Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-16
CHAPTER I.

malsonette, just outside the old-fashloned
and aristocratic town of Dereminster. My
modest establishment consisted of two wo-
men servants, man and boy. kept a
couple of horses and rode regularly to hounds
during the sessen, was also an adept at
fy-fshing, and played the violin fairly
well for an amateur. Finally my name was
Horace Sparkinson.
Let the reader note that say my name
was Horace Sparkinson. What 1t is now,
and how it came to be what it is, 1t will be
my object in these pages to elucidate.
A suite of rooms in London would have
been far more to nv liking than vegetating
in dead-slive hole like Dereminster, but I
was impelled to settle there for the time be-
ing, after roy long sojourn abroad, BY two
powerful reasons, either of which in itself
would have suficed to induce me to act as
had. Reason number one was that my
bachelor uncle, Mr.. Matthew Chidley, re-
tired Liverpool merchant, lived at Blair
field, on the outskirts of Dereminster. He
was IS years old and in failing health,
and it was only fit and
proper that he should have his
sisters son at hand in case of anything hap
pening to him; besides which, there was a
horde of harpy cousins and half-cousins
ready to swoop down upon him like troop
of vultures had not been on the spot to
keep them at arms length. 1 cannot con-
scientiously say that was a favorite with
the old man, but neither, so far as 1 knew,
was anyone else. However, / dined with
him every Sunday, and that was something
in nv favor. Nobody could truthfully
say, Sparky, that you're ornamental" he
would sometimes remark with a snigger, in
that plain-speaking way of his which 1
took care never to resent, sand 1 don't
know that you're of much use in the world,
unless it be to act as a watchdog and keep
off the others with your bark"
The one trouble left him in life seemed to
be the making up of his mind as to whom,
and in what proportions, he should bequeath
his money. L had it in a whisper from Ship
ton, his lawyer, that be had made three diff
ferent wills in the course of the year, and
that even then he was meditating fourth.
was surely justified in hoping that 1, his
sisters son, who suffered a hebdomadal
martyrdom under the lash of his tongue,
which spared nothing and nobody, was not
forgotten in the documents in question.
Ny reason number two, for pitching my
tent at Dereminster, was because 1 was
madly in love with Ida Meredith, whose
acquaintance had made at Nice in the
course of the preceding winter. Ida, who
was of age, and possessed of 8, 600 q year in
her own right, lived with her uncle, Mr..
Ralph Timbrell, and his wife, at Fernside,
a charming country house, about two miles
out OF the town.
It would be disingenuous on nv part to
say that at the beginning of our acquaint-
ance my pursuit of her was not influenced
by knowledge of her income derived from
authentic sources), but when 1 came to
know her better, / learnt to love her for
herself alone; indeed, / can safely aver that
there was time when if she had not been
worth shilling, 1 should almost have been
prepared-I say almost-to ask her to be-
come by wife.
She wrote verses-of sort-and brimmed
over with all kinds of romantic, high-hown
notions, but au fond she had vein of natur-
al shrewdness which saved her, if at times
only by hair-breadth, from overpassing
the thin line which, as often as not, is all
that serves to divide common sense from
absurdity.
Ida liked me-or rather, she liked my
company. l was clever, accomplished,
well-read, and, as times 60, fairly good
conversationalist. But, alasl I was very
plain-looking; indeed, there were not want
ing some, chiefly my rivals in Ida's good
graces, who aVerred that L was absolutely
ugly. Halfa-dozen times had 1 been on
the verge of proposing, when the remem-
krance Of my ilI-fsvored looks caused me, at
the last moment, to shrink from the ordeal
used to grind my teeth with impotent
rage, while watching the good-looking,
but empty-headed popinjays who
huttered round her, and noting
with what apparent pleasure she
q 4hair Fo4 d. 4
fulsome compliments, although feeling sure
in my heart that she laughed at and de-
spised each and all of them.
AT length there came q daV when 1 took
my courage in both hands, and told her
what she could have hardly have failed to
guess long before. Well, l was rejected,
and that in a way which left no room for
hope in the future. Some women's ''No,"
is not intended to be taken as final; in the
heart of it, carefully wrapped up, like a
sugar-plum in cracker, Turks its exact
opposite, but not so with Ida. 81 like and
respect you, Mr.. Sparkinson, but nothing
would induce me to become your wife" she
said, and 1 knew she meant 1t. When
looked at nv reflection in the glass could
not wonder at her decision. 1t was an i'm
possibility for any woman to love such a
semi-satyr as I.
1t was about a week later that came to
griet in the hunting-feld. was in one of
those moods when a man takes everything
as it comes without regard to consequences.
NY horse failed to clear a leap which,
knowing what he could and could not do, it
was madness on my part to put him at. We
fell together, he rolling atop of me. I was
carried home on an extemporised stretchef.
The doctors examined me; it was a case of
injury to the spine; there was no hope.
One of the medicos gave me three days, the
other opined that 1 might possibly linger a
week; in any case l was doomed. l was
paralyzed from the loins downwards and suf-
fered no pain, which was something to be
thankful for. Ny mind had never been
clearer; was perfectly calm and composed,
aud already felt myself looking at life and
its interests from an altogether impersonal
point Of view, and as if were visitant
from some other planet. One
thought, and only one, had still
favor of earthly bitterness
SIS Ida sorry for what has happened to me?''
l asked myself again and again. "Will
any tiuge of regret mingle with her brief
memory of me alter / am gomez"
1 now come to phase of my experiences
of which have not hitherto made men
ton.
During my stay in India, some years be-
fore 1 settled at Dereminster, it fell to my
lot to be the means of saving the life OF
certain Brahmin, q man who lived
in the odor of sanctitv, and was
popularity credited with being a de.
positary of divers of the strange secrets
and mysteries, said to be handed down from
one generation to another, of the priests of
the cutie of which be was so eminent pro-
fessor. and guarded more jealously than life
itself from the knowledge of the outside