Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1913-01-02
CHAPTER [.
FAIR PHYLLIDA.

liz Alctlu WdS DdSSluS ldIT.
Why it was called Scarlet Town
might have puzzled any one who
took the trouble to consider the mat
ter probably none Of the inhabitants
did so), seeing that most of the houses
were white or yellow-washed, with
black wooden cross-beams and thatch-
ed roofs, whilst the church was built
Of Kentish rag, faced with stone.
There was one red-brick house, to be
sure, standing back some fifty yards
from the irregular main street, OppO-
site the swinging sign Of the Leather
BOttel But the hundred and thirty
odd years that had passed over it
since it was built, in the year 1870,
according to the date inscribed, with
the pious addition, "Def Donum," over
the deep porch sunk between two null
Toned windows, and the strong winds,
laden with salt spray, that blew direct
ly upon it across the FLATS" had col
Ored it crimson and brown rather
than red, where any brickwOrk was
visible amongst the ivy and creepers.
It was a solid, substantial building,
u IL 1CpI COClIdClNO VI 1CO OWuCt,
Michael Ivert, malster, as he was de-
scribed on the Intel of the door of
the capacious granary and vast house
adjoining his dwelling.
People in Scarlet Town and else
where would have told you that malt
ing was the least profitable and en-
crossing of old Mikes many trades.
n4r - 1t, IL az
ness, and if he did not add to it by
free trading Gas smuggling was eu-
phemistically called in those days. in
some form or other, he differed great
ly from most of his neighbors. At
the beginning of the nineteenth cen
fury every man along the southeast
ern coast who was not in Government
employ was a smuggler, by birth, par
entage, or education; and not a few
Of those who took King Georges pay
rs well; for the Government was glad
to wink at the loss to the revenue
Ior the sake of the information of their
enemies doings and projects which
the smugglers, when judiciously treat
cd, could supply.
best of terms with the revenue Off
GERS, but his capacious cellars con-
tanned d good deal more than the
pOney-bags, guarded according to
the popular traditiOn) by a little old
woman in grey, who sat on the top of
the pile. These cellars had been orr
ginally made to store wool in by his
HuguenOt ancestors, who, flying from
the prosecutions in France which fol-
lowed the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, had built the Red House, set
tied themselves as weavers and wool
staplers in Scarlet Town, and flourish
ed there for four generations.
In the days of their settlement there
Scarlet Town had been a busy, pros
porous port; but it's glory and it's
trade had ebbed away with the tide,
which, receding steadily had left it
high and dry inland, with two miles of
sandy marshes, covered with salt her
bage and waving grasses, between it
and the sea. Up the sluggish stream,
half creek, half river, heavy red-sailed
barges came creeping at high tide;
but, except at the fortnightly cattle
market, there was little traffic in the
grass-grown, cobble-paved street The
old round tower of the Castle, built
as a coast defence by Henry VIII,
with the other 'block houses at San
down and Deal, was turned into a
cheerful-looking prison; the ramparts
laid out as a public garden; disused
quintain still stood in the market
place; and outside the cottage win
dows were to be seen the wheels
round which the weavers had passed
the Ieathern bands of their looms
from within.
Master Ivert was the most impor-
tant man in the place. and had chung
to it in its decay, partly for olo asso-
Citations sake, and partly, no doubt
because it suited his purposes better
than any other would have done.
With him had lived, for the last sew
enteen years, the wife and daughter
of his only son, who had been killed
in a scuftie with the coastguard three
MOI Is after the little PhyIlida was
bo1--./ Her sex was a deep disappoint-
ment to her grandfather, though what
soft spot there was in his heart she
possessed. AS Job Makey, the fore
mans wife, put it, ''she favored the
family" bearing no resemblance to
her small, dark mother.
Young Mrs. Ivert had married for a
home, and, gaining her object, was
Herewith silent if not content, her
natural keenness and reticence in
creased by seeing, hearing, and sus-
pecting much she could neither APP
prove of nor prevent, her chief aim in
life being to keep her child free from
such knowledge. 1t had not been a
difficult task hitherto. for Phyllida,
though sharp-Witted enough, was sin