Omaha daily bee., 1900-01-07
where the north coaches stop.
Their greeting must have sounded strange

hhtIt lut uOTlu tUdCueS StOp.
Their greeting must have sounded strange
from brother to brother.
Hey, Deils rattlebag, lang-nebbit Jock
the supplanter, where away? Come and
take a drink with an honest man for once
in your worthless, peevish life!"
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 re-
manned in Edinburgh. He had Philip STAINS
field in his rooms. He piled him with drink.
He kept knives and pistols away from him
when he waXed desperate in his cups. In
all this he was assisted by one Saul Mark,
the husband of the buxom bosom Janet,
whom we saw first at the change house by
the cross roads of New Minis.
Saul Mark was a strange man, rather
shortish and thickish. his skin Drowned like
that of a man long in hot countries where
fever and rum had sailed him against all
Infection and other feebler diseases. He
wore large silver rings in his ears, a thick
hoop of the same metal on his left thumb
for luck, and when he was in no company
and away from a town he often wore a red
handkerchief tied about his head instead of
a decent blue kilmarnock bonnet. And that
last feared people more than anything as be-
ing of a spice p~iratiCal 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 rings twinkling
palely in his ears had played many a day
on Moreham green with varying luck. One
evening there came an elderly laborer elbow
fng among the laird's sons, who put down a
groat or two, which he saw swept off in a few
moments in the quick give and take of a
larger game. The amount Of his loss was not
much, but ii was the elderly cO~untryman's
all, There seemed TO him dishonesty in the
sudden disappearance of his long-cherished
pocket keeping pieces.
With a spasm OF sudden anger he set his
hand to his hip to draw a dagger, and, grasp
ing the keeper of the gambling table by the
collar, he found himself locking into the
grinning face OF death with a readiness
which seemed unCanny and unnatural to the
onlookers. The brown man with the ear
rings had OWNED the intention of his assail-
ant before he knew them himself, and, while
going on with the game, had kept his hand
upon the bur of a pistol which lay ready
cooked in a drawer at his right hand.
Tho countryman gasped and gurgled in
articulately. A gluey foam gathered about
his lips. He uttered no ineligible word,
his mouth was too dry, He might have
died there and then by the hand of the
gamester had not a girl walled suddenly
from behind,
"Do not kill my ~father-spare my father"
The pistol was still steady at the mans
head. The gamblers hand did not CULVER
as his dark, beady eyes wandered once to
the beauteous, imploring face at his elbow.
Then. with a sudden jerk, he threw the
man back from him so that he measured
his length on the ground. The assailant
was Andrew Johnston, cottier of the farm
OF Boyle Thorn and the girl was his young
est daughter, the same whom We know as
Janet Mark.
They were married in a week and IN a
month Janet Mark was back with her
father and her husband on his way to the
seaport town Of Aberleith, with cards and
dice and painted tables. Then, not for
three years was there heard in the land the
blithesome Tilt of his sea-songs-or the re-
frain OF his summons when he called Gus
toners to his table.
The cards, the cards, the bonny, bonny
picturs! Ombre, t~ric-trac aud lanterloo-
gleek and dice! Money TO get, money to
spend, money TO burn! Come one, come all
to the painted paper. the rattle OF the pock- J