Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-05-01

the stoFas, Blacksmith shops, livery
stables, mills and factories of Open
stone, and ere the nightfall It had
spread 20 all the rich outlying lands
that neighbored it. The people were
becoming very weary, so they said
though the fact of their exhaustion did
not come through their teeth quite as
gently as 1t here goes to paper-and it
seemed very hard to always pay for
and bear the demoralizing effects of a
kind of tragic criminal farce. 1t was
distressingly expensive and exceeding
ly long between scenes. Sometimes
they almost forgot, they said, what the
first acts had been; and when the
fourth or fifth scene was reached, aft
er the lapse of as many years, perhaps,
and Justice drew her sword and with
forbidding visage flourished
it about the culpritFs head, then
wiped it with her silk hand
kerchief, and placed it in its
sheath and kissed the offender and let
him go, they really were so bewildered
by the flourishing and kissing, and
lapse of time since the farce began,
they could hardly say if it were right
or wrong, and sometimes they were so
weary they didn't even care. But
nearly always at the end of the first
VI Secohu dcL GuSy "SE0 very luCH OI-
Tended that justice should lift her
sword and Just when she was going to
strike would wink at them and laugh
and go off the boards to change her
| costume for the next scene, and
| in : this case they were so cross
and tired it seemed as though
| they couldn't bear to see the play pro-
coed. OF course they were not consid-
crate, nay, were actually mean, per-
haps, but performance should not
last too long or be unduly similar in
scenes; and they were very, very tired
of the old, long plays, they said, and
sorry enough, too, let us hope, since it
seemed so disrespectful, and the man.
ayers were thriving so finely on the
old, long plays.
To John Earring the decision of
Judge Ashman came something like a
shock; for, though conscious of, he was
not yet accustomed to, the fact that a
thing at law must often be fought for
and won a great many times before
what seems the law will permit one to
carry his own away.
Immediately on the morning that the
verdict convicting Fowler was reached,
John Earling had gone out to see the
old attorney. But the news had pre-
coded him, and though the old man
was weak and palsied and propped up
in bed under the big moose head, his
eyes cleaned with gladness, and he felt
about and got hold Of the young mans
hand. and, gazing approvingly into his
face, exclaimed, in his broken voice:
what hair! what hair! / knew you
would fetch it away! Snum! snum!
but you fetched it!' and he rocked his
trembling head in wondering approval.
But now John EARRING had not the
heart to go and see him again, but
within an bour he had set about pre-
pairing the ground for the next strug-
gle, while the old lawyer, lying under
the moose head out at the north end of
the town, looked at his attendant as if
it would be an exceeding pleasure to
eat him, and muttered maledictions
upon the cravenly Ashman. John
Earling did not know, and neither did
the murmuring people, that Joel Whit
!: ney had given them the drink that
made their bosoms bitter. Only one,
: perhaps, the old lawyer with the big
vined the true impulse shat moved
Judge Ashman on to action.
dang itr' he said, with his amber
eyes glaring at the moose head, ''there
can't be any justice, and you know it.
as long as the law and politics run on
, together, windin' into each other like
two Internal snakes, with politics as
: rotten as the city treasurer's heart in
the courthouse of Sodom!"
, The moose head did not offer to dis
, pute the assertion, and the old lawyer
! groaned and lay still
, All that day the sky seemed fiat and
+ low and leaden, with raw wine
breathing out of the north and driving
, the dull scud across the heavens away
, into that stupendous mouth which SKY
and prairie made toward the south
: The sun could not be distinguished
! where the world turned down at the
:. west. Absalom Heater. standing upo1
= his porch on the ridge to the west o
= Openstone, thought how like SOM
a great burning city, smole-mutfled ant
a crumbhng. itlooked. He let his eyes fal
= away from it and pause a moment a
! the brow of the ridge to the soutl
= where Maun was murdered, and shool
! his head and looked up at the driftin,
= scud. Cant let i'm off," he NUT
. tered. Wrong, though! right, too
tough! hate to! no worse than shoot
, in rebs, 1 guess, thought and h
4 stood looking absently at the frozel
4 ground before him awhile, then turne
" and went in.
Several times while eating supper h
q stopped. and, after looking about tn
3 comfortable room and caressing tn
y curly-headed twins and smiling Ethe
q with his eyes, gazed gloomily at hi
II plate and grow1ed: ''Might hev be
: haved himself, then! Might hev ha
4 as good as thisI It's his own doins!"
/. After supper he kissed them an
went striding away toward the towr
?. Darkness came early into Openston
q that night upon rising wind, which
IS mingled with falling snow, went moar
d ing over the houses and sobbing undo
,e the caves. Everywhere lights brok
10 out, throwing their pale streams thong
l. the windows into the darkness and di
10 covering to the muffled passer-by wha
~ | an lnfinita white swarm was fiyin