eek,

by J, A. Patten, will be commenced Next W

“Sailor Ben; or, the Romance of an Inheritance,”

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Entered According to Act of Congress, in the Year 1887

 

 

ao

Office

LIFE.

BY HENRY KING.

What is the existence of man’s life
But open war or slumbered strife?
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements,

And never feels a perfect peace

Till Death’s cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm—where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood ;

And each loud passion of the mind

Is like a furious gust of wind,

Which beats the bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower—which buds, and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose ;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of working before sleep,

Then shrinks into that fatal mold

Where its first being was enrolled.

It is a dream—whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth ;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wand’ring as his fancies are,
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.
It is a dial—which points out
The sunset as it moves about
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle changes of time’s flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetnal shade.
It is a weary interlude—
Which doth short joys long woes include ;
The world the stage, the prologue tears;
The acts, vain hopes and varied fears ;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath
And leaves no epilogue but death.
inet iniiaci sie heel tah aes ite.

{THIS STORY WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED IN BOOK-FOR\M. |

TORN FROM OME:

OR, THE

Ghild-Stealers of New Haven.

By BURKE BRENTFORD,
Author of “‘Florence Falkland,” “‘The Steel Cas-
ket,” etc.
CHAPTER

CABIN OF

I.

THE THE CHILD-STEALERS.
It was

the Connecticut shore of Long
lous city of New Haven, the surroundings were rug
ged and savage inthe extreme. A dilapidated sail-
boat was drawn upon the sand, and alight wagon
standing in a shed near by, indicated that the occu-
pants of the cabin, whatever their character, were at
any rate not altogether destitute.

But the interior of the cabin was as wretched and
squalid as its externals were uncouth and mean. The
chief apartment, which contained a few~pieces of
rude furniture and presented an array of cooking
utensils upon the walls, was occupied by two per-
sons.

One was a woman of perhaps seven or eight-and-
thirty, roughly and slovenly attired, but whose face
still retained the vestiges of a bold. gipsy-like beauty,
though privation, and perhaps vice, had long since
rendered it hard and mean.

She was bending over a fire that flickered in the
chimney-place that occupied the greater part of one
side of the room, and appeared to be paying but little

P.O. Box 2734 N.Y.

a wretched hovel, strangely isolated upon |
Island Sound, and, |
though within but a few miles of the busy and popu- |

 

heed to her companion—a savagely bearded, villain-
ous-looking man, who sat brooding over a tumbler
and black bottle atatable near the door, and who
was muttering aloud in a gloomy, discontented tone, |
half as if addressing her, and half as if communing
with himself. <A big, ill-conditioned mongrel
curled at his feet, and now and then, in
maunderings, he would fix his glance argumenta- |
tively upon this animal, as if soliciting a reply which |
was hardly vouchsafed by his human companion. |
“Tt’s in very ’ard luck that you are, Jerry Binks, )
very ‘ard, if I says it myself,’ he soliloquized, pour- |
“Who'd
Here ’ave we been in the States nigh |

dog

was his

}

ing out some. liquorin an abstracted way.
a thunk it?
onto a twelvemonth, with ’ardly a stroke of biz to
keep us from starvin’. Why, we wast jist as well off
when we was tramps in the hold country. Wasn't |
we, ’Ercules, my boy?”

‘Hercules, my boy’—which evidently designated
the recumbent cur—not uttering any rejoinder to this
pathetic appeal, received an impatient kick in the |
ribs, which sent him howling to the other side of the
room; and Mr. Jerry Binks, as he had correctly apos- |
trophized himself, then bent his evil eyes upon the
woman, who had been stirring the pot and superin-
tending her fire for a long time without paying the |
least attention to him.

“Nancy Binks, did you’appen to’ear what your
’usband said ?” exclaimed the man, with an oath.

“Stick to your bottle, and maunder to yourself,” |
crossly returned his companion, without so much as |
turning to him. “T’d as lief hear a bear roar
tenin’ to the likes of you.”

“But I say, Nancy Binks,

as be lis-
” cried the man—and this |
time he really did roar very like an angry bear, while
he struck the table violently with his heavy fist, ‘I
say we might as well be tramps agin in the hold
country as be here, so ’ard is our luck.”

«And I say,’ replied the woman, so far relinquish-
ing her indifference as to half turn upon him, with |
a contemptuous laugh, “I say that you’re as much of |
a fool now as you ever were. The luck may be hard, |
but we’ve got what we never had as tramps, a roof

 

3! Rose St.

. y Street & Smith, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. 0.

 

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THE NEXT INSTANT

New York, July 28, 1887.

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BASCOM HAD HARLEY IN HIS ARMS,

Three Dollars Pe

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over our heads and a square meal every day in the
week.”

“But it ain’t certain. ‘’Ow do we know whether
we'll have a square meal to-morrow? Suppose Bas-
com should fail to send us money again ?”’

“Then Ajax could go out on the bay and catch fish
for us, as he has done before. But I’m sick of your
The ‘kit’? we have in hand may bring us in

growling.
plenty o’ plunder yet.

“The ‘kit? be blowed!” cried the man. ‘It’s been a
hull year since we kidnapped him in Regent’s Park,
an’ not a blessed penny have we got by him yet.
Blast him! But hain’t you heerd ?”

‘““Heerd what?’

“Why, Ajax isto bring us word from Bascom to-
night as to whether we’re to make way with the
‘kit? or not.”

The woman turned sharply around, placed her
arms akimbo, and eyed the speaker keenly, while a
troubled look passed over the harsh comeliness of her
face.

“Tsitto kill the ‘kit’—to kill little Reggy that ye
mean, Jerry Binks ?’ she demanded, in a low voice.

“In course it is—eff we be pushed to the wall by
the cops,” said the ruffian, with a brutal laugh, and
at the same time helping himself once more from the
black bottle. ‘‘Bascom says the rewards as been put
out by his parients is nothin’ more nor a blind to git

usin their grip; they’ve sent detectives over from

Scotland Yard, and in course it won’t do for ‘em to
find the boy in our han’s, you know.”

“But to kill him!”

“There ain’t no other way as I knows on,
sullenreply. ‘Hush! hereis Reggy !”

The “kit’’ was a pretty, but sullen-eyed, under-fed-
looking little boy of seven or eight years, who now
came in from one of the adjoining rooms, rubbing his

”

was the

| eyes, as though newly awakened from slumber.
He was dressed in the rags of what had once been |
expensive garments, and bright yellow curls peeped |

out from under the greasy cloth cap he was tugging
down over his face.

necessary episode in a few words, the “kit,” as these

child-stealers designated him, was a child, Reginald
Milroy by name, who had been kidnapped from aris-
tocratic and wealthy parents, while walking with his

| nurse in Regent’s Park, London, about a year before.
His father had offered large rewards for his recovery, |
| but, as he was a government officer, and known to be

a harsh, vindictive man, the kidnappers, fearing his |

vengeance, had “fought shy,’ and finally fled to
America, with the police on their track, trusting
that Bascom, their leader, would eventually be able
to secure safe and advantageous terms for the resto-
ration of the child, which, however, for the reasons
already foreshadowed, was now becoming a danger,
as well as a burden to his captors.

To condense a not altogether |

“Tam hungry. Give me something to eat!’ said
the ‘‘kit,” beginning to cry.

The woman went to a cupboard, and presented him
with a liberal slice of bread and cheese.

“Take this, Reggy. and don’t ery,” said she; ‘‘and
you can run out and play among the rocks for a while,
if you choose.”’

The little one took the food, and looked with blank
surprise at the giver—evidently surprise at the un-
wonted kindness of her tone, and then quitted the
house. ,

“T don’t like this business,” said the woman, sitting
down just opposite the man, and placing her bare,
robust arms on the table, while the troubled look
grew darker in her face. ‘To kill /—and a little child
like that!”

She did not exactly shudder, but her hands clenched
themselves fitfully.

“Tt ain’t the first time, is
fiercely. “Why, what’s got inter you, gal?
get what I’ve gone and done for ye?
ye, as was nothin’ more nor a’eathenish gipsy, an’
marry ye, an’ make a Christian of ye? An’ all that
in spite of your havin’ Ajax——”

“Not a word against Ajax,” she
threateningly.

The woman burst into a laugh.

“T ain’t said nothin’ agin Ajax, mark that!” said
Jerry, suddenly lowering his voice. ‘Hello !”

This concluding exclamation was occasioned by
the entrance of the subject under discussion.

Ajax was a dapper young fellow of nineteen or
twenty, lithe and sinewy as a Hindoo athlete, with
eyes black as coals, and a handsome sinister face,

it?’ exclaimed Binks,

interrupted,

try, and in whose rather repellent comeliness there
was a strong likeness to Nancy Binks, his mother.

 

man. Ajax was evidently a man of business, in his
humble way, and did not believe in wasting time in
useless preliminaries.

re at
he. “He’s got a new ‘kit’ in his eye—a pretty little
four-year-old as lives witha swell family on the great
: road jist beyond the college elms. We're to ‘nap’ him
in the mornin’. Bascom says there’s a heap of swag
in him.”

Jerry began to rub his hands, and was about to
| help himself from the bottle again, when the youth
snatched it from his hands.
| “You’ve had enough, I’m thinking, an’ ’m burning

up for a nobbler myself,” said he, helping himself to
| a liberal allowance of the vile liquor, and draining
| it off without winking.

Jerry simply smiled jn a truculent way, which

saw Bascom

D’ye for- |
Didn’t I take |

whose complexion clearly denoted his gipsy ances- |

The dust on his boots and nether garments indicated |
a long tramp, and he flung off his dusty hat and sank |
into a seat at the table with the others like a weary

the hotel in New Haven,” said |

showed that he was by no means master in his own
house.

“T’se ’appy to ’ear we be goin’ to’ave a stroke of
business at last, Ajax,’ said he. ‘‘But’ow about the
little ‘kit? Reggy, you know. Is he—is he—’ lower-
ing his voice to a whisper—“is he to be made way
with, Ajax ?’

Ajax nodded his head.

His mother, as he did so, gave a start, and, for the |
first time, put in a word.

“Are you sure, Ajax? Could Bascom think of no
other way ?’ she said.

“None whatsomever,” replied the young man,
coolly.
New Haven blue-coats, is already on the scent—may
be here to-night, to-day—now; there is no time to lose.”

The woman resumed her duties at the fire-place
without another word. Jerry Binks got up and
moved about the hovel in a restless, aimless way,

thrusting his hands in his ragged pockets and trying
to whistle. Ajax, rising, looked out of a little win-
dow at his right hand that commanded a view of the
sea.

“Night’s comin’ on, an’ a storm with it,” said he.
“T met the ‘kit? as I came in, playin’ with clam-shells
an’ dabblin’ in the surf with his bare feet.
no time like the present time.”

He put on his hat, and took up a spade that leaned
against the further wall.

“You needn’t come,” he said, turning to Jerry, who
had also picked up his hat, but now put it down
again, and not reluctantly resumed his seat by the
bottle and glass.

“Let him go with you, Ajax; you must not do the
deed alone,” said his mother, whose dark face had
grown white.

“Shut up! Wait!’ was the only answer she re-
ceived; and, shouldering the spade, he went out |
upon the lonely shore, which seemed doubly lonely,

”

now that night and a heavy gale began to gather |
over the splashing waves.

He found the little boy a short distance up the
beach, playing quoits with clam-shells in a dull, list-
less way.”

“Come with me, Reggy, my little man,’

”

 

’

said he.
i I’m going up the shore to dig.
“What! to get some more of the soft clams, Ajax ?”
| asked the little fellow.
| “Y—es,”’ was the drawling response; and Ajax
strode along the edge of the waves, with the ‘kit’ |
trotting at his heels. |
They came to a place where the shore was over- |
browed by beetling rocks, wild with larches and
clinging vines. It was hardly possible to conceive
of a more lonely, desolate, and uninviting spot. Here
Ajax began to dig a hole in the sand at some distance
from the waves.

| nearer the water,’

“The cops from Lunnon, helped by them |

There’s |

| looked

st Office, New York, as Second Class Matier.

r Year,

Two Copies Five Dollars.

Saale

“Tt’s too far up for the soft clams; ‘‘they’re always
’ said the ‘kit,’ looking on.

“Hold your jaw!” said Ajax.

The sand was almost as firm and dense as clay,
but his arms were strong and the spade was sharp.
He went on digging till he had completed a trench
| about four feet long by three deep. He then leaned
i upon his spade a moment and seemed to consider.
Presently he said:

“Reggy, look down in the hole.
clams at the bottom ?’

The child leaned over the edge and peered earnest-
| ly down.

At that moment Ajax, as if suddenly hurling cer-
tain seruples to the winds, glanced once at the
| bended little head, and whirled the spade aloft.

Do you see them

CHAPTER

BASCOM.

II,

It was almost dark night when Ajax, looking very
, eTim and white, entered the cabin again, to find an-
other individual waiting to receive him, besides the
twain he had left behind upon setting forth upon his
evil mission.

The new-comer—who had evidently just arrived,
and whose manner was very perturbed and excited—
| was aman of five or six-and-thirty, tall and thin, and
|} attired with a sort of seedy gentility. He wore no

beard, had furtive, roving eyes, and there was an air

of by-gone refinement about his small, though
strongly marked Which would have re-
deemed his face from the sinister aspect of the lower
half, but for a cynical, sneering expression which
seemed to perpetually hover over the lips, and the
ever shifting glance of the dark eyes that were never
at rest.
“Bascom !—you
| ingly.
They

features,

here?” exclaimed Ajax, falter-

all noticed how white he was.
at

Jerry Binks
3ascom, as the stranger was called, and
nodded, as much asto say, ‘‘The job’s done,” and
then sat down at the table, and strove to extract
some liquor out of the black bottle. Nancy also
looked at him, also nodded, with about the same im-
port, and then, with something very like a shudder,

| went on dressing a larger table for supper, in which

occupation she was engaged when interrupted by her
son’s entrance.

Ajax picked a bit of paper from the floor, carefully
wiped the edges of the spade with it, threw the frag-
ment in the fire, stood the spade up against the wall,
and flung his hatin a corner.

“T dug the grave of the ‘kit’ jist at the foot of the
big cliff,” said he, speaking inaslow, monotonous tone,
and standing immovable in the center of the room,
with his hands thrust deep into his trowsers pockets.