The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1903-09-24
CHAPTER XIV.
CONTINUED.

There is great reserve in the Scotch
physique as there is in the Scotch
character. Mr.. Burns was an extreme
example, else how could he have lain
there on the wet soil Of the woods for
three days aud nights without SO much
as a sip of water aud with nothing to
stop the bleeding of his wound? He
~as but half conscious most of the
time, and yet he heard panther
screaming all through QUE night, and
once q wolf barked aud howled close
by. There was nothing in these
sounds to frighten him; they came to
him as in a dream, appealing to no
particular sense, touching no particu-
lar chord OF consciousness, simply
echoing through him. Slowly he sank
away, weaker and weaker, down into
darkness. Every thought faded out
but one--the thought of fallure-the
fhought that he was dying without
hope.
On the third day, in the afternoon,
some great black birds, evil.looklug.
with bare, congested heads and
hungry eyes, came sailing low round
aud round above him. He saw
them, and thought: "They will eat me
as soon as am dead" But there was
no horror connected with tho vision,
which went farther and displayed his
scattered and clean-picked bones.
What could it matter to him, old, de.
feated, abandoned, dying, if vultures
began their work at once? Could
their beaks add one pang to his tor
fure?
With singular minuteness, for his
leisure was ample, he reviewed his
religious life. seeking for some justi-
Gcation of the act of Divine Pro7i-
deuce in thus casting him aside like
q bit of old rubbish after all this
vearying and fruitless elfort-after all
his trust and prayer.
And little Margaret-what Of her?
Beautiful, young, pure, with every
bud of tender promise just showing
the pink-why should she have been
made the playthihg of an enormous
vloug, the helpless victim of al ac-
trocious fate? He saw her as she was
whom she left him, fair, bright, low
ing, the idol of his widowed heart,
and he followed her, step by step,
through the cruel descent, till she lay
m her coffin, murdered by that mau.
BY some mysterious cerebal action,
,ae VAS able to note the correlation OF
his own experience with the girls,
aud to fix, as By flash, the meet
Tag OF his prayers with the success
aige downward rushes of her miser-
able career.
At every point where he sought
her with utmost confidence and be-
sought heaven with greatest faith.
there she had met with calamity or
taken some desperate step in infsmy.
Aad whose was the fault? Surely
she had not been born with the taint
apf evil in her blood.
s Aua Kirk MacColloughl The name
rang through the old mans fevered
brain, and the tall, dark outlaw
lstalksd across his vision like an actor
sncross the stage OF melodrama. What
health, what strength, what immunity
from the physical effects of moral
recklessness! In the pursuit OF this
man, Barns had wasted himself, his
fortune, his career his prayers, his
life, while not a drop of desire
had been lost by the outlaw. 1t
was bitter food for reflection for the
agcd preacher as he 10y on the
ground, his withered ilmbs ont
and tho WEAKNESS Of death
In his nerves. Slowly his mind
worked its way down to that last
scene and began to take up the de-
tails one by one, analyzing them with
merciless e1actness. Meanwhile, by
that curious power of the brain which
.enalles it when abnormally stimulated
to follow two lines OF thought at
once, he was reviewing Kirk Mac
dCollough's origin aud accounting
6or his career by referring oil his
darker characteristics to inheritance
from his father, Thomas MacCoilough,
uho committed great political crime
aud was transported therefor in the
first prime OF his manhood while Kirk
was vet mere boy. Burns had never
seen Thomas MacCollough, nor had
he known much OF the family before
Kirk began to pay attention to Mar
raret: but since then he had found out
the history which now seemed to &C
count ftly for the younG mau's IN
parslleled course of evil. From father
to son had descended the curse OF out
Iawry.
Batitwas natural that 3urns's mind,
even in the last extremity OF despair,
shonld turn with all its Scotch stub
boraness aud teuacity to take q re-
ligious survey,so to call it, of the stu
alton. Perhaps it would be better TO
say that his thoughts were not driven
at once, even by direst calamity, out
OF the groove in which they had been
ruaaiug since first he began to be g.
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