Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 408 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

eter * ~ — P. - _ . ada aA >= ipaee’ . be > = See : Ze ——s_ — — ——E —- — o-~ - — ee natured innuendoes of Kate Ashmead and proce? out by gossip, as it passed from lip to ip? Now, as Abe made his appearance, looking so wild, a buzz of eager tittle-tattle ran round the rooin., Belle saw him staring with wolfish menace at her partner, and signaling to her with a look of a. he saw the girls exchange meaning glances as they turned in the dance. Even from the ‘“* best room” the older women came to the door to peer through. The girl’s cheek flamed scarlet, and a bitter indignation burned in her eye. ‘What right has that lout to persecute me like this?” she cried to herself. ‘*‘ And Will, if he cared a straw, would take him out and cool the ardor of his calf-love in the horse-pond!” And she flashed a blaze of scorn at poor Abe, that cafised him to slink from the room with his head on his breast and tears starting to his eyes. ‘* Take me out of here, please!” she said to her partner. ‘* This room is suffocating!” The Rev. Mr. Vance was nothing loth. His heart was beating more rapidly than was its wont. The house was set in a grove and surround- ed with clustering shrubbery, and a few steps took them out of sight and hearing of the re- velers within-doors. Then the minister cla: the hand. that rested on his arm, and with an impulsive mo- tion passed his arm about the girl’s waist. ** Belle, was Bae a Si he whispered, bending so as to bring his face close to hers, and peering into her eyes to catch their expression in the dim light that came to them from the house, the night sky being overcast. ‘‘ Can it be that this great happiness is coming to me? I love—” But she tore herself from his clasp with a cry of exasperation. . “You too?” she exclaimed, combined to annoy me?” ‘To annoy you?” he repeated, in low, tense tones. ‘‘To annoy you with the declaration of my love?” ‘‘A fig for your love! I tell you I am sick- ened by this nonsense; and if I am to be made an object for every fool to gape at, by a lot of ye? ut c¢ ere | with anger and distress, she broke off and fled from him back to the house. The minister stood perfectly still in the darkness. No eye could see the expression of his face, to know how he was affected by this rebuff. But Belle’s angry voice had been heard as far as the house. A moment later she appeared at the door, pant- ing and white with emotion. other figure was seen to follow her; stop- ping her just beyond the threshold. he Seaver plucked her by the dress, whis- pering: ‘Belle! Belle! one word! I have something that I must tell you!” As ied ye ed Fonne, the Ms rh raking out upon owing his face fairly g y in its pallor and drawn with pain. Everybody turned toward the door, and a buzz of wonderment and condemnation arose. “* Abe Seaver!” cried the tortured girl, whirl- ing, upon him with one foot on the threshold, ‘if you ever dare to speak to me again as long as you live, PU—Tl— ut passion and pain choked her. She was stung beyond endurance. She knew her gossip- loving neighbors, and their narrow prejudices, She knew that all her life her treatment of Abe Seaver would be commented upon behind her back.’ Knowing this, and how entirely innocent she was of blame, the instinct of resentment from which we are none of us free blazed up; and as quick as light she struck him a stinging blow on the cheek with her open hand. With an exclamation of distress he shrunk back out of the range of light as quickly as if the blow had knocked him down, A cry of indignation came like an echo from the company in the room. The girl turned and faced them, with her eyes dilated and her lips apart, as if frightened at what she had done, She saw frowns of condemnation, on every side. It seemed to herasif her life had been blighted by that one unlucky loss of self-control. he community in which she lived would make her an outcast, and Will Fosdick would ‘* Has everybody _ceaspise her! ith a blended cry and sob, she turned and fel like a hunted creature Little Leather-Breeches had been in the Little Leather-Breeches. —_ me . ** best room,” playing the gallant to a toothless old lady, and enjoying her pleasure hugely. attention was first attracted by Belle’s angry rebuff of Abe Seaver. Then came the blow, the exclamations of disapproval, and the flight of poor Belle. ar from being affected as she had supposed, he was in a rage with everybody who dared to judge her harshly, With a resentful blaze in his eyes, he sprung forward, shouldering everybody out of his way, whether man or woman, with equal want of ceremony, and so sped through the kitchen and out of doors like a flash. But he was too late to prevent a terrible calamity from involving the one in whom his heart was wrapped up! Down the road came a mad rattling of wheels and clatter of hoofs at full gallop, which drew up before the house at the moment that Abe Seaver stopped Belle on the threshold. As Little Noa taecTinaaalins leaped through the door, another sprung into his place, shouting: ** Come, g people! Down with your win- dows and to with your doors! ‘The very hea- vens are going to clap together in less than thirty seconds! Listen! Don’t you hear the roar of the winds?” The speaker was the person who had driven Little Leather-Breeches up to the witch’s hut some weeks before in the nick of time, He was dressed in black, with a flowing cloak and a high-crowned, sugar-loaf hat. A mus- tache and pointed beard of black, and hair fall- ing to his shoulders of the same hue, together with a dark complexion and intensely black eyes that glittered with an unnatur made him a man of start ing aspect. ‘*The Mad Millionaire!” exclaimed somebody. But several voices cried: ** Hush!” Then in the silence that fell was heard the roar of the approaching hurricane; but above it, cut- ting the listening silence like a knife, came the sharp ring of a pistol-shot. A spasmodic gasp passed through the room. Everybody looked at everybody else with star- tled questioning in their eyes. Then all shud- dered, as a woman’s piercin cengnt a 2 by the whirling winds and swept from earth to heaven! “Tt is the witch’s prediction!” cried Kate Ashmead, and then shrunk shuddering, as she realized the implication of her words. The men sprung toward the door with angry ejaculations, an oath escaping the lips of one or two coupled with a threat in one case. With murmurs of distress and fear, the women a to each other, cowering and sobbing with ead. Then the house was invaded by the tempest. Windows rattled and doors slammed, and the whole building shook and strained under the fierce buffets Keay Storm King. The women now screamed in terror, fearing a whirlwind in which all would be blown away to destruction. The men shouted, and one or two stopped secure the windows and doors; but the rest kept on, fascinated by the horror of that pistol-shot. They found a man lying dead on his face, and a woman kneeling beside him who wailed: light, shriek seemed ‘‘Oh! Iamamurderess! He is dead! dead! dead!” The man was Abe Seaver. The woman was unhappy Belle Briggs! Before them stood Little Lesthior Breaibice, gazing from one to the other as if stupefied. CHAPTER IV. A WILD RIDE. ‘* A MURDERESS!” repeated one of the men, with an ugly scowl. ‘‘ The devil’s dam said it, and here it 1s to the letter!” Little Leather-Breeches started as if stung, and whirled upon the speaker. ‘‘ What’s that, John Boyce?’ he cried, invol- untarily carrying his hand toward his back, and then remembering that he was not armed. ‘*You'll not better it by being over-ready to add another to it!” said the older man, severely, noticing the gesture. ‘‘In heaven’s name, what's this, neighbors?” cried farmer Ashmead, now coming up. “The jade has finished by putting a bullet through him,” was the reply. ‘Oh! no, no, no!” cried Belle, starting up. ‘I did not do it! Indeed! indeed!” “We came upon her while the horror was on her, and before she thought of ray ion it; and it was she herself that first ‘put the murderess on her!” ‘*Oh! but I did not mean that! rand of He killed J 2th) ~ - Da * + a \~. s, oT ee ——— - —~— — - - ae ee ee himself. I meant that I had driven him to it by But he killed him- my harshness a minute ago. self. I saw the flash of the weapon. And then when he fell I screamed and ran here to him. IT did not oaepoee that he would do anything so wicked as this. I did not mean to strike him; but he goaded me beyond endurance.” ‘* He'll goad you no more!” was the bitter reply. Some one had knelt beside the prostrate man, and was fumbling about his body to see if there were yet signs of life. “Lights! lights! bring lights!” shouted far- mer Ashmead. ** Here comes a light.” In that roaring wind, against which the men could scarcely stand, no candle or lamp could have lived for an instant; but some one had snatched a brand from the fireplace, and now came running, the blaze at the end of his fagot burning blue when it burned at all. Every once in a while it was blown entirely out, but to start into flame again at the shift- ing of the wind. Tt was brought under the lee of several men who stood close together, and gave forth an un- certain, flickering illumination. By it the man kneeling by Seaver was reveal- ed. It was the minister. He was very pale. Those about suspected him of interest in Belle; but none of them knew that words of love for her were scarcely yet cold on his lips. ‘‘ Friends,” he said, looking up and speaking with the gravity and the hush that death in- spires, ‘‘ this isa sad business. The man seems to be quite dead, and yet, strange to say, I find no trace of blood on him, By this time every one was chilled by the icy wind that seemed as if it drove fairly throug one. ‘‘ Fetch .him indoors, boys!” said farmer Ashmead. ‘‘ Nothing can be done out here in the cold.” ‘Give us a hand here, under his back.” said one who knelt to lift him. A volunteer sprung forward, but ere he had got hold of the other’s hand, the first exclaimed: ‘““Ey! what is this? Why, his back is all bloody! Hold the light here.’ ° {t was done, and troubled eyes strained to see what horror would be revealed. ie had ee ee oo pee side, and clasped his arm despairingly. ‘Oh, sir!” she cried, sinking upon her knees, ‘you do not believe that I would do anything so wicked? so terrible? He shot himself, I de- clare to you! Iwas over there—see?+—by that bush when I saw the flash!” But the man had stern Puritan blood in his veins. The bitterness of an iron creed had so permeated his nature that he knew nothing but the fierce justice of an eye for an eye! forward to see what the torch would reveal. ‘‘There itis! Do you see that, men?” asked one of the examiners. ‘* What is it?’ asked farmer Ashmead. ‘‘ He shot himself,” replied the other with sav- age scorn—in the back !” ‘‘ What’s this?” cried another. ‘Hold the light here. I struck something just now with my foot.” ‘There itis! A pistol! It’s the weapon that finished him!” Eager hands picked it up. It was a beautiful little pearl-handled revol- ver. ‘* Give it to me!” cried Little Leather-Breech- es, extending his hand quickly, as if to snatch it. ‘‘ Not so fast, my young buck!” said the man, holding it out of reach. ‘‘ We'll know who it belongs to, first.” “It is mine!” cried Belle, in wonder, not realizing what gravity lay in such a confession. ‘Oh, no, no!” cried. Little Leather-Breeches, trying to stop her. ut it was too late. a man who held the weapon laughed bru- tally, ‘No thanks to you for owning it,” he said. ‘‘ There’s a plenty that know it by sight; I, for one. I knowed it the minute I set my peepers © on it,” Belle now steod with eyes dilated and lips apart, the picture of terror. that was closing about her. Indeed! indeed I am innocent!” The minister turned his eyes upon her. He said not a word, but his white face and those sad eyes hurt her more than the cruel chuckle possession of that telling evidence against her. — He shook off her suppliant touch, and bent: of the illiterate brute who gloated over the She saw the net — B+ “Oh!” she cried, wildly, ‘‘I am innocent! — , 7 | zy t y = “ > wn ¢ =e d ’ 'ba 4 wr ¥ « oe | Pa”. a - ‘ ) ‘ . i ‘oe: -