The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1900-12-11
BY THU LYCH GATE
A Story Of One Who Married For
Wealth and Beauty.


mantle of fragrant heather, and where
the curlew and the golden plover's
cry alone break the gentle stiffness
that rests over the little world beyond
the haunts of restless activity and hur-
rying life
There is no railway in quiet Cover
dale, no town to which the country
folk may wend their way, no shops save
the wonderful village emporium, where
everything in very small way may be
obtained, but where few fashions come
to startle the gayer minded of the
maidens, or strange new devices in
neckties to dazzle the vision of the
country lads.
To peep into the world necessitates
journey under the shelter of the lone
hillsides, along bonny lanes, intwined
with pink and creamy tinted honey
suckle, and green with waving ferns;
past the quaint inn, whose sign is
famous but long ago race horse, called
in the canny Yorkshire tongue the
Lady Bah, and, finally, across the moor
Into horse loving Middleham, where
0AC PCOPAC anu oAlOPo, anu many ILLS
with curiously painted signposts- the
Black Swan and its brother, the White
Swan, and many others too.
But down in Coverdale there Is a
beautiful old church, set like a jewel
in its surrounding of stately trees and
poisoning hedges, with the quiet
greenness of Gods acre lying stretched
about it, and the singing of natures
choristers in the sweet air around-a
place of peacefulness and repOse, where
earth's burdens may fall from one for
little space and heavens benson light
softly on such of its children as stay to
pray and think awhile.
There is quaint lych gate at the en-
trance to the holy spot, carved halt
ing place of oak, set tenderly by some
good man of the dalespeople-a squire
of the olden days, who loved his home
and his neighbors and his God full
well, think, and sought to beautify
the church In which he and his had
worshiped so long.
And down the fair avenue of trees
within the precincts and past the quiet
church lie the remains of what was
once the proud abbey of Coverdale,
where the monks said masses and cul-
tivated their garden and tended the
souls and bodies of the poor and needy
In the dale.
1t is a beautiful spot in beautiful
countryside, and so thought a man
who viewed it lovingly and pointed out
all its changeful lights and shadows
and all its pretty peeps Of field and
river to his wife.
They had only been married a little
while, a few short weeks, and had
elected to spend their honeymoon in
some Of the quaint corners of England;
hence their journeying thither to this
sequestered nook among the hills and
the far stretched moorlands in their
yelling of regal purple. The man loved
it already with the artist love which
sees the beautiful so quickly and feels
1t so strongly, and the woman-well,
she saw the beauties too, but she was
growing little weary of pretty sights.
and she was very pretty anu spoiled her
self and perhaps a little jealous of ad-
miration wasted which might have
been diverted homeward
So she stood by the quaint relics of
the abbots and mailed knights at Gov
erdale, where two quaint forms guard
doorway as perchance their originals
guarded some stronghold In the old
fighting days long gone. and her white
gown fell over the gray stones and
cleaned against the red and orange
nasturtiums in the garden which sur
rounds the old walls and arches. and
she wondered if her husband had near
ly finished his sketch and whether they
should stay at Middleham for day or
two or go on farther to Wensleydale.
"Tam rather tired of admiring places"
she said to herself little impatiently.
''and, then, never can remember who
lived in the castles and abbeys. How
uncomfortable they must have been|
And then-for she was only very
young bride, too-she felt sorry for
having been impatient. even in her
thoughts, toward her husband. and she
turned to speak to him with an even
sweeter smile than usual on her pretty
lips, for her husband was a genius In
his way, thinker and an author. and
every one had .envied her when she
married him in spite of her wealth.
All, there was a pitiful ring in the
story-poor and nameless. but clever;
beating himself to pieces in his eager
attempts to win fame single handed.
and rich and beautiful the woman with
the fairylike figure and exquisite face
who had given the man her gold.
And, alb, more pitiful note still. and
| the man remembers that some one has
| once long ago talked Of this very spot,
with it's quaint surroundings and its
old world atmosphere, in the time that
might have been and is not.
He closed his sketchbook, with a
Sigh, and turned to the white robed
loneliness of his wife with murmur-
| ed apology for having kept her walt.
ing, and then together they passed
down the avenue that leads to the road
again.
But he was very silent, and his wife
felt tired and just little cross. She
liked to be petted and coaxed and fiat
tered. and latterly Wilfred had been
too serious to suit her gay fancies and
too absorbed in new ideas for his book
to pay her the attentions she loved SO
dearly to exact from every man and es-
pecially from her husband.
"Let us go home to town." she said
suddenly. 81 am so tired of roaming
| In this out of the way place, W!lfred,
and there Is still so much going on. l
hear. You must have got lots OF ideas
now. | am sure" She laughed glee-
fully as she spoke. The inurmur of the
streets seemed already in her ears, and
the flash of silks and jewels came over
the sunlight on the grass.
He paused a moment. "Will you not
come on little fartherY he asked
kindly, yet little wistfully. There
are some lovely places in the dale, and
you would be interested in them,
think"
But she shook her head until the dia-
monds In her little ears twinkled like
dewdrops "You know / am not inter
ested," she said petulantly. Il hate
those old people who perched castles
on the tops of hills and expect you to
climb up to see them. Do let us &c
back"
They had reached the lych gate now
and girl was entering 1t from the 9th
er side. where their carriage his wife'f