Hutchinson gazette., 1900-07-05
: p4444494o4~4 s1ee e4449e4449
HUNTING GAPS TREE,
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

Old Hunting Cap, as they called him,
sat under his tree, and looked down
on fairyland Of wood ane lake and
mountan--hls, IN the vanity of man,
who endures but for breath. He was
very old; his thoughts were the slow
thoughts Of old age, creeping labori-
ously back over the days and years a
glorious life when he was a man ana
not bundle of pains and WEAKNESS.
Every bone of him ached for the bed
over yonder among the heather and
furZe Of the Brown hill, on the hill
top whence you could see four coun-
ties, There he had appolrDd to be
buried; and there eCampinges,th horse
that had carried him many glorious
day, lay awaiting him. Campignes had
died, worn out ut 40, and his grave
had been dug at The foot OF his mas
ter's, Within reach of where the mGs-
ter's III right hand should lie was
the lie grave of Aousquitnre, the
Spitz that had belonged to the gentle
lady who was to have been old Hunt
Ing Caps wife, But Mousquetuire had
died 80 long ago that the slender bones
Of him must have crumbled away to
dust and why was old Hunting Cap
yet lingering on the land where no
one wanted him, and where he dwelt
among ghosts and shadows?
II seemed to the lonely old man that
Providence was treptlng him badly in
the matter of life, lie had been long
since tired of his istcnce, and would
willingly have quit the cares
of this earth some years before he had
been permitted to do so, He could find
no reason why he should be allowed
to live on; he was Of no value to the
world; the friends who had npprecl-
nted him had long since crossed the
dark river and he was anxious to fol-
low them,
He was Sir Jocclyn 10 his face; al
ways behind his back old Hunting
Cap becOuSe he wore dark brown
and irUyed hunting cap of fir on his
few silver hairs. The world he dwelt
IN was world Of strangers, 1t was
not only that he had outliycd all the
men and women l., his day but their
children had grown up to look Nt him
with altered face, The people of old
had been fond Of him, had been ready
to defend him with their lives against
process servers and bNilifrs, They had
shared his plenty and amid the rack"
eting and luuntlng and jolity and good
will they had lived like large family,
Of which he was the irresponsible king
and chief Now wherever he went lie
met cold faces and eyes of enemies, 1t
made him feel strangely old and cold
and deserted. They had all gone away
together, the dead, tho loving, the
friendly of old; and he was like ashecp
last in the mountains in the drifts Of
winter.
He was so old that he had let the
rcins slip from his fingers, and things
had been all Of a muddle when young
| Jasper, the heir, had come and brush
ed him aside, Under Jnsper's eyes he
had felt more naked and cold than
even under the ayertcd glanccs of
the men and women whose baby heads
he had pnttcd. II came to him dir'ly
like some brute in n far away stt M
of n lnr-away storm, that Jasper vas
fighting his cause with the people
dragging arrears for rent from them
evictng, serving notices on them to
quit; for Jasper believed in fighting
policy. hut it made the old man more
comfortlcss in world where every
body used to be pleasant,
The mists gathered in the valleys
and bcgnn to creep mp the hillside,
Old Hunting Cap wondered vaguely
whether Lanty Farrell would remem.
Der to come to him to help him home
A Farrell had always been his body
servant; but Lnnty was not like those
who had gone before him, Sir Jocclyn
was so very old that he would not no.
lice omissions. He was well sitting
under the foot OF tree as nnywhcr
Else, while 1.anty never felt the hours
poss sitting in the bar parlor at the
Wildly DooIin's, with the WIddy's
daughter Mary sittingon his knee. OFT
on old Hunting Cap had trcmblcd with
helpless disgust Of anger against Lnn-
ty; but today he was not in mood
for resentment, II the mists come up
and hide him in rricndlicr world
than hc knew below at the castle, lie
muttcrcd to himself
The little dogs,
Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart, how
they bark at me!
The tree that was known as Old
Hunting Caps tree had been planted
the day he was born. His lady-moih-
rr had carried him in her arms when
he was a little child to see how il
thrved 1t was bonny tree. "As the
tree thrivcs the child lives" she said
to herself, and had looked at him witt,
gentle approval. In his industrious
boyhood he watcrcd It and kept the
clay to its roots. Under its boughs he
had plghtcd his troth. He had come
there with his despair the day his
Mary was buried 1t was the one
thing that had kept for him an I'M
changed face. 1t he were to die under
It in the mist he would be glad; far
better to die in the great four-postei
in the queens room, ringed abou
with indifferent. unfriendly faces
tired of waiting for his last breath.
Some one strobe toward him out o1