Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-02-06


point. The sound lent him new strength
A few rods beyond the point there wa
a run of clear water, often mistaken fo
an inlet of the sea. He and others ia
miliar with the coast knew that it was .
stream of fresh water, flowing dowr
from the mountains and sinking in til;
marshes back of the bluffs in this locality,
only to pierce the cliffs at an unknown
depth below the water level aud to bub
bic forth afresh where the sea laved
their base. AT high water stream and
ocean merged into one, but at low water
the stream rippled forth to join the sea.
And at the place where it welIed w
from its underground passage there were
dangerous quicksands. One misstep and
the frightened child, cropping on in the
night, would meet horrible doom,
swallowed up in moment by the greedy
suction of the sands.
There was a autter of white garment
on narrow spit of sand, bordered on
one side by the advancing tide, on the
other by the stream, with its treacherous
beds and crumNling banks. He shouted
to warn the child of her danger and the
waves drowned his cry. Confused, ex-
hausted, terrified at the great breakers
that rose with laundering roar and fell
again to dash themselves over the sand
in foaming sheets that Tapped her feet,
she stumbled in the direction of the
quicksands; and it was on the edge OF
the crumbling banks of sand that Richard
Mansfield caught her.
There were lights moving amid the
shrubbery on the Van Alsteyne pl zee,
more lights on the narrow strip of beach
below, defining timorous figures which
searched the tide pools and crouched ald
peered out upon the foaming waters,
fearful of a burden they might bear upon
their breast. Drenched through and
through, chilled and stiffened, with his
strength nigh spent, he passed them all,
labored up the bluff and laid his burden
in the fathers arms.
The judge, distracted by the anguish
he had undergone, silently received the
child, and her deliverer, uurecognized,
passed out into the darkness.
1t was as he would have asked.
Strange complexlty of human nature; he
could meet the humiliation and defeat of
the morrow with new spirit, sustained
by the secret knowledge of this splendid
triumph over his enemy.
But fate, or the everything power we
call Providence, in these days does not
always give his own way to mln who
would suffer in silence at the hands of
one whom he has blessed. Late that
evening Judge Van Alsteyne, watching
his sleeping child in silent rejoicing,
awoke to a sudden sense of obligation
uudischarged. He went down to the
servants quarters, where he found the
men drinking the health of the house
hold in his wine. They started up sheep
ishly at his entrance, for the judge was
stern man and somebody was sure to be
blamed for the mishap that had befallen
the little lady. But this time it was the
judge who was embarrassed, hesitating,
almost deprecating, in his manner aud
speech:
(which of you was it that brought
back the child2 Twas so troubled-5e-
side myself-that did not notice.
Which one among you was it9'
There was moments awkward
silence. Then the coachmau replied:
at wasn't none of US, sir. Twas a
man that'd been out walking on the
sands. He lives close by. Dick Mans
field; him that has the crippled child.
The judge passed out without word.
Richard Mansfield, the man whose petty
debt, so long unpaid, had been vex-
alton to him, when his mind was en-
crossed with larger matters. One mort
gage had been renewed. 1t had become
due, with the second one, the middle OF
December, but the man had asked for
more time and he had given him urtil
past New Year. He did not like to use
harsh measures in the holiday season, but
he had told him that business was bust
ness, and that the money must be paid at
the beginning of the year Or he would be
compelled to foreclose. The fellow had
seemed so thriftless and down at the
heel. The interest had never been
promptly paid. And so he had a crippled
child2
The judge was walking down his
garden path, fastening toward the dim
light that shone in the window of the
cottage. The night was raw, aud the
wind still clustered and shriekej, sure
indication of a brooding storm "a the
Pacific shore. He buttoned up his coat
and shivered as he thought that his little
daughter might even now have been at
the mercy of wind and wave. A queer
freak for man to be walking on the
sands on such night. He must have
been distracted to choose such a place in
such weather. Distracted2 This was
the first day of the new year, aud it was
tomorrow that he had declared the
mortgage should be foreclosed. And
there was the crippled child.
Richard Mansfield, sitting beside his
sleeping child, his head bowed in his
hands, not now in despair, but in stout
effort to master the situation before him,
heard something that sounded like a
muliled knock at the door. He raised
his head, alarmed at the late call, and
the Judge entered without bidding, in a
gust OF wind that rocked the frail tene-
ment and disturbed the gentle sleeper,
who stirred and muttered brokenly. then
slumbered again.
The Judge looked down upon the
painted crib, the tiny crutch, whitfield
out by hand, that stood beside it, the
patchwork coverlet and the wan cheek
and remembered the rounded cheek of
the little sleeper be had left pillowed on
down beneath a canopy of lace.
The man who could without emotion
pronounce sentence upon criminal, who
was called the most clear headed and
hard-hearted of usurers in the conduct
of his private business, experienced a
queer rising in his throat when he essayed
to speak.
A tear fell on the faded coverlet. He
reached out his hand to the man who
stood beside him, and Richard Mansfield
knew that his days of hopeless poverty
and strife were past.-Washington Star.