The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-05

head resting in the palms Of his hands
upon his chair back. His face, thus partly
turned to the oaken rafters of the ceiling.
betrayed little index to his emotions.
Perhaps he had none, we sometimes
thought and even remarked.
We had noticed that one eve was often
cooked and squinted toward certain knots
and their radiating seams in the beams
overhead and we had come to look upon
him as the one nature among US ever alert
for flaws.
That any manner of romance had ever
stirred his silent life was TO US grotesque
idea, even as an idle reflection; and it was
q strange experience and curious pleasure
TO have him at last look around upon US
with little start of suspicious and pro-
phetic temerity, which instantly effected
a solemn silence in the room. Observing
this, the Morose Traveller resumed his
fixed inspection of the age-blackened cell
ing, and half alphabetically began the
following singular narrative in low and
measured tones:
The inexplicable habit of marital bru-
tality, which is often savagely intensified
with advancing age, and its possible cure
In the face of keen and apparently ire
vocable human loss, were never so i'm
pressive!y revealed TO me as on the occa-
eion of a recent visit to the famous and
infamous Scottish border village of Gretna
Green.
The Journey was made partly in the
interest OF a client, one of the heirs to
considerable estate, and partly for re-
10 md
Take your summer vacation in the
north - suggested the senior member of
our firm and secure the proofs of mar
riage necessary in the Hexam estate case
at the same time You will see a bit of
historic border country; and I'll warrant
you that you'll be able to dig up some as
quaint and curious people and things at
Gretna as are to be found in the
United Kingdom
twas a strange conceit for a summer
vacation, but fell in with it at once;
took the night train from London for the
north breakfasted at old Carlisle, ard
early the same day alighted from a Dunn
fries bound train at the pretty, but lonely
station at Gretna.
It stands beside the once great coach
road from Carlisle to Glasgow. So far as
human eyes could discern, not a soul had
housing within its half dozen ruinous
Publications. Not youthful nor wrinkled
face pressed against tiny window pane as
] passed. No dirty border children
skulked like grouse in and out of the
pleasant hedge. And not even the snarl
of watchful cur contributed to the fact
of arrival, or conveyed a sense of vel
come.
! knocked bravely at few doors with
cut even awakening an echo. Where
echo is dead, l reflected, it is dead and
silent indeed. finally struggled into the
old kirkyard. The kirk door was locked
fast. / prowled about the ivy covered
mause behind. Here lived, I knew, one
of those remnants of a half-dead and al
together breathless ecclesiastic system, a
parish minister; but evidently he too,
was past awakening.
Then l wandered among the graves,
There was at least interest, if not life,
here.
That extraordinary priest of Hymen,
the first Bishop of Gretna," immortal
lied by the verse of Hood, he who had de-
fed bulls of popes, bullying of lord chan
cellors and edicts of kings, fat, old bran
dy-guzzling Joseph Paisley lies in that
Gretna kirkysrd; and the path to his
humble hearthstone is worn deeper than
70 the grave of him of purest life, or
highest title, who is now commoner in
the same last mold.
His successors as priests" of the ir-
regular Gretna marriages are buried
near; and their headstones are also
shrines for the curious. Could all the
couples, or descendants of all the couples.
In England and Scotland that those three
men joined together, unite in visiting the
graves of those to whom they owe their
connubial joys or miseries, unused, what
wonderful pilgrimage it would be!
Why the old coach road would be
massed with folk, score abreast, away
back there over the rivers Sark and Esk
TO fortress-crowned Carlisle. And there
would be lords and earls and real priests
and even prelates among them, too!
al last became conscious of a presence.
Turning, ! saw nose of wondrous pro-
portions with man of no proportions at
all behind it.
The man stood motionless, but the nose
seemed possessed of life 1t gently
swayed pendulum-llke IN the autumn
breeze, as If in compensation of all else
dead and still at Gretna.
The man was gnarled and knotty and
old and bumped, and was clad in that
picturesque curtailed garb of the British
postman whose skirts are at the waist
the waist at the shoulders and
the cuffs at the elbows: with
Q straight visored head cover
ing like truncated ounces cap; the
whole attire wrinkling and concentrating
skyward, as II Authority had the British
postman eternaly in his grip at the nape
of the neck to accelerate the action of his
neither extremities
The hands of the old man futtered
about his wrists, suggesting chilly
weather; and his two green little eyes,
brighter in their green for the red and
rheum of their lashes, seemed peering
over and around his mighty nose, as if the
intellect behind were having a hard time
Of it in settling the exact status of the
stranger.
II could not have anywhere recog-
nized the odd tumble of clothing and
figure as belonging TO British postman
the lonely environment, the recent kirk
yard musings, and the unearthly silence
at Gretna, would have conjured the fell
low as some gnome on postal service from
another world; and the first impulse of
the situation was TO hold out my hand for
the forthcoming ghostly message.
Restraining myself in this, fell in be-
side him with civil greeting and we
trudged along together down the half
street and half highway into the modern
but woebegone Gretna village, locally
known as the hamlet of Springfield.
The old fellow still seemed in deep
study. He would not walk beside me If
! crowded close upon him at one side Of
the highway, he would suddenly fall be-
hind, bring up the rear, and patter along
there in silence, or hug the hedge at the
other size Of the way; and whenever |
could get a vliutnSp Of his ypipkad LITTLE