Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-05-13
The Stutp Teller.
L PAUL.
THE MYSTERIOUS ROOM, AND WHAT ITS


body. For Old Paul was sloven, a glutton,
and drunkard, and when he died the world
said good radiance from poor rubbish. Still,
Old Paul made a most respectable appear
ance as he passed through the village on
his way to the graveyard, the most re-
spectacle he had made in it. for twenty
years. For, instead Of his broken down
horse, in a harness tied together with strings,
Old Paul was drawn by stately white horses
in rich trappings, and instead of his crazy
old wagon, with rickety wheels and splin-
tered shafts, Old Paul's carriage, though for
some reason few like to ride in it, was in
every way respectable. Nor was the poor
old man visible, with his slovenly dress and
bloodshet eyes and burning face, and griz-
zled, shaggy beard, for Old Paul had adriv-
err, and rode inside, and instead of the crowd
of rascally boys that were wont to follow
him, deeming it rare sport to see humanity
sunk so low, Old Paul was followed by a
long and most respectable funeral train, for
he had many relations, though no friends,
and they were all most respectfully dressed
in mourning, though in all the sable crowd
that stood around the open grave 1 saw not
OtlS 4ulNCl ~ VI LII Sot e~ VAN
earth clods fell upon the cofin'slid.
Old Paul's wife lefthim near twenty years
ago, and the world excused her for it, for
how, said the world, could any woman live
with such a brute? But old Aunt Prudence
shook her head at this off-hand verdict of
the world. For she remembered that he
was once young, dashing Paul, and Polly
Jones, proud and handsome as she was, met
him more than half way, as the gossips
said, fifty years ago, for he was rich and she
was poor.
"And if the truth must be KNOWN" said
Aunt Prudence, knocking the ashes from
her pipe and lowering her voice to a conf
dental tone, as if afraid of being overheard
by some tenant of the graveyard, "they du
say" forgetting that the tongues once busy
with such gossip, all except her own, had
long been silent in the grave, "they du say
that Paul married for beauty and Polly for
money, and you know, as old Billy Balm,
down at the p%oorhouse, says, life's wagon
will go hard when there is no love to grease
the wheels"
Yes, gold had dazzled and blinded the
one, and beauty had dazzled and blinded
the other, but they soon walked up, the one
to the fact that for gold she had bound her
life to a coarse and brutal nature, and the
other to the fact that beauty, like frostwork
glittering in moonlight, may be brilliant
and at the same time freezing cold.
"How shockingly they have abused them
pans," said Old Paul's wife the day after ne
was buried, on returning to the house that
had been her home for more than thirty
years, where her children had all been born
and most Of them had died.
Old Paul was, indeed, a brute, and he was
we'll mated with one who, under such cir
cumstances, could think of such petty trash.
But three short weeks had passed when l
heard that Old Paul's wife was sick, the next
day worse and the third day dead, and she
passed over the same road, drawn by the
same richly caparisoned horses, in the same
much dreaded carriage, to be laid by Old
Paul's side.
One day I CHANGED to take a walk down
to Old Paul's house. The spring was in its
glory. The forest was clad in richest YER
dure. The apple trees were in full bloom
and filled the air with fragrance, while the
bees feeding upon the blossoms filled it with
q dreamy murmur. The corn was just
peeping from the ground and the rye fields
began to wave in the passing breezes. The
meadows were vocal with
The bobolink's clear thrilling strain
OF liquid sweet.
The ground birds were singing in the hedg-
es and the robins from the trees that over
hung the road.
AS 1 approached the house T noticed hor-
ses tied to the posts and groups of men
standing about the doors, and heaps of old
furniture scattered here and there which
reminded me that it was auction day.
1t was a large, old-fashioned square house,
with two ancient elms growing before it,
spreading their giant branches far and wide.
In their thick, damp shade the moss had
accumulated year after year until the whole
fronthad grown quite green. There was ev-
erywhere an air of dilapidation and neglect.
On all sides there were broken boards, rag
stuffed windows, rickety fences and fallen
gates, all proclaiming the habitation of the
drunkard.
On looking around l found everything
III COtllOI unity Wlll lllC llloC VIC" lOll GllC
road. Fields half cultivated, fruit trees un-
pruned, fences that had caught the habits of
their master and had fallen or were stagger-
ing to their fall, gates hanging by one hinge,
plows with broken handles and carts with
broken wheels, manure accumulated about
the barns instead of making the crops look
"1ush and lusty." The barns themselves,
ventilated by loss Of boards, in the shed
Old Paul's wagon, and tied to a post his
old horse, apparently looking mournfully
forward o'his future prospects in the hands
of the jockey who had bought him for ten
dollars on speculation.
"Going, going at ten cents" 1 heard in a
harsh, husky voice, "all this lot Of pans,
once the pride Of Aunt Polly's heart, bran
new only twenty years ago, going, going
and gone to Patrick McFadden for ten
cents"
Ten cents, then, was the public valuation
of what had occupied the thoughts of Old
Paul's wife, to the exclusion of all the ten
der memories of fifty years as she returned
to her old home.
At length the house was all cleared except
one room.
This room Old Paul kept locked for twen-
ty years, never permitting any one to enter
it but himself. A jury of n%eighboring Cos
sips had more than once had the subject
under advisement, and had brought a unan-
imous verdict of "strange and very mystic
riOus."
AS no one knew anything about it, every