The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1888-08-02
BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS.
Dragged from the Depths.

There were few prettler Dlts OF scenery
in all England two centuries ago than a
belt of woodland not far from the old
town of Huntingdon, named Edmund's
Copse, after some forgotten Saxon King.
But there was one spot in that lovely
forest glade which no one could call
beautiful, and which every one avoided
as much as possible. In agloomy hollow
overhung by thick dark trees and shut
in by matted thickets lay one of those
black and frightful bogs which were 80
common in these days throughout the
fiat, marshy, eastern counties of England.
This dismal spot bore the fearful name
of Dead Mans Hole, and the old DANES
of the neighboring village used to tell
their grandchildren that far down in
the black unfatbomsble slime lay mould
ering the bones of a murderer, who,
venturipg too near the edge of the mo-
rass in order to fling in the corpse of his
victim, had fallen into it himself, and
been swallowed up forever. No trace
of this hideous slough is now to be eeen
in the well.tilled and well-planted coun-
try.side, but dim tradition of it still
fingers among the simple country folk
whose great. .grandfathers helped to de.
stroy it.
Such grim and ghostly swamp vas
the very last place where one would have
expected to find any school boy on a fine
half holiday afternoon. But there s0as
boy there nevertheless, and, stranger
still, he seemed in such haste to reach
the fatal Hole itself that he never waited
to follow the windings of the sheep track
which led to it, but went crashing
through the thickets like cannon.ball.
The stubborn strength with which he for
ced his way among the bushes, and the
fierce impatience wherewith he snapped
off or away every bopgh that checked his
progress, would have told any one who
watched him that if he ever lived to
become man he would be one whom no
peril could daunt and no difficulty or
rest.
His dress, somewhat finer in quality
than that of an ordinary English country
boy, was of the kind worn in those days
by the sons of landed gentlemen. But
there was certainly nothing distinguished
about his broad, ruddy, coarse featured
face, which, homely and unattracti7e
enough at the best oftimes, was not at all
improved by a terrible black eye and an
ugly cut across the left cheek.
The history of those bruises, however.
was one of which no English lad need
have been ashamed. Big Jacob Haw-
trey, the bully Of the village school, who
took a spiteful and cowardly pleasure in
teasing and frightening any one weaker
than himself, had hidden himself behind
a hedge one evening as little Annie
White was coming home from doing an
errand in the village, and bad sprung
out as she passed, initiating the below
ing of an enraged bull. The child,
terrified ont of her wits, ran scream
screaming away; but her tormentor's
hoarse laugh was suddenly changed
to sharp howl by d tremendous blow
on the mouth from the strong fist OF the
squire's SON, who had come rushing up
las he always did) at the first cry of
distress.
Furious with pain, the big, ungainly lad
few savagely at his assailant, expecting
to make short work ofa boy more than
halt a head shorter than himself, and
nearly three years younger. But be had
to deal with one who, as his enemies
learned to their cost in after'years, was
q match for any odds in the cause of
Justice, and never knew what it was to be
beaten. Knocked down again and again
by his adversary's sledge.hammer fists, he
arose undaunted as ever, and set to work
once more with stubborn resolution
which no pain could subdue. When the
the bully at length sneaked away from
the battlefield, with every bone in his
body aching from the soundest thrashing
that he had ever got in his life, the cheer
sent up by the sturdy farm lads who had
witnessed the fight was heard at the other
end of the village.
But why should this boy, daring though
be was, be in such hurry to reach the
terrible Hole, which every one else was
go careful to avoid?
That, too, was an impulse characteris-
tic of one who was destined to become the
helper and defender of Oppressed English.
men at home and persecuted Swiss Pro-
testants abroad. As he rambled on
through the wood his quick ear suddenly
caught the piteous bleating of a lamb at
no great distance, seemingly in the direc'
ton of Dead Mans Hole.
The instant be heard the sound, the
young heroic whom it was as natural
to help creatures weaker than himself as
it unfortunately is to some boys to hurt
them-guessed what had happened, and
in another moment he was flying toward
the Hole as fast as his legs could carry
him.
With all his haste, however, he arrived
not an instant too soon. Close to the
edge of the morass the poor little white
head was just visible above the foul black
mud that was fast engul6ng it, while the
shrill, piteous cry that echoed once more
through the silent wood was answered
by the hoarse scream of huge carrion
crow, which was just about to pounce
upon its helpless prey when the boys
headloDg crash through the thicket
scared it away again.
a dead tree had fallen across one cor
ner of the bog, and our hero, scrambling