A MONTANA DIVORCE SUIT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10597, 5 March 1895, Page 3

A MONTANA DIVORCE SUIT.

[by w. l, alley.] (Sf.ui Yorh Sun.) “You saw that tall chap standing on the rear platform of tho express when she went through here this morning?” said the Jericho station master. “ He’s the Athensvillo Baptist preacher, and he’s on his way to Chicago to give his testimony in tho great divorce suit. 'What! I never told you about any divorce suit? Well! you surprise me, for that there divorce suit is just tho biggest thing of the kind wo have ever had in his so ction of the country. “That Baptist preacher hasn’t anything to do with it except to swear that he married the plaintiff and iha defendant. There’s nothing crooked about the Eev Mr Humphreys. He’s as good as they make ’cm, though I say it myself, and I don’t think much of Baptists as a general thing, having been brought up a Methodist, though I resigned from them when I was made conductor, which is a berth that a man can’t do anything with unless he can swear a blue streak when the occasion arises.

“This hyer preacher took charge of the Athensvills Baptist Church a matter cf five years ago, and being a wonderful man for managing a church and making it attractive to the general public, it wasn’t long before ha had the largest congregation of any preacher in the place. The Presbyterian minister felt that he had to do something to maintain his position, so ho preached a series of sermons on baptism, proving, as ha thought, that sp. inkling was the only authorized way of baptism, and that immersion was all a mistake. In one of his sermons he made a pretty good point by showing that on oco occasion John the Baptist baptized so many people in the course of a day that he must have averaged three to the minute. This, the preacher claimed, would have heen impossible if he had done it in any other way than by sprinkling. Mr Humphreys only laughed when they told him about this sermon, an,d said; ‘Just wait till wo have cur regular spring baptizing season.’ So the next spring, when there were about forty people, youug and old, waiting to join the Baptists, Mr Humphreys, he takes the whole lot down to tho creek and immerses every one of them in less than ten minutes, breaking the record and beatiqg John the Baptist’s best time. This made him more popular than ever, and that year the people built him a new church twice as big as tho old one. It stands on the hill about a mile oat of Athensville, for when it was built it was calTated that the town would grow in that direction, which somehow it hasn’t.

“I tell you this just to show what an enter, prising man the parson. He insisted on having the tallest steeple to his new church that could he found anywhere in Montana Territory, and b’gosh he got it. People used to corns from miles away to climb up in that steeple and see the view. There wasn’t any view to speak of, the country being too hilly in these parts to have much scenery, tut for all that people were anxious to say that they had been to the top of tho steeple. “ There was an old maid in Mr Humphrey’s congregation who was more determined to get married than any woman you ever saw. She was one ofthoso thin, persevering-looking women, and a mighty dangerous sort they are.- Miss Payson, which was this lady’s name, was bound to marry a young man of tho name of Halsey, ■who had never done her any harm, and was about as sensible and well behaved a chap as there was in all in Atbensville. Of course, ho didn’t have the least idea of marrying tho woman, but he was one of those good-tempered chaps that are always afraid to say no when a woman asks them to do anything. Good temper is the ruin?of lots of folks. It’s kept me down, I know that. If I’d been one of these crusty, rampageous fellows .that never docs a kind action if he can help it, I should have' been superintendent of this' road instead of being only a station master at one of the smallest stations ini the Territory. Hover 'you he too good-tempered. Of the two, it ruins more men than whiskey. . “ One day Miss Payson she gets young Halsey to take her up. in the steeple of tho Baptist Church. You sea, visitors wore always going up that steeple between.the,hours of tea and five, during which tho sexton stayed at the church to attend to things and seo that everybody conducted themselves as they.should. At five o’clock no locked up the door that led to tho steeple, and then he locked up the church door and went home for the night,

“ Miss Paysonand her young man went up tho steeple about three o’clock ia the aftercoon, but she said she enjoyed it so much that Halsey was prevailed upon to stay there with her a good deal later than he had intended to stay. She kept him pointing out all the houses in the town and every hill and valley in the whole neighbourhood, and when she finally asked him to look at hia watch and tell her the time, she was, as she pretended, dreadfully alarmed to find that it was halfpast five. Halsey ran down the stairs and found that the door was locked and nobody was within hearing. The sexton had forgotten that there was anyone up tho steeple, and had locked up and gone home at five o’clock as usual. Halsey came back and told Miss Paysou, who burst into tears and said that her reputation was ruined. She and Halsey would have to spend the night in the steeple unless he was willing to jump out of the window and break his neck, and she had rather die a thousand times than let him do that.

“ Halsey was, considerably seared himself, for ho saw that unless he could invent some wayof getting Misss Paysou out of that steeple he would have to marry her whether he wanted to or not. He thought the matter over for awhile, Miss Payson weeping her level best, and resting her head in a forgetful sort of way on his shoulder. Finally a bright idea struck him. There was tho hell rope, which was a stout one-inch manilla. ■Why shouldn’t ho lower Miss Paysou to tho ground with it and then slide down it himself ? “ He explained his plan to- the' lady, but she didn’t seem to like it. She said she was sure tho rope would break, or that<ho,would drop it, or that she would be killed in some sort of way, if the experiment was tried. Hosays'ahe, *1 will remain here, and trust to your honour as a gentleman to defend me from the sneers of the heartless world. I really haven’t the courage to allow you to lower me down this awful height with any rope.’ ;

“ Halsey wouldn’t hear to her objections, and argued with her a long time. It wasn’t until be accidentally mentioned that tho steeple was chock full of mice, and rats, and bats, and such, that Miss Payson consented to try the rope. Even then she was a mighty dissatisfied woman, and camo very near resolving that she would take the risk of the wild animals rather than lose such a firstclass chance for capturing a desirable husband. Halsey rigged up a sort of seat for tho woman, so that she could sit in tho bigJit of tho rope with lashings around her here and there, and couldn’t fall out if she wanted to. Then he got her to stand on the window ledge, and lowered away. Miss Paysou shrieked a good deal at first, and begged Halsey to let her come beck and die close ,to him, but ho wasn’t going to have any woman dying around his neck if he k»ew himsolf. So ho lowered her down gently and easily, encouraging her all the time, till ho found that,his rope had coma to an end. It wasn’t quite as long as he had supposed that it was, and tho upshot was that there was Miss Payson about thirty feet from the ground, with no possible way of reaching it unless Halsey should let go his end of the rope. “He thought of letting go of it, but being a humane, good-tempered man, as I said, he could not bring himself do it, since the result would have been that cither Miss Payson would have been killed, or at least most of her limbs would have been broken. So he made the end of the rope fast to a beam, and called out to Miss Pa y son not to lose courage, and ho would soon think of some way of getting her out of the difficulty. She begged him to draw her up again, and ho actually tried to do it, knowing all thcwhile what the consequences would be if ho sueceeded, ;but ,ho found that he didn’t have tho necessary strength, bliss Payson was heavier than she looked to be, though , she was mostly bones,_ but she was a good seventy-fivo feet below him, and it would have taken two men of his' strength to ' have hoisted her up into tho steeple again. • He pulled at the rope till ho was pretty near exhausted, for ho naturally felt a little ashamed of acknowledging to a woman that thero was anything that he wasn’t strong enough to do. However, ho had to come to it at last, and tell her that if it was to gave both their lives ho couldn’t manage to pull her back into the steeple. Boeho settled down to cry, and he

settled down to smoke a pipe, with a view U clearing his Ideas. “ All of a sudden ho saw what he ought to do. and wondered that he had been such an idiot af not to have seen it before. There was tho hell just above his head, and all he had to do was tc climb up and ring it by swinging the clappei from side to side till the alarm should bring back tho sexton with the keys. By this time it was getting rather dark, and Halsey set to work nl that bell and kept on. tolling it slow and regular, for that was the only way he could manage to ring it.

“It’s the custom with us to toll the hell when anybody dies, and to give just as many strokes on tho bell as the deceased had lived years. When Halsey began to toll the boll the Atheusvills people listened to find out how old the deceased had been. When the strokes had got up among tho eighties they allowed that the oldest settler in the town must have died very sudden, for he had been seen drunk, as usual, and in perfect health that afternoon as late as 3 o’clock. But the bell kept on, and bimeby, after it had tolled somoSSO times and showed no signs of stopping, folk* began to think that the sexton had just happened to Lear about the death of Methusaleb, and was notifying other people of the fact.

“ You may ask why didn’t somebody go to the church and find out what the bell was ringing for. Well, forone thing, it was just suppertime, and nobody felt anxious to take a walk of a mile or two just at that hour. Then, too, it had been said that tho Baptist churchyard was haunted, and there wasn’t any general desire to interfere with ghosts in case they should have taken a notion to toll tho bell. The tolling kept on till Halsey had tolled the bell over four hundred times, and then the Eev Mr Humphreys arrived on the spot, and when ho heard Miss Payson’s voice somewhere in the air over his head he was considerably startled, though not being abelieter in ghosts ho wasn’t a bit frightened. “ ‘ How on earth did you come up there, ma’am?’ asked the minister, ‘and what are you tolling the boll for ? ’ “ Miss Fayocn explained what was the matter. She said that she and Mr Halsey had come to church in the afternoon, ealc’latin’ to find the parson there, and to get married; that not finding him they had gone into the steeple to see the view, and had accidentally'been locked in. She was sure that sbe couldn’t live many' minutes longer, she felt so weak, and she hoped Mr Humphreys would marry her to Mr Halsey without another minute’e delay, and so save her reputation even if it didn’t save her life. ■ ,

“ The minister wanted to send for help,. and get her safe on the solid ground before marrying her, but sbesaid that she must bo married before she could dare to face any of her townsmen. Such, she said, were also Mr Halsey’s views/and if Mr Humphreys had the feelings of‘a. man and a Christian, let alone a Baptist minister, he would go ahead with the marriage service. • . “ Mr finally consented, and called out to Halsey to nod when he.should seo the minister wave his right arm, that being tbe only way in which Halsey could make the responses, seeing as his voice didn’t fairly reach to the ground. Having arranged this satisfactorily, as he thought, Mr Humphreys went ahead, and in about two minutes ho had Miss Payson mar* ried to Mr Halsey. Ju&t then the sexton came up with the keys, and, knowing where be could lay his hand on a length of rope, he took it up into the steeple with him and beat it oh to the bell rope. Then he and Mr Halsey lowered, Miss Payson to the ground and came down 1 the stairs together. ' ' ’. ' ' ' “ You’ll find your wife waiting for you in the graveyard,” says Mr Humphreys 'to Halsey. “ She’s naturally a little excite ’ 1 she’s resting on a flat tombstone.”. . . , - , ” * If you mean Miss Payson,’ saya Halsey, ‘ I can’t understand why you call her my wife.’ “ ‘I call her your wife,’ says the minister, ‘ because I have just married 'you two, and I don’t allow no man to question the binding character of any marriage that I have a hand in. “ ‘ Married us!’ cried Halsey. ‘When and wlierc? This is the' first time I have heard of it.’ ‘ “ ‘ Young man,’ says the parson, ‘ this hyer’s a serious subject, and I don’t approve of jokes* on, either weddings or funerals. Miss Payson told me while she was singing there in the air that you and she wanted’to; ■ bei-married.- • tWf worst / way/ and so, I married you. If there is’ any mistake I’m- not to blame. I’ve clone my best as a minister of the gospel, and if you , don’t like it you can go to the divorce court and see if you can get it altered. I will tell you candidly that X don’t believe any court will listen to for my marriages are iron clad and bullet proof every time, and worth a good sight more tlian the five dollars that I’m waiting for you to pay me,’ “ Well, Halsey he went homo pretty mad, without waiting to see Miss Payson, and the very next day he begins a suit fp? a divorce. That’s tho great divorce suit I was telling you about when I pointed out the Eev Mr Humphreys to you. ■ It’s been dragging along for four years. Sometimes it’s decided in favour of Halsey and sometimes in favour’of Miss Payson, and then it’s always appealed, and has to be tried over again. Miss Payson, she sticks to it that Halsey had agreed to marry her, and that he understood perfectly well everything the parson said while the ceremony was going on. The parson says that Halsey nodded as was agreed upon when he asked him if be took Miss Payson to be his wedded wife, andall that sort of thing, and that Halsey had hold of the rope that was tied to Mias Payson, which was all the same as having hold of her hand. On the other . hand Halsey swears that he never meant to marry the woman, and never knew that a marriage ceremony was being gone through with, but that ha just nodded out of friendliness when he saw tho parson waving his hand at him. Tho evidence, as you can see, is pretty straight against liim, and if he does happen to get a verdict it will cost him a powerful lot of money, for our jurymen are mighty honest and high toned, and it will take a good deal of money to induce them to seo things in a light favourable to Halsey. I’m interested in the case because of its, importance, for if the courts finally , decide that a man. can be married to a woman when he is. seventyfive feet above her, and don’t know what ,is going on, hone of us is safe, and first you know some woman that is rushing through hero on the express will be married to mo while lam selling tickets jn my office, and knowing no more about it than a child unborn. Well, there is no use in sitting down and dreading dangers that may never come to time, and I suppose if it’s a man’s fate to be married he’s got to knock under, and there’s no good in worrying over it till the time comes.”