Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-14

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of birth, and my young sons life was like
the sprouting acorn that sends up its Wig
orous shoot through the earth, fed by the
falling leaves of hundred autumns. On
the third day of our happiness my wife
sent for me, and told me she had very
pretty surprise for me.
81 can tell you all about the big mystic
rious package now. 1t was beautiful
old-fashioned cradle that l bought in S.
from a man named Gillian. who keeps
an old furniture shop there. | fell in love
with it at once, for knew how well it
would suit this house with its old oak.
Gillian said he could swear it was old
work; in fact he said it was originally
part of fine old bedstead poor mad
gentleman in the neighborhood actually
destroyed in a fit of frenzy, but he was
lucky enough to secure a portion of the
wreck, and made it up into that cradle,
and baby looks lovely in it. Pm afraid |
gave great deal of money for it, but one
does not meet with such beautiful thing
every day." and the nurse removed a
screen from before the cradle that its beau
! ties might burst upon me suddenly and
with the more effect.
Cold drops stood upon my brow as l rec
| ognized, in the high sides and head of the
cradle the carving of Ivy branches and
berries l had so madly given Gillian when
l destroyed the old bed.
81 thought you would have been so
pleased" said Grace, disappointed by my
silence as l stood spellbound, my eyes
| following every line of the hated carving.
81 thought you would have been so pleased
to see baby in a cradle really worthy of
! him."
| But | could not speak; | was oppressed
by a sense of coming doom.
at is very unkind of you" said Grace.
II had prepared pretty surprise for you,
and instead of being pleased you stand and
sigh and look as if you saw ghost
Nurse, take baby out of his lovely cradle
we must get him common wicker thing
to lie in insteadp' And the nurse did as
her mistress babe her, and lifted little
Heneage from his cradle of death, for
while we talked the child had slept his
| feeble life away.
l have no memory of what happened
day by day during the few weeks follow
! ing. 1t was one consuming fear lest my
wife, too, should die. Six weeks after our
child's death / carried her down stairs,
and this was the only progress made
toward recovery. She remained at the
same stage of convalescence, made way
ward by grief, with shattered nerves, and
so weak in mind and body that dared
not thwart her in anything. As the dim,
sunless days of autumn drew on my wife
said to me as though we had never spoken
on the subject before:
II want the big empty room furnished
for my sitting room, Humphrey. l shall
have a little sunshine there sometimes TO
cheer me in your dismal English winter,
and it will amuse me to furnish it."
As looked at her white, wistful face 1
felt that nothing mattered to ME now, and
l said: "Do exactly as you like, dear, in
everything" and she was too listless to
thank me.
But the work of Transforming the somber
room into bright boudoir proceeded rap
| idly, for Grace said with a shudder, II will
have no more old oak furniture"
My little wife always went to extremes,
and now, in her antipathy TO old oak, she
filled the room with tawdry chips Of furni-
ture, chairs made of gilded match-sticks
| tied together with ribbons, that must sink
| into feeble ruins if cat SO much DIS Jumped
on them.
| l entered into all her little fancies and
| feigned excessive admiration of each fresh
| idea she had on the subject of decoration.
| / did her bidding, even to placing her couch
! on the very spot where the hated bed had
| stood. Thus was my resistance broken
| down, and l. who three years ago had tried
by sheer physical force to thwart destiny,
/ was now unconsciously working to bring
about its fulfllment 1t did not tarry long.
One gloomy November afternoon Grace
lay on her couch covered with soft shawls,
and the window curtains were drawn back
to give as much light as possible The glow
! of the setting sun illuminated the room,
and lent more living hue to the gray
pallor of her face.
! Walford Granger she said "the sun is
setting with the same fiery light. Do go
into the garden, Humphrey, and see if the
windows are aglow with red light as they
were then" And | left her to do as she
asked me.
Seen from the garden, the house looked
precisely as it had done on the day of our
Homecoming. From garnet to basement
every window glowed red in the light of
the setting sun, as though from fire within.
| Everything that my eyes rested on was as
it had been year ago. Grace and l both
were changed-changed in ourselves and
changed to each other. felt impatient of
the changeless aspect of nature and of in
animate things around me, and | entered
the house, now dark in contrast with the
twilight without, and returned to my
wife's room with a heavy heart.
"The house looks as it did when you
first saw it," said. "Till the sun sank
behind the hill the windows were lighted
up with the same strange effect of fire that
you noticed a yea. ago" and threw fresh
log on the embers as l spoke, sending a
bright train of sparks up the wide Chin
ney. "Shall l light the candles ?" 1
asked, turning toward my wife's couch !;
'the room is growing dark" But there
was no reply. l was speaking to the dead.
In vain l had banked the old bed of its
prey, for there on the very spot where it
had stood, where three centuries of my an
cestors had died, the wife of the last Of the
Walfords lay dead.
| buried my sweet Grace by our little
son, and on the night of the funeral, alone
in my desolate home, | conceived the idea
of freeing myself forever from the horror
Of darkness that had fallen on Walford
Grange | sent every servant away.
would have the house and my sorrow to
myself
When was assured that was alone in
the house went rapidly from room to
room in a strange exultation, speaking
aloud and swinging open doors and win
dows till the cold night air rushed through
chambers and passages, and curtains and
banoinOs Tanned in the wind
"When l destroyed the old bed ofdeath, "
l said, 81 thought to restore joy and
brightness to Walford Grange. But l
should have destroyed not it alone, but the
room in which it stood and the very house
of which it formed part. Nevermore
shall man dwell in this house glutted with
death. NeYermore shall the voice of the
bride and BRIDEGROOM he heard in It's