Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-12-06

father died. hence my ~recollections oil
him are quite distinct and mature.
l was orphaned in my infancy and
from my earliest recollection my
grandfather had made me his con-
slant companion. He was an timer
ant preacher of western England-his
circuit calling him from walled Ohes-
ter on the west to the novels OF the
charcoal burners in mid-England;
and during the years Of his itinerancy
l followed him in the pursuance OF
his duties through sun and rain and
winter gale.
l repeat this in order to explain
Just how l regarded my grandfather
in the light of a certain hereditament
he left to me, his diary, but which
he expressly forbade me opening
until / had passed nay twenty-dfth
birthday.
There were many things I witnessed
and heard in my boyhood for which
l could find no explanation until l
broke the seal of this book wherein.
the magnitude of my grandfather's
very soul stands revealed. The first
entry in the diary is as follows:
o
My beloved grandson, in this
| diary are recorded events writ down
for thy especial edification. Without
| comment I leave it with thee to judge
whether / have been the victim OF a
terrible mind disorder, or whether l
am gifted with perceptions beyond
the usual ken Of man.
1t was in the first years of my
study of the occult, long before thou
hadst come to gladden. thy grand.
sire's heart, that l was j%ourneying to
Blore Health. When night came down
fate led me to the door of a desolate
inn slowly dropping to ruin in the
perpetual shadow of a grove of oak.
The aged host greeted me most
cordially, for at his inn guests were
not frequent and therefore the more
welcome. In the parlor back of the
denuded bar | found his old wife and
his daughter, the only other persons
about the place, moving silently here
and there preparing the evening meal.
The daughter was young and tall and
straight and strong and her hands
were coarsened with outdoor work
for, it appeared, she was now the
burden-bearer of the family.
After the supper was cleared away,
the aged parents entertained me with
"reminiscences of a past glory, of
when the inn was new and the great
tide of travel used to pass its door.
Then in saddened tones they told Of
how the opening Of a new thorough
fare had diverted custom to other hos
telries. So when the daughter was
married to a well-to-do young farmer
they closed the inn, perforce, and
went and made their home with her.
But one Inflated day the newly
welded husband rode away to a
neighboring' market town and never
returned.
After due time the farm aud tene-
ments passed into the possession OF
the next heir-at-law, a cousin of the
husband; and the old couple with
their dowerless daughter returned to
the deserted inn, now racked and
wrecked with storm and long neglect.
"Thou canst see the gables of the
farm over yon above the trees" said
the mother, "and we might be living
there now mid comfort and plenty II
Lisbeth would only hearken to us and
wed with Carver ballard, the cousin
who succeeded to the estate.
Then Lisbeth, lifting her sorrow
laden eyes to a portrait of her husS
band on the wall, said: Mother,
thou need'st not grieve for the rich
living at the farm beyond Whitsun'
tide. That day I promise to give my
hand to Carver Hallard an he still de
sires it,"
Then a gloomy silence fell like a
funeral pail over us, and w sat about
the fire absorbed in our W thoughts
until there came the sound of a quick
step up the pathway and an i'm
perative knock at the door, and Gar
yer Hallard entered. He was a dark
Manufactured, harsh-spoken mar
whom any tender young woman might
well have stunned.
I could not understand 1t then but
] intuitively felt that he was a mar
with a guilty conscience. And in the
light of the recent narration, l fel
to comparing his features with those
of the picture hanging above his head
AS my gaze wandered from one tt
the other there came to me a sense O.
a presence in the room, a conviction
could neither define nor evade; ant
while | strove to analyze critically
this impression a strange metamor
phosis seemed to ONE over my senses
and l felt myself drifting, as it were
into a state Of double consciousness
Still with that sense of a divided
ego, with the voices about me echoins
vaguely through my brain, l though
myself riding along a country road
sunken and SCARED deep with oil
cart ruts, a road | had never Travelled
before. Under the influence Of thi,
unseen force, ! appeared to come tt
where the crumbling shell Of an an
cient oak %spanned the path. l reached
into the hollow trunk and drew fortl
a spade corroded with rust, and roll
ing the log away | began to dig int,
the damp, soft earth. In my trance
continued to throw the dirt to tn,
right and to the left until from out tn
brown loan appeared the face in tn,
picture. Then the feverish visiol
broke, and | emerged as from an hyr
motto spell to find the old couple dis