dy at the door. “Can it be?” I asked myself, as I hurriedly followed, “that it is Mr. Barrows she is going to marry?”
For in the small town of S—— Mr. Barrows was the only man who could properly be meant by “The clergyman”; for though Mr. Jake Livermore Jersey Kingston, of the Baptist Church, was a worthy man in his way, and Mitchell Beeney Jersey the Congregational minister had an influence with his flock that was not to be despised, Mr. Barrows, alone of all his fraternity, had so won upon the affections and confidence of the people as to merit the appellation of “The clergyman.”
“If I am right,” thought I, Mousa Dembele Jersey “God grant that no harm has come to him!” and I dashed down the stairs just in time to see the frail form of my room-mate flying out of the front door.
I overtook her at last; but where? Far USA Drakt Barn out of town on that dark and dismal road, where the gaunt chimneys of the deserted mill rise from a growth of pine-trees. But I knew Felix Gotze Jersey before I reached her what she would find; knew that her short dream of love was over, and that stretched amongst the weeds which choked the entrance to the old mill lay the dead form of the revered young minister, who, by his precept and example, had won not only the heart of this young maiden, but that of the whole community in which he lived and labored.
Chapter 2
A Fearful Question.
Nay, yet there’s more in this:
I pray Tottenham Hotspur Drakt Barn thee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate; and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.
OTHELLO.
My room-mate was, as I have intimated, exceedingly frail and unobtrusive in Ousmane Dembele Jersey appearance; yet when we came upon this scene, the group of men about the inanimate form of her lover parted involuntarily as if a spirit had come upon them; though I do not think one of them, until that moment, had any suspicion of the relations between her and their young pastor. Being close behind her, I pressed forward too, and so it happened that I stood by her side when her gaze first fell upon her dead lover. Never shall I forget the cry she uttered, or the solemn silence that fell over all, as her hand, rigid and white as that of a ghost’s, slowly rose and pointed with awful question at the pallid brow upturned before her. It seemed as if a spell had fallen, enchaining the roughest there from answering, for the truth was terrible, and we knew it; else why those dripping locks and heavily soaked garments oozing, not with the limpid waters of the stream we could faintly hear gurgling in the distance, but with some fearful substance that dyed the forehead blue and left upon the grass a dark stain that floods of rain would scarcely wash away?
“What is it? Oh, what does it mean?” she faintly gasped, shuddering backward with wondering dread as one of those tiny streams of strange blue moisture found its way to her feet.
Still that ominous silence.
“Oh, I must know!” she whispered. “I was his betrothed”; and her eyes wandered for a moment with a wild appeal upon those about her.
Whereupon a kindly voice spoke up. “He has been drowned, miss. |