Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??, 1901-02-08
BY THE LYCH GATE
A Story of One Who Married For
Wealth and Beauty.
,.<e.<e.>.<>.o.Oo sta.aef1.a.T

C'e&fe%ts@%s<ts<te<O sVsNfe<SsCeSeO
There is a valley amid the York
shire hills known as Coverdale, from
whose slopes, long years ago came
pious Miles, who translated the Bible,
and who was called by the simple folk
Miles of Coverdale. after the place Of
his birth.
Very calm and peaceful the little dale
lies under the shadow of the great
hills, whose SUBMITS are purple in the
sweet summertide with their royal
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 a
| 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
are people and shops, and many inns
with curiously painted signposts-the
Black Swan and its brother, the White
Swan, and many others too.
But down in Coverdale there is q
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, 1 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 Coyerdale,
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 beautiful spot in a beautiful
countryside, and so thought 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 little
while, 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 a little weary of pretty sights,
and she was very pretty and spoiled her
self and perhaps 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
a 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.
lam rather tired of admiring Places "
she said TO herself little impatiently
and. then. new can remember who
lived in the castles and abbeys. How
uncomfortable they must have beenw
And then for she was only a very
| young bride. too she felt sorry for
having been impatient. even In heI
thoughts. toward her husband. and she
turned to speak TO him with an even
Swcrtrr smile than usual on her pretty
! fps for her husband was q genius In
his way II thinker and an author. and
every one had rnviati her when she
married ii'ln III SPITE of her wealth.
All, there vas n pitiful ring In the
story door and nameless. but clever
beating himself to pieces In his eager
attempts to win fame single handed
and rich and beautiful the woman witt
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 hat
once long ago talked of this very spot
with It's quaint surroundings and itt
old world atmosphere, in the time that
might have been and Is not.
He closed his sketchbook, with Q
sigh, and turned to the white robed
LONELINESS of his wife with a murmur.
ed apology for having kept her wait
Ing, and then together they passed
down the avenue that leads to the road
again.
But he was yery silent, and his wife
felt tired and just little Cross. She
liked to l." potted and coaxed and fat,
tered. and latterly Wilfred had been