For Womans Love | Page 2

and perseverance,
but where a malignant old witch may torture and terrify her neighbors
without fear of the ducking stool or the stake?" he demanded.
The beldame looked at him scornfully, and disdained to reply.
"Wait!" said a stout, dark, middle-aged, black-whiskered man, Timothy
Ryland by name, and one of the managers of the "works" by state.
"Wait, I want to question this miserable lunatic. She may have got wind

of something. Tell me, old mother, why will not the governor-elect take
his seat to-morrow?"
"Because Fate forbids it," solemnly replied the crone.
"Will the governor be--murdered?"
"No; Regulas Rothsay has not an enemy in the world!"
"Will he be killed on the railroad, or kidnapped?"
"No!"
"Will he be taken suddenly ill?"
"No!"
"What then in the fiend's name is to prevent his taking his seat
to-morrow?" impatiently demanded the manager.
"An evil so dire, so awful, so mysterious, that its like never happened
on this earth!"
"Arrest her, Mr. Ryland! She ought to be locked up until she could be
sent to the asylum!" exclaimed old Marwig.
"I have no power to do so, my friend," replied the manager.
"Why, where is she?" inquired Mrs. Bounce, trembling. "Who saw her
go?"
No one answered, but every one looked around. Not a trace of the witch
could be seen. She had passed like a dark cloud from among them, and
was gone.
It was a glorious day in June. A long, deep, green valley lay low
between two lofty ridges of the Cumberland mountains, running north
and south for ten miles, and near the boundary lines of three States.
This lovely vale was watered by a merry, sparkling little river called the

Whirligig, which furnished the power for the huge machinery of the
great firm of Rockharrt & Sons, proprietors of the Plutus iron mines
and the North End foundries, which supplied the mighty engines on the
great lines of railroad from the East to the West, and whose massive
buildings, forges, furnaces, store-houses and laborers' cottages
occupied all the ground between the foot of the mountain and the banks
of the river, on both sides of the Whirligig, at the upper or north end of
the valley, where a substantial bridge connected the two shores.
This settlement, called, from its position, North End, was quite a
thriving little village. North End was not only blessed with a mission
church, having a schoolroom in its basement, but it was provided with a
post-office, a telegraph, a drug store, kept by a regular physician, who
dispensed his own physic (advice and medicine, one dollar), and a
general store, where everything needed to eat, drink, wear or use
(except drugs), was kept for sale.
On this bright June morning, however, the great works were all stopped.
There was a general holiday, and as this was at the cost of the firm, it
gave general satisfaction. All the people of North End, except the aged,
infirm and infantile, were trooping down the valley, on the rough road
between the foot of the West Ridge and the side of the river, to a fete to
be given them at Rockhold on the occasion of the marriage of old
Aaron Rockharrt's granddaughter, Corona Haught, to Regulas Rothsay,
the governor-elect of the State.
It was a marriage of very rare interest to the workmen and their families.
To the men, because the governor-elect had been one of their own class.
The elders remembered him from the time when he was a friendless
orphan child, glad to run the longest errand or do the hardest day's work
for a dime, but also a very independent little fellow, who would take
nothing in the shape of alms from anybody. To the women, because he
was going to marry his first and only sweetheart, and on the very day
before his inauguration, so that she might take part in the pageantry that
was to be his first great success and triumph.
On one side of the river, at the foot of the East Ridge, stood Rockhold,
the country seat of the Rockharrts, in its own park, which lay between

the mountain and the river. The house itself was a large, heavy, oblong
building of gray stone, two stories high, with cellar and garret. From
the front of the house to the edge of the river extended a fair green lawn,
shaded here and there by great forest trees. Under many of these trees,
tables with refreshments were set, and seats were placed for the
accommodation and refreshment of the out-door guests. In sunny spots,
also, some white tents were raised and decorated with flags.
As a group of working men and women sat on the west bank of the
river, waiting impatiently for the return of the ferryboat, they saw, from