Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-03-03
Gales aud Sketthes.
WINNY.

First visit to ontario! wen, you TO neall-
" welcome to Indian Creek. Take q
chair on the piazza till dinners ready
we dine early in these new world parts.
Fine farmp Well. yes; Indian Creek
is a nice place if do own it. All. as far
as YOU can see-grass, corn fields. woods
and creeks all belong to it. Stock too
they call it the best stocked farm in
Ontario, | believe, and dare say they're
right All mine and yet came to Cana
da twelve years ago, without even the
traditional half crown in nv trousers
pocket You look surprised. Would you
| like to hear the story? There's good
half hour to dinner time yet, and it's a
story never tire of telling. somehow.
began life as the son OF village car
penter in the South of England. You
know that class pretty well. | dare say,
and what gulf was fixed between me
and the vicar Of the parish. And vet
and yet-from the time she was seven
wears old and eleven, and she fell down
| in the dusty road outside the carpenter
shop, and cried, and picked her up, and
smoothed the little crumpled pinatore, land
kissed the dust out of her golden curls. |
loved but one girl in the world, and that
was the wears daughter, Winny Banscome.
Madness. you'll say. Well, perhaps so,
and man is but man, and a woman a
woman; and love comes. whatever one
may do. There's no class distinction re-
cognized by childhood. and we were play
mates and friends till she went to board
ing school If Miss Wnny had had a
mother no doubt things would have been
different; but we were alike in never hav-
ing known woman's care, and the old
vicar was blind to everything but his theo-
logical treatses.
But when she came back from her Lon
don boarding school, beautiful young
lady, all smiles and laces and little lovely
wavs-then | knew. had tried my best
to study and work, and make myself
more like the men she would meet; but
what can lad in an English village do?
| Just had enough education to make every
other lad in the place hate me and beside
the men of her world | suppose l cut
rather an astonishing figure. Yet the love
of her was so beyond all else IN me. that
mad, hopeless as felt it, had no power
over myself: and the first time | caught
her alone in the woOds-she avoided ME,
saw, and had to watch for chance-I
told her the whole story, and waited for
her answer. She grew scarlet-a rush of
color that dyed her fair sweet face-then
deadly " bite.
dick" she said, and she was tremb-
ling from head to foot. 'you know it can
never, never be; you know you are wrong
even to dream of such a thing. Some
girls would think it an INSULT know you
better; but if my father heard of this he
would say YOU had abused his kindness to
you; he would never forgive you. For
get your Madness" And she ran from
me.
let her 90. had seen the blush and
the tremor, and guessed that if / had
been MIR. Lotus. the young squire. in
stead of Dick Hawtry, the carpenters
son. her answer might have been diff
ferent. A great resolve sprang up in my
June woods. That very night sold the
taken to the business) and with the money
bought an outfit, and started straight tor
Canada. 1t was pretty tough work at first,
but worked like galley slave-starved,
and pinched and saved, and never spent a
penny on myself except for the books
sat up halt the night to read and study
Well, in this country lthe man who works
and doesn't drink, is sure to get on; and |
had mighty purpose in my head. Bye
and bye | bought some land dirt cheap,
and sold it for three times what l gave
for it-then began to make money fast.
| should call my luck wonderful if | be-
lieved in luck and didn't prefer to think |
was helped by power far ADLER than my
own. At last, ten years to the very day |
set foot on Canadian soil, bought Indian
Creek farm. and began to build this house.
All the neighbors thought my good for
tune had turned my brain, for fitted 1t
up and furnished it for lady, down to a
little rocking chair by my study table and
a work basket with a tiny gold thimble in
it. And when all that was finished took
the first ship for Liverpool
Ten years builds city over here. 1t
doesn't make much change in a Devon
shire village. The very gates were still
half off their hinges as left them, only
the people were little elder. and tritle
more stupid; and there was a new vicar.
Old MIR. Branscome had been dead six
months; died very poor, they told me :;
there was nothing left tor Miss Winny
My heart gave one great leap when |
heard that. And Miss Winny? Oh, she
had gone governessing with some people
who were just off to Canada, and the ship
sailed to morrow from Liverpool.
The Liverpool express never seemed to
crawl so slowly before | got there to find
every berth taken on board the Antarctic,
and the captain raging at the non-appear-
ance of the crew Without second s
pause offered for one of the vacant plac-
es. | was strong as a horse, and active
enough, and though the captain eyed me
rather askance-I had been to a West
End tailor on my way through London
he was too glad to get me to ask any ques-
tons. SO sailed on the ship with nv
girl, little as she knew it, | saw her the
first day or two looking so pale and thin
that she was like ghost of her old self,
and yet sweeter to my eyes than ever be-
fore, The children she had charge of
were troublesome little creatures, who
worried and 5adgered her till longed to
cuff them well. But there was a gentle
ness and patience about her quite new to
my idea of Miss Winny, and only loved
her the more tor it After the second dav
out the wind freshened and saw no more
OF her.
We had an awful passage. 1t was late
in November-an early winter, and the
cold was intense. 1t blew one continuous
gale, and some of our machinery was
broken-the screw damaged-and we
cOuld not Eepn our coursa $40