Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1910-05-05
The BROKEN
DREAM
By GEORGE MORLEY
(Copyrlght. by short storles g. Ltd.l

2 He came and sat upon the middle
e OF the stile. after rough salutatior
to the young man who was standing
there before he arrived
t 'Tis 40 year since / sat on this
r stiie." he said. without introduction,
/ without even looking at the person
J beside him; merely with his eye-lit.
t orally he had only one eye. the other,
as he afterward said, being "bossed"
through contact with a volatile cham
payne cork which shot him one even
ing when attending the officers mess
lovingly fixed upon the cottage
ends and yellow rick corners of the
back of Lynton village.
"Ah! forty year" he repeated, with
profoundly deep sigh. suggestive
OF early hopes and later failures
But this Duffus Close hev altered to
what 1t were. The brook yon we're
wider nor it is now. There were
plank over it where the bridge be,
and a little further down a ladder
were stretched over Well. to be sure.
All! this field were a field of gold
then; II We're SO, indeed"
Il were a little chap in pima and
pericuts. All! that mum be 80 year
ago-quite. / mind ii well as If
'twere only yesterday, cause it were
mothers Mothering, and l. being the
dilling, were put to bed anad left I'M
\ der that straw rooftree yander by me-
self till aboutftwo / the morning. I
were born and bred at Lynton. My
! feyther were sexton at church for 40
year. You can see his name on
gravestone yon: George Somers. sex.
ton O. this parish, and so on; and his
feyther afore him we're sexton, too
and well, I'm just nothing only a
bit of rover with no rest for the
sole O. me foot"
The man paused and wiped away a
thin film which had grown over his
eye. Then he sought to hide this
small piece of feeling from his stile-
fellow. He took a pipe and pouch Of
tobacco from his pocket, loaded the
pipe, struck a match upon his neither
garments, and speedily raised cloud
of smoke, behind which he recovered /
his self-possession.
Yes" he continued, with a face
shining once more like a bronze apri.
cot polished with monkey soap, Il was
little kiddy in pima and pericuts,
but | mind 1t as well as If 'twere but
yesterday. and, as / tell ye. II must
be quite fifty years ago.
Il think a child never forgets any
uncommon thing as falls to IT. B
hanna, that's for sure; and l think
all young 'uns are pretty near the
same. There's some things / wish |
could forgotten one, the warning 4
got from feyther for playing the wag
one AFTERNOON and goin' watercress-
ing l. the brook yon. But there's
many as we never want to forget and
carn't forget. cause they be fixed in
our minds like the skin on our own
bodies; and / mind that field o. gold ,
as II 'twere yesternight; do that"
His one eye swept over the grass
again with the sort of admiring
glance which lover gives to his mis-.
tress. :
Much travelled though he was, the
look Of his native meads and babbling
runnels reopened the heart Of the ,
boy within him, and held him as in a
spell. II was heaven to him just then ,
to be far from the madding crowd .
to exchange the din Of the docks for
the unbroken tranquility of wide
green lands. the strange !
oath of the seafaring man for the
plaintive moaning Of the wooded dove.
The mans face looked unutterable
thanks for that period upon the stile. i
Il were getting over the stile, You !
must know-ah! this very stile." be +
went on. Il were getting through the /
bars on it, that is; for, being such a i
ii kiddy. could easily creep through q
he spaces But lori the hedge
weren't like as em be now-cut.low. h
sh, like this EN-. Why, they were J
.welve or fifteen feet high, and elm !
rees GROWN in 'em here and there. r
"Old Tommy Court, as KEEP the I,
arm yander, were as rich as a Jew h
leaps o. money; but never a bill-hook
n his fences would he hev then. But Z,
though, when the bank J
,roke at Brookington, and he lost ten n
thousand pounds along o. it, he O
,rowed hungry and had 'em chopped n
Iown right and left, elm trees and all, :,
md sold to the timber dealer at Cud- q
Iington. n
But when I came to this stile the v
ence were so high that it had growed Il
light over and med a greet arch like
he doorway to Arwick castle An. a,
ehold you, when | crept through the 4
tile. and looked over the Dunus =,
lose. my little heart jumped up so as .,
could scarcely hold 'en.
'The grass were covered wi gold n
-soverigns and half-sovereigns all n
yer the place. each side the path a.
rayl Hundreds and thousands on .
,m-cartloadsi o,
The mans one eye glistened like a II
DIN itself with the excitement pro. !,
uced BY the remembrance of the J,
.ght he was describing Perhaps the 4
louEht. too. that at that moment he
as not worth one single coin Of an
= golden harvest that he hpheld that