The Blackpool Herald. — 1881-01-21 (Blackpool, Lancashire, England)

CKPOOL HERALD, FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1881.  moi nt•rernt TTr,arvnUTh ZOTCK gOZ-Df tter, and came downstairs looking the ghost of his former self, and nervous and irritable .to a frightful degree; but apparently he had got a fright about drinking; the doctor indeed, who wm himself a little red-faced man with strong alcoholic proclivities, had warned him of its  fatal consequences. "Another such attack, Mr. Richard," he had said, shaking his head as usual when he wished to be very emphatic, "and I dare not contemplate the consequences. Epilepsy, my dear air, lunacy, itliotcy, death—all might be produced. I do not on principle object to stimulants" (people said the (lector certainly did not) ; "but when the desire for them is overpowering, unrestrainable in fact to a reasonable quantity, then I say, my young friend, abstain. Yours is a case that requires total abstinence —be wise therefore and use it." And having given this advice the doctor left, calling at the nearest ale-house on his road to have a glass of hot brandy and water, as the snorting was chill. lAhle of Dick's great horrors after his illness was to go to bed, and he used to beg and pray them to sit up late, falling asleep many and many a time through pure exhaustion in his chair. It was difficult to spend the long winter nights, and so Elizabeth proposed whist (though she disliked cards), by way of amusing Dick, and the three elder cousins used to sit and play very sedately and soberly, Hal being the only lively one of the p„rty. "My belief is," mid this boy one night, "that if I were prematurely cut oft, that the proverbial ditch. water would be sparkling in comparison to the liveliness of my remaining sorrowing family. Lissa, my dear, if farming gets worse don't you thiok that Dick and 'Bob would make their fortuues as mutes? Yes, the undertaking business is certainly open to our family." Only a very feeble laughs was raised in answer to this sally, and it MIS no doubt true that the family circle at Wendell farm was now a very dull one. Every day they missed the farmer's cheery good-nature, who, ever ready with his jest and his laugh, had made small grievances stem lighter, and larger ones easier to bear. He was gone now, and his honoured name could never even be mentioned in his household. Dick was to be kept quiet and amused, the doctor said, and " father " therefore was a word now never heard at Wendell West-hose. As the anniversary of poor Harry Tyrell's death drew near, Lissa felt a strange but perhaps not unaccountable dread of its approach. Dick since his recovery had had no more frightful dreams or visions apparently, but he often talked still in his restless aleep, and had twice given Elizabeth a terrible fright by walking in it. Each time when she awoke and missed him, the idea of suicide had occured to her mind, but on rousing Bob and Hal, Dick, asleep, with half open, fixed expressionless eyes, was discovered, once near the door of an unfrequented large attic room in the rear of the house, and another time trying apparently to undo the fastenings of the house door. Every one in the house remembered what day it was when the pale winter morning dawned at Wendell on the anniversary of Harry's murder. Elizabeth had watched its first beams of light appear with deep emotion, perplexity, and regret, stirring in her heart. She scarcely dared to look in her husband's face, though when she did his knitted brow, his pallor, and restless and excited ways, added not a little to her painful ' curiosity, to her unsatisfied and anxious doubts. No one spoke of it at breakfast; no one, until Hal, with boyish carelessness, said—" D'ye know what day this is, Lissa ? " "Yes, yes," said Elizabeth hastily. "The seventeenth of December," went on HaL "The day when Harry Tyrell was—" "No use mentioning disagree:shies," said Bob, interrupting the irrepressible boy, for kis eyes had fallen on Dick's white and clammy face. "A great deal of use, I think," continued Master Hal. "Be silent," Said Dick, passionately, "be silent;" and he started up from the breakfast table, and Bob and Lissa looked at each other with one glance of mu. tual fear as he left the room. "My belief is," said Hal the next minute, "that Dick knows more than he chooses to tell about the murder. D'ye remember when he had D.T., Lissa, how he always fancied Harry Tyrell's ghost was in the room ? " "You had better take care what you say, I think," said Bob. "You'll have Dick ill again with your folly, if you don't mind. You know he's not the same fellow since poor father's death. "Well, if I'd had D.T. and I'd been Dick," answered Hal, who always had the last word, "it would have been poor father's ghost, and not Harry Tyrell's that would have haunted me. I don't blame him—nobody can, but for all that I shouldn't like to have the old man's blood upon my hand."