Middletown transcript., 1891-10-15

4
Morrowby house vaults r. queried
one of the detectives. / never
heard of them.''
"' Nor I, said several by-standers.
| and one of them added, There's no
such place as the Morrowby house
about here ,
You may imagine my surprise
and at the same time tremendous re-
lief" Valentine continued, " when an
old gray-halred man in the party
came to my rescue.
"t Oh. yes, there is such place.
he said. 1T is down back of the Par
tan place, on the river road. But ]
haven't heard it called by that name
for forty years, and it's nigh fifty
years since the old place was burned
out. The vaults I don't know nothin'
about. Maybe the young man can
take US to 'em.'
"This left me quite as badly off as
| was before. All there was for me
to do was to trust to Providence; and
| took the chances, and announced
my willingness to point out the vaults.
We made shortcut across the
fields to the Morrowby place-now a
part of the Partan farmland there,
in the middle of the fields, to my
astonishment and delight, where once
had stood the mansion of the Morrow
bys, was found fiat stone with a
ring in the middle of it. We lifted it,
| and"
Found the murderer concealed
there ?" cried Caddy,' nervously.
"We found the body of a man
floating on the surface of a pool Of
water that had accumulated in the
vaults. and there were found also
certain evidences that convinced a
coroner and twelve intelligent jurors
that the murder had been committed
by him, and that in endeaYoriug to-
conceal himself in the long forgotten
vaults he had lost his life in the man
ner indicated"
"Of course was the hero of the
day. and the next day was forgotten.
! wrote up the story, made tremen-
dous beat on the other papers, and re.
turned to town. From that time to
this have experienced no return of
the fantasies Of that morning, or any
thing like them, and the prophesied
and greatly feared mental prostration
has failed to materialize. It was an
experience, however, that sobered me
considerably, SO strangely unaccount-
able was the episode; but had it not
been for subsequent incident, equal
ly mysterious, I should doubtless by
this time ceased to think about it
altogether. AS it is, | cannot now
ever free my mind entirely from mis-
givings since the occurrence of the
second strange affair, which seems to
link my being with this town, and
which makes me so greatly dread to
set foot once more upon its streets.
"The second incident Of which |
speak occurred some years later, after
my book was published. AS you may
remember, the first edition of my
novel was printed without my own
but an assumed name on the title.
page, the real authorship of the book
being divulged in the second edition,
appearing a month after the first.
Being somewhat anxious to know how
my book was regarded by the critics
and other writers for the press-I am
no more above the small vanities of
life than our friend Caddy' here-I
subscribed to newspaper-clipping
agency, and from it received every.
thing that the newspapers printed
about my book and myself.
ST must explain that the nom over
which wrote, Harold Austin,' was
whimsical entirely. I never knew,
nor do I know now, why I chose sit.
1t occurred to me to use it, and use it
| did /; and as for the story, it was one
that for as long as could remember
had been in my mind to write. As a
boy used to construct little roman.
ces for my own pleasure, and this
story with which l made my first ap.
pearance between covers was one tf
the earliest of my efforts in the re-
gloas of romance-or, possibly, in
romantic realism is better, for the
story was not SO imaginative as to be
impossible in real life. Understand
ing these things, you are prepared to
hear the rest.
Zone morning, among dozen or
more notices Of the book, I found,
clipped from Maine newspaper, a
column of stuff about myself, signed
by woman, slightly critical, largely
anecdotal and closing with a thorough
sscalping (Which did not deserve) for
having written the story of old family
friends without taking the trouble to
" change their names" I did not
mind the alleged anecdotes which |
told how the writer and [ were in
school together when we were about
ten years old, in which / was accused |
of being even at that age precocious
moody boy nor did I care very much |
when the critic or historian went on |
to give highly fanciful account of
my parentage. In the FIRST place it
was my other self-my Harold |
Austin self-she remembered and |
cut to pieces and, secondly. the fanci-
full parentage consisted Of hypotheti-
cal Austins, of course, of whom the
writer could say anything she pleased
without hurting me or mine but
when she charged me with laying
bare the real sorrows of real people,
giving their names, and only slightly
Disgusting their dwelling-places, then
| lost my temper, and wrote to the
editor of the Maine journal, repudiat-
ing the attack, and saying that it was
that this person, who pre-
tended to know SO much about me,
could know anything about me, since
she and I had never met.
" He replied at Gncs to the effect
that the writer of the criticism was