Omaha daily bee., 1900-01-07
CHAPTER IN.
M TUn nrntnrS

The next part OF the tale | will tell briefly
as | may. Philip Stansfeld, my father, was
tired and condemned to death according to
the word Of the kings advocate. The two
women with him, Janet Mark and Robina
Johnston, were sentenced to be carried away
over seas and there 20 be sold for slaves
in the Virginian or Car5,inian plantations.
Now all these three lay in the Tolbooth
Of Edinburgh waiting their several dooms,
and meanwhile many things happened to us
who abode at New Milns in the vale OF
Moreham. For three or four days after the
taking away Of my father | felt all the SEN
sations Of terror as strongly as before, but
after a while the feeling was blunted and
in a surprising degree | pluCked up heart.
Especially as soon as | heard that Philip
St6usfeld was condemned to death, and
would never come back to trouble lis again.
which, | take it, is a strange thing for a
son to feel about his own father.
l was still abiding with my mother, no
more in the pleasant, humming Min house
by the Weir, but instead at the lonely little
cottage of the lodge Yeti. sunk in the
gloomy pines of Moreham wood. | had
hated 1t from the first, and now took ever
opportunity Of slipping off to Humphrey
Spurway's mill in the valley, where | could
be happy with the weavers and dyers and
with all the hum and hustle Of the mill
going blithesomely on about me.
But after a while Umphray Spurway would
not permit me to come so often.
rs your mother left all alone in that
gloomy house," he would ask, and when
I told him aye he would frown and shake
his head and fold the webs of cloth all
wrong. SO that even William Bowman
would smile covertly, and taking the piece
out Of his masters hands would do it him
self.
"Fie on you; go your ways home, laddie,"
he would say. 1T is not meet that your
mother, a young and fair lady, should be
thus left alone! Pshaw!" And he would
knock a drying rack with his foot and then
kick It again for falling. Whereat, very
grayely, William Bowman would pick 1t up
and set the harmless thing in its place again,
knowing his masters ways and custom when
troubled.
Then why did you send my mother away
from your house, Umphray Spurway?" l
would say. why did you not ask her to
stay altogether with you when she was here
If you think 80 much of her being lone
some in the lodge Yeti. | did not want
to go, and l am sure that she did not"
Whats that-whats that?" he would
batter out. looking as if he would knock
my head off. Gods help-ask your mother
to stay! What does the loon say? Out O.
my mill with you. Ask his mother to stay!
All, would | not? The varlet, to speak so.
Get home to your mother at a dogs trot
or | will set the bloodhounds on you. And
see, take this basket of trout with you, sir
rah, and do not dare to show your face at
the Min house for a month of Sundays
Not to tell you how my mother liked
the trout" | would adventure, for / was
beginning to know Umphray Spurway as
well as William Bowman knew him, and to
lount upon the knowledge.
well, at any rate, let me not see your
face before tomorrow he would grumble.
Il will not have boys like you setting my
carding and spinning lasses by the ears
and wasting my mems time, for which /
have to pay so dear. Get away!'
Yet for all that l went just when l was
ready,
But / must hasten to tell what befell my
self soon after this, while my father lay in
the Tolmooth, under sentence Of death. l
think | have not hitherto mentioned my
Uncle John, save by inference, as it were,
when Sir James, my poor grandfather, com
planned 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 foot
steps of his brother.
Now Mr., John Stansfeld was a youth OF
quite different appearance from my poor
father, For one thing he was very thin
and wirc-drawn, With a pale face, almost
bloodless as it seemed, with his face all
pared down till it was like a birds, with a
sallow skin drawn tightly over prominent
cheekbones and a nose a little hooked.
He was a lawyer to his business, but not
of 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
his life 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 successful mem
bers Of his own profession, So l found out
a%ftorward, for AT this time he weared but
little Of his leisure on a lad like me.
For years the brothers had hated each
other cordially, my father with the prodigal's
contempt Of the less open sinner. whom he
called the lawyers clerk or Blue Bags,
with other gross and insulting names that |
will not write here. While John said moth
ing to his brother, having a great dislike to