ONLY A GIRL'S HEART.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 2301, 28 April 1875, Page 4

ONLY A GIRL'S HEART.

. -• BY MHS. SOUTHWORTH,

Author of "Self Made," "Bniudon of Bvan<lou," "Fashion and Famine," "Eudora,"&c. CHAPTER XL— (Continued). "My mother stayed with me until it wns time to close the prison doors for the night, and then she commended me to the care of Heaven aud departed. She visited me every day for the few days that I remained in the Wildville jail. "The court was sitting aud thore were but few cases on tho docket. I was therefore soon brought to trial. I had the best counsel I could procure, but it availed me littlo ; for though justice and humanity were clearly on my side, the law of the land and tho prejudices of rauk seemed against me. The trial was very short. I was arraigned on the Monday following my arrival at Wildeville, and I was convicted and sentenced on Tuesday. The penalty of my so-called felony was two years' imprisonment, with hard labour, in the State Penitentiary at Richmond. I was carried down the next day. My heart-broken mother Btayed with me as much as she could, accompanying me down to the city, and never leaving me until the doors of the prison had closed upon me. Even then she took a room in the neighbourhood that she might be near me and visit me as often as she might be permitted to do so, which was only once a month. " I was not put to very hard labour, for I happened to be the only educated prisoner in the penitentiary at that time ; so I was assigned to duty in the warden's office, whore I did nine-tenths of tho work for which ho received the salary, but it was light for me in comparison with the other prison labour. Nevertheless, I did not rejoice at it, neither should I have complained if I had been put to the severest toil, for I was past complaining, as I was past enjoying them. My wife, my liberty, my good name, had all beeu wrested from me, and all minor conditions of good or evil were nnfelt. " The term of my imprisonment commenced on my thirtieth birth-day, the fatal fifteenth of July, just fifteen years after I had first met the child Lily ; the day, also, upon which she became of age, when she had vowed to come to me, and be my wife as sure as she shonld live. She lived ; but alas ! she was at the point of death with a low fever, and much more likely to cross the dark river than to take any other journey. I had no means of hearing from her, since no letters of mine could reach h«r in her guarded seclnsion, even if I had been permitted to write before the end of the month, which of coarse I was not. " On tho first of August, the regular visiting day, ray poor mother came to see mo. I then entrusted a letter to her, and begged her to journey back to Wildeville and inquire about my Lily, find out whethei she were living or dead, and try, if she were liviug, to got that letter conveyed to her hands. "My dear mother started on her mission. What would she not have done for her imprisoned son ? She was gone a week ; and at tho end of that time she returned. She could not visit me until the next regular visiting day, on the first of September ; bat she sought an interview with the prisouchaplain, through whose kindness I at length receievd news of Lily — bitfter ■weet! " She had recovered- from her dangerous illness, thank Heaven ! but she had been taken away from Hill Top Houso, by General Slaughter, and no one knew, or even surmised, whither they had gone. This was the sum and substance of the intelligence brought from Wildeville by my mother, and given me by tho kind-hearted chaplaiu. " My poor mother never ceased in her efforts to get mo pardoued out ; but we had a stern martinet for a governor, and he had lately entered upon his office ; so there was no hope for me but in outliving my term of imprisonment. One weary month followed another and brought the winter. "Christinas is a time when all travellers like to be at home. I thought General Slaughter would bo no exception to the rule : so in Christmas week I sent my mother np to Wildeville again to inquire concerning Lily. She returned in time to visit me on the first January, with the perplexing news that General Slaughter and his ward were still absent, in what part of tho world no one knew. " The winter passed away my mother visited me every month, and brought me also such comforts and conveniences as the prison rnles or the warden's indulgence would allow me to receive. "Early in the spring my mother went again on a pilgrimage to Wildeville ; but returned, as before, with the disappointing information that General Slaughter and hia ward had not returned, and had not been heard from by anybody but Oxman, his overseer, who declined to reveal his whereabouts. Whilo my mother was at the ferry, she arranged with our assistant ferry-man, John, to glean all the information concerning the 'Slaughter House,' as Hill Top Hall now began to bo called, and to get the village schoolmaster to write a letter at John's dictation, once a month to convey the intelligence to us. This was to save the trouble and expense of her quarterly visits to Wildevillo, as well as to obtain more frequent news. "Oar forry-inau did liis duty, aud kept us posted as to the existence of * no news' whatever. "So tho spring ripened into snmraer aud brought the fourteenth of July,

the day before the anniversary of my entrance into the penitentiary, half the term of my imprisonment; and every day would make the coming year shorter, and bring me nearer to the day of release ! " Bat where was my Lily ? How was she ? What was she doing ? She knew of course that I was a prisoner ; but I knew that if she wore free, she would haston to Richmond, shore the humble home of my mother, aud with her visit me every month during the term of my confinement. Her failure to do this kept me on the rack of anxiety, and my greatest longing for liberty was for her sake, that I might constitute myself a detective for the discovery of her abode, and a deliverer for the emancipation of herself. "On tho evening of this fourteenth of July the warden brought me a great piece of news — and unexpected stroke of good fortune. He told me that the I was to be pardoned out; that the pardon was to takeeffect the next morning whon, after some formalities, I should be set at liberty. Ob, the joy that filled my heart ! For the moment, every ill was forgotten — everything was forgotten but that I should be free in the morning. My poor mother's exertions, petitions and representations, like seed sown and forgotten, had produced a harvest of success when we least expected it. It seems that even the stern martinet Goveruor had perceived the injustice and tyranny of my incarceration, and released me as soon as he prudently could — at the close of my first year of imprisonment. With the warden's permission, I sent for my mother, and saw her alone in the warden's parlour and told hor the joyous news, and we rejoiced together. "We made arrangements for our departure for Wildeville the nest day. She undertook to pack up all her own effects and such of mine as remained in her possession ; and, also, to bring me a new suit of clothes and a wig, for I had not escaped the convict's degradation of the shaved bead. I had nothing of my own in the prison but a fovr religions books, and these I preferred to donate to the prison library. It was late when my mother took leave leave of me — the happiest leavetaking we had enjoyed for many a month. " I retired to my cell and was locked in as usual for the night. I went to bed, or rather I stretched myself upon my hard cot-pallet ; but I could not sleep. Although, in a prison. cell, I was too happy and too much excited to sleep ; for the next morning I should be free — free to go forth into the world again ; free to seek my Lily. Did I doubt that I should find her ? Oh, no ! I was too fall of delight to doubt anything. I believed in all blessed possibilities. I should find my Lily, would let the ferry, and I would take her and my dear mother and we would go away to some distant pleasant land, where our troubles had never been heard of by other people, and where our sorrows would be forgotten even by ourselves. In my exaltation of hope I felt jost as sure that all this would happen as that to-morrow's sun would rise. Full of these happy thoughts, I could not sleep. I lay in a delightful reverie, gazing through the little grated window of my cell, gazing out upon the star-lit sky above and its reflection in the clear bosom of the James below. I hoard the prison clock strike every hour until midnight. When it struck twelve I exclaimed aloud : " 'This is the day, the blessed day, that gives me liberty.' " It really seemed to me then as if I bad been in prison nearly all my life and this was the first day of freedom, , I lay in a happy half-trance until I heard the clock strike one. "Now, my dearest Gertrude, what next followed was so strange, so mysterious, so incredible, indeed, that if it had not been corroborated by subsequent circumstances I could not have believed it then, nor could I ask you to believe it iiow." The ferryman dropped his head upon his chest and fell into a deep, traoce* like reverie that lasted until Gertrude, whose intense curiosity rendered her impatient of delay, roused him by asking : "Dear grandpa, what was it that happened to you on the night of the fourteenth of July ?" CHAPTER XII. " A VISION PASSED BEFOUfcJ MB." "It was the morning of the Fifteenth, child. It was after one o'clock, Gertrude. Call it a dream, vision, hallucination, anything you please ; but I was awake, wide awake, vividly wide awake when it happened. " I had heard tho clock strike one while I lay gazing out, through the little grated window, upon the cool night scene — - the clear, star-lit sky reflected on the broad, dark river; and then I closed my eyes and lay in a delightful reverie, thinking of the morning just come, when I should be free ; of the days soon coming when I should be re-united with Lily ; and in the midst of this delightful daydearaing I heard a sweet, soft, clear voice mnrmnr in my ear — ' Gabriel.' "Tho voice thrilled my sonl, for it was the voice of my beloved. But tho next instant a tender awo foil upon mo as I opened my eyes and inquired, as if in doubt P " ' Who called me ?' ' " I listened intently, but there was j no reply. I gazed around, but there was no one visible — nothing but the bare walls of my six by eight prisoncell, and the littlo grated window in the wall) against which my narrow

cot stood. Yet I knew that I had not dreamed or imagined that voice. I knew that I had heard it ? I closed my eyes again, and lay intently listening ; breathlessly expectant ; yet, withal, strangely awed and calmed. The voice spoke again, sweet, soft, low, clear and close to my ear. 11 * Gabriel, I come.l " I lifted my eyelids suddenly, and glanced around. Nothing was to be seen but the white-washed walls of my cell, dimly visible in the faint light of the little grated window. I called aloud. Nothing was to bo heard but the weird sighing of tho wind. I now begau to perceive that nothing would respond to me, while all my senses where open and on the ale,rt ; thus I closed my eyes for the last time aud kept them closed, waiting in breathless awe for what might next happen. "The heavenly voice breathed once more, low, clear, flute-like : " ' Husband, I am here.' " ' Lily ! Love ! Wife !' I aspirated, faint between delight and awe. " The sweet voice spoke no more ; but as if my recognition of it had evoked the vision, this is what appeared before my sealed eyes : "A soft, whito light, that dilated and brightened until its radiance filled the cell ; and this radiance seemed to proceed from the form of my Lily, who stood in the midst of it, her face beaming with celestial beauty, her brows crowned with a wreath of orango blossoms, her hair, silver in the sunshine and golden in the shade, flowing over her shoulders, her form enveloped as in a silvery mist, in bridal robe and vail. " As I gazed in an ecstacy of rapture that caught away my breath and stopped my pulse, the celestial vision faded away, the radiant light paled, the cell grew dark, and I lapsed into a state of complete unconsciousness. j "It seemed to me only the next instant that I was aroused by a violent shaking from a strong arm and calling from a loud voice. I started np, bewildered, to see one of tho turnkeys standing over me and the sun shining broadly through the little grated window, and throwing a small square of golden light, checked with black lines, on the floor. It seemed to me that, only a second before, I had lain in the midst of a heavenly vision at one o'clock in the morning, and now I lay staring at the stupid face of the turnkey in the fall glare of day. I was so confounded that I could not speak. " ' What the deuce is the matter with you ? Are you sick ? Has the doctor given you opium, that you sleep so long and wake so dull ? Get; up. The prisoners are all forming to go to breakfast ! ' exclaimed the man. "I sprang off my hard cot-pallot, doused my head and face from the stove-jug of water that stood on the floor, and followed ray guard, to join the Hue of convicts on their march to the prison eating-room. But my mind was so completely absorbed with the thought of the vision I had seeu that I could think of nothing else, not even of my freedom just at hand. " Immediately after breakfast I was summoned to the warden's office, where I found the sheriff waiting for me with the Governor's pardon in his hand. He read the document to me, and then warmly shook me by the hand, congra- i tulating me upon my deliverance, and going so far ont of his official routine as to say that be believed it to bo an act of justice that ought to have been done a year before, when the injustice of my conviction and sentence by the Wildeville Court had been perpetrated. " I thanked the sheriff cordially for his kind words ; but told him, at the same time, that I knew tho great wrong which had been done mo could never be righted in this world. " While we were still speaking, my j poor mother was shown into the office, bearing a largo bundle in her hand. She greeted every one with a smile, as sho took the chair the warden placed for her. Tho sheriff congratulated her also ; bat instead of answering him, she burst into tears and wept. I knew what was passing in her mind ; for, after the first shock of delight at unexpectedly recovered freedom, I felt that she, like myr.elf, was overshadowed by the reflection that we should always live under tho reproach of my conviction and imprisonment, however undeserved it might be, and certainly was. '♦ We waited until some legal forms passed between the warden and the sheriff, and then I was iuforrned that I was at liberty to depart. " My mother handed me the bundle that she had brought, and I took it and retired to change my prison uniform for a citizen's dress. " When I had done this I returned to the warden's office, where my mother still waited for me. Wo thon took leave of the officers and left tho prison. "A carriago was waiting for us at tho gates with a large trunk, containing all our effects, strapped behind it. "'I have taken two places in the stage coach that leaves at nine this morning, and it is now only half-past eight. We shall have plenty of time drive to the office and get them,' said my mother as the carriago started. "I pressed her band, but said nothing ; my thoughts were still absorbed in the vision I had seen, to the exclusion of all other subjects.

[TO UK CONTINUED],

" John !" oxolaimed Mary, throwing her arms tironnd her brother's neck, " what substitute can there be for the eudearnionts of a Bister ?" "Well," said Johu, "yon eoe, Sis., that depends ou whoso sister it is." Am elderly maiden lady, hearing for tho first time that matches are made in henven, deolarod that sho didn't caro a straw how soon she left this sinful world for a hot lor land.