Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-05-02

begging anu plestuihsS, anu CluUCASu w
gether, were swept under a tree and
torn apart, and John Earring, blind
and sick, turned away and staggered
toward the town, hearing Fowler
shrieking under the tree: ''Johs Ear
hing, see IUyL Snaer! see IUyI SnGeri
&c IuyI Snaerr'
CHAPTER XXI
When the morning famed again, the
dawn shot up its tongues of light
through dim walls of vapor and driv-
ing whirling wreaths of snow close to
the east of Openstone. The untrodden
streets were heaped as with powdered
marble, and the flying winds were
blind and choked and streaming with
the frozen, feathery medium. Every
drift smoked at the top, being beaten
and cuffed and secured and scooped
into by the whipping. eddying blast,
and as the weird light grew and spread
slowly through the streets, and crept
about the lifeless houses, under the
moaning trees, out into the open
spaces, across the muffled river, up the
tempest-swept slope and along the
shuddering, sleet-caked branches of
the oaks, it lit upon a grewsome,
frghtful, silent, swinging thing-the
book-keeper, black. frozen, creaking
by the neck.
There he swung, the evil heat gone
out, the dark mystery shut and sealed,
the silent, long-held agony at end. Up
in the wailing, creaking oak the still
book-kceper swung to and fro and gave
| no heed. Perhaps his spirit was out
! there among the swirling elements! If
so, did he feelP Did he care that he
had been despoiled by savageryP And
was Maun's soul there, tooP and did
she look into his eyes reproachfullyP
| and did he into hers with unutterable
grief for the awful work of passion?
Or did they, forgetful of the old life in
the unfathomable new, clasp and whirl
op and on and on with the streaming ele-
ments into eternal mystery? Peace!
come away; we can not even follow
them with feet-winged thought, much
less with cumberous Judgment! Let go;
how far beyond mans law they sinned
God alone shall even sayI Wish only
that to one the pitfalls and the flowery
darkness had been pointed out, with
| all the woe and sorrow hiding in them,
ere she fell; that to the other Nature
had been less lavish with her poison.
and in the stead of human savagery a
swift and perfect law had cut him off
from contact with his kind and left his
fault and dissolution to the powers that
fashioned him.
Some such shadowy, wandering
wish as this last was turning YEARLY
about in John Earnings mind when
morning came. He had come back to
the town when he saw that the sick
ening tragedy on the hill was in
evitable, and, climbing to his room
under the roof of Bowers Block.
paced to and fro for hours. At
last he sat down between the dim
lamp and lukewarm stove with his
face IN mis- hands and thought and
thought upon the myrIad-colored prob
lem of existence. He could not lay
the colors straight, and at last the hues
all bent, and the problem seemed a
mighty, .swiftly-whirling wheel that
drew sparks out of the darkness by the
thousands and they streamed down
the blending spokes and entered through
the vast and sunlike hub into what
seemed the sun itself; then he thought
the wheel was Time and the sparks
were lives, and he strained to see into
the region where they went until he
seemed to be going blind, and the great
wheel seemed receding and growing
less and less, and going farther and
farther into the darkness, until it dwin-
died to a single spark which seemed
to turn into the doomed book-keeper' s
voice, and wall to him family from
under the fatal oak: ''See Ivyl Snaer!
see-lvyl-S-n-a-e-r" Far and far away
in the storm it seemed, and he was
striving vainly to go to it, when il
slowly changed and seemed the voice
of Celeste singing silverly away up in
the sky. Then suddenly it seemed
summer time and he and Celeste were
hunting in the flowers and grass fol
, Maun's grave. But they could moi
| find it, and stood looking into eact
others eyes with wondering gaze
when Celeste said, slowly: 'tIt wa.
, made here, but the grass has all grown
over it, and it must be as if it had never
, beenr' and he thought such look al
he had never seen there before, a lool
that was a kind of rosy light come
) into her face and shone into his ant
. filled him with so sweet a feeling tina
/ he awoke, and the gray dawn was filter
| ing in through the frosty window anC
j the storm was pelting against it ant
> beating over and securing across thu
! tin roof of Bowers Block.
In q. moment, when the truth and hi
, dreams were, separated, the dark pas
came back upon him, and he shiveret
[ and got up and moved sorely about
replacing his damp, torn clothing witt
dry apparel. Then he bathed his face
S and putting on his overcoat starte,
a out, but paused at the door and tool
r from his pocket the scrap of paper ad
| dressed In Fowler which he fOund ri