Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1891-04-01


it rose, futtered nearer, eddied up, and
fell again. A cloud drifted over the
moon and made the marsh gray, and
IN the shadow the restless object was
lost, the flash of white was blotted
over. When the moon CLEANED
out again, she saw it once more.
1t did not move. The wind tore
by, and shook the easement in her
hand, but did not lift and blow away
that white object. Then there was a
iuu. The air was still for moment.
AT that moment the white object moved
again, rose once more and fluttered up.
1t was flying, it was nearing,-it fell
on the roof of the bakehouse under the
window. Now Mehalah saw what
this was. 1t was the wounded gull,
the bird Rebow had shot.
The miserable creature was stru0-
Cling with broken wing. and with
distilling blood, to escape to sea, to
die, and drop into the dark, tossing,
toaming waves, to lose itself in infinity
1t could not expire on the land, it
must seek its native element, the un-
tanned, unconfined sea; it could not
give forth its soul on the earth.
Was 1t not so with Glory? Could
her free soul rest where she now was |?
She who had lived, free as a bird, to
be blown here and there by every i'm
pulse, when every impulse was fresh
and pure as the unpolluted breath of
God that rushes over the ocean. Was
she not wounded by the same hand
that brought down the white new?
There she was fluttering, rising little,
again falling, her heart dim with tears,
her ife's vigor bleeding away, the
white of her bosom smeared with soil
that adhered, as she draggled in the
mire, into which he had cast her.
Whittier was she tending? She turned
her face out to seat lay before her
ink-black. Red Hall and its marshes
were to her prison; freedom beyond
its seawall.
She was startled by a sound as of
bricks falling. She listened without
curiosity. The sound recurred again,
and was followed after awhile BY a
grating noise, and then rattle as Of
iron thrown down. She heard nothing
further for few minutes, and sank
back into her dull dream, and watch
ing of the poor NEW, that now beat
its wings on the roof, and then slid off
and disappeared. Was it dead now?
1t did not matter. Mehalah could not
care greatly for bird. But presently
from out of the shadow of the bake
house foated few white feathers.
The gull was still vending its way on,
with unerring instinct, toward the
rolling sea. Just then Mehalah heard
thud, as though some heavy body
had fallen, accompanied by q short
clank Of metal. She would have paid
it no further attention had she not been
reused by seeing the madInan striding
and then jumping, with the chain
wonnd round one arm. He looked up
at the moon, his matted hair was over
his face, and Mehalah could not dis
tinguish the features. He ran across
the yard, and then leaped the dyke and
went off at long bounds, like kan
garoo, over toward the sea wall.
Mehalah drew back. What should
she do? Should she rouse Elijah, and
tell him that his brother had wrenched
off the grating of his window and
worked his way out, and was now at
large In the glare Of the moon on the
marshes, leaping and rejoicing in his
freedoms No, she would not. Let
the poor creature taste of liberty,
inhale the fresh, pure air, caper and
race about under no canopy but
but that of Gods making.
Ia
freedom by an hour. He would suf-
fer severely for his evasion on the
morrow, when Elijah would call out
mis- men, and they would hunt the poor
wretch down like wild beast. She
could see Bebow stand over him with
his great dog-whip, and strike him
without mercy, She rouse Rebow?
She reconsign the wild maniac to his
dark dungeon, with its dank floor and
sitting atmosphere? The gull was
forgotten now; its little strivings
overlooked in anxiety for the mightier
5trivings of the human sufferer. Yet
al these three were bound together by
a common tie! Each was straining
for the infinite, and for escape from
one with broken wing,
one with broken brain, one with
broken heart. There was the wounded
bird tapping and edging its way out
ward to the salt ses. There was the
1azed brain driving the wretched man
in mad gambole along the wall to the
open water. There was the bruised
soul of the miserable girl yearning for
.omething, she knew not what, wide,
deep, eternal, unlimited, as the ALIEN
oracing ocean. In that the bird, the man
he maid sought freedom, rest, recov-
cry. She could not go to bed and leav-
he poor maniac thus wandering un-
watched, She would 60 out and fol-
Iow him, and see that no harm came
70 him
She took off her shoes, shut the WIN
low. Her mother was sleeping soundiy
She undid the door and descended the
stairs. They creaked beneath her steps
Jut Rebow, who had slept through the
noise made by his brother in etfecting
mis- escape, was not awakened.
As she passed the bakehouse she lit
)n the bird. In spasm Of sympathy
he bent and took it up. 1t
made a frantic effort to escape,
md uttered its wild, harsh screams;
)ut she folded her hands over the
wings and held the bird to her bosom
md went on. The blood from the
broken bone and torn flesh wet her
Iand, and dried on it like glue. She
leeded it not, but walked forward.
By the raw moonlight she saw the
,oj,,o, m, tho wall Ho had thrown
Iown his chain. He needed 1t not
now. There had been sufficient in
diligence or cunning in his brain to
Did him deaden Its clanhi2g when
scaping from the house.
He sprang into the air and waved
lis arms: his wild hair blew about in