MAKING USE OF HIS ENEMY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 473, 21 May 1890, Page 4

MAKING USE OF HIS ENEMY.

About forty years ago there lived two farmers, named Wood and Osborne respectively. They were near neighbours but inveterate enemies ; and it is said that they lived almost within sight of each other for fourteen years without exchanging a word. Wood one day went out with a mattock to dig up half-a-dozen stumps that had never yet been removed from one of his meadows: but finding it pretty hard work, and, moreover, not being very fond of work, he gave up and returned to the house. On the way it occurred to him that by a cunning device he might induce his unfriendly neighbour to uproot the little annoyances. Acting on a bright idea that occurred to him,, he entered his house, got his writing materials, and in a disguised hand wrote : ‘Mr Wood,—l am an old man, fast approaching my end, and I cannot ge to my grave without revealing to you a secret. When I was a young man I helped to rob your grandfather of a large amount. of money. I and my partner in crime buried five hundred pounds of it under the roots of a tree in the five-acre meadow that now belongs to you. No doubt those trees have been cut down by this time, but the stumps may still remain. He was soon after hanged for a murder he committed, and I was sent to prison for highway robbery. I was but lately released, and I wish to do all I can to atone for the pa t. I send this letter by a person who says he knows where you live, and he will throw it into your house. —A Repentant Sinner.’ Mr Wood sealed this bit of fiction, addressed it to himself, and when night came crept stealthily to Osborne’s door, opened it a little way, tossed the letter in, and ran off as fast as he could. When he arose, he cast a glance towards his meadow, and to his satisfaction discovered that every stump in it had been dug up during the night. After breakfast he went coolly to work and rolled them together in a pile, in order to burn them. And imagine Osborne’s bitterness of heart as he passed by bn his way to the village, saw Wood thus engaged, and knew how he had been duped bv him.