Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1897-05-06
PART rIf.

December in London. Cold and fog
gy. White-Rosc Cottage wrapped in
mist; in the back room a blazing ire.
But Robert Van Maern was no long
or in the blissfnl mood to enjoy this
luxury, as we have hitherto known
him: moreover. he now regarded it as
quite q matter of-courSe. which came
TO him by right. since he WAS q Great
ure OF such refined feelings, SO slight
and fragile. and did not feel himself
born to endure poverty and want.
Sun, he had known misery, the slay-
cry OF hired labor, to which ne had
bert his hacS With crafty euDseryience;
still, he had felt the cravings Of hun
ger, the bitterness OF slualid beggary.
Hut all this seemed long ago. and rs
vague as a dream. or as the vanishing
Lines of the London streets out there.
dimRted and blurred by the pail OF fog:
as indiStihct as our dubious impress
Q of n former state of existence.
For. after his metamorphusis, he had
determined 10 forgct-hc had forced
himself to forget; never for an instant
TO recall his sI!Icrings, or to think OF
the future. He hated the past as an
injustice, a disgrace, an iradical stain
on the superficial spotlcsspeSs OF Mis-
| present life; he had persuaded himself
that all those things which he had now
hidden, buried, forever ignored, had,
indeed. never happened. And he had
succeeded in this placement OF his life
IN America; il seemed wiped ont OF the
annals Of his memory.
Why, now, must these years rise
slowly before him, like ghosts ont OF
h grave OF oblivion? What had they
to say 10 him nOw2 Nearer and near
or, till, year by year, month by month,
day by day. they passed before him,
daBciEg in the flames Mt which he sat
staring, Ike a Dance OF Death Of the
years. They griuned at him from
skulls, with hollow eyes and pall.d
faces, distorted by a crafty smile; the
( dead years which beckoRed TO hi:a,
wearing filthy rags and poisoning his
cigar with their foul odor. He saw
them, he STnelt them; he Shuddsred
with their oaill-there, in front OF the
fire; he felt their hunger, in spite Of
the dinner that awaited him. Why
was it that the future, which he no
less pcrsisteatly ignored. was begin
ming e. hang over him as an omen OF
evil, which each day. each hour,
brought nearer and nearer, irresistibly.
q AA+N ' A@AbAS +A nat llltLIN uANkSL. NJ lAa lDH
be such rs the past had been.
Yes something was impending. There
he sat sick with alarms, cowardiy.
spiritlcss. cifete. Something was in
the air; he felt 1t coming nearer. TO
oyerwhelm him, TO wrestle with him
for life or death in a frenzy Of despair:
he felt himself tottering. sinking: he
was torn from the ease ard comfort of
his present life, cast out into the
streets, without shelter, without any
thing For what mad he Of his own?
The clothes he wore, the shoes on his
feet, the ring on his finger were
Franks. Thus IL had been for a year
past: and If he were to 20 with all he
possessed, he would gO-naked, in the
winter. And he could not again be, as
he had been III America, tramping for
work day after day. His body and
mind alike were eneTVated, rs by n
warm bath ut luxury; he had become
X a hot-house plant which is accus-
toned to the moist heat, and perishes
when it Is placed in the open air. But
it hung ever him.. cruel and unroient-
ing; not for an instant did the threat
relax. and in his abiect weakness he
feehiy Wrupg his white hands. and two
tears, hot with despair, rolled down
his cheeks.
Struggle for existeHce! He was inca
pabia OF such n battle: his energy was
too lax for that-a laxity which he had
felt growing on him as a joy after his
fight for life. but which now had made
him p0wCrleSS 10 screw himself up to
the meIest semblance of determina-
ton.
And before him he saw the fatefui
chain Of events passing onwards-
some 50 infinitely small-each detail a
terrible link, and all leading on TO
catastrophe. Strange that each one
was the outcome of it's predecessor
the future the outcome of the pasti If.
after his failure from sheer idleness at
Ieyden, his father had not placed him
as a clerk in the office of a Manchester |
house. he would probably never have
known certain youths. his fellow
clerks, fashionable young rakes, and
fierce ''strugglers for existence" still
scarcely more than boys, and already
the worse for dissipation. IT he had
never known thenl-and yet, how pleas
antly they had borne him along, mere
ly by humoring his natural bent!-he
might. perhaps. not have played such
nnderhand tricks with the money be-
longing to the firm that his patron, out
OF sympathy and regard for his father.
had helped him to 30 to America. That
was where he had sunk deepest,
swamped in the maelstrom Of more en-
ercetic fortune-hunters. III only he had
been less unlucky in America, he would
not have foun himself stranded in Lon
don in such utter restitution. or have
appealed to Westhove for help.
And frankfurt for his suggestion,
Frank would never have gone 10 Nor
way, ncve" have met Eva. Oh, that
journey TO Norway how he cursed it
now; for Frank might, perhaps, not
have fallen in love, and never have
thought of marriage. And now-only
yesterday, Westhove had called at Sir
Archibald's house, where the two
friends had been made very welcome
after their acquaintance in Norway,
and had come home engaged to Eva.
Frank would marry, and he, Berthe?
Where was he to go? What was to be-
of him?
He was painfully conscious of the IA
tally of life, OF the injustice Of the
dispensati0ns Of fortune ;and he dis
that his own immediate diff
owed their origin to a single