Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-29


elest of sappers in the garb of friendship.
There was the hostile force of commercial
rivals. A widespread body of interchangeable
workers, whose guns burn smokeless pow
der
There was the Amazon brigade. The
women whose smiles could heal like sun
shine or smite like lightning, and for the
life of him ne had no notion which awaited
him.
Woman" thought he, in dismal mo-
ments, woman is the riddle of the uni
verse. Faithfullest among the faithful
she keeps undauntedly b. the side Of him
she loves. The fiercer the storm, the
closer she clings, protecting more than pro-
tected. Weaknesses, vices, failures, he
may be plastered with from crown to sole,
and all the more will she lavish on him the
love that never despairs. And yet there
shall come moment. or it may be mood,
, in which she will be swayed and pulled
over the home-fence by as fiimsy breath
of calumny at ever ruffied hen-feather.
Have l forgotten the misguided Euphemia,
or the short-sighted-but never mind those
now There is but one woman in all this
world for me now, and she-Ah! God
grant she may not fail me in this, my hour
of peril!"
AS his soul went out to carry its yearning
message to hers, Lady Ossulstone was pois-
ing herself as evenly as woman may on the
see-saw Of ambition and duty. Blarnaby
well knew how stiff the tug-of-war would
be between the claims of prudence and in
clinatiOn. All the strain of worry felt by
Lady Ossulstone at this critical time was
felt by Blarnaby tenfold more acutely. She
was more to him than he to her On her
depended not the success of the ballot box,
but the grander triumph when the first
was won. She was not the mere star of
his destiny, but the sun, moon and frrna-
ment combined of his public life. The vul-
gar rowdyism of the street campaign was
nothing to a man of Blarnaby's large eXpe-
rience. Nor did the sings ard arrows of
outrageous journalism do worse than give
healthful tingling to his skin, not now so
thin as it used TO be. Even the falling off
of faithful friend Hogg, and the possible
drifting away of manifestations enough
to discomfort him in ordinary circum-
stanccs-now were flea bites, not TO be
named beside the crowning dread lest Lady
Ossulstone might fail him.
Blarnaby cut noble sight, no doubt, to
the giggling gods, but truly 4 sorry one in
the eyes of that mythical bore, 1.-The aver
age man" Yet there was much of the he
roic in the man 50 placed. Tight places
bring out the entrapped-one' best quail
ties. Perhaps Blarnaby was not in tight
place rs yet. The unsentenced criminal
or, rather, the untried accused-is scarcely
in so tight place as when, on the scaffold,
the hangman slips the moose round his
neck In the first scene we see him in sus-
pense; in the last, he is suspended
Which is really the worse!
AS the day for decision drew near poor
Blarnaby perceptiby shrivelled up. Was
it. as some knowingly interpreted his bag
gard air, was it not because he knew he
was going to be hopelessly beaten? Or was
it, urged the more sympathetic. the defec-
ton of sworn friends that had filled him
with contemptuouS pity
When we know that outsiders are openly
discounting ones downfall, one must petrify
into Il granite statue to stand the sight
calmly.
In his heart Blarnaby felt confident of
victory. SO far rs he knew, there were
only two possibilities of failure: one was
the improbable loss of the majority vote,
and the other was the equally remote
chance that-that 4 woman would change
her mind.
Whenever he touched that note, Blarnaby
WINGED. He simply had to dismiss the sub
jet quickly from his mind, for if you allow
the thin edge of the wedge of doubt to enter
into your calculations, you may just as well
tear up the paper and take to tossing. No.
He must win; she does believe in him; she
will be honored as the lady of the White
House! All that is settled - or chaos
comes.
And when he had clothed his mind with
coat of mail So that no shafts of doubt
should again enter, there would hover in
front of his eyes when he closed them for
repose bat-like flock of uncanny vague
outlined ifs floating and capering in the
gloom like the evil spirits of former fail
ures, which, indeed. they were.
Repose!
Oh, the hideous mockery of the downy
pillow when the head all agoniZingly im-
plores its soothing aid! When most the
eyes need to veil the outlook, then most
have they an evil knack of peering with tel
escopic intensity into hundred unlovely
viStaS. When worry comes in by the door
and window, shy sleep flies out up the
chimney. The closing of our lids against
the horde of ills that surround us only
serves to turn our eyeballs inward upon the
massed army of sef-reproaches, vain re-
grets. fooleries, defiant offenSes and shat
tered decisions that assault US more griev-
ously from within. And these are always
most glaringly visible in the dark.
God bless the man who first invented
sleepn' yes, and God help the wretch who
lacks the nickel to make the invention
work. We remember how Blarnaby struck
4 compromise with sweet sleep one night
in his easy chair. A string of familiar fig
ures passed across his inner vision and
lulled his wakeful anXieties OF late his
nightly visitors had hailed from other
quarters. Now he had to review new
regiments every midnight. Troops of
friends: but they always happened to be
shut from his 81 ght by the intervening
platoons of what looked like the enemy
He would try to WOO sweet slumber with
dreamy pcturings of life's battle won. the
laurels placed on his brow by loving hands,
his praises sung by the silvery voice of
new-wed wife, and he would watt his soul
into cloudland with the prayer that sleep
would carry it on to the heaven beyond.
And the mink would gently take the bur-
den into her embrace and soar upward, and
still upward, with SO gliding motion that
illusion blended into reality, and just as the
region of oblivion was reached-she would
mischievously let the dreamer and his
dream drop with fearsome flop into the
cold Slough of Despond below. Better an
honest old-fashioned nightmare, born of
late pork and beans, than the tortures of
insomnia from worry.
His nights of unrest after days of weary
handsome face into something like the
sat TO sculptor as the genius of brain fe-
yer. He had reached the point where the
more trivial the annoyance the greater his
distress. He got beyond even that, and
would imagine possible eventualities worse
and less probable than any that were in
sight. Some began to hint that Blarnaby
was giving away" This is always one of
the most amiable weapons the least formid-
able of doubtful foes can WELD. 1t smacks
so sweetly of Christian sympathy. In
spreading it abroad you are proclaiming
how superior you are to the temptation to
hit below the belt. Your poor dear friend
is ailing; you are longing to give him rest