The Delaware ledger. (Newark, Del.) 1879-19??, 1886-07-31
A TRAMP'S REVENGE.

A great fertile hollow, the mid
land hills, and one man owned it all.
Five hundred acres of level and up
land, field and forest and well
might Milly Van Vleeck complain
that she could not even visit a neigh
Dor without climbing over the hills.
But old Squire Van Vleeck had
no use for neighbors.
Was not the land his own, and
the homestead and the saw-mill it.
self, halfway down the hollow?
The first heavy SHOWS came earli-
er than usual and the cold weather
brought with it immunity from the
one thing the squire hated most.
Not tramp had been seen in the
hollow for week, and no man troub-
led himself to ask whittier they had
flown.
All the more, however, that bitter
afternoon, did the old mans angry
soul stir itself within him when he
met, at his own gate, the most out
rageous specimen of the abhorred
breed that the whole season had
brought before him.
Ifother tramps had sometimes
borne only the seal of misfortune or
of common vagabondage, this one
was clearly and undeniably prince
of his worthless guild and a chosen
vessel of vice and crime,
Plenty of bone and muscle, had
he, and the very swing and spring
of his slouching gait proclaimed
that no lack of mere physical capac-
ity had made him what he was.
Can a tramp have in him any
thing like energy?
The squire would have said GO
at any time before he gave that row
ing rufiian so large and so acrid a
piece of his mind and temper.
He had scarcely dreamed of such
a change as his words produced.
There was some magic in them,
stirring up evil into power.
The begging whine swelled into q
volume of hoarse and strident vitup-
Grafton. The relics of a mind glow
cred fiercely through the hairy, filthy
face The whole hulking frame
seemed to quiver as the tramp strodC
away, with the meaning ofthe threats
and curses with which the air was
blue behind him.
Fear is q bitter ingredient to put
in the cup of anger, and Squire Van
Vleeck was in even a worse humoi
than usual, ten minutes later, wher
a somewhat fine looking man reine6
in his horse at the gate, and seemed
about to spring from his sleigh.
"Good morning, squire"
Don't stop, Gil Morse Drive
right onW roared the old man
Don't stop ag'in anywhere in this
holler. Nor fathers son needn't
quit the road anywhere ON my land
Eff it hadn't a-bin for him, l might
a-had the nomination"
More than that he said; but while
the young mans face deepened to q
hot crimson, he controlled his temp
er sufficiently to give his horse the
reins and do as he was hidden with
out another word.
A tall, strongly built, broad-shoul
dered youth was Gilbert Moose, and
a year in a city business house hat
made no less man of him. Hii
greeting at the squire's had beer
clearly altogether unexpected, anC
he pulled his horse to a walk, ,
moment later, as if he wanted t(
give the matter some kind of consid
Grafton.
How he would have driven if h,
could have looked along the roa(
ahead of him, just beyond where i
entered the hemlock woods
Distant as were her neighbors
Milly Van Vleeek was too robus
and healthy-minded a young lad,
to remain housed up, even in winte
weather, and she never had looke'
roster or prettier in all her life thai
she did that afternoon, as she trip
ped along the frosty road homewarC
Away beyond the saw-mill an
! into tAe.Ia15asTAe had been, almo'