The Press., 1893-03-16
OLD BISON.

ing, for it happened at the end of live days and nights during which the year passed from strength to age; in the in terval between the swallows departure and the redwing's coming; when the tortoise in my garden crept into his win ter quarters and the equinox was on us, with an east wind that parched the blood in the trees, so that their leaves for once knew no gradations of red and yellow, but turned at stroke to brown nd crackled like tin foil.
 At o'clock in the morning of the sixth day I looked out. The wind still whistled across the sky, but now with out the obstruction of any cloud. Full in front of my window Sirius flashed with whiteness that pierced the eye. A little to the right the whole constella- tion of Orion was suspended clear over wedgelike gap in the coast, wherein the sea could be guessed rather than seen, and travelling yet farther the eye fell on two brilliant lights, the one set high above the other; the one steady and fiery red, the other yellow and blazing intermittently; the one Aldebaran, the other revolving on the lighthouse top, fifteen miles away.
 Half way up the east, the moon, now in her last quarter and decrepit, climbed with the dawn close at her heels. At this hour they brought in the stranger, ask ing if my pleasure were to give him clothing and hospitality. Nobody knew whence he came, except that it was from the wind and the night, f1,1f I,oc ocfV. moaning and making sound like the twittering of birds in 8 chimney. But his journey must have been long and painful, for his legs bent under him, and he could not stand when they lifted him. So, finding it useless to question him for the time, learned from the servants all they had to tell-namely, that they had come upon him but a few minutes before, lying on his face within my grounds without staff or scrip, bare headed, spent and crying feebly for suc- cor in his foreign tongue, and in pity they had carried him in and brought him to me.
 Now for the look of this man. He seemed century old, being bald, ex- tremely wrinkled, with wide hollows where the teeth should be, and the flesh hanging loose and faccid o1i his cheek bones; and what color he had could have come only from exposure to that bitter night. But his eyes chiefly spoke of his extreme age. They were blue and deep, and filled with the wisdom of years, and when he turned them in my direction they appeared to look through me, be- vo,,1 mo and hook 17ro,, oopt,,yioc of oo,. row and the slow endurance of man, as if his immediate misfortunes were but an inconsiderable item in long list.
 They frightened me. Perhaps they conveyed warning of that which was to endure at their owners hands. From compassion I ordered the servants to take him to my wife, with word that l wished her to set food before him and see that it passed his lips.
 So much did for this stranger. Now learn how he rewarded me. He has taken my youth from me, and the most of my substance, and the love of my wife. -......
 From the hour when he tasted food in my house he sat there without hint of going. Whether from design, or be- cause age and his sufferings had really palsied him, he came back tediously to life and warmth, nor for many days professed himself able to stand erect. Meanwhile he lived on the best of our hospitality. My wife tended him, and my servants ran at his bidding, for he managed early to make them under stand scraps of his language, though slow in acquiring hours-I believe out of calculation, lest some one should inquire his business (which was 8 mystery) or hint at his departure.
 myself often visited the room he had appropriated, and would sit for an hour watching those fathomless eyes while tried to make head or tail of his dis course. When we were alone my wife and I used to speculate at times on his probable profession. Was he merchant, an aged mariner, tinker, tailor, beg garman, thief? We could never decide, and he never disclosed.
 Then the awakening came. 1 sat one day in the chair beside his, wondering as usual. had felt heavy of late with a soreness and languor in my bones, as if dead weight hung continually on my shoulders and another rested on my heart.
 Awarmer color i'll the strangers cheek caught my attention, and I bent for ward, peering under the pendulous lids. His eyes were ivelier and less profound. The melancholy was passing from them as breath fades off pane of glass; He {. was growing younger. Starting up I ran 70 fr ho mi.
 There were two white hairs in my fore lock, and at the corner of either eye half a dozen radiating lines. was an old man.
 Turning, 1 regarded the stranger. He sat as phlegmatic as an Indian idol, and in my fancy I felt the young blood draining from my own heart and saw ii mantling in his cheeks. Minute by lnin- ute watched the slow miracle-the old man beautifed. As buds unfold he put on a lovely youthfulness, and drop l,y drop left me winter.
 hurried from the room, and seeking my wife laid the case before her. This is a ghoul,' said, ''that we harbor; he is sucking my best blood, and the house, hold is clean bewitched." She laid aside the book in which she read and laughe at me. Now my wife was well looking and her eyes were the light of my soul. Consider, then, how felt as she laugh ed, taking the strangers part against me. When left her it was with new suspicion in my heart. "How shall it be-" I thought, eff after stealing my youth he go on to take the one thing that is better?"
 In my room, day by day, l brooded upon this-hating my own alteration and fearing worse With the stranger there was no longer any disguise. His head blossomed ill curls; white teeth filled the hollows of his mouth; the pits in his cheeks were heaped full with roses, glowing under a tranSnarent skin Ii