DARING IMPOSTOR.04

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5258, 29 June 1888, Page 4

DARING IMPOSTOR.O4

[UY ALFBED M. CAMIOUN.]

CHAPTER 111,

ONE lIUNDIWD AND TWENTY-EIGHT PINE PLACE.

The gates of tho gloomy prison closed behind the ex-convict, and the great, wide, bright world of freedom aiid untried possibilities opened up before him. Yet, strange though it may seem, he looked back at the gates with a sigh of regret, and lost sight of tho enoircling walls with much the feeling of the exile who sees tho shore of his native land sinking down tho horizon's rim, while before him lies tho tempest-tossed world of waters.

it- Allen made his way to the address given [ in the last letter received .from his sister, h but his family was not there, nor did any of [;.'' the occupants of tho dingy, swarming tene- \- meut know whither they had gone. jL ... ■ He met an old acquaintance, who told F him tho family—so ho had heard—had !.'■•■ moved to Brooklyn, but an examination of I the directory failed to show their name. I While vainly searching, he realised that ■ his little stock af money was running low,' ■ and that he must get work or starve. [l It is an easy matter to advise an unfortuL__nate man to " get w«rk," when every \enue swarms with applicants well recomtaded and eager to be employed; when , , Vy employer wants to know the antecei* \aof those he hires; and when every ytment of labor is organized, and *, \arily refuses to associate with those \ \ i or unwilling to be members. ;* ; V Lee dared not go to old acquaintt ,Uid ut.li them for work, for ho had a

ittle spirit left, and he desired to.hold himelf aloof from those who thought him guilty. It is nonsense to say that the man or voman who serves a term of imprisonment or a crime thereby -' expiates ; the offence. EVhether guilty or innocent, the man once sonvicted by the law, though ; ho walk the jarth a free man, is to sooiety a criminal. Through all the years of life-he is burdened ay an unforgiven sin, arid starved into aisanthropy and rebellion for the want of a ittle charity, or it may be, a word! of enjouragement and sympathy. Too often the very machinery of tho law —a machinery, that cannot bo said to be perfect so long, as children are raised in degradation, and innocent women go to prison, and innocent men to the gallows—so long as this machiuery tends to give publicity to every offence, so long will sooiety bp un * oharitable and unforgiving. Allen Leo was an innocent man, a man who worked for his dear ones from a high Bense of duty, made pleasant by an intense feeling of love. But his life, had been blasted; its best years spent in a prison ; his family -were dead or hiding in disgrace; and he—he who had never knowingly % done a wrong—was an outcast in the city of his birth, begging, as a paupsr begs a orust, for leavo to work, and no.: daring to apply under a name which the law had disgraced, but which, in the sight of the Eternal Judge, had suffered no stain. With his last few cents he had bought a ticket on the boat to Long Branch, for he had read that the author of his ruin was there; but we dare not look into the motives that stirred him as, desperate and starved, he made his way to the city of fashion by tho sea. This is the story of Allen Lee up to this time. It is necessarily brief in its outline; but before us lies tlie duty of showing how this man was received by the world that had so cruelly wronged him. Poor though he was, he would have spurned the moriey offered by Mr Lefferts, for, thoughhe had never seen that gentleman, his son Frank and his associates were the men who had sworn him into prison. But the fifty dollars was a boon at this time, for it would onable him to keep up the search for his family till he had found them, or was forced by want and failure to give up the search. 128 Pino Placo was certainly an explicit enough direction to havo been easily found ; that is, if Pino Placo had been marked on the map of the oity of Brooklyn. The ox-convict walked and enquired for hours the night of his return from Long Branch, but no ono could tell him where Pine Placo was, though all agreed that if it existed at all, it had received its name very lately. That night Allen stopped at a cheap lodging-house, and tne next morning ho began the search again. About dark the following evening, he found himself in a dingy labyrinth of streets to tho south-east of Hamilton Ferry. Between these-streets and the Atlantic Basin there aro imraenso lumber yards, and on a bit of board nailed to a post, Allen read "Piuo Place," and an index hand pointed in the direction of tho water. Down through top-heavy piles of lumber, that looked as if tho least push from behind would send them crashing into the narrow roadway, Allen hurried, and after two hundred yards of winding he came upon the shore, where thero was a cluster of shanties surrounded by goats, tin-cans, and ragged children. * "Is this Pino Placo?" asked Allen, addressiug tho oldest of a group of ohildren, who gathered to look at him, with tho savage curiosity of a lot of Foojees, " S'posin' it is Pine Placo," said the girl, with a coltish toss of her sunburned hair. " What do you want ?" " I want to know if a family named Lee lives hero." " No, they don't," said the girl. " What is them folks like ?" asked a boy, whose trousers wore turned up so high and so tight as to threaten the circulation of bl#od and to account for tho mottled tippearance of his legs. Allen described his father, mother, and sister as he remembered them, and the boy said: " There's an old man an' woman down there in that md shanty, an' they havo a gal as sews. Tho old man's a dying, so they say, but the name aint Lee," said tho boy, very confidently. *' What is the name f" " I can't think ; but it's funny ; 'tanyrate, I never heerd tho like before." Allen thanked tho children and went down to tho cabin, in tho single visiblo window of which a light burned. 11l was about to peep in, to assure himself that he was on the right track at last; but ashamed of the very suggestion of acting like a spy, he knocked at the door. It was opened in response, and tho figure of a slender young woman, whoso face was in shadow, appeared before him. He tried to speak, but the words ho would utter.refused to pass his lips. Ho was brought back to Belf-po33ession by the question of the youug woman : " What can I do for you, sir?" With a choking voice he replied : "Florie! Florio ! Have you indeed forgotteumc?" " Allen ! Allen !my brother!" cried tho weeping woman; aud she tottered forward and was caught in his arms. The noise at the door brought an old, white-haired woman from a little backroom, aud as sho advanced she asked, in the whisl per peculiar to professional nurses and those much with the sick and nervous. "Whatis it, Florie? What is it, my child?" before Florence could reply Allen advanced till tlie light from tho lamp on the bare pine tabic shone full on his face, and strotching out Mb arms, he faltered: "Oh, mother! has your boy so changed?'' "Allen! Allen!" The woids weits whispered with nn effort, and she would have sank to tho floor, had ho not thrown his arms about her and pvessed her to his heart, Allen laid his mother on an old-fashioned that looked as if it answered for a bed at night, and Floreuce bathed her faco and hands till she showed sigus of reviving. "Free again.' Free again, my boy! 1 " cried Mrs Lee, when she saw tho pale, careworn face of her son bending over her. Ho kissed her tenderly, and as he did so bis tears fell on her shrunken cheeks, and ho whispered tho one word: "Father?" " Praying for death to spare him till ho sees you again." And Mrs Leo rose to her feet aud pointed to tho little room from whbh she had come. " And he is here ? " "He is here, Allen. Come wit'i mo," said Florence, as sho took up the light and led the way into tho room. Allen followed, supporting his mother, and they camo and stood by a bed on whioh rested tlie worn frame of an old man, Whose deathly face was nearly concealed by its setting of long white hair and beard. The man's eyes wero closed, and only the slightest rise and fall of tho breast told that ho still lived. " There lies father," said Florence, holding tbo light bo that it fell full upon the dying man. Suppressing the cry that rose to his lips, Allen dropped upon his knees beside the bed, aud taking one of the cold hands between his own warm but trombling palms, he sobbed as if his heart were breaking. Slowly tho old man's eyes opened, and more slowly he turned his head till he could sec tho young man beudiug over his hand. Then, without any other show of feeling than tlie grateful light that flashed for a moment in his sunken eyes, ho said, in a voice that seemed tho ghost of a whisper: " I have prayed God—that I might live —till—till my eyes could rest again—on my innocent boy. Now, oh, Lord, let Thy servant depurt in peace !" "Father ! father? I am back again ! I am hero to love and care for you ! lam free!" cried Allen. The old man raised his eyes to tho low ceiling above his bed, and echoed tho o.'e word : "Free!" The mother and her two children bent over tho bed, but the fixed gaze, the.unmistakable pallor, aud tho sunken but never-rising breast, told that the supreme moment for -which he bad battled, with death, had come, and this object won, life had ceased. In stupefied horror Allen looked from tho face of the dead to the faces of his mother and sister. Pale, worn, and care-lined they were, but • there was no change iv their expression to : indicate o. sense of bereavement. It was not a want of love or sympathy for tho deai man : it was simply that years • of sore trial had so exhausted their capacity for expressing emotiou that thoy could not give utterance to the horror at thoir hearts. | With mingled feelings of hate, sorrow, j und rebellion in his breast, Allen closed tho eyes and composed his father's limbs for their long, last rest; and then taking the 1 light from Florence, bo supported his mother with one arm and went into tho - other room. "It is well for him that he is gone; it would be better for mo if I could go with him," suid Mrs Lee, as she dropped into a 5 chair and covered her faco with her hands. "Do not say that, mother,'' said Florence, kneeling beside her and taking her hands. " Allen is back, and thero is much to livo for. I bavo.faith in Heaven ; and kneeling- beside you here, a* at an altar. 1 believe that justice will be done my brother and us in God's good time." < Allen had now a good chance to see his sister's face. Palo and wan it was, but its lines and expression wero rarely beautiful, even angelic, and the form, set off by the close-fitting calico dress, was exquisite iv J its proportions. <<< That night she told her brother of their m sore trials, and how they had taken their mother's name, "Gilbert," in order to secure work from houses that had become Ii prejudiced against tho name Lee. g< Thoy hud como to Pine Place a year before "to be but of the world," sho said, and hero she brought tho sowing, on the "W proceeds of which she had barely managed pa to keep soul and body together. ar Allen had mouey enough for tho humble an funeral expenses, but as he could not buy a _ burial lot, it was decided to leave tho body in the receiving vault at Greenwood, till T such time as he could afford to purchase a JL grave. -» • ■ A] Mrs Lee was too,much broken down to attend the funeral, but the shanty dwellers Ju at Pino Place, though poor, had kind hearts, and thoj hired a oarriage amonirst them and four of them followed tho 'hack, in which Allen and his sister rode behind tho hearse. I •