Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1892-10-21

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found a place for its root
There was none. NY fingers be-
came sore in busying themselves with
the harsh and inhospitable stones.
My feet slipped from the smooth and
Shiny masonry beneath the water
and several times my face came in
rude contact with the wall, where my
foothold gave way on the instant that
l seemed to have found some diminu-
tive rocky cleat upon which | could
stay myself.
"Sir, did you ever see a rat drowned
in a half-filled hogshead-how he
swims round, and round, and round /;
and after vainly trying the sides again
and again with his paws, fixes his
eyes upon the upper rim as il he
would look himself out OF watery
prison?
Il thought of the miserable ver-
min, thought Of him as | watched
thus his dying agonies, when a cruel
urchin of eight or ten. Boys are hor-
ribly cruel, sir; boys, women and
savages. All childlike things are cru
el-cruel from want Of thought, from
perverse ingenuity.
Il thought then, | say, Of the rat
drowning in half-tilled cask of wa
ter and lifting his gaze out of the yes
sells as he grew desperate, and | flung
myself on my back, and, floating thus,
fixed my eyes upon the moon.
THE moon is we'll enough in her
way, however you may look at her
but her appearance is, to say the least
Of it, peculiar TO a man floating on his
back in the center of stone tank,
with a dead wall of some fifteen or
twenty feet rising squarely on every
side of him - (The young Iuan smiled
bitterly as he said this, and shuddered
once or twice before he went on mus
ingly.l
THE last time had noted the plan
ct with any emotions she was on the
wane. Mary was with me. had
brought her out here one morning TO
! look at the view from the top OF the
Reservoir. She said little of the scene,
but as we talked Of our childish love,
| saw that its fresh features were in
cooperating themselves with tender
memories Of the past, and was con
tent.
"There was rich golden haze upon
the landscape, and as my own spirits
rose amid the voluptuous atmosphere,
she pointed to the waning planet, dis
cernible like faint cash in the wei
kin, and wondered how long it would
be before the leaves would fall.
Strange girl did she mean to rebuke
my joyous mood, as if we had no right
to be happy while Nature. with hering
in her pomp, and the sickly moon,
wasting in the blaze of noontide, were
there to remind us Of the goneforev-
err
They will all renew themselves,
dear Mary said |, and there is one
that will ever keep tryst alike with
thee and nature through all seasons,
if thou wilt but be true to one OF us,
and remain as now child OF nature.
"a tear sprang to her eye, and then
searching her pocket for her card
case she remembered an engagement
to be present at Miss Lawson's open
ing Of fall bonnets at two o'clock!
And yet, dear, wild, wayward
Mary, l thought of her now. You
have probably outlived this sort OF
thing, sir; but l, looking at the moon
as floated there upturned to her yell
low light, thought of the loved being
whose tears l knew would flow when
she heard of my singular fate, at once
so grotesque, yet melancholy to aw-
fulness.
And how often we have talked,
too, OF that Carian shepherd VIII spent
his damp nights upon the hills, gazing
as do upon the lustrous planet!
Who will revel with her amid those
old superstitions! Who from our own
unlegended woods will evoke their
vet undetected haunting spirits? Who
peer with her in prying scrutiny into
natures laws, and challenge the whis-
pers Of poetry from the voiceless
throat of matter? Who laugh mer-
rily over the stupid guesswork ot
pedants, that never mingled with the
infinitude of nature, through love ex-
haustless and all-embracing, as we
have? Poor girl she will be COM
panionless.
Alas companionless forever-save
in the exciting stages OF some brisk
filtration. She will live hereafter by
feeding other hearts with loves lore
she has learned from me, and then,
Pygmalion-like, grow fond OF the im-
ages she has herself endowed with
semblance of divinity. How anxious
she will be lest the coroner shall have
discovered any OF her notes in my
pocket
II felt chilly as this last reflection
crossed my mind, partly at thought Of
the coroner, partly at the idea OF
Mary being unwillingly compelled TO
wear mourning for me. in case ofsuch
a disclosure of our engagement. 1t is
a provoking thing for a girl of nine
teen to have to go in mourning for a
deceased lover at the beginning OF
her second winter in the metropolis
"The water, though, with my mo
tionless position, must have had some
thing to do with my chilliness. / see,