The Chanute times., 1902-02-14

religious fancy that may seem out OF
| place in these prosaic days, it Is still
permitted for us to hope that the an
gels did take the place of the birds Of
evil strain and bear the suffering Mary
to that other world, where the wicked
cease from troubling and the weary are
at rest.
Years rolled on.
The law had given q companion to
abbey. The man Foster had ventured
to return to England, and, being con-
demned for some petty offense was
taken sick in prison. Under the i'm
preston that he was dying he con-
fessed to the murder Of Squire Belling-
ham, and related the circumstances of
the crime exactly as they had occurred.
Whether it was malignant and
avenging fate that had preyed upon his
fears to bring him to this position,
and then to restore him to health, it
is not for the historian to say; he has
simply to chronicle events as he finds
them in the evidence before him.
Foster confessed to the Jail chaplain
that it was he who shot Bellingham,
and he also narrated the details of the
tragedy to the warder. AS If the load
off his mind gave his physical nature
flip, he began to recover, and in due
course he was arraigned at York as
sizes Con his own confession), upon
the charge of highway robbery and
murder, his confession being fully sup
ported by such evidence as could be got
together.
He died, as he had lived, a coward,
struggling with his fate to the last,
calling himself fool, swearing he had
been tricked by the Jail doctor into
fear of death, and at the last moment
denying his guilt and having to be sup
ported to the scaiIold a miserable eXhi-
btion of judicial strangulation; but he
was quiet enough when they made a
sign of him near the rattling chains of
his fellow criminal, the remainder of
whose wretched body had almost dis
appeared between the assaults of the
wind and the rain, and the birds OF
prey and the human relic hunters.
One calm autumn evening many a
year afterwards, there came an old
man to the Star and Garter.
He was tanned by wind and weather,
wrinkled with age and travel, his hair
sparse and of an irongrey He had
bright blue eyes, white teeth, strong,
bony hands, carried a staff like an
-t, 1.-Two
beard.
He arrived by coach with a pair of
great brown leathern trunks, covered
with curious marks and letterings, as
if they had seen a marvellous amount of
service He settled down at the Star
and Garter, ordered a sitting room,
commanded fire, spoke in calm but
very decisive tones, and asked many
questions about men and women who
had been dead and gone for years and
years; the Meadowses, for instance;
old Morley, and Mary, the Maid of the
Inn.
There was nothing odd in his inquir-
ing about Mary, because she had, as it
were, become everybodys property. A
famous poet had made ballad about
her, and it was a common thing for
folk that were gifted that way to recite
it. Other less illustrious ballad mong-
ers had done the story of Mary's night
in the abbey into verse, and the chap
men at the fairs had long been selling
the last dying speeches and confes-
sions of Richard Parker" copies of
verses written upon his last interview
with Mary" and other literary remi
niscences of the tragedy.
1t was, therefore, as l have said, not |
surprising to have a stranger ask about |
Mary; but this particular stranger ask |
ed all kinds Of curious questions, and |
vouchsafed now and then pieces of |
curious information about events they |
had heard of at the Star and Garter |
from their fathers and grandfathers, |
matters which seemed to them now to |
be parts of stories in books, or things |
that belonged to the age of ''once upon
time" or incidents that the news
papers reprinted from old chronicles.
The stranger became a particularly |
interesting person when he obtained |
permission at his own expense to erect
special gravestone to Mary Lock
woods memory. and people touched
their hats to him all over the place
when it was known that ii was through
his influence the two gibbets had sud
denly been removed, such of the rags
and tatters of the poor wretches who
had been hung in chains being buried
decently and few Christian words of
hope said over them.
The old man was fond OF rambling
about the abbey. He set up a distant
branch of the Meadows family in the
"Hark-to-Rover," and often called and
smoked pipe with Jack Meadows and
his wife at the farm-the young Mead
ows. who had inherited from the son
of the Mrs. Meadows. who was the
mother of that Jack Meadows who left
Kirkstall and was drowned at sea or