Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1893-09-18
and Lutterworth, saw his facet was

and Lutterworth, saw his face-it was
my own.
With scream and a start awoke,
all the terror and shame and confusion
OF that dread discovery working in my
features. threw myself out upon the
table in an agony of contrition, and
locking my clasped hands above my
head, shut out for minute the long
dim length of the hall, half seen in the
golden gloom of the candles and tho
deathless eyes of that gray inquisitor
who stood watching the tempest OF
emotions that racked ::y soul. So il
was l, was it? l. who had done that
black, foul deed in another life. and
harvesting also was mine. It was my.
self, then, on whose head l had heaped
hundred thousand curses. 1t was l,
gentle John Rutherford, that was The
best butcher of them all. In my wild
incoherent grief and establishment lay
moaning like that for a minute, think
ing over in my living mind each step
OF the motley pageantry which had
carried me back into the past, and
given me that strange knowledge, that
one chance, tleeting insight into the
great methods of the inscrutable pow
ers. l forgot the gray shadow by me
until, in a minute. he touched me
again and said, more gently this time,
The wrong was great, and great has
had to be the repentance, but the
methods of the law which governs
your life and mine-there where YOU
are and here where l am-are as Just
and generous as they are unalterable.
You have offended and made restitu.
ton. Good! This single circle of tho
100000 which compose your life is
completed-now sec how nicely the
ways of chance (forsooth9 fit to the
needs of Justice; think again, kins.
man."
But dared not. I staggered back,
back from the glamour OF that shroud.
ing presence about him, back from
those int1exible gray eyes standing out
pale and bright like two pale planets
in the dusky night of my hall; / wrung
my hands in my distress like woman,
and walled as the fear and the doubt
| and the wonder played like hot metal
in my veins in frenzy OF terror,
| with the courage of rat in the COR
ner, remember swearing that l would
| not remember again, and for answer in
| thought he had touched me with that
smooth, cold, velvet touch, and Twas
away, nevertheless, dreaming anew,
| right back into that age where my
earlier self had done the business, and
thence, this time descending through
the years, l followed on the heels of the
outlawed ones l wrOnged. l saw thosr
dear fitting phantoms stream across
the stage of my comprehension,
dropping as they went from their
gentle condition down into lesser
ranks, son succeeding father
and brother to brother, a long
line of yeomanry living in forgetfulness
on the outskirts of the land that was
theirs but for my treachery; marrying
and working and dying, writing their
names in churches and chapels and
Bibles, until SO many Of them had
slipped by that presently all knowledge
OF the wrong that had been suffered and
the right unrestored was gone from
amongst them! But could l overlook
1t? Step by step and life by life saw
the right in the cottage come down ster
by step and life by life with the wrong
in the hall. saw that right inviolate
slip from name to name and hand to
hand; twice it was nearly extinguished,
and then, when somehow knew in nv
| sleep I had followed it down almost
to the actual present day, all the
right and heirship of our wide acres
and many halls was concentrated
by true descent and existed only in one
fair, .unwotting yeoman girl. saw her
bud in the swift, bright sequence of nv
involuntary recollection from tender
cottage maid into comely woman with
averted face; I saw one in dress of bet
ter kind ride down and WOO her by cot.
tage door and hazel copse, and win
and lead her to the altar-and all my
straining soul and aching heart and
stretching nerves were breaking to
look upon their faces, for here were
they who had bred him who was to-day
true lord of Lutterworth and Wors.
borough-he to whom must give place
| and light and life, the embodied heir OF
that deathless wrong l had done.
half dragged the white linen from
the table, and the Gathering
plates and cups in the bitterness
of my expectation; l half rose
from my chair with startling, straining
eyes, still bOdy-senseless as was, and
waited for those two to turn. And
turn they did in minute, and with
stagger and start and a cry from the
lowermost depths of my soul tottered
out of my vision into the material