THE WARNING VOICE.

Northern Advocate, 25 November 1893, Page 3

THE WARNING VOICE.

The tall leafless trees in the little dell (or dene, locally speaking) creaked and groaned in the cad winter wind, and the waters of the burn foamed and fretted about the great gray bowlders continuously. A dull, red sun scarce managed to pierce through the prevailing grayness, and masses of blue black cloud lay low upon the horizon. Any one familiar with the district — that wild, bleak, barren country contiguous to the Chevoit range — would have known instinctively that bad weather Was in store, that the long expected snow would make its appearance ere long. Between the fitful gusts of wind there was something solemn and impressive in the aspect of nature and in the heavy, lifeless atmosphere, something that suggested a breathless waiting for the coming storm. Meanwhile the scattered flocks of sheep moved in a leisurely fashion along the steep sides of the fells, and a pair of lovers lingered in the dene, too absorbed in their own insignificant portion of the world's business to pay much attention to the impending trouble. The girl was young, and on her cheeks bloomed the roses of vigorous health, but she was poorly dressed, while the young man, who was enacting — after a somewhat mean fashion — the part of lover, looked prosperous and well to do. "It's hard upon me, Balph. You must confess that I" she exclaimed, with a touch of bitterness, as her blue eyes looked wistfully up through a mist of tears. "It isn't ma fault that Aw canna keep him straight, and yet Aw'm to be punished for it, as if it was!" Ralph turned his head away. He could not bear to meet the pathetic appeal of her eyes. He had imagined himself stronger until that moment. It had required some courage to face the ordeal, which proved worse than he had anticipated. He was a fine, athletic looking young fellow, but there was a feebleness about his mouth and jaw that did not promise much moral- stamina. "It's to be all over betwixt us, then, because yer feyther wishes it?" the girl went on in a tremulous voice. Balph shuffled about from one foot to the other for a minute or two, then he burst out: "How caaAw say it — what would yer hey me do, Nelly? if the avid man turns me off, Aw've nowt o' my own te live on. Aw, man, stick te the farm and to him— d himl Ye wadn't like te see me hire oot for a hind or a shepherd— me that's been browt up decently?" Kelly knew nothing of the world. In this remote north country nook had her whole life been passed, and from the larger life that books might have opened out her lack of education had debarred her.' Nevertheless she was v woman and had intuitions. It crossed her mind now that a man who loved a woman truly and unselfishly might without much self denial do more heroic things for her sake. But she said nothing. She loved him, and she wished to believe the best of him. As Ralph Wilson looked at her he recognized that for himself as well as for the girl this separation which circumstances had rendered imperative was a zeal hardship. Where in all the countryside could her equal be found in luoks, manners, sweetness of disposi'.loii, loyalty of heart? Though she was only the child of a drunken, disreputable old shepherd, she oould hold her own against any of the farmers' daughters in the neighborhood. It was this fact of her unfortunate parentage that had proved the stumbling block to their happiness. They had been thrown together from childhood, for Martin Daglish, the shepherd, had grown old in Farmer Wilson's employment, and an attachment had sprung up between them when Nelly bloomed into womanhood. But, alas, for the course of true love! It had from the first been shadowed by the shame and degradation of the girl's father. during the course of the year that was drawing to a close the drunkard had made a tremendous effort for the sake of his child, whom he fondly loved, to reform, and Farmer Wilson had rather reluctantly given his consent to the marriage. He thought that Ralph might have done better, in a worldly sense, than marry Nelly Daglish. There were farmers' daughters about wslio had both money and good connections, and the lad was a fool to throw himself away, but •he was a good, useful, industrious girl all the same, and if only the old man f ulfiUed his promise and kept steady there ■wasn't much to be said against the match. .That "if!" A month before this the shepherd had broken out again worse than ever for his enforced abstinence and had become the object of public ■corn and contumely. Then it was that Farmer Wilson interfered with a high hand and withdrew bis consent peremptorily. It was all very well to marry a poor girl, though even that was a foolish concern when capital waa required to develop the re•oarces of the land, but to marry a poor f&i whose father was a shame and a disgrace to the neighborhood was too idiotic An act to be tolerated without some enwfcyor being made to put a stop to it. $h& farmer had therefore a rather stormy interview with his only son. At ■nt the lad stuck to his resolution to suury Nelly at all hazards and trust to their united efforts either to keep the ol& shepherd steady or to give him the cold shoulder. Bat Farmer Wilson was a man of the world, and he knew the Itfacy of these hopes. Old Martin Daglish was past reformation in his eyes, sod even Ralph acknowledged that he Wfw not himself sanguine about it. And Kelly would stick to her father through thick or thin; that was the worst of it! Balph Wilson was weak, though well intentioned, and he proved as wax in his fa&er's hands. Before the conclusion of the scene he had promised to Bee Nelly and to induce hw to give him back his plighted troth. sfhe interview now proceeding was the result of that vromise.

"Don't you imagine that you have the worst of it, NeIVMT ?aid Ralph as he felt again the chV^Rji)! her presence. "These things conue.i^oftfhiird to a man than a woman, becaijsjir-rhe.y Jire not so patient." ' . , ' . Nelly sighed. '^■few" "But men can go awa^&^'forget all about their disappointments, . they ha' lots to think about. But we womefi folk — we just ha' to bide it and say- nutbin, though our hearts be ever so sore! Oh,Ralph, lad, I wish we'd never seen one another!" Ralph, moved by a sudden impulse, drew the girl to him and with passionate vehemence kissed her lips over and over again. "I cannot help it— they are the last," he nmttered apologetically as he reluctantly released her, "but it is cruel — downright cruel — that we ha" to part! And all for the sake of a drunken good for nothing that might have broken his neck half a dozen times this winter if I that mistaken providence that watches over such like wastrels hadn't prevented it. Hang him! I wish he was dead!" "Don't, Ralph! I cannot bide to hear you!" "What good is his life? It doesn't benefit one living creature — not even himself I You ought to wish it, too, Nelly, instead of chiding me. Aye, and you would if you cared half as much about me as I do about you." Nellie drew herself slowly away and looked him straight in the face. "You don't mean a word of what you're sayin, or I would give you a bit of my mind for bein heartless! Poor old dad! He's never said a crossword to me in my life — not even when he was the worst for drink! He's nobody's enemy but his own, there's that to be said for him, anyway. If you won't marry me because I mean to stick to my auld feyther, wey aa'll ha' to bide it as best aa may. But as for me wantin him deid — ma poor, good hearted dad— that'll never, never be, and so I tell ye plainly, Ralph!" At this conclusion the young fellow hung his head, feeling rather ashamed of his ill nature, and the pair walked in a leisurely and dejected manner toward the farm. Where the two roads joined they parted, sullen, miserable, without their customary kisa or even a friendly handshake. Again the little dene appeared deserted and resumed its normal aspect of expectation, the spell having been broken momentarily by the young and eager presences. But the solitude and silence did not have long to reign. Up one bank of the stream straggled a thicket of ragged shrubs, alders and hawthorns, and from thence there emerged a few minutfes afterward the figure of a man. He crawled up to the level ground upon his hands and knees, like some prowling j beast that had been in hiding. When he reached the road, he rose to his feet and stood upright, or at least made as near an approach to that position as his own condition would allow, for he was evidently greatly under the influence of alcohol. He rubbed his hand across his eyes and gazed in a bewildered fashion in the direction taken by the pair of lovers. "Ma canny Nelly! Ma bonny lass!" j he muttered in a tremulous, husky voice, the voice of a whisky drinker, "just te think she ha' stuck by me like yon!" He stood silent for a moment after this, as though endeavoring to master the situation; then he gave himself a shake like as a dog does on emerging from the water. "You boozy, dram drinkin old soaker, dinna ye feel ashamed o' yersel'?" he burst out at last. "What's wrong wi' ye? Lemme think." But it was of no use for him to try and consider. The earth reeled around and met the sky, and the road rose up and hit him in the face. His brain was on fire, and he could not think. He stumbled down to the edge of the stream again, and at the imminent risk of meeting death by drowning managed to lave his face and head in the ioy cold water and to gulp down great drafts of the same, making, it must be confessed, a wry face at the latter part of the programme. Then he sat down on a heap of stones, and resting his face in his hands made another effort. He was the miserable wreck of a fine, stalwart man. Although little past the prime of life, drink had done its work, and he looked a broken down old toper on the brink of the grave. He had the bleared, unsteady eyes of a drunkard, a drunkard's loose, slobbery mouth, but his features were of an originally good and pleasing type, and it was not difficult to trace in his face a likeness to pretty Nelly. "He was reefc— the confoonded young fool was reet — and my canny bairn was wrong. There is no use in a life like mme — none whatever! An if I was deid he' marry her and she' be happy— she'd be happy." It was not a pleasant retrospect that life of his, look at it how he might. Lost opportunities, hopes that had died unnatural deaths, ambitions that had been drowned under that thirsty sea that had engulfed his manhood and made of him the sot he was. God forgive him! The face of the wife whose heart he had broken rose before him now in his maudlin repentance to add to his misery. He remembered the look in her eyes as she feebly took his hand in her own dying ones and laid it upon the head of her baby girl. 1 "Be good— to Nelly— and— and dinna make her life — like mine has been— through -that — cursed drink 1" He had promised, with the tears of maudlin grief in his eyes, and he had honestly meant to keep that promise. And now her life— the life of that child — was to be wrecked through his. "It would be all reet if I were only deid," he said again despairingly. As he stumbled homeward he noticed with some anxiety the signs of the weather. The red winter sun had sunk some time before, and the groat masses of blue black cloud pressed heavily down upon the earth, nromiflinar either a thunder-

atorm or a heavy fall of snow before morning. ♦ ****» Nelly's eyps looked red and swollen when her father entered the cottage where tl."y lived, but otherwise she showed no l races of the ordeal she had undergone. It was a poor soi*t of place, that humble shepherd's hut, but scrupulously clean and neat, and Martin's supper of i bread and cheese was laid out ready for his arrival. How different things might have looked, he thought, had he not gone to the bad years before! He had once been the prosperous owner of a fine, big farm himself, for the Daglishes had been yeomen and owners of their own land for generations back, but it had all gone, had all melted away to satisfy that unnatural thirst which had taken possession of the last of the family. Martin's reflections, as the drink died out of him, were of a very sad and depressing character. He leaned his head on his hand and kept watching Nelly all the while. It was the only good and beautiful trait left in him now, that he loved this girl passionately and to some extent unselfishly. For her sake he had made several attempts to break the chain that bound him, but the fascination was too powerful to be resisted. His blood was by this time little else than alcohol, and within his veins like cried out to like. Nevertheless a rush of tenderness still came over his soddened senses whenever she gave him a kind word or glance. "Ye're not well, daddy," she said now in a gentle voice as she noticed that he ate no supper and looked sick and sorry. "Does your head ache very bad?" Martin put up his trembling hand as though to stop her. "Dinna speak like that, Nelly, ma bairn. Tell me that Aw'm a shame and a disgrace to ye, and that the sooner Aw'm out o' the world the better for every one, but dinna pity me. Aw canna bide it." "Aw'll say nothing of the kind," retorted Nelly indignantly. "I would like well to see you get the better of drink for your own sake as well as mine, but Aw'llnever wish you owt but good, never I Ye've been a kind feyther to me, anyways." "A kind feyther 1" groaned the old shepherd. "Ohl Nelly, Nelly, ye break ma hairt wi' yer tenderness. Do ye not wish me deid, then?" For answer Nelly came across to where he sat, put her soft, loving arms around bis neck and kissed the poor, bleared, drink sodden face over and over again. Many a time afterward did the memory of those kisses rise to the girl's mind and comfort her inexpressibly. **■*•**■* Before daybreak the clouds had resolved themselves into a storm of snow, the most penetrating and persistent that had been known, even in that bleak district, for many years. Long ere dawn Martin Daglish was up and away over the fells to look after the outlying flocks in his charge. On these extensive border farms, where the grazing land is composed both of Valley and fell, and where the sheep travel miles away from any place of safe shelter and refuge, the utmost precautions are necessary in rough seasons to prevent the flocks from perishing from cold or being engulfed in a living grave of snowdrifts. In the hollows these same drifts form to an alarming depth, and many a fleecy clad carcass lies buried beneath every considerable fall of snow, unless the greatest care is taken to prevent such catastrophes. Martin was a good and careful shepherd, and in spite of his failing was never known to neglect the safety of Lis sheep. But on this morning as he crossed the moors in the face of that blinding storm he recognized the fact that it would take him all his time to prevent many of them from pel ishing in this storm. The other shepherds were off, also, in different directions, but the district under I Martin's special charge was the most re- ' lnote and the one soonest in danger, because it lay in a situation that exposed i it to the inclemency of the weather. ; The snow came down in that fine, powdery, impalpable sort of fashion which denotes a protracted and heavy fall, and it was all that Martin could do to keep to the track. Had he not been the most experienced and weatherwise of pedestrians he must have inevitably been lost at once. The snow glued his eyelids together, penetrated his clothing and froze upon his face. Even his 6!og Rover, a collie of great sagacity and experience, required some encouragement to induce him to face the storm, and every now and again he whined and drew closer to his master's heels, as though protesting against the cruelty of nature. Long before they reached the place where the last flock of sheep were huddled helplessly together awaiting in stupid resignation their doom both man and dog were about spent. But at sight of the silly, frightened sheep Rover gave a joyous bark and bounded forward at once, true to his instinct and training. With the stupidity of their kind the creatures had chosen I the very worst spot they could have selected wherein to abide during the severity of the storm. The wind whirled and eddied up a narrow gorge and laid great wreaths of snow all about their woolly sides. Martin knew that if they could be once driven around to the other side of the hill, where tho wind would keep the ground comparatively free from snow, and where there was also some shelter to be obtained from a hemel and a roughly constructed foldyard, fenced round with stone walls, there would be little to dread, and they could be looked aiter and fed, until the severity of the storm was passed. But it required considerable determination to make the creatures move at all, and still more to do so in tha teeth of the cutting wind. The cold had bv.Lumbed them and rendered them almost torpid. Rover's aDproach. however, roused

them to a faint display of animation, and he np«;an proceedings at once by running around and biting, or pretending to bite, the laggards, barking all the while as loudly as his strength would allow. After a minute or two they began to move in the direction indu-:ited to the dog by his master, and very slowly, but surely, they were gradually led away from their dangerous situation into safety. It took a long time for them to reach the other side of the hill and to find the part fenced in by the roughly built and mortarlesa stone walls and the hurdles, stuffed with ragged furze, but the difficult task was accomplished at length, and every sheep and yearling lamb was folded safe. Martin, the shepherd, gave a great sigh of relief as the last bleating straggler passed through the gap, and he placed a hurdle across it to prevent their egress, but he acknowledged to himself that a few minutes longer and they would inevitably have mastered him. He was faint from lack of food. Since the noon of the previous day not a morsel had passed his lips, for he had loathed the sight of victuals after his debauch and had left home in such haste that morning that he had no time to break his fast, even though Nelly insisted upon getting lip and lighting the fire and boiling the kettle. He had swallowed a drink of tea, but nothing more. Now he bitterly regretted his own folly as the Btrain told upon his exhausted vitality. It was over now, however, and the sheep were safe. There was a store of hay stacked in the inclosure ready for such emergencies as the present one, and Martin proceeded to the lighter labor of feeding his flock. By the time this was accomplished the little daylight there had been that day had entirely failed, and a thick murky darkness reigned everywhere, although it was only about 2 o'clock. When Martin and his dog set out on their homeward journey, the former had almost to grope his way out of the inclosure, and only the instinct of Rover kept him on the right path. The snow was coming down softly, but pitilessly, wrapping everything in a white and rapidly thickening sheet and fast obliterating every familiar landmark. On an ordinary occasion the old shepherd could have found his way home blindfolded, so well acquainted was he with every foot of the road. But hiß strength had utterly deserted him, and every step he now took was with a great and increasing effort. The cold apf ?ared to grip his heart as with a hand of iron and to arrest his laboring breath. At last he stumbled a:^d fell at the foot of a great bowlder. He could go no farther. Nature had completely given out. Then all at once he remembered that if this drowsy slumber which was coming on did creep over his senses he was certainly done for. Ah, yesl But he had that in his breast pocket that would give him new life. Yes, it was all right. He had not forgotten it. His heavy eyes lighted up with a momentary gleam of pleasure as he drew out a flat bottle containing perhaps half a gill of raw whisky. Nobody could blame him for taking it now. He would do it to save his lifeonly for that. Without some fresh access of strength and energy he would not be able to move hand or limb. The lethargic condition was gaining upon him, and resistance was scarcely possible unless the fiery spirit should stimulate his vitality. Come, there was some good in the stuff yet if it saved a man's life! Accordingly he drew out the cork of the bottle with his teeth, and the strong odor rose gratefully to his nostrils. He had a right to it this time. Suddenly a voice appeared to come out of the darkness and the storm — a voice that made him pause in the very act of drinking: "What good is his life? It doesn't benefit one living creature — not even himself!" He trembled with more than cold, and his hand fell from his mouth. Who said that? God or the devil? Whoever said it, it was true — fatally, miserably truel A great horror of himself and a loathing of the life he was about to try and preserve, an infinite pity and tenderness for the girl whose young existence had been blighted through his shameful fault— all this came to him at that moment. Like an overwhelming wave swept the accumulated misery and disgrace and remorse of years over the soul of the poor drunkard. Then a sudden access of fury seized upon him, and with the last feeble remnant of his strength he threw the bottle away. It rolled down the side of the fell and buried itself fathoms deep in a snowdrift at the foot. The sheep were safe, and Martin the shepherd slept.— Gentleman's Magazine. Englishmen on Trade. The English are a peculiar people. Trade takes away a man's social standing, but sport doesn't. An impecunious nobleman may breed horses and sell them and still be in the Prince of Wales' set, but let him sell beef or butter and he is ostracised. He may train horses for a salary and still be a gentleman. Ec may be a starter and still retain his social standing. But he must not go Into trade. — New York Tribune.