A COUNTRY SWEETHEART
BY
DORA RUSSELL,
AUTHOR OF
"HIS WILL AND HERS," "THE BROKEN SEAL," "THE
LAST SIGNAL," ETC.
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.
THE SONG OF THE "No. 9."
My dress is of fine polished oak,
As rich as the finest fur cloak,
And for handsome design
You just should see mine--
No. 9, No. 9.
I'm beloved by the poor and the rich,
For both I impartially stitch;
In the cabin I shine,
In the mansion I'm fine--
No. 9, No. 9.
I never get surly nor tired,
With zeal I always am fired;
To hard work I incline,
For rest I ne'er pine--
No. 9, No. 9.
I am easily purchased by all,
With installments that monthly do fall,
And when I am thine,
Then life is benign--
No. 9, No. 9.
To the Paris Exposition I went,
Upon getting the Grand Prize intent;
I left all behind,
The Grand Prize was mine--
No. 9, No. 9.
At the Universal Exposition of 1889, at Paris, France, the best sewing
machines of the world, including those of America, were in competition.
They were passed upon by a jury composed of the best foreign mechanical
experts, two of whom were the leading sewing machine manufacturers of
France. This jury, after exhaustive examination and tests, adjudged
that the Wheeler & Wilson machines were the best of all, and awarded
the company the highest prize offered--the GRAND PRIZE--giving other
companies only gold, silver, and bronze medals.
The French government, as a further recognition of superiority,
decorated Mr. Nathaniel Wheeler, president of the company, with the
Cross of the Legion of Honor--the most prized honor of France.
The No. 9, for family use, and the No. 12, for manufacturing uses, are
the best in the world to-day.
And now, when you want a sewing machine, if you do not get the best it
will be your own fault.
Ask your sewing machine dealer for the No. 9 Wheeler & Wilson machine.
If he doesn't keep them, write to us for descriptive catalogue and
terms. Agents wanted in all unoccupied territory.
WHEELER & WILSON MFG. CO., CHICAGO, ILL.
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_READ_
Sons and Fathers
BY HARRY STILLWELL EDWARDS.
The Story that won the _$10,000 Prize_ in
The Chicago Record's Competition.
Bound in English Linen with Gold Back and Side
Stamps. Price $1.25.
RAND, McNALLY & CO., PUBLISHERS,
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK.
Copyright, 1894, by Dora Russell.
Copyright, 1895, by Dora Russell.
A COUNTRY SWEETHEART.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW HEIR.
In the summer time, from the door of a darkened room, a gray-haired,
bent old man had just followed a great surgeon down the wide staircase
of Woodlea Hall.
The surgeon looked around when he reached the last steps, and there was
kindly pity on his grave face as he met the appealing eyes that were
fixed on his.
"I am sorry to say there is no hope, Mr. Temple," he said, in answer to
the mute inquiry on his listener's face.
Mr. Temple's bowed gray head bent a little lower when he heard this
verdict, and that was all.
"Is he your only son?" asked the surgeon, commiseratingly.
"He is our only child," answered Mr. Temple.
"Ah--that is sad, but there is no doubt football is a dangerous game."
"How--how long will he be spared to us?" now inquired Mr. Temple with
quivering lips.
"He will drift away probably during the night, or in the small hours of
the morning. He will not regain consciousness; the injury to the base
of the brain is too severe."
The great surgeon only stayed a few minutes longer in the
grief-stricken household after this, and then was driven away. And
when he was gone, with a heavy sigh--almost a moan--Mr. Temple began
to ascend the staircase, and on the first landing a lady was standing
waiting for him with terrible anxiety written on her pale face.
Mr. Temple looked up when he saw her, and shook his head, and as he did
this the lady sprang forward and gripped his hand.
"What did he say?" she asked in a hoarse whisper.
"Come in here, my poor Rachel," he answered gently, and as he spoke he
led her forward into a room on the landing, the door of which chanced
to be open, and then closed it behind them. "My dear--I grieve very
much to say--Sir Henry's opinion is not very favorable."
His voice broke and faltered as he said these words, and a sort of
gasping sigh escaped the lady's lips as she listened to them.
"What did he say?" she repeated, with her eyes fixed in a wild stare on
Mr. Temple's face.
"He--he said we must prepare--"
"No, no! not to lose him!" cried the lady with a sudden passionate
wail. "Phillip, I can not, I will not! He was so bright a few hours
ago--so bright and well--my Phil, my boy--and now, now--it will kill me
if he dies!"
She flung herself on the floor in a frantic passion of grief before
her husband could prevent her, and lay there writhing in a terrible
paroxysm of despair, while the gray-haired man beside her bent over
her, and tried in vain to comfort or soothe her. She was his wife, but
fully twenty years younger than he was; a handsome dark-eyed woman, of
some thirty-five years, and the injured boy lying in the darkened room
was her only child.
"Who did it?" she suddenly cried, raising herself up. "Who murdered
him? Which of the boys?"
"My dear, it is so difficult to tell in a scramble--so difficult to
find out."
"I will find out!" went on Mrs. Temple, passionately. "I do not believe
it was an accident; someone must have struck him on the head. Oh! my
boy, my darling!" she continued, rocking herself to and fro; "the one
thing I had to love; the only one that loved me--must, must I lose you,
too!"
"It is a terrible blow, Rachel--but--"
"Why not try someone else? Do you hear, Phillip?" said Mrs. Temple,
now starting to her feet, and grasping her husband's arm. "Send or
telegraph for another doctor at once."
"My dear, it would do no good," answered Mr. Temple, sadly. "You heard
what Doctor Brown said; Sir Henry Fairfax is one of the first surgeons
in town--and--he said there was no hope."
A wild shriek broke from Mrs. Temple's lips as she heard this fatal
verdict. Her agonized grief was indeed pitiful to behold. Again and
again she repeated that her boy was the one being that she had to love;
was the only one she loved, and the gray-haired old man sighed deeply
as he listened to her frantic words.
She never seemed to think of his grief, nor even to remember it. It
was her own loss she harped on; her own misery. But Mr. Temple did
not reproach her with this. He did not say my heart, too, is broken;
the spring of my life is gone. Yet this was so. The poor lad Phillip
Temple, drifting away so fast from life, had been the center of all
his hopes, the pivot of all his joy. And he, too, was telling himself
sadly, as he listened to his wife's moans, that the boy had been the
only one who had loved him, or who had cared for his love.
"She never loved me," he thought, looking at the handsome
grief-stricken woman before him; and as he did so his memory went back
to fifteen years ago; back to the days when he, the squire, had gone
wooing to the whitewashed parsonage house, and had won the dark-eyed
girl on whom he had set his heart. He had not asked himself then if her
heart was his. She seemed to like him; she smiled on him and accepted
his presents, and her mother hinted at the advantages of an early
wedding-day.
So they were married, and by and by Mr. Temple found out his mistake.
She had never loved him, and one morning fell fainting from her chair
when she read the news that a soldier cousin had been killed at some
distant Indian outpost.
And in the days that followed he learnt the truth. Her cousin had been
her lover, but the old hindrance, want of money, had stood between
them, and thus Mr. Temple had won his wife. She made very little secret
of this to her husband, and did not affect love she could not feel.
Her child became her idol, and from the time when the baby boy began
first to lisp her name she worshiped him with the whole strength of her
passionate, ill-regulated heart.
The boy, however, had been a bond between the husband and wife, and
they had got on fairly well together for his sake. They used to talk
to each other of his future, and it was a subject equally dear to them
both. He was a fine, healthy, clever lad of fourteen when he went out
to play football on the fatal day when he was carried back to his
father's house insensible. He had somehow fallen, and a rush of boys
had swept over him, and when they raised him up he never spoke again.
They took him back to Woodlea Hall; the village doctor was sent for
in all haste, and at once advised further advice to be telegraphed
for. This was done, and Sir Henry Fairfax arrived from town only to
pronounce the case to be hopeless.
It was a terrible affair, people said, terrible for the poor mother
and for the poor squire, who somehow was the most popular of the
two. Country neighbors called at the lodge gates, with commiserating
inquiries, while the parents hung over the speechless boy, waiting in
terrible anxiety for Sir Henry Fairfax's arrival. He came late in the
afternoon, and did not stay long. He carefully examined the unconscious
lad, heard what the country doctor had to say, and then told the father
the truth.
The boy was dying; the little heir to the broad acres and the old
name was about done with earthly things. It had been a beautiful day;
the sun had blazed down from a cloudless sky on the wide park, the
glowing flower-beds, and the green lawns of Woodlea Hall. It seemed
a mockery; outside so bright, inside so full of gloom. Still, until
Sir Henry Fairfax's arrival, there had been hope. Doctor Brown, the
country doctor, had spoken of "returning consciousness" to the anxious
mother. They had watched and waited, however, for that "returning
consciousness" in vain. The lad lay white and still, breathing slowly,
with closed eyes. He took no notice of his mother's tender words, of
her fond appeals. He did not hear them, and his bright eyes were closed
to smile no more.
"Rachel, my dear, will you leave him any longer alone?" at last Mr.
Temple ventured to say, as his wife wept and moaned, and he laid his
hand on her shoulder as he spoke.
She started and looked up.
"Did you say no hope?" she asked, wildly.
"Sir Henry said--" faltered Mr. Temple.
"Then there is none for me--none, none!" went on the wretched woman,
in her despair. "Why should I lose everything? Why should God take
everything from me? I have been a good woman for Phil's sake, and He
is going to take him--all the good that is in me will be buried in his
grave!"
"Hush, hush, my poor girl; do not talk thus."
"What do you understand," continued Mrs. Temple, yet more wildly, "of
love like mine? You are old--you do not suffer--"
"I do, God knows I do!" cried the unhappy man, and tears rushed into
his eyes, and ran down his furrowed cheeks as he spoke.
"When George Hill died, I bore it for Phil's sake," went on Mrs.
Temple, regardless, or forgetful, of the useless pain she was
inflicting; "and now--and now, my darling, my darling, must I lose you,
too?"
"Come to him now, at least," urged Mr. Temple; "you would wish to be
with him, would you not, Rachel? There may be some--parting word."
Mrs. Temple moaned aloud.
"You mean before he--"
"Before he leaves us. Come, my poor Rachel, for his sake try to compose
yourself."
These words seemed to have some effect on the unhappy mother. She made
an effort to be calm, and a few minutes later, leaning on her husband's
arm, and tottering as she went, she returned to the bedside of the
dying boy.
Those standing round it moved back as she approached it. There were
present the village doctor and Mrs. Layton, Mrs. Temple's mother, and
the poor lad's nurse. No one spoke. Doctor Brown had already told Sir
Henry Fairfax's opinion to the two weeping women, and Mrs. Layton
silently put her hand into her daughter's as she neared the bed. But
Mrs. Temple shrank from this mark of sympathy. Without a word she fell
on her knees and fixed her eyes on the face of the unconscious boy.
No wonder she had loved him. He had inherited her own handsome
features, and dark marked brows, and lithe slim form. But his
disposition had not been like hers. He lacked her waywardness, her
excitability. He had been a sunny-faced, sunny-hearted lad, and to see
him lying thus--mute, white, and still--was inexpressibly painful.
They watched him hour after hour. The sun dipped behind the green hills
that lay to the west, and slowly the summer daylight began to fade, and
still there was no change. Mrs. Layton crept noiselessly out of the
room to go down to the vicarage to see after her husband and household,
but all the rest remained. The gray-haired father sat at one side of
the bed, and at the other the mother knelt. From time to time the
doctor felt the small brown wrist that lay outside the coverlet, and
the old nurse by the window was praying silently.
But Mrs. Temple breathed no prayer. In her heart was hot revolt
and despair. She never took her eyes from her boy's face, and her
expression told her anguish. Once the doctor poured her out some wine,
but she put it from her with a gesture of loathing.
And so the numbered hours stole on. Presently a new light shone into
the room--a soft pale radiancy--and the moonbeams lit the dying face.
They fell on it more than an hour, and then a faint change took place
in the breathing. The doctor bent down and listened; the father drew
a gasping sigh. It was the passing away of the young soul; and a
moment or two later they were forced to tell Mrs. Temple that she was
childless.
Then the pent-up anguish broke loose. The bereaved mother caught the
dead boy in her arms, and called to him by every endearing name to come
back to her.
"Come back, my darling, my darling; do not leave me alone!" she
shrieked in her despair.
They sent for her mother, but the very presence of Mrs. Layton seemed
still further to excite her.
"But for you," she cried, turning on her mother in her frantic grief,
"he would never have been born! But for you I would have been with
George--George Hill, from whom you parted me!"
It was a most painful scene. Mrs. Layton drew the gray-haired old
squire out of the room, and tried to whisper some words of comfort in
his ear.
"Grief has made poor Rachel beside herself," she said. "Fancy her
talking of George Hill now, when the poor fellow has been dead over ten
years. They were children together, you know."
But Mr. Temple made no answer. He knew very well that his wife was
speaking the truth, and that his mother-in-law was not. He turned from
Mrs. Layton and went into his library, and sat there alone, thinking.
The boy's death had changed everything. Mr. Temple was a rich man, for
besides his own large property, he had in his youth married for his
first wife the daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Devon, whose estates
marched with his own. At her death this lady had left everything she
possessed to her husband, and thus Mr. Temple was one of the largest
land-owners in the country.
The old man sighed when he thought of all this, and covered his face
with his hands. He was thinking who would now come after him; thinking
of his heir. He knew who it must be. The Woodlea estates had been
entailed by his father in the event of his having no children, beyond
him. The late Mr. Temple had left two sons, Phillip, the heir, and
John, who had gone into the army and died young. But he had married,
and left a son, also named John. This John Temple the squire knew was
now the heir to Woodlea. He was a man of some thirty years old, and
occasionally had visited his uncle, but no great intimacy had existed
between them.
John Temple had a fair fortune, and had not sought to increase it. He
had been educated as a barrister, but he had never practiced. He had
lived a good deal abroad, and led a roving life, it was said, but his
uncle knew very little about him. He had had in truth small interest
in him. But now all this was changed. His bright young son, his hope
and pride, had passed away, and the old squire, sitting with his bowed
head, knew that John Temple was his heir.