Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-05-01
TfffH TfffH MAN
OUTSIDE
Bv CLARENCE BoUTELLE.
CHAPTER XIII.
The HOeean's Own" Sails.
Bv CLARENCE BoUTELLE

like a hill in the rOad-up one way
and down the other He may have no.
ticed that difficulty usually belongs 70
one-half the journey an event de-
mands. and that all the rest is simple
and easy; sometimes going to some
thing-something hoped or feared
as the case may be-is journey OF
rough ways and tedious distractions
as though Providence hoped to deter
wickedness from its purpose or to test
the perseverance of virtue. Sometimes
the going is easy, and the coming is
weary work. as though God designed
the publication of proper power from
the perils OF pride, or the giving 10
triumphant evil q hint Of the snort
ness of human glory and the need for
repentance.
You know how Lurline Bannottie
came to Boomville; shall you be as
tonished to know that her return was
unmarried by accident or delay?
She was too wise a woman to take
any more chances than were necessa- :
ry. She was. perhaps, a little more
cautious than ordinary, since she had
taken so prominent a part in the plans
of Mr. Samuel Lyman and had made
il not only reasonable, but right, for
the citizens of Boomville to believe
what that acute gentleman had intend
ed they should believe.
Being prudent. she drove to the town
to which she had told the proprietor
of the livery stable she was going
With single man, in all the world of
men. certain in his own mind that she
went there it was as we'll that all the
world should have a chance to know
that she came back from there when
she returned to Bankford again.
1t was getting toward morning when
she drove out of Boomville, though the
eastern sky was still dark and gave no
promise OF Il morrow The wind was
rough and raw. The sky was OBJ
scured. here and there, with patches OF
hurrying cloud. The air was cold, very
cold. The snow still swept back and
forth, to and fro, at the touch OF the
viewless blast. A sleigh-tra mute
and intangible witness to the way
crime came and went did not remain
long that night. The wind, her ready
accomplice, filled the burrows in the
soft snow almost as fast as her sleigh
made them.
She drove slowly out of Boomville-
and she had deliberately consigned a
fellow being to the most horrible or
fates. You, my reader, if you had shut
a man into such a crematory as that in
which Samuel Lyman was left, by ac-
cident. mean-or in sudden passion
would, perhaps, have driven rapidly.
But she-she drove slowly; she was
Lurline Bannottie-Lurline Bannottie,
with the fierce, hot blood of Italy in her
heart, and with triumph's mad words
of freedom on her lips.
She paused on the top of the hill
over which she had so doubtingly
come. SO short time ago in hours, SO
long a time in events and emotions,
hopes and fears. She stopped at the
top of the hill and looked back. There
was no glare against the sky yet; there
was no alarm yet: Samuel Lyman had
planned we'll. indeed, in. all things but
one; he had only forgotten the fury
of a woman scorned-that was all.
No alarm: no shouts, no glare OF
flame to light up the night with its
horror: no attempts, though unavailing
ones. at rescue yet. But a thin veil OF
smoke gauzy, impalpable, so delicate
and evanescent that it would have
eluded eyes less keen and eXpectant
than those of Lurline Bannottie, swung
and wavered above the top of Barron's
BoOmville Bank.
She pictured the fierce flames with
in. she imagined how the walls were
growing slowly to furnace heat she
thought of the inch-thc iron shutters
changing from black to red, as the
minutes went on. and then from red to
white
He would have put Prier on my
track if l had not come" she said
fercely: ''he said It, and l think he
would have done it, Putt came!"
She smiled. She drove on.
She paused again at the snOw-cov-
cred bridge She waited. she looked
she listened.
The smoke crawling from tiny Gre
vices through which flame could not
penetrate, was growing into thick
dark column. reaching high into the
frosty air of the winter night. But still
there was only smoke; still no eyes bu'
hers saw it, There was no cry of ter
ror; no appeal for help; no clangor OF
alarming bells through the awful ST.
lence.
She stood up in her sleigh. She turn
ed her face toward Boomville. She
lightly kissed the tips of her dainty
fingers, and tossed the kiss that way.
"Au revoir Samuel Lyman" she
said. gayly; then added, in a voice
which trembled with long-pent- w
passion Il wish l could have done
worse"
When the alarm of fire startled
sleeping BOomvile to sudden and hor'
rifed wakefulness. she was further
away than the tumult of their bell:
could reach.
do not know how Samuel Lyman
met death. l cannot say whether n
was a brave manor a coward. can
not tell whether he faced the inevitable
with his eyes full Of the insane glar
of baffied wickedness and an unaVall
ing hope for vengeance-or whether n
raised them toward that Heaven h
had defied, with genuine repentanc
shining in them, though at later thai
the eleventh hour. l may not writ
that he cursed-Or that he prayed.
do not know
OmnipOtence gave him power I
plan. and permitted him to plan to hi
own destruction. Omnipresence locke
upon him as he went through the fer
furnace Of his fearful trial, and lis
.onad IN tho words he spoke in tn