Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-08-25
CHAPTER Y.

My thoughtIess youth was wing'd with vain
desires,
BY manhood oft misled by wandering fires.
Early on the Friday morning Mr..
Eyre's father had another seizure, and
his death was hourly expected through
out the day.
MIR. Eyre nevertheless concluded his
letter to MadCap, and posted it himself,
after which he returned to take his
place by his father SSide-ap place which
the beribboned one had yielded since
she had realised that it would not be in
the old MANS power, even il he had the
will, to confer any further benefits up
on her.
Death! Mr.. Eyre had faced it often,
and had no fear of it-but he had never
been compelled to watch the slow tight
ening of the grisv hand on its prey, and
he turned from the sight impatiently,
as he would have done from that of a
boa constructor swallowing a rabbit-a
diSagreeable sight, however necessary.
Probably there is no sight on earth
more painful than the death of an old,
unloVed, depraved person. The very
inCapacity to feel sorrow makes the on
lockers heart but the bitterer and
harder; while the death of little child,
that is too young even to lisp out its
lIlU o'tiilC llCti1C
to an agony of pain that will teach it
the divinest lesson it shall ever learn.
There it lies-at once our pain, our
punishment, and our joy; all that we
might have been, all that we can never
be, we seem to see in the little flicker
ing life before us; in that tiny hand lie
possibilities that were once our own,
and that one by one we have missed or
flung away, and between him and us
come thousand subtle, vivid SuggeS-
tiOnS that never pass betWiXt US and
other faces that we love. We cannot
see Gods hand, but hushed, yearning
fear is upon us. and we dare not rail
against Him, or cry aloud as we hold
upon our knees the little shape that has
never Sinned nor struggled, never YeXed
our hearts, or needed to beg our forgive
ness. AS the cry rises invOluntarily
that we may be permitted to give our
own life for the child, midway the an
sWer silences it. "Y ours is little-His
SO muchm and the prayer changes on
our lips to one for ourselves, we being
SO much more in need of prayer than
ne. And so he remains to us all our
lives long the might-have- been of our
tearS-the little snowy sail set to the
ocean of eternity, that has reached alone
an anchorage that the most eager of us
may never hope to win, and the spot in
our heart that baby hand has touched
remains ever vital, while that memory
may hold us back from sin, and in
tluence us for good to our dying day.
But by the death-bed of such an one as
Mr.. Eyre we feel scant impulse to pray.
His deeds have gone before, and our
words follow in mOckery-here are no
pOtentiaGtieS for good, but realities of
accomplished evil, and we shrink from
impOrtuning God for this man, who
never dreamed of impOrtuning Him for
himself.
But to his son this CHASTITY, uncon-
SclOuS face was more pregnant of mean
ing than that of any child could have
been, for here was that mlStakable
might-have-been to which his own life
had pointed TIL Madcap had come to
him to prove how
Men may rise on stepping stones,
OF their dead selves to higher things,
for to this, or a violent death standing.
was the end TO which most of the Eyres
came. 1t seemed their lot to live rie
ordq9llSe, and die before the cup of life
was drunk to the last dregs: While with
Byron might each of them have ex-
claimed, Il will work the mine of nv
youth to the last vein of the ore, and
then-good night have lived, and
am content"
Naughty, brilliant, with dark pc
cular beauty as coveted by men as it
was dangerous to women, the EyreS for
the last hundred years had been an
enigma to the world. and perhaps 10
themselves; yet though their deeds were
eccentric to the verge OF madness, none
could point to a single instance Of in
sanity in the family, and as time went
on, the world gave up wondering, and
accepted the Eyres as race OF beings
too distinct from ordinary human be-
ings to be Judged by the canons that
ruled mankind.
There had been a time when they diff
fered In no way from their neighbOrS,
by whom they were respected as folks
not too clever to make other people
look foolish, nor yet TOO vlrUuOuS to
grudge a pleasant vice or two to those
who could afford them: but with the
advent of certain Lady Sara Villiers
in the family, both the fortunes and
character of the Eyre family underwent
striking change.
Her sons grew up wild and turbulent
as young hawks reared in doves nest.
perpleXing their quiet father by their
lawless ways; but when it was discover
ed that their eccentricity at home took
the shape of extraordinary mental abil-
1ty at school and college. their mother
glorled IN them and their successes
more than ever, and would tell her huS-
band how this marked increase Of in
tellectual power in the Eyre family had