The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1900-10-31

beautlIul, youuB, pure, "Aot S'StJ
81 bud of tender promise just showing
the pink-why should she have been
So made the plaything of an enorni Gus
wrong, the helpless victim Of an &C.
- trocious fate2 He Saw her as she!wa
when she left him, fair, br1ght1T low
s~ inannih6iii of his widowed heart,
Ted 6er, step by step,
"A pei descent, till she lay
lrRered by that man.
tefious cerebal action,
ote the correlation of
ace with the girls,
flash, the meet
rs with the success
ushes of her miser-
lt where he sought
It confidence and be-
with greatest faith,
met with calamity or
esperate step in infamy.
as the fault2 Surely
been born with the taint
r blood
MacC Collough! The name
ID the old mans fevered
the tall, dark outlaw
PISS his vision like an actor
,tage of melodrama. What
1t strength, what immunity
physical effects of moral
,s! In the pursuit OF this
Is had wasted himself. his
rs career, his prayers, his
He not q drop of desire
m lost by the outlaw. 1t
.er food for reflection for the
reacher as he lay on the
his withered limbs out
ed and the weakness of death
s nerves. Slowly his mind
Fed its way down to that last
;ene and began to take up the de-
lis one by one, anayzing them with
erciless exactness. Meanwhile, by
hat curious power of the brain which
nables it when abnormally stimulated
% follow two lines of thought at
nce, he was reviewing Kirk Mac
Gollough's origin and accounting
pr his career by referring all his
rker characteristics to inheritance
ON his father, Thomas MacCollough,
ho committed great political crime
hd was transported therefor in the
rst prime of his manhood while Kirk
as yet q mere boy. Burns had never
een Thomas MacCollough, nor had
be known much of the family before
Kirk began to pay attention to Mar
xaret; but since then he had found out
the history which now seemed to &C
count fitly for the young mans un-
paralleled course of evil. From father
to son had descended the curse OF out
,awry.
But it was natural that Burns mind,
even in the last extremity of despair,
should turn with all its Scotch stub
bornness and tenacity to take re-
iigious survey,so to call it, of the stu
alton. Perhaps it would be better to
say that his thoughts were not driven
at once, even by direst calamity, out
of the groove in which they had been
running since first he began to be a
preacher. It had been his rule to
measure everything by the standard
disclosed to him in the Bible. "Thus
saith the Word" had been his hobby,
his guide, his comfort. Never during
q his long, absorbing chase after his
child and her atrocious lover. had he
forgotten the Sabbath or failed to
keep it holy; never had he neglected
the simple forms of worship and of
prayer 70 which his austere conscience
and the obligations of his church
S.. bound him. He had lived unspotted,
aud now death hovered over him in
that lonely place, with none to lift his
head, speak q word of comfort to him
or to touch his lips with water. Upon
his soul the bitterness of all this set
tied, as his brain drew it in and ana
lyzed it.
Suddenly there was revulsion,
.E~ and it was as if the poles of his nature
~ had been reversed on the instant.
From some source he gathered strength
to lift his head and shoulders; then,
leaning on one arm, he gazed wildly
around There was terrible look III
his face. He almost bounded to his
\ feet and stood swayiug and trembling,
his long legs far apart and one hand
raised far above his disheveled head.