Connecticut western news., 1921-03-31

SSAH"
 For his bride soldier sought her,
 And a winning tongue had he.
 On the banks of Allan Water
 None was gay as she.
 That very night the soldier came in- to her life. came as she walked about the farm to see that all was secure. Her skirt was caught as she trod fear fully through a growth of high frs; she heard the mutter of a mans voice. A dark lantern revealed a spur en- tangled in her skirt, young and slender man clad in brilliant brass and scarlet. It flashed like & gleam of romance fin gray days, that scarlet coat that wns afterwards to be re- membered as so sinister O portent.
 The man was Sergeant Troy, a light-hearted scoundrel whose ready fiat cry sounded sweeter in Bath- .sheba's ears than the stammering long ing of Gabriel or Boldwood. He courted her remanticnlly, wooing her with his sword. She stood, few days later, in a hollow of ferns and about her flashed his whiriing. edged weapon, slashing so close to her that she could hear it's sharp hiss as 1t carved out tn the air her lissome figure. And when he turned to leave her. he stopped swiftly and kissed her on the lips
 Gabriel tried to warn Bathsheba but she scorned his reproaches. So he bore silently with his grief and he did not tell her that Troy had beguiled little Fanny Robin away from Weatherbury. Boldwood. whose heart had never be- fore beat faster at a woman's ap- proach, could not so control his anger. He shouted maledIctions upon the man who had robbed him of all that had made life joyous. His madness pro Bathsheba's marriage to Troy.
 The hasty> marriage led swiftly to sorrow, inevitably to tragedy. Troy celebrated the wedding by a revel in the barn where he and ali the jovial rustics were soon hopelessly befud- dled. Gabriel dared not drink with them. The creeping things of the night and the huddled sheep. had warned him of the nearing storm and in the fields the high ricks of wheat and barley lay uncovered.
 The moon vanished and the wind subsided; on far horizons baieful fires fiuttered. The mutter of distant thun- der rolled Into a sharp rattle. The flashes grew bright as he worked to protect the grain. Then Bathsheba was withshim and their laboring forms OVNtI Nx, Axr An snakes of fire that darted venomously earthward. As she trembled with fright, Gabriel felt her warm arm tremble in his great, sheltering hand She was another mans wife; she did not love him; but there was solace In the strange ways of fate that had brought her nearer to him than when her heart was free.
 Tragedy came when Fanny Robin crept home to die. Her body. with that of her child, was brought back to the house where she had worked. Standing by the coffin, Bathsheba learned that Troy had never loved her. as he had this girl who had borne death and shame for him. He fled from Weatherbury and word was brought to Bathsheba that he had been swept out to sea and drowned.
 The seasons rolled on and sorrow gave to Bathsheba's face a serious ness that added to her charm. Bold wood dreamed again and he was made happy by promise although six years must pass before Its fulfllment
 To celebrate his joy, he planned a Christmas-eve party, more than year after Troy had disappeared. And 1t was on this night that Troy chose to reappear, striding like spectre among the merrymakers. As he advanced upon her, Bathsheba stood like a stricken thing half-convinced' that de- fusion had enthralled her. But there was nothing ghostly in the rough com mand that he shouted at her, nor In the brutal grip that he took upon her arm. Then only did she stir, but she could not speak. A strangled scream was heard, then a deafening roar. Some eyes were upon Troy, pitching forward and never to rise again; oth- CTS upon Boldwood, standing with a smoking gun in his hands.
 Not until the next August, long after it was known that Boldwocd was to he imprisoned for life, was Bathsheba able to walk as far as the village street. Fate had been hard tp her. Of three men who had loved hf, one had been killed by another who would never stride on the daylight again. And now word had come to her that whom she had found the one man in the world who did not fall her in her need, was leaving her. She sought him in his humble cottage and he confessed that he was going because people were coupling his name with hers. "Such q thing as that is too ab- surd-too soon-to think of, by farl" she cried. When he agreed with her