The Telegram. — 1894-06-26 (Weymouth, Dorset, England)

THE STORY OF A DREAM.  Forsaken by luck, pluck, friends, faith, and hope; without work, money, or credit, And in a strange city ; there was nothing between me and starvation but a pad of paper and a peas& Yet I ; could write. I sat alone in that desolate, midnight toom—rain everywheke without, drearily cloacae& , Again and again I songht to put a thought on paper, only to utterly fail. A horridly fatal', bloody thought entered my head. I shuddered slightly, and a memory of my mother. came ..over, me like a spell. Laying my head upon the table, I cried like a good fellow. How long 1 sat there I do not know. I know that If ell asleep, and heard my mother singing di she used to sing by nry bedside in childhood. Then the room seemed stifling and a hot hush horned my. Main. In niy dream I was in the old home, writing, inv pen dashing over the paper like a strcain of fire, thought fcelowing thought in words that I felt were chaste. and , imagery that I knew was as vivid as life. Faster and faster flamed the thoughts, faster ant{ faster flew the pen. Bravely and well tfitst drEant skiry told itself to me : Grisly mountain stretches on either hand, rolling back to the grim sky under !sombre Pined and scrubby oaks. A itaffiate, trea:ClCeteiiall St featii writhing and seething over its ugly sands, red from the wash of the placers above. On the bank a little child, playing in the silent rays of the setting sun. A little, half-stars/at, God-forsaken baby, produce of a mining town, burn of a merciless mother to a faithless father. Singing a baby tune of its own, it tracks the sandy shore with it little bare feet, squealing with delight as the splashing water swirls around its thin, bare legs. Then anothet cry, *harp and scared, as its feet seem held, and, in spite of its struggles, go down, down, &len into the treacherous depths of a quicksand, pitiless, remorseless, ravenous, and insatiable. Pitifully wails the little one; but the blue hills are stall. Again and stain the pleading cry trembles on the chilly wind from the ravines. Then through the silence Comes a crash in the brush, and across the broad, lo* sanclii darta a Miner, fat ftom Camp and no hero in his ragged, dirty flannel. Info the sands he runs, for the baby iS already armpit deep, stud pitiful is its fright. "Out you come, he cries cheerily, "and pp you go, Polly I`' he laughs, as far up the bank, into a pile of soft, drifted grass, he tomes the now merrily chattering youngster. Then he turns to the shore with a smile. But the smile fades like a shadow' for the sand has (went to his boot-tops,, and the water is wriggling about his knees. lie has delayed too long. His weight, greater than . that of the child, his trapped him upon his errand . of mercy. One instant he pauses id dismay, then throws himself on his aide, and tries to free Mb ' feet from the snaky sands. Once, twice, thrice ha ' struggles, but each effort leaves him weaker than before. A look of despair blanches his titer. His ! eyes rove up and down the deserted bank • too well he knows in vain. Far from cantp, night at hand, Mid none to hear bat little Polly, calling to him from the bank to take her home. "lion, kid, run! Run to camp and tell the boys that Snider's in the sands ! " Away speeds the little one on her mad, hopeless errand. Up come the sands, shivering, shaking, squirming around the solitary figure, fast, fast, and ever faster in the deathly Sitehee; ethinid his waist, around his chest, around his brawny arms. Then the look of a soul in its last agony contorts his bronzed face at the water steals over his sHonlders. The sand oozes and bubbles close and closer to its prey. One moment more and all will be over. A bubble of foam eddies around his chin. A splash of water laps his lips as he throws hie strong head far back and looks calmly up into the sky, through the they of the setting sun, which he shall never see again. He has no friends, no home, no ties to bind him to the world but life, and yet that bitter mockery grows dear. Across the hopeless face conies a holy peace in resignatimi to the end which iv at hand. A fire flames in the cold, grey eyes; the blue lipe open, and in a vete* that would touch the heart of stone rings out one verse, . a verse of am hymn his mother emit by his bedside, ah, so many years ago ! Than a splash, a bubbling gasp, and all is over, for ever. But the great hills ring with the hymn that Snider sang, and it will echo there till the great day comes. I woke with a start. The clock was striking three. The fire WRS out, and I was chilled through. With a great pang I remembered the undone work I had to do, and turned to my table. There, on the paper that I had left blank three hours before, was written the story I have told, complete from first to last—the story of a dream.  Mr. Bayne, forme/1y a member of the United States Oorogren, committed suicide at Washington on S.Lturday by shooting himself with a revolver.