Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1888-07-04

The trees were taller and the house mao
grown larger. Itwas the same yet not the
same. While these thoughts were knock;
ing at my poor feeble brain, my guide had
opened the door of the farmhouse and
called to some one within.
"a mild-featured, white-haired old lady
came to the door and said, Come In AT
the sound of her voice the bonds OF my
silence were loosed and cried in terri.
BILE voice, Mother! Mother! don't you
know me.?' She turned like flash and
looked attne wildly then cid as she was,
ran to me, flinging her arms about my
neck. It was my mother. l knew it and
yet did not know it. For why. was hell
hair so white, her face so wrinkled and
sad? Mymother was merry, and had soft
plump cheeks; this mother was old. True
I remember her hair was little gray, bu,
not white like this!
"I reached out my hand and touched hel
head. I did not know my own name
Trembling with excitement, my mother
called, Mary, Mary, Arthur has come
He that was dead is alive again. At the
sound of her voice young lady of hive
and twenty came running in in answer to
her call.
"My sister Mary. Why my sister was
little dancing girl of fifteen with hair in
shining ringlets, only yesterday. And
with wild cry I sank under the weight
of my maddening thoughts.
"The next + knew was lying upon q
bed in my old familiar chamber and moth
er sat with food at my side. l inWardly
thanked God that no other change had
taken place in her. And then my mother
told me what had taken place. How that
more than ten years ago had fallen into
q fit and brain fever had set in. How one
night when the watcher, my father, was
momentarily absent, / had arisen and
stolen away from the house in the night:
"'Oh my son, how we searched for you
Father blamed himself for the calamity,
and nearly all he had he spent in sending
detectives and letters all over the land.
He died, Arthur, trembling with age and
sorrow, at fifty three.
"But God be praised you are come back
to us!' I lay stunned and mute under
this tragic intelligence. God in Heaven,
I was thirty-two years of age and yet had
lived but twenty-five. Iwho was but yes.
terday beardless boy was now man OF
middle age. That ten years was one long
dreamless night to me!
"But to shorten my story, when | be.
came stronger I asked the question l had
held in my heart and dared not ask
feared this last burden which came upon
mel asked of Agnes, and trembled to
think she too would be changed. My
married five years ago. She remained
true to you and waited five long years and
YOU never camel And then my mother
opened for me the history of that anxious
time. How they searched and followed
false clues, and suffered and hoped and
were disappointed, till the weary days
faded into sleepless nights and years pass
ed, till father gave up the search, and
died. This, sir, is my story. Little re-
mains vet to be told, except the efforts /
have made to illumine that awful gulf in
my life.
"What became of me after that night,
how I came home again, and why had
no memory of all those years, these have
been my motives. All that man could do
I have done. / have visited the asylums
of the State and homes of all kinds. l
have sent circulars to asylums of the neigh
boring States asking if they ever had a
patient escape answering to my descrip-
tion. An uncle dying just before my re-
turn had left my mother sum of money
with q part of which have prosecuted my
search. am completely batt1ed in every
direction.
"Again and again I have gone over the
mysterious circumstances of my return.
No scrap of paper was upon my person and
my clothes were neat and clean. My
shoes were new, but betrayed walking.
"My brain was numb and weak and re-
fused to control my limbs, and was very
hungry, but my muscles were firm and
my body in good health. My hands were
slightly bronzed, but not calloused by hard
labor. I had not been earning my way by
manual labor, neither did l look like one
who lived in confinement. My only tena-
BILE theory is that after leaving my bed
that night had wandered away or been
carried to great distance and kept in some
asylum for insane or invalids and there
remained for over ten years. Escaping at
last. a subtle instinct led me home.
"This poor theory is all the one have.
I am always haunted by the thought that
with the cunning of madman took upon
myself some character from the one in
which 1 was advertised and thus escaped
detection. Perhaps 1 lived free and un-
fettered, perhaps a menial, working at
base duties, and perhaps-a thief. l have
read so many cases since of such incredi-
BILE freaks of mad brains know not what
to think.
"With all my journeying, with all l
have done, and with all the best detectives
can do, not one ray of light has penetrated
the darkness of that soundless night.
"My story is told. You see before you
man old and white at thirty-siX. am
a man without hope and without mo-
tive save those have named. My Agnes
is lost to me. / saw her once with her
happy children around her, and kept aloot
that the chill and damp of my life might
not touch hers. She does not know of my
return; she never will while live. My
return has been kept secret in my native
place.
'My broken-hearted father sleeps in his
grave. My love for books and study is
gone my motives for my former reading
have died. I am studying as you see, but
only on cases bearing a likeness to mine.
"I am possessed of the almost insane de.
sire of piercing that impenetrable gloom.
/ study the reports of the insane and inval-
id asylums in the vain hope that | may
find clew.
my mother md sister plead with me to
give up my search and be resigned, but it
cannot be. Strangers think me still mad
Do you wonder at me and my quest?
"Think what it is to stand at the very
gateway of life, the dew of the morning
about you, a fair girl ready to walk at
your side, ambitious plans opening in your
heart, vistas of delight stretching away to
the future, then to have a sable hand reach
from the unseen shadows and snite you
with a thunderbolt covering your life with
blackness of an eternal night-to slip into
noiseless sea sound-less and pitiless to
be washed up at the end of ten years, your
love lost to you, a father from whom you
parted in rage, dead through grief and re.
morse, your plans wreck, tortured by the
past and mocked by the future, a writhing
worm beneath the remorseless heel of fate
then to say to me if you can, forget it all