United States or Antigua and Barbuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His rank and honour showed that he had been firm in resisting the many temptations to which he must have been exposed, for no soldiers escape them. He got his discharge, but entered a militia regiment that he might be able to defend his country, should she ever be attacked by foreign foes. He and Mary married; and no more happy and prosperous couple were to be found in or near Hillbrook.
That is the entire story except that men's passions having subsided and reason having resumed its immemorial sway, it was confessed in Hillbrook that, considering the harmless and honorable character of his first commercial transaction under the new conditions, Silas Deemer, deceased, might properly have been suffered to resume business at the old stand without mobbing.
I forgot to state that the death and burial of Silas Deemer occurred in the little village of Hillbrook, where he had lived for thirty-one years. His honesty had never been questioned, so far as is known, and he was held in high esteem by all. The only thing that could be urged against him by the most censorious was a too close attention to business.
Some months afterwards some travellers, in search of a new sheep run, came in the bush on the bones of a man. A bullet near the side made them guess that he had died of a wound he had just before received. Not till years afterwards did the Miller of Hillbrook learn how his unhappy son died Mary never knew.
But he was wont to growl out, "The wind is sure to drop when I have most grist to grind just to spite me." Hillbrook was a nice spot. There was the brook which ran out of the hill, fresh and pure, right through the village. There was not water enough to turn a mill, but enough to give the people right good water to drink and to cook with. It is a sad thing not to have good water.
"Oh, my friends, you must get rid of all these things if you wish to have health." The people in Hillbrook liked Farmer Grey; they knew that he wished them well, and the wise ones did what he told them. The cholera at last came to England.
Such were James's thoughts as he and his companions hurried towards Hillbrook. Here and there on their way the rest of the men went off to their homes, till Ben and James were left alone. James then told Ben of his sorrow at what had happened, and how he thought he would give himself up. "Nonsense; that will never do," said Ben.
In brief, it was the general feeling in all that region that Silas Deemer was the one immobile verity of Hillbrook, and that his translation in space would precipitate some dismal public ill or strenuous calamity. Mrs. Deemer and two grown daughters occupied the upper rooms of the building, but Silas had never been known to sleep elsewhere than on a cot behind the counter of the store.
Hillbrook militant had managed somehow to pull itself out and had gone home to medicine its hurts and swear that it had been all night in bed. On the dusty desk, behind the counter, was the sales-book. The entries in it, in Deemer's handwriting, had ceased on the 16th day of July, the last of his life. There was no record of a later sale to Alvan Creede.
That the place was haunted by the spirit of the late Silas Deemer was now well known to every resident of Hillbrook, though many affected disbelief. Of these the hardiest, and in a general way the youngest, threw stones against the front of the building, the only part accessible, but carefully missed the unshuttered windows. Incredulity had not grown to malice.
Word Of The Day