The record-union., 1894-09-29
Ill,

A tat and pudgy form lodged along
through the street throngs behind Kirt-
ley breem on his way to a great uptown
railway station the next morning, and q
certain fat and pudgy face peered eagerly
over kirtley Breem's shoulder upon the
ticket he had purchased with that halting
yet eager and huttering diffidence OF a
school boy on half-holiday quest for un-
determined field of exploration.
This once scanned the tat and pudgy
form wriggled quickly out of line into
The impatient waiting crowds; its owner
neryously watched Kirtley Breem until
ne had passed the ticket inspectors and
his form, his shoulders and finally his
nat, were lost III the waving bobbing of
heads along the noisy platforms beside
the trains, with an exclamation of un-
disguised satisfaction and relief at last
turned 10 railway map upon the wall,
and, slowly repeating "Brice's Cove?
Brice's Cove? Brice's Cove?' ran his fat
and pudgy finger back and forth along
the heavy dotted line.
"Umph! Never heerd o. that. Must
be on salt water, though. Yes. yes; here
him T. bury hisself where there amt
nobody t even plant headstun over
him!"
He now pushed his fat and pudgy head
into the ticket window as there was a
moments lull in purchases and inquired
duAlOuSIy ABOUT DrlC6S Cove.
"Iwenty-elght miles out First flag
station. All rocks and trees and water,
Half a dozen retired sea captains ramp
round there. Nobody can live near 'em.
One woman there; that's all we know of.
She's telegraph operator and station
agent. We call her General Manager
Mary because she runs tn town and th'
captains TO bOotW gllbly replied the voice
in the window.
"Thankee, thankee, SIR" answered the
| questioner heartily, replacing his specta-
cleS in their case and turning abruptly
away, muttering to himself
IF General Manager Mary'll only run
| afoul o. kirtley Breem an send him T.
drydock till he king il remodeled fore an,
aft, deck am keel, 'Liiah Whittal<er'Il
have the cussedest load often his mind
that ever got onto it yet! But, Lord
all them other editors'll be waitin' down
there t th Motor" office t. beginn'
he thus set out from one completed
task to another, cheerily comforting him.
self 1rom time 10 time with the half audi
BILE reflections:
lone managin' EDITORS vacationin'.
anyhow; an 'Lijah Whittaker's gained
one o. his p'ints. If this editor business
| amt too ALFRED weakenin' I'Il tackle
| them gamblin' blood suckers t'-morrer
an t-morrer amt any too soon!'
When Kirtley Breem stepped from the
I
Station, the only passenger to alight
! among its Jumple OF gnarled coastwise
trees and its huge, Enthusiastically piled
rocks, he felt a strange sense of insup-
| portable weight III his limbs, whirring
and confusion in his ears, a dull beating
and throbbing in his head, and, though it
was still balmy and radiant morning, it
seemed that portentous hush and twi-
light were settling down upon him and
closing him in as If by the fiuttering
plniOns OF night and rest, all alone there
in the silent old hamlet where he was
| born.
Just glance or two through this sooth-
ing twilight which was swiftly coming
on revealed everything as he had left it
more than twenty years before with
mother and brother, and waiting sweet
heart behind; his spirit big with resistless
purpose, his soul swelling with lofty
motive, his heart thrilling from what
remained and what surely must be wait
ing for Mary Brice and Kirtley Breem,
| the other side of effort and its noble gains:
the brown roadway winding among the
| Uncovered crags to the droning country
nests among the sweet New England
hills: the tumbling stream that sang
| itself asleep across the shadows within
| the shadowy cove; the "Poinr' where,
| like frowning frigates dragged to land,
| the huge old nabitations raised great ga
! bles and ponderous chimneys above the
dark masses OF hr, where for centuries
the storming sea captains-the Brices
| aud the Breems-had dwelt, and where
| his father had never returned from the
| one voyage of wreck and death which
| had transformed the lad, Kirtley Breem,
| into the brave admiral of the helpless
home fleet, and beyond, with ten thou
sand memory whispers now, the ever
| lasting witchery OF the smiling boundleSs
/ sea.
To what measureless shores awakened
recollection may instantly voyage amid
| the thunderingS of reality or the Silences
| of dreams, no adequate human revela-
| ton has been made. What illimitable
biographies of dream-life hope ana effort
| and Golor and loss, perhaps OF half
| hinted rediscovery, kirtley Breem saw
unrolled before him in but a single mo-
| ment of time, can never be told or
| known.
But the clicking of the telegraph broke
| the spell upon him for a little. In this
interval of material consciousness he
somehow entered the tiny, vine covered
station and wrote this brief dispatch:
Elijah Whitaker, Esq,
''Motor'' Editoria! Rooms
New York City.
At Brices Cove Station. No plans; and
subject to recall at your Convenience.
kGRTLEY BREEM.
He leaned against the counter after he
| had filed the message. Strangely, his
| fingers had clutched into the wire-guard
| as ii for support. Faint and far distant
were the form and face and voice OF the
matronly, bustling little woman who
took the message and fee without look
| ing up.
| The clicking of the instrument begun
to seem to him but as the echo back from
some far continent. Its indistinct palpi-
| tation, rather than sound, was suddenly
| wholly stilled. The matronly little
woman at the instrument swung around
! in her chair, sprang to her feet and thrust
| her face far forward across the counter
| to the white face at the window. Her
hands gasped wildly at his clutching
| fingers in the wires.
"kirtley!-Kirtley Breeml Is it you,
or your ghost. at last?''
| His lips scarcely moved, but there was
a half articulate "Mary''-from between
them. And that was all; for the man fell
| heavily and unconscious upon the sta
ton floor. and there, at the threshold of
OF his boyhood home and scenes, the
blessed vacation of mental night and its
rest had como, for a time, to kirtley
! Breem at last.
| 1t was upwards of a month later when
the managing editor awoke. He was ly-
ing upon broad bed in the huge parlor
of the ancient Brice mansion. The room
was high and long and wide and cool,
and but for the outlandish relics of sail
ing in far off seas hanging grotesquely
against its paneled walls it had the SEEM