The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-04

|
 alleviate the sufferings of the half-de-
 mented woman at my side as I now
 had her tormentor in my power, | Whether or not he realized this, he
 was completely cowed. and he soon
 whiningly begged of me what would
 have him do.
 Get out of this house first" in-
 exorably demanded. "Go to my room at the Maxwell Arms. Occupy it. if
 you like. and will pay the reckoning;
 but shall remain here with Elizabeth. Your filthy old records will be safe
 with me. So will Elizabeth: for this
 poor old body. whom you have out
 ragged all your miserable life. shall now know what peace and tenderness are right here in Gretna for little; and then perhaps. with me. in London!' Grotesque as was the situation. 1t possessed some clements of purpose and tragedy Whatever my dimly- formed determinations might have been. my words were accepted with ir-
 revocable finality.
 Old Elizabeth seemed to understand that some blessed change was being wrought; and as her husband cast fur tive and appealing glances upon her. she gurgled and cackled and smiled, but still clung tightly to my arm. In few moments he had donned his postman's garb. and. gathering his let ter bag and few trifing articles to- gether, with look of despair he left the cottage and trundled feebly away up the grass-grown village street. while my heart smote me for the blow
 I had so remorsely struck; for 1t seemed to have visibly shrunken the frame of the orge in blue and red to but half its former diminutive stature. The strangest series of humble incl dents 1t has ever been my fortune to experience now followed. Old Eliza, beth mended in her feeble mind the mo-
 ment her brutal master had left the door. She was as docile with me as she had been slavish with him. She seemed to comprehend that I had in some way relieved, if not saved, her very life.
 Her remaining powers responded to gentleness, to consideration and, above all it seemed to me, to simple physical | the cottage; made my own bed in the loft; attended to the fire and brought the water for the tea from the near tumbling Sark. From Carlisle I se- cured huge hamper of provisions and dainties. I nourished her starved frame with wholesome, lifegiving food; and took pleasant walks with the now happy-faced old creature. out of whose existence the dread presence and spirit of 'her brutal companion seemed to have wholly faded, by hedge and field and stream.
 All this time the Bishop of Gretna" was so thoroughly vanquished that he remained silent and alone with his shame and with his agony. I would not listen to the blatant villagers about him and responded to all cunning in quiries: "He knows why he is absent. Ask him." The bravest expression of his humiliation was his endless wraith- full haunting of the locality at a re- spectful distance. But sentineled the cottage like savage Cerberus; and if his skulking form ever came to close ly, had only to wave the fatal paper threateningly toward him, to cause his precipitate retreat.
 Perhaps 1t was because a great change now seemed to come upon Eliz- abeth, and perhaps somewhat because I began to have curious reflections up- on the subject of love and it's strange expression in old age, that I uncon- sciously began to relax my vigilance.
 Old Elizabeth at last began to pine and sadden. Her regained hold on life seemed suddenly to have been lost; even the meaningless smiles upon her face, which had been brighter and more hopeful of late, began to fade away; and on more than one occasion found her at the door or at the win dow with looks of utterable longing in her fluttering white face.
 Casting about one evening for reas- ons and remedies, discovered that tiny hole had been cut in the kail-yard wall; that something very like an eager eye was behind 1t while old Elizabeth was at her evening prayers-saying her 'bit wordies' in the tiny garden; and, circling the cottage and quickly and quietly reaching the spot, I found the banned husband peering through the chink. while tears fell like rain from his gnarled and quivering face.
 He attempted to escape like culprit, but held him sure and fast.
 Come said quietly, "it is time that you began life with your guidwife anew"
 Laird! Laird" he chokingly an- swered, "twas time for that lang, lang, syne!'
 Then I knew that my vacation in the north had not been for naught. Il softly opened a little gate and led him within the garden. In a moment more the Bishop of Gretna" was upon his knees with his own "bit wordies" upon his lips. beside his aged spouse. Then I instantly turned away and left them together.
 Whenever am in the north, I al- ways run over to woebegone Gretna to l look in upon the old couple to whom I 1 sustain such peculiar and certified re- lations. And when sit with the aged and pitiful pair at their tiny deal table, oaken bannocks and slipping steaming tea, know, in the tender ness of the second childhood that is now upon them. that the oddly re- awakened jealous fires in old Eliza beth's testy consort have at last l brought to this one cottage by the songful Sark, all the sweet and sacred | comprised in that sweetest l of olden Scottish sayings: The e'ening brings a hame!