The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1894-09-05
hoped that by ignoring the change it

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would disappear.
Alasi Things got worse and worse,
and one day, after ten miserable
months, he was sent for from the
works in haste. Laura was raving
and shrieking in the widest paroxysm
of brain-fever:
''Where are the children? Save
them from that man Henry, please
take him FIVE pounds--no, he wants
ten pounds now, and can't get it -
In such piteous, moaning ejacula-
tions she revealed the secret terror
that was killing her.
But perfect love casts out fear and
jealousy, and Laurs's husband did her
no injustice. Tenderly he nursed the
poor, shattered wife and mother back
to life again, though it was an almost
hopeless task with that nameless
horror ever beside her. One night,
when she was little stronger, he led
her on to talk of the past, and he was
so loving and so pitiful that in flood
of life-giving tears she poured out to
him the whole miserable story. Then
the burden fell from her life, and she
dropped happily into the first sweet,
healthy sleep she had had for nearly
a year. She never asked again for
her tormentor; she only knew that he
had disappeared from South Stafford
shire, and Joy and peace came back to
her heart and home.
But one day, after the lapse of four
years, she received a dirty, anonymous
letter full of threats and insolent de-
mands for money. This time she
went at once to her husband with the
trouble.
''Don't be frightened, Laura" he
answered. 'I know the fellow. He
is one of gang of four who have just
come to Sackett Village. He will be
in Jail before tomorrow night. This
time he shall not escape my vengeance.
He had scarcely finished speaking
when a couple of men ran up to the
house, crying:
''Measter Measterl Here be Dim
mitt's height slewered away and there's
"a crowning in
The iron-master leaped to his feet
and was soon following the evil mes
sengers to the village. He knew that
Sackett was all undermined with pits
and workings, and it was possible the
whole village was in danger. The
disaster was right in the center of it,
and he was not long in reaching the
great yawning chasm, where the earth
had given way and down which two
cottages, with their inhabitants, had
gone.
As soon as the master appeared, the
pitmen and ironmen gathered round
him, though all knew that succor or
help was perfectly hopeless.
"Where is Bumby?"
"Here l be, measter."
"What mine was under this?"
"Dimmit's, measter, worked out. "
els it deep?"
"Six hundred feet"
''Dry or wet?"
''Deep water"
The master looked blankly at the
black abyss.
''It's the third Drowning in, i my
time. Tlast were in to Cavill's mine.
Six decent families whent down at
midnight; they we're dashed to bits
on 6 rocks at the bottom"
do you know who lived in these
cottages?"
"One were empty, thank God Four
strange lads that worked i Sackett's
mine had t. other; they nobbut work.
ed there week, they wor glad to get
shut on them at end of it. J."
81 know, measter," said Michael
Raine, the publican, "for they owe
me for weeks beer and 'bacca-t the
score is set ag'n' John Todd, Tim
Black and Bill Yates.
=" Bill Yates?' are you sure?"
'Sure to certain of that name,
measter, for he said he wor come spe-
cial to get upsides wi you"
The ironmaster turned thought.
fully home, and as he kissed his wife,
said
"Bill Yates is dead, Laura. Ny
vengeance has been taken from me by
Him to whom vengeance belungeth.
You may rest safely now, darling"
But oh, Henry, what a destiny
might have been mine !"
Don't say destiny, Laura. Our
choices are our destiny. Nothing is
ours that our choices have not made
ours"
This is a true story, and I tell it TO
many thousands of young girls with
Just AS much earnestness as Laura told
it to her daughters, to show them that
clandestine love affairs are always
highly dangerous; for a passion that
is Graded in deceit is pretty sure to
end in sin or shame or sorrow.-Now
York Ledger.
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