Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-12-30
Oh tPTER IN.
My Two CUrntors

| ~ as l may. Philip Stansfeld. NV father
was tried and condemned to death accord
| ing to the word of the kings advocate The
TWO women with him, Janet Mark and Ro-
| pima Johnston, We're sentenced to be carried
away overseas and there to be sold for
saves In the Virsinian or Carolinian plan
! tations.
| NO" all these three lay in the Tolbooth
| OF Edinburgh waiting their several dooms.
| and meanwhile many things hammered 70 ,,s
| who abode at New Minis in the vale of
| Moreham. For three or four DAYS after
| the taking away of my father 1 felt all the
| sensations of terror as strongly as before
| out alter a while the feeling was blunted
| ana IN a surprising degree / piucked mn
| heart. Especially as soon as | heard thar
| Ihilip Stansfield was condemned TO death
| ana would never come back to trouble us
asain' which take 1T. is a strange thing
| ioT son TO feel about his own father
1 was still abiding with my mother, no
more IN the pleasant hummiug Min house
~, ~ the Weir but instead at the lonely lit
| lie cottage of the lodge Yeti, sunk in The
| sioomy pines of Moreham wood / had
mated it from the first. and now took every
| SSpportunlty Of slipping off to Umphray
| Spurway's mill in the valley whore 1 cnnid
| be happy with the weavers and Divers and
with all the hum and hustle of the min
gong blthesomely on about me-
~, nTt ai.er While Cmphray Spurway
| WOULD not permit me to come so often
is your mother left all alone I'm thar
gloomy house?" he would ask, and wben !
t t1lu MN aye he would frown and shake
ms head and fold the webs of cloth an
wrong. So that even William Rowna,i
would smile covertly. and taking the niece
| out of his matters hands u,o,,i1 = a. l IT,
self Niu uo IL MN
"Fie on you; go your WAYS homo ,a5s,. -
ne would say. 1T Is not meet that vo,,r
hothGr, young and fair lady, should he
mus mus Ieft alone! Pshaw!" And he would
knock drying rack over with his foot and
then Kick it again for falling. Wherein
very gravely William Bowman would pick
IT up and set the harmless thing in its
place again, knowing his masters WAYS ana
custom when troubled.
ihen why did You send my mother awav
rom your house, Cmphray Spurway?" /
moula say. Why did you not ask her to
stay altogether with you when she vyos
i iiete-lI you think so much of her being
lonesome in the lodge Yeti. l did not want
10 go; ana am sure that she did not"
WHAT'S that-whats that?' he would
platter out. looking as If he would knock
my mead off. Gods help-ask your mofb-
eF 10 stay; What does the loon say? out
O. my mill with you! Ask his mother to
stay All, would l not? The varlet to
speak SO. Get home to your mother at a
dogs trot or L will set the bloodhounds ON
you. And see, take this basket of trout
with you, sirrah. and do not care to show
Sundays" '''A u
Not to tell you how my mother liked the
trout: would adventure, for 1 was be-
as William Bowman knew him, and ia
lount upon the knowledge
We'll at any rate. let me not see your
race before tomorrow" he would erumhla
L will not have boys like You setting NV
caraihs and spinning lasses by the ears |
ana wasting my mems time. for which | |
have to pay so dear. Get awayi" |
Yet for all that L went just when l was |
ready.
But must hasten to tell what befel nv |
NS-lDi
in the Tolmooth, under sentence of death, |
think l have not hitherto mentioned my /
Nhcle John, save by inference, as it We're
when Sir James, my poor grandfather
complained to his friend that his second |
son, to whom he had looked to be some |
comfort to his old age, was fast following |
in the footsteps of his brother
Now Mr. John Stansfield was youth of |
quite dlHerent appearance from my poor |
father For one thing he was very thin /
ana Wlre-drawn, with a pale face, almost |
pared down till 1t was like birds, with a |
sallow skin drawn tightly over prominent |
cheekbones and nose little hooked
He was tt lawyer to his business but not /
or the busy sort of them, like the gray
eyed kings advocate. Sir James Dalrymple
OF stair. He had never had any work TO do
IN ms NE at his own proper business, but
with others like him he spent most of his
time in telling stories to the detriment Of |
other people, notably of the more success
iul members of his own profession. So | |
found out afterwards, for at this time he
Weared but little of his leisure on a lad like
ne.
For years the brothers had hated each
other cordially, my father with the prodi-
gals contempt of the less open sinner
whom he called the lawyers clerk of |
Biue Bags" with other gross and insult
ing names that will not write here. While
John said nothing to his brother, having |
great dislike to blows and open warfare |
remembering, too, doubtless, the beatinys |
and builyings he had received from his
in c., Ia 1
bode his time and supplied my grandfather
with everything he could hear or invent to
the dscredit of his elder son.
But after Philip Stansfield came home the |
last time from the low countries and began |
to be shame over all the country side,
there came a day when The brothers met
II was at Lucky Barton's Hotel in the
Grassmarket where the north coaches
stop.
Their greeting must have sounded strange
from brother to brother.
Hey, deils rattlebag, lang-nebbit Jock |
the supplanter, where away? Come and
take drink with an honest man for once
In your worthless, peevish lifeI'
That was Philip Stansfield's salutation |
cried from the farther side of the wide |
square And so. leaving his legal COM
panions, John had gone to speak to his
brother. From that time he had scarcely
left my father so long as he remained in |
Edinburgh He had Philip Stansfeld in mis-
rooms. He piled him with drink He kept |
knives and pistols away from him when he |
was assisted by one Saul Mark, the hus-
band of the buXom bosom, Janet. whom We
saw first at the change house by the cross |
reads of New Milns.
Saul Mark was a strange man, rather
shortish and thickset, his skin Drowned
like that of a man long in hot countries, |
where fever and rum had salted him |
against all infection of other feebler dis
eases. He wore large silver rings in his |
ears, a thick hoop of the same metal on mis- |
left thumb for luck, and when he was in no |
and away from a town he often ,
were red handkerchief tied about his | ,
head instead of a decent blue kilmarnock |
bonnet. And that last feared people more
than anything as being of spice piratical |
and murderous.
He had appeared quite suddenly in the {
countryside one fair day about nine years !
ago He set up a dicing and gambling
table on the green at Moreham, to which !
all the young sparks and bold, swearing ! !
blades within twenty miles resorted From /
this time forth the silent man with the I
rings twinkling palely in his ears had :
played many a day on Moreham green :
with varying luck. One evening there :
came an elderly laborer elbowing among !
IN |