The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-10-15
dashed TO TME

early in these New World parts.
Fine farm? Well, yes; Indian Greek is
a nice place if do own it. All, as fal
as you can see -grass-lands, 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; aud yet | came to Canada
twelve years ago, without the traditional
halfcrown in my trousers pocket. You look
surprised. Would you like to hear the
time yet, and it's a story | never tire oil
telling somehow.
began life as the son of a village car
penter in the south of England. You know
that class pretty well, I dare say, and what
a gulf was fixed between me and the vicar
of the parish. And yet-and yet-from
the time she was seven years old and
eleven, and she fell down in The dusty
road outside the carpenter shop, and cried,
and | picked her up, and smoothed a little
crumpled pinafore, and kissed the dust out
of her golden curls, I loved one girl in the
world, and that was the wears daughter.
Winny Branscome.
Madness, you'll say. Well, perhaps so.
and yet a man is buta man, aud a woman
a woman; and loves comes, whatever ore
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 Winny had had a mother, no
doubt things would have been very differ
ent; but We were alike in never having
known a woman's care: and the old vicar
was blind to everything but his theological
treatises.
But when she came back from her Lon
don boarding school a beautiful young lady
all smiles and laccs and lovely ways-then
| knew. | had tried my best to study and
work, and make myself more like the men
she would meet; but what can n lad in an
English village do ? ] just had enough edu-
cation to make every other lad in the place
hate me; and beside the men of her world,
| suppose / cut rather an astonishing figure.
Yet the love Of her was SO beyond all else
in me, that mad, hopeless as | felt 1t, | had
no power myself, and the first time caught
her alone in the woods-she. avoided
me. | saw, and | had To wait for a chance
Il old her the story, and | waited for
her answer. She grew scarlet-a rush
of color that dyed her fair sweet face-then
dcathly white.
''Dick," she said, and she was trembling
from head to foot, you know it can never,
never be; you know men 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. Forget your
madness" And she ran from me.
| let her go. | had seen the blush and
Mr.. LOTUS, the young squire. instead of
Dick ~IIawtry, the carpenters son, her
answer might have been different. A great
resolve spIang up in my soul, and | took
II SOltiilll vow III liCSt JbIG nOOtS, iiut
very night | sold the old shop (my father
was dead and I had taken to tho businessl
and with the money | bought an outfit,
and started straight for Canada. 1t was
pretty tough work at first; but | work like
a galley-slave-starved, and pinchcd, and
saved, and never spent a penny on myself
except for the books set up half the night
to read and study. Well, in this country,
the man who works and doesn't drink Is
sure to get OH; and | had a mighty pur-
pose in my head. BY and by | bought
some land dirt cheap, and sold it for three
times what | gave for it-tlen | began to
make money fast. | should call my luck
wonderful if | believed in luck, and didn't
prefer to think by q power far ADLER than
my own. At last, ten years to the very
day after | set foot on Canadian soil,
bought Indian Greek farm, and began to
build this house. All my neighbors thought
my good fortune had turned my brain, for
I fitted it up and furnished it for a. lady,
down to a little rocking chair by my study
table and a work basket with a tiny gold
t,iimble in it. And when all that was
finished | took the first ship for Liverpool.
Ten years builds a city over here. 1t
dosen't make much change in a Devonshirc
village. Tic very gates were still half Off
their hinges, only the people were a little
older and a triile moro stupid; and there
was q now vicar Old Mr.. Branscomc had
been dead for six months; died very poor,
they told me there was nothing left for
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 tomorrow 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 oftwo of his crew. Without a seconds
pause | { offered for one Of the vacant places.
| was strong as a horse, and though the
captain eyed me rather askance-l had
been to n fashionable tailor on my way
through London-hc was too glad to get
rue to ask any questions. So ! sailed on
the ship with my girl, little as she knew it.
| saw her the first day or two, looking so
pale and thin that she was like the ghost