Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1892-01-31
of Mother England everywhere and al

ways.
81 almost fear to talk about home
our old home, ] mean-to my dear child.
She might grow little homesick, you
know, and how could she understand, so
young and woman, too, that duty
makes exile needful? OF course do not
mean to suggest that we deem our new
home in the Promised Land an exile. !"
And here he again gave the same anx-
ious look had before observed, as II he
dreaded had the power to dissolve an
unsubstantial illusion.
81 wish l had thought, he continued,
"to show you, when you were at tea,
picture of Clitheroe Hall 1 have. 1t is
my daughter Elen's work. She has a
genius for art, really genius. We have
been living In cottage near there,
where she could see the hall from her
window-dear old place! and she has
made capital drawing Of it,"
"You had left it?" l asked. He had
paused, commanded by his melancholy
recollections.
"0h, yes! Did I not tell you about
my losses? was rich man and pros
porous once, l kept open house, sir, in
my wife's lifetime. She was a great
beauty. My dear Ellen is like her, but
she has no beauty good girl and
daughter, though, like all young peo-
pie, she has juvenile wish to govern
but no beauty. Perhaps she will grow
handsome when we grow rich again"
| Few women are so attractive as
Miss Clitheroe," said boldly enough.
II have tried to be a good father to
her, sir. She should have had diamonds
and pearls, and everything that young
| ladies lwant, if / had succeeded. But
| you ought to have seen Clitheroe Hall,
sir, in its best days. Such oaks as had
in my park! One of those oaks is no.
ticed in Evelyn's Silva. One day
great many years ago, found young
man sitting under that oak writing
verses. l was hospitable TO him, and
| gave him luncheon, which he ate with
very good appetite, II he was a poet.
1 did not ask his name; but not three
months later / received volume OF
poems, with a sonnet among them,
really very well done-very we'll done,
| indeed-inscribed to the Clitheroe oak.
| This volume, sir, was by Mr.. Words
worth, quite one of our best poets in his
way, the founder of new school,"
"a very pleasant incident"
Eyes, indeed. The poet was fortu-
nate was he not? But If you are fond
of pictures, should have liked to show
you my Vandykes. We had the famous
Clitheroe Beauty, an earl's daughter,
maid of honor to Queen Henrietta
Maria. She chose plain Hugh Clithe-
roe before all the noblemen Of the court
we Clitheroes have always been for
innate in that way. l said plain Hugh,
! but he was as handsome a cavalier as
ever wore rapier. He might have been
an earl himself, but he took the part OF
| liberty and was killed on the Parlia-
ment side at Edgmoor. had his por-
trait, too, a Vandyke, and one OF the
| best pictures he ever painted, as / be-
lieve is agreed by connoisseurs. You
should have seen the white horse, sir,
in that picJure-full Of gentleness and
spirit, and worthy the handsome cava-
lier just ready to mount him."
AS the old gentleman talked Of his
| heroic ancestor, name not unknown to
history, he revived little and L saw an
evanescent look Of his daughters vlgor
in his eye. 1t faded instantly. DE
sighed and went on.
81 should almost have liked to live In
those days. 1t is easier to die for holy
! cause than to find ones way along
through life. / have found it pretty
hard, sir---pretty hard--and l hope my
day Of peace is nearly come"
How could 1 shatter his delusion aud
thunder in his ear that this hope was a
| lie?"
81 had happy time Of It," he con-
tinued, ''till after my Ellen's birth, and
I ought to be thankful for that. l had
my dear wife and hosts Of friends---so |
thought them. To be sure l spent too
much money, and sometimes had rather
too gay an evening over the claret at my
old oak dining table. But that was
| harmless pleasure, sir. ! was always
kind landlord. l never could turn out
tenant nor arrest poacher. l suppose
l was too kind. l might better have
saved some Of the money l gave to my
people in beef and beer on holidays.
But it made them happy. like to see
everybody happy. That was my chief
pleasure. The people were very poor in
England then, sir-not that they are not
moor pow---and l used TO be very glad
when a good old English holiday or
birthday gave me chance to give them
little festival.
could imagine him the gentle, genial
host. Fate should have left him there
in the old hall, dispensing frank hospi-
tally all his sunny days and bland sea-
sons through, lunching young poets,
and showing his Vandykes with proper
pride to strangers. His story. carried
truth on its face In fact, the man was
all the while an illustration Of his own
tale. Every tone and phrase convicted
him of his own character.
at sometimes makes me little mel
ancholy," he continued, ''to speak OF
those hanpy days. Not that regret the
result have at last attained! All, no!
But the process was hard one. l have
suffered, sir, suffered greatly on my way
to the peace and confidence l have at
tanned"
"You have attained these?" / said.
"Yes; thank God and this Latter-day
revelation OF his truth! ] used to think
rather carelessly Of religion In those
times. l suppose it is only the contact
with sin and sorrow that teaches a man
to look from the transitory to the eter-
nal. Shade makes light precious, as an
artist would say. / was brought up, you
know, sir, in the Church OF England,
but when l began to think its Journalism
wearied me. 1 could not understand
what seemed to me then the complex
machinery Of its theology. thought,
sir, as no doubt many people OF the po-
etic temperament and little experience
think that God deals with men without