Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1890-11-27
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE MINISTER'S STUDY.

Mr.. Granville's study was in a corner
of the house and looked out upon the
street. It was very coy room, furnished
with q moderate library and writing desk
and snug fireplace, in which the various
kinds Of wood snapped and blazed in
their season. An arm chair made out Of
twisted boughs of hickory stood by the
fireplace. In this room the minister spent
most Of his time, for the years had added
to his load until he was glad to retire
from his family, and so lose sight of their
strange and painful condition. So, after
having finished his sermon for the COM
ing Sunday and read for the hundredth
time his favorite volumes, he was wont
to move his great arm chair from the
table to the side of the fireplace, and,
leaning back in its capacious depths,
give himself up to thought. Here, sur
rounded by the cheerfulness which every
work-room gives, the minister could at
times forget his sad affection and grow,
for a few minutes, comparatively happy
But generally in these half-hours in the
dusk he sat brooding over his trials and
disappointments and the calamity which
had fallen upon his family. The dim
suspicious entertained ten years ago had
been increased and rendered more vivid
by the perusal of such works as Cotton
Mather, and frequently after his sermons
were finished he INDUCED in long sittings
by his fire pouring over those stories of
witches and witchcraft which so stirred
New England and spread fear over her at
the beginning of her life.
1t was a cool evening in early autumn
in fact, the anniversary of the trial
with which our story opens, although
Mr.. Granville did not remember it, The
trial itself, however, was very distinct in
his mind, as was every point in his enc
my's life. The man had spent long hours
meditating upon this one absorbing
Il.
in Mark Hillary's. life, until he had be-
come a mOnomaniac. and the thought of
this rough woOd-chopper was scarcely
ever absent from his mind. Every scrap
of intelligence concerning him had been
carefully preserved and studied. Every
word the man had ever uttered in the
minister's hearing, or in the hearing of
minister, had been noted and dwelt upon
during these after-sermon meditations
H&had made a study of the mans life,
and had even gone to the trouble of in
! curing into his antecedeAts infinitely
But all this was nothing compared with
the awful anxiety his disappearance gave.
/ Long hours the minister sat in his study
specializing upon it. Sometimes he
paused at the end of paragraph in his
| sermon to gaze abstractedly out of the
window and recall that last act in Mark
| Hillary's life.
/ 4ASus dBhlns l0lb was u IdNOrll6 Gn6IQ6
! Tor his evening reVeries, and often ex-
tended them far into the night, until his
/ family, and, indeed, all Sagnauck, were
wrapt In sleep. So the poor man YEARLY
wore his life away.
On this particular evening he had been
! even more troubled by his gloomy
thoughts. In his imagination he could
| feel an unseen presence in the very room,
and in his heart hope died, as he said to
himself:
@The man or his spirit is near.
This feeling was so strong that he
arose and did what at no time before had
! he courage to do, or which his sense of
/ honor would allow. He went to his desk
and took out a little package which had
been intercepted on its way TO Dorothea
two years before. This evening he tore
off the wrapper, and in his hand lay
piece of birch bark, such as was cftsa
used by the Indians and by some set-
tiers for writing paper. Upon this bit of
birch was this sentence:
-DOrothea: Obey the one who keeps
you a, nd the one who watches over you,
but whom you cannot see, will Away s
provide for you"
Obey the one who Keeps yOu.' That
is dRmning, murmuretf the minister
and his lips turned pale. 1T Is q message
from the evil one. and I have had It con
cealed in my desk. No wonder we have
been afflicted But, is it not necessary"
he continued. after pause during which
he was plunged In deep thought. =is it
! not necessary that I keep it for testi-
mony?"
But while he was yet undecided wheth-
er 10 cast the evil bark into the fire, or
lay it away and brave the danger in the
work of convicting a witch, the case was
settled by 8 rap at the door, and, hastily
opening it, he admitted the pioneer
Squire.
ACome in. Squire, come in, the min
lister said; you have come Just as I
wanted you. 1 have for some months
wished to speak to you upon a subject
that is troubling ne. Sit down, pray
yon