POETRY

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 429, 4 August 1904, Page 6

POETRY

- AT LiST. The woods axe'sere, and the winds are grieving; Under a sky that is angry asd red, The sea, lige a torturedrfceaii, is heaving; Summer, asd with it my dreaming has fled. All the roses lie crashed and boken, ■'Like the fair hapea that I cherished so; Time it is our fairwellg were spoken ; Fate has decreed it, and I must go. What! Are those tears through vour

What! Are those tears through your

laihes stealing P What ia't your falterisg~lips wculd frame P Can it be you before me low kneeling, Brokeslpr'-tremblißgly breathing my nanWfOh, my beloved! say, say I'm not dreaming. Let the winds rave asd he wild waters chide; Eyes full of lose-light is mine are .' "beaming; Summer returns evermore to abide. ..—M. Hbddsbwicx Bbowhi.

■he could not speak. Mabel's beautiful eyes biased with wrath; ihe made a etep forward j bat Sam Pratt gently, put her back, and said: ' Loek here, Deacon Flint. Mother left job because she hadn't food, nor care, nor nothing she seeded, syther when she was sick nor when she was gettin' better. She thought a spell of rest would do her good; she knowed by that Bmart costraok you got out of her that you owed hsr a living anyhow, and you hain't done a thing to'rds it Bense she went to her own house. Now I don't call that conduct honest by so means, much lees Christian,'

'Jedge not, Sam* ell Pratt. Scripter so less 'b statoot law commands a wife to be subjack to h6r husband. Sarepty had what I had, I done what I j edged beet for her, and instead of submitting to her head, she up and west cff to live by herself, and left me to git along as I could. I wa'a't noway bound by so law nor no contrack to supply her with means so long as she went away from her dooties, and made me as astonishment and a hissing in Israel, so to speak,' . .

' Stop right there I' broke in Mabel, furious. 'l've heard say the devil could fetch Scripter to further his own purposes, and I believe it. Didn't you have no duties to your wife P Don't the Bible say you've got to love and cherish her P Don't tell me! I live here long enough to see you starve and browbeat and torment her; I know your mean, hateful, crabbed ways, -and I don't know how she lived with you so long. She ought to have run away years ago j and if folks do hits at yon, it's m'ore'n time they did. Christian!—you a Christian! You're a dyed-in-the-wool hypocrite. I! you're pious, I hope I shall be a reprobate/ ' I ha'n't no doubt but what you will be, young woman,' answered the deacon, with cold fury. 'You'd ought to be put under the pump this minnit for a common scold. Get out of my house right off I'. And with this he advanced upon, her. But Sam Pratt, lifting the old lady in his arms, carried her away, and gently shoved Mabel, glowing with rage, before them till they reached the waggon. Then he himself, went back and tried to make terms with the deacon. At last, moved by the worldly wisdom of Sam's argument, that it would put him in a bad light before people if he ref need to do anything for his wife, he did agree to let her have half of his,share of the produce from her farm, if Sam and Mindwell would provide for her other wants $ and to make the best of a bad bargaiß, the poor woman retired to the old house, which Sam had repaired so that most of it was habitable; and Mabel, who had agreed to teach the district echool the next year, took up her abode wi hj her. . Now the deacon had a clear field, and appeared is the arena of Bassett ia the character of an iEJured and forsaken husband, His pr&vers at meeting were longer and more eloquent than ever, and the church, sympathizing with his sorrows—the male members specially deprecating Mrs Flint's example, lest it should some time be followed by their ows wives —unanimously agreed to withdraw thek fellowship from Mrs Flint: a proceeding in kind, if sot in degree, like the anathema **»£.. the papacy. The poor old woman quiver under the blow, imparted to her by Pawn itoterts, awful in the dignity of his office and a new „; g . But the parson was human, and the meek, g.iog of the woman, set cff by Mub'q biasing inaigua. tion, worked upon his honest soul, and caused him to doubt a little the church's wisdom. Mab had followed him across the door-jf&rd to the gate in order to ' free her mind.'

' I wanted to know what you wanted that pcor woman to do, Parson Eoberte. She was dying fcy inches for want of vittles fit to eat, and the care most folks would give a sick ox Do you think, now, honest, she'd ought to have staid with that old wretch P'

'Speak not evil of dignities, young woman. Amasy Flint is a deacon of Hassett church; it does not become yon bo to revile him.'

- This glittering generality did not daunt Mab a moment. ' I dcn't care if he was deacon in the New Jerusalem, or minister either; if he was the angel Gabriel, and acted the way he did act, I shouldn't have no faith in his piety, nor no patience with, his prayers.' Parson Boberts glared at her over his spectacles with pious horror. 'What! what! what!' he sternly cried. 'Who be you that sit in judgment on your elders and betters ?'

'l'm one-that's seen him where you haven't, anyway, nor your church members. I've lived to his house, and I know him like a book.'

Was.it .possible, the parson thought, that Brother Flint might have been in fault—just a little P But he was faithful to his dogmas and his education.

'Do not excuse the woman's sin. She has left her lawful husband, threatened to swear the peeco againsta Christian man whom ahe waa .bo and by human and divine law to obey, and caused a scandal and a disturbance in the fold" of Christ. Is this a light matter, you daughter cf BelialP' ■-■■'. !?

Mab laughed—laughed in tne parson's face, in full front of his ms-jestyj e wig, his awful spectacles,' hia gold-headed cane up-, lifted in the heat of argument.' He could not see that she was a little hysterical j he grew red with ungodly rage; but Mab did not care a pin, ... • «You ain't a fool, Tarson Eoberts,' she said, undauntedly. 'You've got eyes in your head, and'yeu'd know, if you'd use 'sub, that Aunt Flint is a weak Bister any-, .way. She wouldn't turn, no sooner'n the least worm that ever was; but they wili turn, if you tread right on 'em. AEd whatever you eay, you know jest as well as I 0.0 that Amasy Flint d?ove her into leaving him, and drove. Jier with a whip of seorpions, ss the Bible tells a brat,' ; 'Woman, do you.mian to say I lie P : thundered the parson. ' Well, yes if jou dotfC'tell the truth.' returned Mab, completely at b*y now. An audible chuckle batrayed some listener, and the paraon, turning round, beheld old Israel silently unloading a wheel-bmow-load of potatoes at the corner of the fence, and wondered in his soul bow long the man had been there, bat conadeted it the better part of valor to leave the scene now that it had ceased to ba a tete-a-tete; so be waved his hand at Mab with a gloomy scowl, and went hia way, (To be continued.)