamed of;
but even those ready and uncritcal
omnibbants. who he'd as a general rule
that beer was beer. We're driven to
grumble. 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 vet 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
tensitv 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
ma nificent self-command had come
from his setting out with the fixed re-
solve of dying worth n certain sum; or
rather. of making certain sum in time |
to enjoy it for 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 COM
paratively poor man, in whose eyes
Tom Blackthorn was millionaire.
However, as the time went on. crerit
amor nunansi passion gradually went |
to sleep, and when the sum at which he |
had aimed at 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 |
spend.
Yet, even in the best-planned life, !
though it be grasped with the firmest |
hand, something must happen to throw
things out of gear. 1t may be a battle |
of Waterloo; it may be a pair of eyes. |
Enoch Marrish's Waterloo had been the |
pair of ewes. One day Patience Black !