Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1907-09-17
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CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER xXVII.
@EPTEMBER finished on its
sweetest note, mild breeze
re- blowing Off the south Pacific. a
temperate sun In spotless sky,
a harbor fretted with waves like azure
shells and winding among shores still
green and wholesome from winters
rains. 1t was Sunday, too. and round
the woody headlands and across the
dark blue inlets. came the sound Of
bells for afternoon church., Tom lay
on his back, his head beneath a Nor
folk island pine, his heels in the warm
sand at the waters edge. His eyes
were closed, but he was listening to
the bells.
He fancied the sound us $4,000
miles away, for SO had he lain and
listened amid the Suffolk rabbit war
rens on summer Sundays when his
place was in the cool, dark rectory
pew. His spirit was In Suffolk now.
Then the bells stopped. Then he lay
very still, and when he turned he half
expected his back to smart and his
legs to jingle. Once moro he was a
,felon In a felon's country. 1t was that
despite sun and waves and soft white
sand, and felon was his name no loss
for this his. unmerited ease. AS he
looked across the bay a black fin broke
the blue and made an allegory with a
single smudge. Even as those sweet
waters termed with sharks, SO the fair
land that locked them was rank and
rotten with Intestine horror and cru-
city and corruption.
Fourteen thousand miles! The dis
lance was brought home to Tom by
being printed on the chart, beneath an
ideal course, in small type, which the
little Rosamund was sailing over at
that moment. 1t set him thinking of
Claire, but the thoughts had no form
and little sting. Not even yet could
he think or feel acutely. A bundle Of
dead nerves and clouded brains, he
could but ache and work or ache and
bask as he was doing now.
An odd number Of "The Pickwick
Papers" had found It's way to the
bungalow and now lay in the sand be-
side Tom. He had finished 1t. to his
SORROW, before the bells began. Pres
entity up came Daintree with the dog
that still followed him to every haunt
but his study. He carried his camp
stool and an armful Of books, and
Toms heart sank, their taste in litera-
ture differing terribly, though Of the
two only one held himself qualified to
judge. The Judge glanced at the green
cover in the sand much as he would
have favored q mountebank at fair,
with insolent nostrils and plying
eye for those who smiled. He opened
his Byron and read canto of Lara"
aloud and admirably, but Tom nearly
| fell asleep and was accused Of having
no soul for poetry. COR for anything
else," Tom reminded the reader, who
shut the book with an offended snap,
but opened another next minute.
Perhaps" said Daintree, '.you pre-
fer this sort of thing. shouldn't won
der"
And he read:
.Oh. that 'twere possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms OF my true love
Round me once againl
when was wont to meet her
In the silent woody places
OF the land that gavo me birth
We stood tranced in long embraces
Mixed with kisses sweeter, sweeter
Than anything on earth.
IA shadow fits before me-
| Not thou, but like to thee.
All. God. that 1t were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls NE loved, that they might
tell us
What and where they be!', "
When Daintree began, Toms eyes
had been swimming lazily about the
bay, but the first quatrain brought
them at a bound to the readers face
and now he was hanging upon every
word. Line after line rang through
him like trumpet cali, waking old
echoes, stirring and stabbing him. I'M
til the whole man tingled with the
rushing Of long stagnant blood. And
now came stanzas that went no deeper
than the ear, while those three rar
their course through every vein. YET
when he next caught IN the thread Il
was his own soul still speaking. The
very story was now his own.
"Alas for her that met me.
That heard me softly call;
Came glimmering through the laurels
i At the quiet evenfall
In the garden by the turrets
OF the old immortal hnil!'
He had turned his head. A blue mis-
hid the world, but through 1t shone 8
poignant vision OF Claire Harding
among the WILDWOOD fir trees--in the
autumn evenings long ago And this !!
how the tears came back into Ton
Erichsen's eyes, to show him that hi.
soul had lived through a nights bush
ranging and four months Of Majol
| Honeybone's iron gang.
Daintree looked on with jealou!
scorn. That a few stray verses In thu
/ Annual Register should put fire and wa
| ter in eyes which the combined "Hour'
of Exile and OF eIdleness" some
| times left in such a very different state
It was calling thought, and II show
Led itself tn such black looks that Ton
was Constrained to cut his first heart
felt outburst very short indeed. So III
hastily added that the poem appealed
to him particularly. He need not ex
plain why.
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