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GALLAHER’S INDEPENDENT, PUBLISHED EVERY SATVUDAY AT QUITMAN, GA, by—- J* C. GALLAHER. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION • TWO DOLLARS pet' Annum in Adranef. (Written fur GaUaher* Independent. J I LOVK MX NATIVE LAND THE BEST. BT OKI*. WM. U. BATWAID. America, my native land, Star of th© glorious West, To thee 1 ring ray bovhootf* song, *‘l love my native land the bn^t." Tho* I have roamed 'n distant clime#, like a dove in search of rest. To thee 1 turn and Ring once more, “1 love my native land the heat.*’ In many places in the world War rages dreadful peat: Here peace and plenty amiling reigns , “I love my native land the bent.” Hero freedom pure forever dwells. The Eagle is her crest, Here grows tho tree of Liberty “I love my native land the Lest.” And men renowned for noble deeds, Who fought and stood the'test; Brave heroes of America. “1 love my native land the best." The Holy Bible, here is free. Our gtiide to moke us blest: Home of my birth, I cling to thee, “I love my native laud the beat. * Our power is felt on land and sea, As crowned heads attest The foreign nations of the world. Acknowledge onr dear land the best. Columbia, now. and evermore. All tyrants we detest; The glory of my song shall be: “I love my native laud the best/’ Baltimore, Md., July 4, 1874. BEECHWOOD REVEL. CHAPTER I. BEECHWOOI> CASTLE. Tho country around Reechwood Castle is h dead level, and underlying the tliin crust o/ sandy soil are rich beds of marl, which the plow stira up to mingle kindly j with the surface and make the grass grow j rank and green for the steers and heifers ; who stood in it knee-deep and contented; j and the beech trees, which love this limy ' soil, tell in their hill, smootli-barki'd trunks, their great outspread branches, and their close-grown leaves, how wide! and how deep their roots have struck into j the nourishing soil below. There are no other trees than the j beeches in this track of country, but no j one who knows the true beauty ami vari- ' cty of this tree w here it grows to perfec- | tion would regret tins. They were here of every age and kind; there were sapling * trees, feathering their branches gracefully to the earth, like the wide-spread wings of Mime great bird; there were ttie great forest ; giants,round whoso huge trunks men walked j admiringly, and whose boughs held aloft. I in summer-time, clouds of green leaves, j mid looked like great ships sailing under press of canvass; and there were the an-; eieut moss-covered trees —most beautiful ; of all—with lichen-stained trunks, with! ferns growing in the clefts and crannies of ; the wood, and oil the smooth bark a lain- j ilred names of lovers dead and gone long 1 generations ago—trees that, shorn by t,ian-. of half their branches, still put forth their i delicate green leafage in Spring, and ! and changed it to red and gold in the Au tumn. This who e district was a forest of. these trees, known .is Beochwoods, and ; the great house set iu the midst of it was j Beech wood Castle, where lived Sir Philip ; ud Lady Sandon, aud Miss Eugenia Han- j don, their only child. Beech wood Castle was in name and in 1 facta real nsedhevai castle, with moat, turret, and projecting bartizans, aud Sir Philip Sandon was a man w orthy to have inherited such n monument of the old j time. If every individual of tho genera- J utions of men through whose hands the tenements lmilt in ancient days have come l to ns hud preserved his precious heir-looms us Hir Philip had done, the England of to-day would lie full of buildings erected by men who knew the art of building churches, houses and hulls ns well as vu shall ever know it. Hir Philip had been at pains to restore his house to its pristine condition. He hud trowu down a wing added iu the Eliz abethan period; be had, with less hesita tion, removed an Italian portico of a later date, and with zeal of an iconoclast he had ruthlessly demolished, a hideous facade which had defaced one side of the house since tho time of the second George. The same tasteless period had filled in the moat; he cleared it out, and could with difficulty bo induced not to replenish it with stagnant water. The house now stood as it stood in the fourteenth century, when it was built*—a dwelling-house aud a strong hold. Every stone was as the meduevul builders had left it. Home men love ancient buildings, not so much for what they are now; love the moss that time has gathered upon them, the weathered stone surfaces that the lichen stair gray and yellow, aud the ivy—abettor in the ruinous work of time —which steals like a thief from tho earth and clutches the stones in its grasp to drag them down; but Hir Philip was far too log ical and uncompromising an antiquarian to give in to the mild lestlietseism of such likings. He treated his residence as its first castellan would have used it—kept it clean and neat. If lichens or moss showed on the walls, they were scraped ofT; if a stone moldered away, it was replace by ouc similar in shape, aud taken from the ipiarry w hence the old builders had hewn out its predecessor. Nothing better pleased the possessor of Beeehwood Castle than to hear a stranger say it looked as if it lmd been built yesterday. Bo it w:is that if on this bright ■Tuna day any one had traveled by the straight avenue of "great trees, and had caught glimpses of the castle, with its towers and turrets glittering in the sunlight tlirongh the vis tas of this sweet woodland scenery, the moat-surrounded outer wall, the portcullis chains in their places, and the draw-bridge let down, he might almost forget the four or five hundred years that had passed, and dream for a moment, if it so pleased him, that he was in real truth a knight or a burgher of the old times, coming to seek hospitality at a medhevnl castle. Bucli a traveler, possessed with such a fancy, if he had happened to be coming to Beech wood Castle on this particular June afternoon of my story, might indeed have thought himself dreaming with his eves open. Under the walls of the castle, standing about in groups on tlie broad expanse of turf which stretched from the moat to where the leafage of the woods rose up like a huge wall against the sk v, was an assemblage of ladies and gentlemen, dress ed not as we expected in the days to see onr countrymen attired, but in the strange costume of a long passed age. There were Indies with tall erections of stiffend silk Upon their heads, in shape such as are (SallaljiT's infocpcniintt VOL. 11. still worn by the peasant women of France and Germany, and wearing bright-colored dresses with long trains that trailed be hind them upon the close-shaved lawn. The younger men were dressed more brightly even than the indies, in tight fitting hose of red or yellow, and jerkins of rich silk with sleeves of a different color quilted, padded and trimmed with various liucd silk and velvet, their heads bare, or covered by the small velvet plumed caps that were worn in the early part of the fifteenth oenturv- There were but few' el derly men, tod these wore a garb that hotter comported with their years—loose, fur-trimmed gowns and hoods. It was a masquerade at Beeehwood Cas tle, and as the fashion of to-day sets strongly toward fancy-dress balls, and as storngly, in the country, toward day enter tainments, it liad been Lady Sandon's whim and pleasure to combine those two things into one. There was to be dancing, but it was to be in the dusk of evening, on a polished floor tomprttorily laid in a syl van glade. There were to be fancy dress es, but they must bo of one period—of the age when chivalry was flourishing and when troubadours still sang the prowess of knights and the beauty of high-born ladies. This had been Lady Sandon's edict, aud it had been cheerfully obeyed by aneighlior iuiod who took all their fashions and many of theirjideus from the Lady of Beeehwood Castle. During the whole previous Spring little else had been talked about, and the an tiquarian knowledge of Hir Philip Sandon had never been so highly prized in the country. The choosing of their dresses was a lesson in history to a great many la dies and gentlemen who had seldom j troubled themselves to read a pago of it. and most learned talk prevailed as to ns rujfions and baludnnts, v<tir and mini rev, among people who hod looked out those ; words in the dictionary an hour before. j The day came, tho people assembled, j and the masquerade was a success, i here : was something for the stupidest guests to j talk about, a good deal to admire, and. I most delightful of all, a very great deal I to laugh at. It is not every lady who can ! manage a train; it is not every gentleman j who feels comfortable in garments which are iu these days seldom worn but by , harlequins and circus riders. English people, as a rule, have too much j dignity and perhaps too much shyness to shine as masquuders, but hero there was oue cause of dill', renco removed. Every one was dressed alike, or more or less alike; and no one, therefore, hud to brave out a more eccentric or a more ridiculous dress than his fellows. There w ere, of course, among the crowd of guests some people whose dress seemed to suit them better than others. Some figures, both of men and women, seemed admirably suited to the tight-fitting cos tnme, who looked as if they had stepped from the canvas of some of the great early paiuters. Two such persons were ospeci allv noted -Miss Eaudon, the heiress of Beeehwood Castle, and tier affianced hus | band, Lord Vender. Every one had i known that lie was a good-looking young ; man, fair complexipned, fair haired, ainia | tile and popular, aud Miss Sandon had been i recognized as a beauty even in London, i when she bad to come out, two years he j fore; but to-day there was no end to the j admiration which these two young persons i excited. People who were almost stran | gers ki them stored at them with a half : imbecile smile of admiration. Nothing so I exquisitely graceful, nothing ho positively i beautiful bad ever been seen iu shire as this pair of lovers. The whole county had been full of medi-1 mviUism for a month past, studying old books in coiintry-lionse libraries, poring I over illuminated missals, and someone, a j little better informed than bis neighbors, j said they were like Auenssin and Nicolette. s the famous pair of Provencal lovers of j whom the old ballads sing she with the | skin so white that tho daisies looked dark j as her naked feet pressed them; he, tlie, slim, golden-haired knight, with “eyes of I vuir"—Aueassin, “li biu.r, ti f/lon” —and j this sentence was caught up and went from I month to month, and almost every one talked of Aueassin, “li hiax, li blun ,” and j pretended to consider the phrase extreme- j ly applicable. There was cause for these raptures. He j was marvelously handsome, and his slight j figure showed to advantage in the tight , j ! liosen of pale crimson, in his doublet of j [ green silk slashed with silver gray, with a j I dagger in a jeweled scabbard borne in a j broad silver belt. Ilis young, fresh face, j jon which not even a moustache lmd yet j 1 appeared, was, some severe critic: i thought, hardly so manly ns it should be, 1 ! but if so.it would be but all the more suit- j i ablo to the impersonification of Aueassin, j Whose sword, the ballads say, would drop | I from bis hands in tho midst of battle, so ■ I forgetful of his knightly duties was he in ! his love for Nicolette. To bo sure, if tho Nicolette of tho bal- j lad was like Miss Sandon, there was ex cuse enough. She, too, had tho hair j which “grew in golden rings” of the lml- Muddiiongors, and lnr eyes likewise were of i the intense gray-blue which the singers j , likened to the color of “rail-,” tho rich l foreign fur then worn. Her figure matched j his in its slim graceful contour, dressed as she was in a narrow, long-trained robe of dim blue pearl, sewn to mark the delicate | lines of her body. lier hair was drawn : back from the fair forehead, and the soft., sweet expression of her face, smooth anil delicate, like the petals of May blossoms, was relieved by the severe lines of the tall head-dress, sloping back half a yard high, of dark gray silk. To see these two lovers together, to watch the serious intensify of their glan | ces nteach other, was a thing qfiite apart | from the hard, material existence of cvery- I day life—was the realization of an idyllic | poem—was a bit of the golden age itself. I What innocence ! what purity ! w lint triist ; fill simplicity 1 Happy lovers ! who can | both be so sure that neither of you will S ever find an object so delightful us the | other 1 I Was ever a young lady so innocent as , Miss Sandon looked, or is the world, per j Imps, not grown a little old for us to ex pect ally reflection of the sgo of gold HI ; the nineteenth century ? .Alas ! we have j most of onr Nemesis somewhere not far off, ready to overtake as for our great or i our little sins, utid Miss Sandon's Neme- I sis was at this very momentcomiug nearer and nearer. CHAPTER II MISS SVXDON'h HEMKSIS. It w as nightfall, aud tlie dancing bad be | gun. Fortunately the evening was calm \ and dry. and on tile warm air arose the i d“lieionn fragrance which a wood of beech QUITMAN, GA., SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1874. trees gives forth at night-time. Sir Philip Sandon had found a mediaeval precedent for stretching a bn aul canvas roof, by means of colds and pulleys, high over the dancers’ heads to keep off the evening dews; but this service was already aocotn plibhed by the high-poised strata of gray clouds, through the openings of which the full moon only showed from time to time. A hundred saucer-shaped iron soonees, tilled with some flaming resinous com pound and held aloft on tall poles, sur rounded the sylvan ball-room, and east a strong red light, which made the leafy re cesses of ttie w ood all around soem doubly obscure. Hir Philip Sandon had quite failed in inducing the band to learn the old Pro vencal music, and Lady Sandon herself had opposed his suggestion that her guests should make themselves acquainted with tho dances of the time and country of the Troubadom—with the farandole, where u wide circle was formed by the dancers with joined bauds, or the torch (lauee, a wild cotillion where each dancer hold in his hand a lighted brand. Ho the hall was after all but a common-place one, only that as the ball-room never got too hot or too dusty, seeing that its walls were the fresh, odorous branches of trees, the ball was an exceptionally delightful one. Between the dances the guests walked to and fro on the mossy turf beyond the flooring, just within the circle of light given by the torches; and beyond this outer precinct, half hidden by the trees, some dozens of Sir Philip Sandon’s servants and tenants had gathered to watch the dancing. Lord Vereker lmd hardly loft the side of Miss Sandon during tho evening, and they were now pacing slowly backward and forward on the grass, talking eagerly to each other in low tones. It was easy to guess from his looks and from her an swering ones how prosperous were their loves. As they passed by one group of country spectators Miss Sandon hoard her name spoken. She stopped. “Please, Miss Sandon, may I speak to you ?” It. was a child’s voice that spoke. “Wbnt is it, John?” She knew (lie voice to bo that of the keeper’s child, and the boy, encouraged by the friendly tone, came out of the darkness, holding some thing in his outstretched hand a letter. Miss Sandon took it, opened it, and read it; — “Eugenia, I am waiting for you at tho tree where we used to meet. Yon must come, and come alone. 1 shall not wait long. 1 shall be watching you from the darkness while yon read this. Take care that you do not provoke a desperate man to a desperate course.” She read the letter, and when she looked up into her lover’s face the world was changed for her. Hhe was like a person awakened from n pleasant dream; like ono summoned from the tumult of a feast to the silence of a torture chamber. The sweet vision of the present was dissipated, i and the horrors of the post, which she had ! thought dead, were revived. Hhe was taken with a mortal dread; her j body shook, and her gloved light, hand : that had held the letter trembled, lying on i her lover's arm. She clasped the other I hand on it to help hersolf tostand.so faint j did the snook make her feel. Hhe looked | up into his face for comfort, j “What is it, Eugenia ?" he asked, i She could not answer for a time. “Arthur,” she said presently, “do you quite believe in me ?” He looked round to see that no one was near. ! “Quite," he said, smiling 1 , and he laid | his hand on her clasped ones. “Do you remember what 1 once told j yon about — ?” j “About Stephen Goodlake?” “I am glad I told you that I” “Why ?” “He is here now.” I “Where ?” “Within a few yards of ns at, this mo ment- perhaps watching us,” she said, in ! a low voice, and she held herself closer to j him. Lord VeveVcr looked grave. “What ■ does lie want ?” j “To see me.” With fingers that would I scarcely obey her she opened out the let | ter, which she had crumpled in her hand; | she flattened it out on his wrist. “Read it.” she, said, looking with anxi ous eyes into his face. ‘No,” he said, placing his own hand to cover the open letter; “I do not wish to, A curious feeling came to her. Lord Vereker whs everything in the world to her. She would die gladly rather than lose the least particle of the great love she knew he had for her; and yet in this ex tremity of hers she could not refrain from comparing the Stephen Goodlake of the past, the man who had once sworn lie loved her better than any woman in tlie world,-and to whom—long as his image had faded from her thoughts—she believed she had for n short moment give'll some little share of her girlish heart; sho com pared him with Lord Vereker, and, look ing at him, she wished he had been a man that she could better have confided in. She knew that Stephen Goodlake was treating her badly; she knew that his Utter was a threatening letter; she knew that lie trusted to the strength and ve hemence of his character to force her in some way to his will. There was some thing that was terrible to her in his mere size and physical strength, and she w ished she could have looked to Lord Vereker as to one in whose protection she could feel quite secure, whose superior moral strength would encompass and support and make amends for her own feebleness, to whom she could have intrusted her fears and freely admitted her past weak ness, and her present strength iu her love and iu her truth to him. She won id have liked to say to her lover, “This man has been this much to me—little enough in comparison to what you are but still some thing- this is what he now says, this is wliat I fear he will try to force me to do; but now til at I am yours, do not let him hurt me—stand between him and tue — save me from lorn;” and this it was that she felt she could not say to Lord Vere ker. She had often desired to toll him the whole story with every particular and circum ; stance, of Stephen Goodlake, and she hud told him something, but not, all that she 1 had wished him to know. Hhe was certain | he had never rightly understood how this man's vehemence had hurried her, little I move than a child at the time, into fancy ing that she cared for one w hose charm; ter she afterward had reason to despise, arid whose memory she now loathed. She felt that she herself would be weak in the i presence of this mu, but ct least she was n woman, and therein perhaps safer than i any man who should stand before Stephen j Goodlake in one of his angry, savage j mooda—of any man, that is, who was physically his inferior; and there was, though she baldly defined tho feeling, some bitterness in this reflection that Lord Veroker, much us she loved him, was neither in bodily nor even in moral strength tho equal of Stephen Goodlake. “What, will you do V" said Lord Ve rekev. “1 must speak to him—alone.” “Is that, your real wish ?’’ said her lover. “I must do it,” she said, disengaging her arm. Hhe went, onward a few steps, and she turned to look back at her lover. She could not understand him quite. He had made no objection to her going to meet a | man who he knew had loved her, and per haps would tell her he still loved her. Would she he like that if ttie cases were reversed ? Could - he core for her ns she did for him ? In truth she was right m thinking that she did not quite under stand Lord Vereker. Even she had not got to know the full loyalty of his love for her, nor the large trust he hod iu the woman whom he lmd enshrined in his heart as the truost and noblest in the world. “Arthur,” she snid, returning the few steps slie lmd gone, and touching liis arm, “tell me I go with your leave.” “Go, my darling,” he said, and ho pressed her hand. “I shall not be out of hearing. If you want me, call.” So encouraged sho went forward into the darkness of the wood; reaching more and more into the stillness; urged to com pliance with the vague threats of the man sho feared, but moving with unwilling steps, now pausing, not quite to lnso tho fainter-grown sound of the ninsio mid voices, now again going forward into the deepening shade of hanging boughs. A quaint sight, in this English greenwood, this slight-figured, lovely young girl stealing forth alone; timid, trembling so (lint at. times she would hold her hand on a branch that crossed the path to steady herself, with pale face, looking, in her strangely-fashioned, trailing garments of rich silken stuff of dim, delicate coloring, like some fair painted maiden in a picture. Stephen Goodlake was leaning against tho tree. Hhe raised her eyes to him, and she did not know him for n moment. His beard now hid much of his face, but. his eyes sho knew him by almost immediately the great, intense, dark eyes which she had once liked to look into. There was not tho angry, monaehing expression in them which she had ex pected they would wear at sight of her, which slid had seen once or twice before, and which was vvlmt chiefly she remem bered Stephen Goodlake by, and what in truth had got to clothe him iu lier mem ory with a vague horror. Not, indeed, that the girl was physically a coward; she could raise her oyos boldly enough to the level of any mere bodily peril, but sho dreaded, ns women will always dread, the unknown. She 1a 1 formed some quite ignorant supposition of the extent of evil t hat the man who stood before her could work her if he choose; in plain truth she feared that lie could cross the great love between Lord Vereker and hers If. This episode in her pas' life, of Stephen Goodlake and his love for lier, had at one time gone nearly out of her memory. Jt. was more than four years ago that he had oome to Beeehwood, the college friend and companion of her brother. She, half child and half woman, had been for an instant captivated by his handsome face, and be lieved in and half responded to the love ho had told her of with such strong sem blance of passion. Then be had gone. Then there had come to Beeehwood stories of his misconduct; of some great disgrace that he had incurred, some stain on his honor that no time would remove; so deep a stain that even her brother, bis own fam iliar friend, bad spoken of him with con tempt. Then it was known that lie lmd been compelled to leave England, and after that bis name bad never been heard at Beeehwood; and neither then, nor at any time, had it been suspected that between Stephen Goodlake and Eugenia Hundon anything had passed. After this had come for her the passing into the busy life of society, which our English girls enter at a step from out of the narrow round of their childish cx istunce. Then had grown up the love be tween her and Lord Vereker, and that love lmd quite filled her life; then her only bro ther’s death; and now a year or more had passed, and the time of her marriage was drawing near. It liad been lately and for the first time that the old memory of Stephen Goodlake had overtaken her. At moments when the vision before her seemed at its most golden, when her enjoyment of her youth and her great love made existence a bright, | delightful dream for, when her life-pulses i were beating their fullest and quickest, then suddenly a vague dread would seize I and benumb her senses; for some instinct | told her to surmise that the man’s nature j that had made him false to others would j made him play false with her too. Needy j and unscrupulous as he was, ho might, it I had one day occurred to her, sec his nd i vantage in torturing into a promise on her i part that which had passed between them, i and the redemption of any such promise, I now that she was a great heiress, might be worth such a man’s while to hesitate at 1 nothing to bring about. She hod told Lord Vereker everything ' lie would listen to about this event in her j life; it was indeed but a half confession, j for be would hear of no full details; aud j what if now this man, driven to despera tion, should, either iu revenge or to gain ! bis ends, partly reveal, and partly exag ( gerate, and partly invent some hucli story as should be a slur upon her that eveu her I lover could not overlook? “Eugenia,” said Stephen Goodlake. ! She looked full ut him, uml he could not i see in her face how full of terror was lier | heart. “I am come here, at no little ; danger to myself, to see you onae more ” It was the old voice which she remem -1 bered so well, and which once she thought so eloquent, but now there was a ring in it which grated unpleasantly on lier ear, ; an unreal kind of over-emphasis, such as I actors in the theatres employ It seemed I to herself odd that she should notice this ! now for the first time. Hhe made him no answer “I was compelled to write to you as I ‘ did.’ he said, “that I might he sure you | would come Eugenia, tell me you have j sometimes Jet my image cross your mem ory!” j Sho drew back, iur lie had stepped for ward from the tree against which he hud been leaning, and would have taken her band. “Mr. Ootjdlako, have you anything to say to me?” She spoke in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper. “Yes,” lie said, in earnest tones that seemed to tremble, or that he made to seem to tremble, “Yes, I have tliie to toll you, that, never once in the four long years that have passed since we pnrted at this tree, n iver once since the day you swore to me yon would be mine—” Eugenia shuddered. “Never for a day,” he went on, “novor for an hour, have I ceased to think of, to hope for you, to wish for you, to long for tho time to come, as it lias now oome, when tlio cloud that has hung over my name should be removed, wliou I could come to you, Eugenia, and remind you of the promise you gave mo!” The false note in the man’s voioo struck her more and more as ho went on, aud stronger and stronger was the fooling of repulsion it roused iu her. “You are stating what, you must know is not trite. When we met here, four years ago, nothing of what you say took place.” . “You did not plight your troth to me?” She looked straight into his eyes. “You know I did not!” she said indig nantly. “Do you think to trifle with me?” and he raised his voice. “Do you think that I, who have suffered patioutly all these years with the one hope that you would keep your faith to me—do you think that. I am going to submit to let fate take you from me as well? Do you not know 1 love you, Eugenia?” lie said, with rapid speech, “and can you think I shall ever abandon you—to what, and to whom, my God!—to the miserable boy 1 taw you with just now?” “Mr. Goodlake,” she said, “you shall not speak thus to me of ” “Listen!” lie said, interrupting lier, and speaking with his teeth set, and a look of fury on his face; “listen to wliut 1 say! Unless you ratify the promise you made to me here—unless you swear, be fore you leavo the spot von stand on, that you will be mine, I will do this—before Heaven I swear that I will not shrink from it. I will walk straight to the peo ple yonder—l will proclaim your shame openly before them, beforo them all—l will say that of you which shall make every honest woman shun you, and every man you know dispise you.” “Ob, Mr. Goodlake, spare mo!” said the girl, in extremity of distress. “You could not say of mo what you know is false." Ho saw the impression he had made, and went on— “Do not provoke mo too far. I have told you alone that I was a desperat e man. Ono thing alone will save me—will save the man you pretend to prefer to me, whom you promised to lovo forever. One tiling only will save yourself. Choose— now, this moment 1 or the time will have gone by 1” Ho sprang forward, and seized her wrist. “Eugenia 1 your fate is in your own hands-—my love or my bate 1” And he grasped both- her wrists with such force that, partly from the pain, partly from her sudden terror and loathing of the mail’s touch, she involuntarily gave a half cry. He held her more and moro tightly us she struggled to free herself. A rustle among the underwood was j heard, and, in a moment, Lord Vereker : was standing between them. His hand was ou Goodlake’u throat; and before a word had been spoken Lord Vereker had forced him backward against the tree, and held him there iu his tightening grasp. The bigger man struggled, but be strug gled ineffectually. A' better man than Stephen Goodlako, caught in the doing r a moan action, aud called on to defend himself, is apt to make but a poor tight of it; and, notwithstanding his powerful frame and good pluck, there was some thing that paralyzed him in the very face of his adversary; and that adversary was not one that even such an athlete ns he was could make light of. Lork Vereker was not so big a man as Goodlake; though nearly as tall, be was more slightly made; there was not the same muscular develop ment -Vint muscle is an affair of quality rather than quantity, ns connoisseurs in the matter well know. In such a hand-to hand struggle as this, when two men are so fairly matched, endurance goes for much; and a man does not get into the low, drinking habits that Gooklake had acquired, with impunity; nor, again, does another hunt four days it week, and spar, fence, and shoot the other two, with no re sult to wind and limb. Goodlako made a hugo effort to shake off liis assailant, but Lord Vereker’s grip on Ihh throat remained. Goodlako struck out wildly with bis closed fist; lint a man whoso windpipe is compressed os in a steel vice delivers no very formidable blow, i His face got Mack; lie opened his lips to 1 curse, but the sound that came from them was more like a horrible gurgle. For ono moment lie seemed exhausted, and leaned his back against the tree; and Lord Vere ker used the opportunity to take a stron ger hold with the left hand that had never left Ihh throat. Then Goodlako summoned all liis re maining force for that supreme effort, which is made by every man and every animal in a struggle between life and death .—an effort which is partly a convulsion. The two men swayed together as one body, straining limb against limb—tlieir teeth tlieir brows furrowed and lowering with the fury of figlit. Then Goodlake’s strength and breath began to fail; he yielded inch by inch, as bis antago nist pushed him, by sheer excess of endu rance anil spirit, back to the tree. There i he held him still fighting aud resisting, I though all but overcome. There Lord Vereker held him a minute or two; then he put in practice the old wrestling back | fall, and his opponent fell suddenly and I heavily among the twisted roots of the i great beech-tree under which the struggle ; had takeu place. He made no effort to move, lying there, | breathing sterloriously, with the blood ' slowly oozing from mouth and nose, and j lils urrns outstretched helplessly. Lord Vereker looked down at him curiously for a moment or two; then he turned to see if I any one had witnessed the encounter. 1 ’The head keeper wus there, who touched ’ his hat and smiled. ; “You’ve pretty well settled him, my 1 Lord !” “1 hope not,” said Lord Vereker; “though the scoundrel almost deserved it. ! Loosen his lie. NViUiam.and raise his head.” Tho keeper knelt down by the fallen man and performed the offices which his prof melon had taught him how to render. “T sent him through the wood with my ’ tittle boy,’ said Newttll; “and when the | boy did not uTfic back Ifeared something v,-jts wrong, and cams after li'*u.’‘ Lord Vereker waited until his late an tagonist hud recovered consciousness; then he addressed him: “Stephen Goodlako, I am going to give you into tho charge of Sir Phillip Sun don’s keeper. I know why yon came here to-night. I guess what you came to say. And now, listen well to what 1 toll you. It rests with me, and me alone, to prose cute you criminally for tho forgery you committed at the University three years ago. I let. vou off then for your friends’ sake, and hoping you might reform. I sec I did wrong. Your behavior to-night shows me you are a greater blackguard than ever. Now, murk me 1 The evi dence of the crime you committed can be got together in a week; the indictment is already drawn out; the bill, with my ac ceptance forged by you, is in my posses sion. One word from mo and you are iu jail, and iu t.wo months from now will be working out a convict’s sentence. ” Good lake groaned. “As I have stood here watching you 1 have debated with myself whether or not, I have a right to prevent the law from taking itseourso. I give you one more chnneo. ’’ Stephen Goodlake breathed a deep sigh of relief. "But, listen to this. If, either to-night or ut any future time, you give me the smallest, reason to regret my leniency, I give you fair warning, you shall answer for the crime you have committed in a court of law. ” He had spoken in a grave, deliberate maimer that lmd clearly terrified the baf fled scoundrel nt bis feet. Even Wm Newell was impressed. Putting his band into the capacious pocket of his shooting jacket, lie produced a pair of steel hand cuffs, and, without a word, slipped them over Goodlake’s wrists with the skill of a London police sergeant. “Get up, my man,” said tho keeper roughly, and with a judicious thrusting of bis knuckles into tbo villain's nbs. Goodlake rose, cowed and crest-fallen. "You have my authority, William,” said Lord Vereker, as the keeper led away his prisoner, “you have my full authority, if 1m misbehaves, to take him to the near est. police station.” This scene had passed very quickly. Semi-strangulation is u rapid process. A few seconds had been enough for the struggle aud the overthrow of Goodlake. Miss Sandon had, of necessity, witnessed it, all. Terrified as she had been by tlie man’s threats, she would not, even in her extremity, have brought her lover into tlie peril of contact with one sho thought so terrible; she would have endured it, all alone. She was a brave, ti ue-hrarted girl, ami it is not sncli women as she who fly with screams and pretty squeuuiisbuess when a deed of righteous manhood is per formed in their presence. She had watched the figlit as a liigh-born maiden of the old time might have looked down upon the prowess of her chosen knight. There, watching out the struggle be tween the two men, she laid first learned the full worth of the man whom she had already set on the altar of her heart, the generosity that would not pry unworthily into the oue weakness of her past, the manhood that had rescued her from even the shadow of annoyance. Then end there, in the silence of the wood, she f old him what was in her heart, and thanked him again and again—told it him as lie held her to him, enlacing her urrns around him, and looking up into his face with anew and stronger love. Then these two lovers walked slowly back together through the shadowy alleys of the wood; and, just before they came into tlie gleam of the lights, slie stopped him to say: “Arthur, they say wo are like Aueassin and Nicolette; but 1 don’t think you will ever let your sword drop from your bund in the battle 1” “Not even for love of you?” said Lord Vereker; and ho laughed n little. “No,” said Miss Sandon, smiling too; "not even for love of me.”— The New Quarterly Magazine. LOVE PUT *TO FLIGHT. A few days ago a young couple in this city were "sighing for the knot tlier’s no untying.” They had known each other long, and thought they knew each other well. Ono evening the gallant called upon his future bride Ho lmd passed the pre vious niglit with a party of bachelor friends, and didn’t “go home till morn ing.” Asa consequence, not oven the bright eyes of liis dulcena could drive sleep from his eye-lids. lie reclined upon the sofa, and suddenly dropped into the land of dreams. Heavy breathing was followed by a slight snore, which developed into a snort which caused the home to tremble. There was as little variation in the nasal music as iri the puffing of a high-pressure steamer. 'The young lady began to think of tlie future—then wept. She shook her sleeping lover, but be snored with renewed vigor. At last she was furious, and seiz ing liis huir, gave it a jerk thatbrougbthim to his feet. He stammered, “Whitt's the matter, my ” “Matter enough,” slie replied, “I shall die an old maid before I marry a man that snores. Good niglit!” She left the parlor---he the house. The young lady could not keep the secret, uml the reason why the match was broken off is now generally known among tlieir circle of friends.- Wheeling Intelligencer. DrsTTtoTrNO CxTEnrmLAiis. —They claim to have brought the process of killing the cotton caterpillars in Texas to such per fection that it requires very little time or expense. We find in the Galveston News an advertisement by tlie inventor of a “cotton worm destroyer,” iu which he claims that he mukos a compound which is not, only ‘dead sure’ to kill the worms, but acts as a fertilizer to tlie plant, and lie sells a machine for distributing it over cot ton plants in tho form of a spray reaching every part. Ho says that one of liis pack ages costing a dollar will be enough for five hundred gallons of water, that this quantity will sprinkle twenty to twcuty nvu acres, and that the machine will sprinkle fity acres a day.— Col. Enquirer. A Nevada man, who was walking with his brother to attend liis wedding, was as tonished by o proposition to take the bride elect off bis lmuds and marry her in his stead. With true good nature he consented, and the prospective bride groom and groomsman changed places, to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. A woman cannot bo too cautious, too watchful, too exacting in her choice of a lover, who, from the slave of a few weeks or months -rarely years —is to become the master of lier future destiny, and tho guide, net only thto'igh all t.mc. but per haps eternity. TUM HOOK CANVASSER. Aliouf 8 years ago, while at dinner with ray family, a wuz informed that tliare waz a gentleman iu the parlor who mast sen •mo imegiatoly on very important bizzness. Hastening from the table, i found my self iu the presence ova, plainly dressed hut very nervous man, who iu formed mo that lie was canvassing mi district for tho sale of Doctor Erastus Spignot's new work, entitled tho “Normal Girculashuu ov tho Blood.” lat once informed the mini that i did not want the work. He then begun a long aekouut ov its value and importance to every human i e ing, when i broke in upon his eloquence by repeating “that i did nut want the book. He continued by telling me that no li brary would lie complete without it. Again i deklnvcd in the most) oentiff terms “that I did not want tlie work!”' 1 At this point the stranger seated him self in a oimir, and deliberately drew tho liook in question out ov biz satchel, and informed me that no gentleman to whom he had offered failed ut once to subscribe. Growing desperate, i deklurod iu tho most emphatik tones “that i Would not bav tbo nook at any price.” Rising from hiz chair, lie took oph hiz overout, and, throwing it carelessly on tho sofa, struck an attitude, and for ten min utes gave the most glowing uokotint ov the circtiloshun ov the bind and tho anat omy ov man that I ever listened to. I onoe more assured him, in a beseech ing manual 1 , “that i did not want tho book.” u Seating himself again in the otiiitr, and wiping the drops of perspirsshon from hiz brow, lie wont back to tho days of* Adam and Eve, aud for huff’ an hour talked uz no human ever talked before ou the various diseases the human sistim was subject to, closing up with a vivid recital ov the cir kulushen of the bind. NO. 10. Again i insisted upon it that the book would be ov no use to me, aud that i would not lmv it. Springing from hiz seat, with tho book in hi/, hand and hiz eyes flashing fire, and hiz whole manner intense, he began to sho me its kontouts, commencing at tho title pago. I saw at last that it wns wnss than mad ness to resist enny longer, so i subscribed for the book, consoling miself with the re flocslran that if i ever had a book to sell miself i would have it sold bisubsknpsliun. The more i think ov it, i am so deli ted with the pious energy and long suffering ov the book canvasser, that i wouldn’t think ov selling a book enny other way. He iz a man whom yn can’t escape enny more than yn can your own shadow: lm follows hiz victim like a ghost uml hang* around him grinning like nil undertaker.. The only way to get rid ov him iz tin subscribe at once, and let him go for the next phellow. The shaving soup man the life, insurance agent are very good in their way, but they don’t kompnre with the book canvasser for lively work any move than the pensive cockroach dnz to the red hot muskeeto. They steal on yn like u hat. on a mouse,, when vu aint looking for them, and, like the fly in the spider’s web, the iqore yu tri to git out the further yu git in. I lav the book canvasser now: hiz word* arc like liunny in the comb, and hiz logic is like sweet, ile; and though lie may self me a book i don’t want, and won’t hav, tharo iz real pliun in the way he does it. I subskvibe now, nt lehkt once a year, for sum kind ova book that i never look into, with a title nz long itz the tail ova kite, just, bekause the book .canvasser iz so po lite and so utterly impossible to raff rid ov. —Josh Hillings. CHANGES OF A CENT UK V. The nineteenth century lius witnessed many and great discoveries. In 1809 Pulton took out the first patent for the invention of the steamboat. The first, steamboats which made regu lar trips across the Atlantic Ocean were the Hirus and the Great Western, in 1830. Tlw first, public application to practice the use of gas for illumination was wader in 1802. In 1813 ihe streets of London were for the flint time lighted with gas. In 1813 there was built at Waltham, Mass., a mill, believed to have been tho first in the world, which combined all tha requirements for making finished cloth from raw cotton. In 171)0 there were only twenty-live postoftieea ill tho whole country, ami up to 1837 the rates of postage were twenty - five cents for a letter sent over one hun dred miles. In 1807 wooden clocks commenced to be made by machinery. This ushered ill the era, of cheap clocks. About the year 1833 the first railroad of considerable length in the United Htatea was constructed. In 1810 the first express business was es tablished. Tho anthracite cos I business may bo said to have begun in 1820. In 1836 the first patent for tho inven tion of matches was granted. •Steel pens were introduced for uso in 1830. Tho first successful reaper was con structed in 1833. (l IIICHIS TUeTIaP PIESTPERIOD Ever since the world began this has been a disputed question, and ever sinco the worlabegan the majority of (lie peo ple have misjudged. Thoroughly dissat isfied with any present ' me, wo cast about for a golden age. We can not find it in the future, as the cloud of uncertainty bangs on the horizon in that direction. , We are compelled therefore to explore tho past. Tho immediate past, with its faets and disuppoitmeuts, is too fresh in our mem ory to allow us to throw tho required halo about it, and we continue onr juorney un : til we get to the point where memory ! grows dim and the imagination works ac- Ii ively, and wo ealt that the halo halcyon i period of life. This distant future and distunt past are both creations of tho fancy. To say that childhood is the happiest period of life is to offer insult to provi dence. The child is at best but a bundle of possibilities. He is a creature of un trained impulses, of undeveloped affec tions. His mind is like a grate in a well ordered house. The coal is there, the kindling wood is there, and the whole thing will break into ablaze when touched with a match. Now, before the match has touched it, it is pleasanter and more profitable sight tlmn naif a dozen lumps of eannel coal enveloped in a royal blaze and filling the room so full of light and heat that one forgets the wintry sleet without, childhood, with its sugar plums and its toys, will bo inferior to manhood, with its burning enthusiasm and its lofty ambi tion. A little hoy from Chicago, on going to the seaside, saw u turtle in the 1 a k yard of a hotel, when his astonishment knew no bounds. “Oh, mother ! mother !” said the child, “come light away quick! for here’s the queerest thing—a grout blade frog, with a l*nt ett liis back, rtwpiyg o: his knees.' 1