The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-02-26

An Il
The events of this story happened
many wears ago in the uuc 1m 'ortable
ola days of stage coaches ANA post
horns when human nature wore less
veneer than now and the honesty of
poverty was more than a tradition.
Then the little town of Market Wan
der, in the western shres, was a place
of mighty Importance, full of business,
BuCOlic farmers of the old sort, nour-
ished on red beef and sweet ale, swag-
gered at fairs with their swollen hands
deep in their breeChes and We're men
to be reckoned with as voters in the
Tory interest. They rode their sleek
mares rOugh-shOd over the country, ap-
praising the value of cattle with one
thrust of their crops, and We're easily
recognizable at fifty yards as genuine
John Bulls by every Peeping Tom of a
vagabond artist. There We're squires
then who lived in Oranges and Halls
and were great on thousand pounds
per annum; and shocked peasantry to
pull meek foreloclt; ghosts walked in
the graveyards, unabashed by physical
research societies; tobacco and liquors
were always good and often contra
band; the value of a sheep,was "a mans
life. In those days the national sense
of humor was of the rough-and- tumble
sort: laws were framed on the club
and-plum principle. Britons loved their
wives sturdily. impartially thrashed
their sons and died respected in a pickle
of alcohol.
In such hearty times,as you may sup
pose, the very commonplaces of life
We're romantic and the true tale that
am about to tell is but one of a thick
series. 1t owes it's survival to one ia
cob Bern or Barn, who served Hannah
Wray in his youth and told me her
story in his garrulous dotage.
She was woman of whom nothing
certain could be said. Before her ad-
vent in the town it was known that
the cottage which she afterward occu-
pied had been let to d London lady, The
cottage was on the squres land, and
the squire's baliff, man full of affairs
was made drunk in The Home Tap
and industriously piled with questions
But TO no satisfactory end. He gave
her name, and hazarded that she was
married and lived alone; he did not
know if her husband We're dead or not
She was distantly related to the squire
he fancied: but even this he was not
sure Of He did his honest best to pay
for his liberal refreShment with libera
information, but, having acted as blinC
agent in the matter, and being a mar
of small imagination, his success was
meager. At the end of the Cross-eXam'
ination the folk thought him but {
poor sort of fellow, after all.
Hannah Wray came and was seen
But her very appearance was mySteri
Gus and battling. 1t was impossible t
tell her age. Her plentiful dark hal
was thicky streaked with white bu
her face, though marked by sorrow
was alive with youth; her eyes Wer
lustrous, her lips We're proudly curved
the outline of her chin and throat wa
round and firm. She came prOsaicall,
riding on the London coach, burdene,
with many feminine bundles and boxes
The peasantry watched her from afa
and spied upon her through the gardel
hedge when she was at last installed il
her cottage. 1t was reckoned as an un
common misfortune that her cottag
was the last in Market Wander an
separated from it by bluff of hill.
On the second day of her stay in tn
little town some building operation
We're begun in Hannah Wray's garden
The neat vegetable mounds and bud
ding peas We're swept away, an appl
tree was ruthlessly uprooted, tn
ragged rose and fruit bushes We're cas-
forth to wither in the road. a rectan