Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1897-12-23


seems keeping Christmas within.
But as Robert Gray leans upon
the paling. looking towards a little
window that now is bowery with
scarlet ard green-in summe. with
the myriad waxen trumpets of the
yellow jasmine-a man plods by,
and touches his hat.
IF yer a wanting Mr.. Watson,
sir he says, you won't find him
Al home t1-day. Lin sand-.-ths
missis be gone TO see their young.
est son. Old Tab the maids mind.
ing the house; but she's upstairs
dressing ] dussay now
Well, Mr.. Watson deserves q
holiday. Gone for long
NO; | reckon they'll be home to.
morrow. Miss Mariana, the daugh.
ter, amt wi EN-. She's gone to
Master Fieidings, across the moors,
to keep holiday wi the children.
She's partic'lar favorite there-a
sort o. coosin TO the missis.'
So saying. Hodges again touches
his hat, and proceeds.
When the honest fellow is out of
sight, Gray opens the gate gently
and steals in. Then from the be-
aforementioned bowery window he
cuts spray of pyracanthus with
his pocket-knife, and coming forth
again, hurries away like one guilty
OF a serious sin. When he is far
out of sight of the cottage, on his
path again to the highway. be looks
at it long and tenderiy, aud then
opening his knapsack, lays it with
in. This shall go with him far and
far away; it grew about her bowery
window-she whom he has met once
or twice in country homes-she
whom he has spoken to few times
she whom he has looked upon
and loved.
Like man who mas accomplish
ed a mission, he now walks steadily
onward regains the highway, and
begins the ascent towards the moors
to the lower ones, which lie at
the base of the higher and more re-
mote. Deeper became the snow,
wilder the scene, neither man nor
bird nor beast giving life to the
whitened waste. By-and-bye he
comes to few solitary homesteads
and beyond these to a lonely grave
yard, where the dead sleep eternal
ly amidst the great hush of nature.
He must pause moment; for here
lies poor schoolboy who died of
cold and fever. Gray nursed him,
Gray loved him, Gray cannot turn
away--perhaps forever--withont
saying farewell to the insentient
dust.
As he diverges to the gate of en-
trance into this lone battle-ground
a middle-aged gentleman comes to-
wards it, from the rear of the sm all
thatched church, and striving to
undo the latcn, cannot: his fingers
may be cold. He may have enter
ed the graveyard by some other
route. For days possibly there has
been no passers in. BE this as it
may, the gentlemen cannot make
egress. Gray hurries forward, and
from his side undoes the latch.
Thank you,' says the gentleman
raising his hat, "a courtesy is al
ways pleasant, even on a lonely
Yorkshire moor, | thank you-a
happy Christmas-good day. He
is handsome, thoughtful man of
middle life; his hair just touched
With gray, his manner prompt, his
words curt, like ops whose deal
ings are many with men and the
world. Perhaps he is Yorkshire
manufacturer-who knows?-many
have factories in the hollows of
these moors-rich, exact, earnest
men, gathering whole populations
round them, and making steam
their willing slaves.
When the stranger is out of sight
Gray passes in. and following the
footsteps in the snow, they lead him
to a simple grayestone at the rear
of the church, of which the snow
has been recently brushed; on it is
recorded the death of two old per-
sons-man and wife--who died
some FIVE years before. Their names
we're Fieldings: their married life a
long one, considering the years they
lived.
Il thought as much says Gray