V. Her own.

DON’T WAIT.

THE CURFEW HEROINE.

The story that is the basis of the well-known poem, “Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,” told in prose is as follows:

It lacked quite half an hour of curfew toll. The old bell-ringer came from under the wattled roof of his cottage stoop and stood with uncovered head in the clear sweet-scented air. He had grown blind and deaf in the service, but his arm was as muscular as ever, and he who listened this day marked no faltering in the heavy metallic throbs of the cathedral bell. Old Jasper had lived through many changes. He had tolled out the notes of mourning for good Queen Bess, and with tears scarcely dry he had rung the glad tidings of the coronation of James. Charles I. had been crowned, reigned, and expiated his weakness before all England in Jasper’s time, and now he who under army held all the common wealth in the hollow of his hand, ruled as more than monarch, and still the old man with the habit of a long life upon him rang his matin and sorrow.

Jasper stood alone now, lifting his dimmed eyes up to the softly dappled sky.

The wall of his memory seemed so written over—so crossed and recrossed by the annals of the years that had gone before, that there seemed little room for anything in the present. Little recked he that Cromwell’s spearsmen were camped on the moor beyond the village—that Cromwell himself rode with his guardsmen a league away; he only knew that the bell had been rung in the tower when William the Conqueror made curfew a law, had been spared by Puritan and Roundhead, and that his arm for sixty years had never failed him at even-tide.

He was moving with a slow step toward the gate, when a woman came hurriedly in from the street and stood beside him; a lovely woman, but with a face so blanched that it seemed carved in the whitest of marble, with all its roundness and dimples. Her great, solemn eyes were raised to the aged face in pitiful appeal, and the lips were forming words that he could not understand.

“Speak up, lass, I am deaf and can not hear your chatter.”

“For heaven’s sake, Jasper, do not ring the curfew bells to-night.”

“What! na ring curfew? You must be daft, lassie.”

“Jasper, for sweet heaven’s sake—for my sake—for one night in all your long life forget to ring the bell! Fail this once and my lover shall live, whom Cromwell says shall die at curfew toll. Do you hear? my lover, Richard Temple. See, Jasper, here is my money to make your old age happy. I sold my jewelry that the Lady Maud gave me, and the gold shall be yours for one curfew.”

“Would you bribe me, Lily De Vere? Ye’re a changeling. Ye’re na the blood of the Plantagenets in ye’re veins as ye’re mother had. What, corrupt the bell-ringer under her majesty, good Queen Bess? Not for all the gold that Lady Maud could bring me! Babes have been born and strong men have died before now at the ringing of my bell. Awa’! Awa’!”

And out on the village green with the solemn shadows of the lichens lengthening over it, a strong man awaited the curfew toll for his death. He stood handsome, and brave, and tall—taller by an inch than the tallest pikeman who guarded him.

What had he done that he should die? Little it mattered in those days, when the sword that the great Cromwell wielded was so prone to fall, what he or others had done. He had been scribe to the late lord up at the castle, and Lady Maud, forgetting that man must woo and woman must wait, had given her heart to him without the asking, while the gentle Lily De Vere, distant kinswoman and poor companion of her, had, without seeking, found the treasures of his true love and held them fast. Then he had joined the army and made one of the pious soldiers whose evil passions were never stirred but by sign or symbol of poetry. But a scorned woman’s hatred had reached him even there. Enemies and deep plots had compassed him about and conquered him. To-night he was to die.

The beautiful world lay as a vivid picture before him. The dark green wood above the rocky hill where Robin Hood and his merry men had dwelt; the frowning castle with its drawbridge and square towers, the long stretch of moor with the purple shadows upon it, the green, straight walks of the village, the birds overhead, even the daisies at his feet he saw. But ah! more vividly than all, he saw the great red sun with its hazy veil lingering above the trees as though it pitied him with more than human pity.

He was a God fearing and a God serving man. He had long made his peace with heaven. Nothing stood between him and death—nothing rose pleadingly between him and those who were to destroy him but the sweet face of Lily De Vere, whom he loved. She had knelt at Cromwell’s feet and pleaded for his life. She wearied heaven with her prayers, but all without avail.

Slowly now the great sun went down. Slowly the last rim was hid beneath the greenwood. Thirty seconds more and his soul would be with God. The color did not forsake his cheeks. The dark rings of hair lay upon a warm brow. It was his purpose to die as martyrs and brave men die. What was life that he should cling to it? He almost felt the air pulsate with the first heavy roll of the death knell. But no sound came. Still facing the soldiers with his clear gray eyes upon them he waited.

The crimson banners in the west were paling to pink. The kine had ceased their lowing, and had been gathered into the rick yards.

All nature had sounded her curfew, but old Jasper was silent!

The bell-ringer, with his gray head yet bared, had traversed half the distance between his cottage and the ivy-covered tower when a form went flitting past him, with pale, shadowy robes floating round it, and hair that the low western lights touched and tinted as with a halo.

“Ah, Huldah, Huldah!” the old man muttered; “how swift she flies? I will come soon dear. My work is almost done.”

Huldah was the good wife who had gone from him in her early womanhood, and for whom he had mourned all his long life. But the fleeting form was not Huldah’s. It was Lily De Vere, hurried by a sudden and desperate purpose toward the cathedral.

“So help me God, curfew shall not ring to-night! Cromwell and his dragoons come this way. Once more I will kneel at his feet and plead.”

She entered the ruined arch. She wrenched from its fastening the carved and worm-eaten door that barred the way to the tower. She ascended with flying and frenzied feet the steps; her heart lifted up to God for Richard’s deliverance from peril. The bats flew out and shook the dust of centuries from the black carving. As she went up she caught glimpses of the interior of the great building, with its groined roof, its chevrons and clustered columns; its pictured saint and carved image of the virgin, which the pillages of ages had been spared to be dealt with by time, the most relentless vandal of all.

Up—still—up—beyond the rainbow tints thrown by the stained glass across her death-white brow; up—still—up—past open arch, with griffin and gargoyles staring at her from under bracket and cornice, with all the hideousness and mediæval carving; the stairs, flight by flight, growing frailer beneath her young feet; now but a slender network between her and the outer world; but still up.

Her breath was coming short and gasping. She saw through an open space old Jasper cross the road at the foot of the tower. Oh, how far! The seconds were treasures which Cromwell, with all his blood-bought commonwealth, could not purchase from her. Up—ah—there, just above her with its great brazen mouth and wicked tongue, the bell hung. A worm eaten block for a step, and one small white had clasped itself above the clapper—the other prepared, at the tremble, to rise and clasp its mate, and the feet to swing off—and thus she waited. Jasper was old and slow, but he was sure and it came at last. A faint quiver, and the young feet swung from their rest, and the tender hands clasped for more than their precious life the writhing thing. There was groaning and creaking of the rude pulleys above, and then the strokes came heavy and strong. Jasper’s hand had not forgot its cunning, nor his arm its strength. The tender, soft form was swung and dashed to and fro. But she clung to and caressed the cold, cruel thing. Let one stroke come and a thousand might follow—for its fatal work would be done. She wreathed her white arms about it, so that with every pull of the great rope it crushed into the flesh. It tore her, and wounded and bruised; but there in the solemn twilight the brave woman swung and fought with the curfew, and God gave her victory.

The old bell-ringer said to himself: “Aye, Huldah, my work is done. The pulleys are getting too heavy for my old arms; my ears, too, have failed me. I dinna hear one stroke of the curfew. Dear old bell! it is my ears that have gone false, and not thou. Farewell old friend.”

And just beyond the worn pavement a shadowy form again went flitting past him. There were drops of blood upon the white garments, and the face was like the face of one who walked in her sleep, and her hands hung wounded and powerless at her side. Cromwell paused with his horsemen under the dismantled May-pole before the village green. He saw the man who was to die at sunset standing up in the dusky air, tall as a king and beautiful as Absalom. He gazed with knitted brow and angry eye, but his lips did not give utterance to the quick command that trembled on them, for a girl came flying toward him. Pikeman and archer stepped aside to let her pass. She threw herself upon the turf at his horse’s feet; she lifted her bleeding and tortured hands to his gaze, and once more poured out her prayer for the life of her lover; with trembling lips she told him why Richard still lived—why the curfew had not sounded.

Lady Maud looking out of her latticed window at the castle, saw the great protector dismount, lift the fainting form in his arms and bear her to her lover. She saw the guards release their prisoner, and she heard the shouts of joy at his deliverance; then she welcomed the night that shut the scene out from her envious eye and sculptured her in its gloom.

At the next matin bell old Jasper died, and at curfew toll he was laid beside the wife who had died in his youth, but the memory of whom had been with him always.

—Bulletin, Haverhill, Mass.

Work every hour, paid or unpaid, see only that thou work, and thou canst not escape thy reward. Whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought. No matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

OLD SHOES.

An Obstinate Wife.

The other night a policeman who was patrolling High street east, heard a whistle blown, followed by shouts for “police!” and after a run of half a block he came to a halt in front of a house where a second-story window was raised and a man had half his length over the sill.

“What’s the row?” demanded the officer.

“Some purglars vhas in mein house!” was the answer.

“How do you know?”

“I hears ’em make a noise more ash six times!”

“Where are they?”

“Down in der kitchen!”

“Have you been down to look around?”

“No! no! I tells my vhife to go, but she won’t stir! She shumps into bedt und covers oop her headt, und I vhas left to do all der fighting und be kilt! Dot’s der kind of a vhife she vhas!”

The officer investigated, to find that cats were responsible for the noises, and as he retired the householder was calling to his wife:

“Mary, if you go down I shtand on der stairs mit a light und a shot-gun und shoot eafery burglar like tunder.”

Wanted Weather-Strips.

“Didn’t I leave an order here three days ago for weather-strips?” demanded an indignant citizen of the proprietor of a Woodward avenue store yesterday.

“Yes, sir, you did.”

“And didn’t you say you would send a man to put them on?”

“I did.”

“And he was sick, I suppose?”

“No, sir; he went up there two days ago.”

“And put on the strips?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

“On the front and side doors, of course.”

“On the doors—of course—who in Halifax ordered them on the doors of the house? I wanted them strips for the barn doors!”

“You did?”

“Certainly I did. Do you suppose I want draughts of air sweeping in on my poor horses this kind o’ weather?”

It’s a Telephone.

A well-to-do but unsophisticated back-woodsman was in the city lately, attending the Fat Stock Show, and brought along his wife and daughters to see the sights and do some shopping. Among other places they visited was Mandel’s new store, and after wandering around the first floor for a while the party came to a stop near the elevators.

One of the daughters was first to discover the cars moving silently up and down, receiving and discharging their cargoes of passengers. She jerked her father’s coat sleeve to direct his attention to the phenomenon, and in a tone that was audible to the clerks in the neighborhood asked:

“What’s that, paw—that thing going up and down, with sofys in it?”

The old man gave the elevator a long, calm, deliberate, scrutinizing stare, and exclaimed with joy:

“By gosh! it’s a telephone! the first I ever saw!”

An Emergency.

A few days ago a man with a weak and humble expression, and wearing a summer suit of clothes, applied to one of the railroad passenger agents for a dead-head pass to Toledo.

“Why when do you want to go to Toledo?”

“To get married.”

“And you haven’t any money?”

“Not above twenty-five cents.”

“Hadn’t you better be worth your fare to Toledo before taking a wife on your hands to support?”

“You don’t understand the case,” protested the man. “I’m going to marry a widow worth at least $5,000, and the first thing I shall do will be to remit you the price of a ticket. I’m poor, and the widow knows it, but she marries me for love.”

He protested so long and earnestly that he was finally passed down the road. Two days elapsed, and then a letter was received from him saying:

“Heaven bless you for your kindness? Reached here all right, and married the widow according to programme. It turns out that she isn’t worth a copper. In this emergency may I ask you to pass us both to Detroit, where I have hopes of striking a job?”

The fellow who went into a sink hole clear to his nose remarked that it wasn’t much, as he had only gotten in up to his sneeze, and he had gum boots on.

PUBLICATIONS.

MARSHALL M. KIRKMAN’S BOOKS ON RAILROAD TOPICS.

DO YOU WANT TO BECOME A RAILROAD MAN

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