Newspaper Page Text
THE WIDO IK OSH A NE'S RINT.
Whisht, there! Mnry Murphy, doan think
m« inssno,
Put Fm dyin* ter tell ye, of Widdor O’Shane;
HJie live* in tho attic uixt mine, doan ye
kuow,
An’ dooh the foino w&Hhiu’ f«r ould Mifither
Wid nim- chick nor a child tor track in,
Her kitchen ia always aa nato as a pin;
An’ her cap an’ her apron ia alwaya x that
clane—
Och, a moighty foino gurrnl ia the Widdor
O'Shane.
An’ wild ye belave mo, on 8atlmrday night
We hoard a rough atip oomin’ over our flight;
An’ Mike, mo ould man, he jist hollered to me,
“Look out av the door an* seo who it moigkt
be.”
An’ I looked, Mary Murphy, an* save me if
there
Wuan’t Thomas Mahono on the uppermost
stair
(He’s the landlord; yc’vo scon him yerself, wid
a cane),
An’ he knocked on tho door of the Widdor
0 Shane.
An’I whispered to Michael, “Now, what can
it mane
That his worship is calling on Widdor
O’Shanc ?”
Hint day comes a Friday wid us, doan yo see,
Bo I knew that it wuan’t collectin’ he’d be.
“It must be she owes him some money for rint,
Though tho neighbors do say that sho pays to
tho cint;
You take care of tho baby, Michael Brady,”
says I,
“An’ I’ll papo through tho koyholo, I will, if I
die.”
The howly saints bliss mo! what Bliudn't I see
But the Widdor O’Shane sittin* pourin’ the tea;
An' tho landlord wus there, Misthor Thomas
Mahone,
A-sittln’ one side ov the table alone.
An’ he looked at tho Widdor O’Shane, an’ soz
ho,
-“It’s a privilege groat that yo offer ter mo;
For I’ve not once sat down by a fair woman’s
side
Sinoe I sat down by her that I onoo called me
bride.
“An’is it ye’re poor now, Wickler O’Shane?
Ye’re a daoent woman, both tidy an’ olano; 1
An’ we’re both av us horo in the wurruld
alone .
Wud ye think of unltlaf wid Thomas Ma¬
hono ?” ,:t *
Then the Widdor O’Shauo put the tea kottlo
down,
An’ she says, “Misther Thomas, yor namo is a
crown;
.1 take it most gladly"—an’ then me ould mau
-Hollered, “Bridgot, oum in hore, quick as yer
can.”
Bo thon, Mary Murphy, I riz off that floor,
An’ run into mo attic an* bolted tho door;
An* I boz to mo Michael, “Now, isn’t it maoe?
She’ll have no rint to pay, will that Widdor
O’Shane,”
—Foci's Companion.
SANDY’S DIAMOND.
“Now, Sandy, it’s your turn; why
don’t you read ? have you lost the
place?”
Sandy straightened the tails of his
ragged coat with an air of conscious
virtue; he was :not given to losing his
plaoe, whatever the others might be.
“Now, Judas said this, not because he
cared for the poor, but because he was
a thief, and had the bag,” he read out in
a shrill treble. “It was an awful pity
they let him keep the bag, then,” he
added by way of comment.
“Maybe they’d no ken he was a thief,”
suggested his neighbor, who was
Sandy’s chief friend and ally; “and may
be you wad have helped yonrsel’ a bit
now and again, Sandy, if you’d had as
good a chanoe.”
“Speak for yonrsel’, Sam Knox,” was
Sandy’s hasty retort. “I’m no thief, at
any rate.”
“Boys, attend to the lesson,” inter¬
rupted the teaoher, aud the debate had
perforce to be postponed for the present.
Sandy marched home after school,
swelling with indignant pride, utterly
declining Sam’s usual escort The two
were friends more from force of circum¬
stances than natural affinity. Both
earned a scanty inoome in London,
carrying parcels and messages from th«
railway to the different quays; bat
though they held the same profession,
and wore oomradrn to a certain extent,
Sandy t>y no means considered Sam in
the light of an equal; his clothes were
in many degrees more ragged, his shoes
a thing of the past, or future, and, in
point of family connections—well, there
could bo no comparison between Sam’s
drunken father and his own thrifty,
hard-working mother. Decidedly Sam
mast be made to understand that he was
not to disparage his superiors in public
with impunity.
The coolness lasted some days, and
might-have lasted much longer, bat for
A startling adventure that befell Sandy.
Trudging round the edge of the dook at
dusk one evening, with a huge package
for a coasting steamer, his foot struck
against something—something that glit
tcred in the dim light. “Just a bit of
glass,” he said to himself, turning it
over with the toe of his shoe; and then
he dropped his burden with a crash, and
swooped down upon “his find.”
It was a ring, dull and tarnished with
mild, but neither crushed nor broken,
mid the “bit of glass” was the stone. It
gleamed ont like the windows on the op¬
posite shore at sunset. In his younger
days, before he became such a practical
person, ho had firmly believed that
Paradiso lay over there; he knew bet
ter now, but for a moment, as it lay on
his palm, he almost fancied it must have
come from that region.
Only for a moment; then Sandy was
his oautions little self again. He rolled
it up oarefully with the private store of
halfpenee that oven his mother, worthy
woman, did not know of, shouldered his
naokage and delivered it at the tiny
booking office at the end of the quay,
sturdily argued out the question of an
additional penny on aooount of its size
with the clerk, and got it, aDd then he
betook himself to a solitary comer of
the dook wall and sat down behind a
sugar cask to consider matters.
First and foremost, should he tell his
mother? He rather thought not.
might inaiat npon delivering it up to tb
authorities, and taking the chance of
posstble reward; and Bandy had an
oeedingly unoomfortable conviction that
that was just what be ought to do. Yet
he remembered a boy who found &
pooketbook on the gangway, and the
owner only gave him a shilling for it;
and another who found a telescope and
got nothing. Sandy felt that fortune
lay within his grasp, and that if he had
to barter it away for one shilling, or
even five, it would be paying too dearly
for principles.
He had heard of rings being worth
hundreds of pounds, and if this was
worth but cue —or even, to be safer
still, fifty. Tho tide rippled in below
his feet unheeded, the long line of gas
lamps twinkled like yellow stars in the
black, restless river, the keen wind
whistled through the rigging behind;
Sandy saw and felt nothing, wrapped in
blissful visions of that modest fifty.
For two whole days he carried the
seorot alone, then his responsibility be¬
came too heavy, and tacitly ignoring
past differences, he waited on the quay
one dinner-hour for Sam Knox, binding
him over to strict seoreoy, though on
that head he had little fear, for Sam,
whatever his failings might be, had
never been known to do a shabby thing
to a friend.
“Sam, I’ve got something to tell you;
I’ve had a find.”
“One bawbee or twa?” queried Sam,
indifferently.
“Just wait till you get a sight of it!
It’s worth more bawbees than you ever
saw all your days.”
“So you’re not going to give it up to
the authorities ?” Sam asked, curiously,
when he had heard the story.
“And maybe get nothing at all, like
Jem McOulloek,” answered Sandy,
shortly. “You’d no do that yourseV,
Sam Knox.”
“No, Td not,” agreed Bam, frankly;
“but you’ve always professed such a
lot mova.”
A dull red flush crept up to Sandy’s
brow. He had not counted upon Sam
being sharp enough to view the case in
that light.
“Anyhow, let ns have a look at it,”
went on Sam, magnanimously pursuing
that point no further,
Behind the sugar-oask, after infinite
precautions, the treasure was produced
for inspection.
“How much do you think I’ll get for
it ?” he asked, deferring to Sam’s judg¬
ment for once. He was much older,
and might reasonably be expected to
have some little experience in valuables
—other people’s, if not his own.
“I mind of hearing a man say once,
that he gave £20 for one not near as big
a8 that; but you’ll not get as much, for
who’s going to believe you didn’t
steal it?’
“Steal it 1” echoed Sandy, in angry
dismay.
“Aye, but you’ve got to make folks
believe your story, and who are you go¬
ing to get to buy it ?”
“I thought you might ken of some
place,” faltered Sandy, rather crest¬
fallen.
“Well, I ken of one or twa. I’ll look
out and tell ye in the morn.”
And then the conference broke up,
and the two went back to their parcels,
Sam pondered the matter over as he
lounged about the docks that day.
Steady work was not his strong point,
and the diamond had taken powerful
hold of his imagination. He did wish
with all his heart it had been his luck
instead of Sandy’s to have found it; he
felt he could have made far better use
of it.
“If there was any hope of his sharing
it with a fellow, it would be different,
but he’ll just keep every penny to him
sel*. Serve him right if he went and
lost it again,”
Over and over that reflection crept
up. Sandy had already strayed from
the right path for the sake of the
iamond - Sam was the next to fall a
\j iotim He thought to its fascination, of it hour after hour, till
seemed as if he must have it by fair
means or foul, and he doubted fair
means would avail little with a lad like
Sandy.
Saturdays were busy days on the
quays, and the next day both Sam and
Sandy were huriying backward and for¬
ward till after dark. It was a gusty,
stormy night, and as Sandy went down
one of the gangways on his last journey
the steamer gave a sadden Inrch that
sent him and his packages flying across
the deck; worse still, out rolled the con¬
tents of his pockets, and before Sandy
had recovered his feet and his scattered
senses the scrap of paper shrouding the
precious ring wa» lodged inside Sam’s
waistcoat. He happened to have been
standing just under the gangway, and
lost no time in availing himself of the
unlooked-for chance.
It was all the work of a minute.
Sandy gathered up his property and
went back on shore without observing
his friend. Sam. fairly glowing with
satisfaction at the beautiful way things
had arranged themselves, qmetly re¬
tired to the dock wall to congratulate
himself at leisure. No more heavy
packages to drag np and down those
steep bridges, no more snpperless nigh'™
and breakfastless mornings. Sandy had
built no taller castles round that dia¬
mond than he was building now.
“Sam, Sam !” broke in a pitiful voice,
“I’ve been looking everywhere for yon.
IVe lost my diamond.”
“You’ve what?” cried Sam, with an
incredulous stare that reflected credit on
his powers of dissimulation.
“Lost it—in that boat, and she s
away now, and I’ll never, never get it
took. It’s hard.”
Sandy pnt his head down on the iron
rail, and groaned aloud in bitter disap
poin foment.
Sam looked on in silence; he was
naturally a hard-hearted lad, and for a
minute the impulse wss strong to give
the ring took; the feel of his empty
pocketo brought back more prudential
considerations.
“After all, it’s only what he did him¬
self,” lie argued; “he found it and kept
it, and that’s what I’m doing.”
He made one or two ineffectual at¬
tempts to console poor, miserable
Sandy, and got himself away as speed¬
ily us practicable into a back street,
where dwelt a certain German, who
kept a kind oi money-lending and gen¬
eral exchange and barter establishment
for the benefit of sailors and emigrants.
Saturday night was far advanced, and if
he, Sam, meant to reap any im m ed i ate
benefit from his possession, it was nec¬
essary to lose no time.
He slipped softly in, and addressed
himself to the proprietor.
“I picked up something in the dock
to-day, and I wad like to ken the worth
of it gin I cared to part with it."
“What is it?” demanded the man,
briefly.
“It’s a ring—a diamond one," an¬
swered Sam, speaking under his breath.
“Where is it ?”
Sam slowly unfolded the wrappers,
and laid it, with a sort of gasp, in the
man’s dingy palm. How it glittered in
the gaslight! Sam watched it with
eager eyes. “A nice thing to have gone
and given that away again,” he said to
himself.
The German looked at the treasure
under the gas-jet for a moment, and
touched it with his tongue; then ho
threw it down on the counter with a
sort of laugh.
“y-wnonds, indeed f A bit rtf glass !”
“It’s no I” ejaculated Sam, with dry'
lips. “You’re cheating!”
The man knocked it smartly against
the iron scales. Alas ! the unfortunate
diamond vanished away into dusty pow¬
der.
“But the ring—that’s gold l” cried
Sam in despair. It was the one last
forlorn hope.
“Take it away; no one would give
you a sixpence for it."
&am picked it up without a word.
When he got outside he flung it into
the nearest gutter. Was it for this he
had cheated Sandy, and made himself
afraid to meet him—for this? Why
conldn’t he have left him to find ont the
miserable cheat for himself ? It was the
very first time he had ever played a
friend a shabby trick, and in wrath and
bitterness of spirit Sam registered a
solemn resolution that it should be the
last.
The sight of Sandy’s woe-begone
countenance when they met at the
school next morning also helped to
strengthen it. Sam realized, with a
sinking heart, that he wonld never be
able to explain to him how little cause
for regret he really had. For weeks and
months—even years—he might have to
listen to the lamentations over that un¬
paralleled loss.
They had the conclusion of the Jndas
tragedy that morning. The two lads
wandered ronnd the quay afterward al¬
most in silence, each privately repenting
after his own fashion.
“If I had taken that diamond to the
station,” soberly remarked Sandy
breaking into a long pause, “I might—
I might have got three or four pounds
for it, instead of just nothing. It served
me right. I’m thinking maybe there
was some allowance to be made for
Jndas. After all, riches are an awful
snare—nobody knows till they get
them.”
“Tney are,” ejaculated Sam, with
great fervor. “There's no depending
on them, and I’m thinking we’ll be just
as well without any.”
“Ah, bat you never had a diamond,”
retorted Sandy, with a sudden burst of
sorrow for his lost treasure.
“No, I never had,” was Sam’s truth¬
ful answer.
Since 1786 there have been sold to
private persons 402 of the islands along
the coast oi Maine. They range in siae
*~iu 1.000 U* Ifi.Oty* anrea.