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? ^^???? THE TRIBUNE. f ? VOL. I.?NO. 12. BEAUFORT, S. C., FEBRUARY 10, 1875. $2.00 PER ANNUM. Down the Shadowed Lane. 1I Down tho shadowed lauo she goes, And lier arum are laden i . With the woodbine and wild roso, : ^ Happy httle maiden ! ( Sweetly, sweetly doth she sing As the lark above her ; ( Surely every hving tiling ( Thou hast Been must love her. As she strayed and as olio sung, Happy little maiden, Shadowy lanes and dells among, j With wild flowere laden, ( Chanced a bonny youth that way, For the lanes were Bhady ; She dropped one wee llower, they say, r Did thiB little lady. f Dronned a flower, bo thev sav: Dropped, and uovor mimed it ; And the youtli, alack a day, Ticked it up and kissed it. Now in sweet lano wanderings, With love-flowers laden, ^ With her love sho strays and sings, { Happy httle maiden ! t ] THE GURNHAM MYSTERY. J Just within the little town of Gurn- t liam tliero stood, Home twenty years ago, t a comfortable, old-fashioned dwelling, I overshadowed by two huge elms, the 1 property and residence of Ezra Gentry i and liis wife Harriet. Two years before the opening of my 1 story, ho had t stonished tne good folks 1 of Gurnhain by briuging home to the * old homestead a wife, young in compari- ? Hon witli himself, ami remarkably good- 1 lookinc. Now, had Mrs. Gentry been as goodtempered as she was good-looking, there would have been nothing to complain of. She was industrious, neat, and attentive o her husband's comfort; but, alas ! she had, as Ezra soon discovered to his cost, that one great defect of woman, a sharp and never-ending tongue. The least thing worried her; she had no patience with her husband's little failings, and in his especial failure to use the door-mat, and his liabit of , smoking?which was a seoond nature to him?afforded a constant source of irritation and fault-finding. So poor Ezra, finding little peace at home, absented himself as much as possible on the plea of " business," until at length ho rarely -visited home more than once a mouth, and then 'but for a day or two at a time. This still further aggravated his wife's temper and tongue; so that now, instead of a welcome, he was generally received with bitter reproach, invective, and threats to leave him altogether, and return to the relatives with whom she had formerly lived. All this the husband bore at first with stoical patience; but there were times when even his quiet temper was aroused, and it was known to the neighbors that more than one scene of violence had taken place between the two. Once, after an unusually long absenoe, k? # i V?jk/uum V<1<1JUX J J^/UlU C? ? UMV ill/XUO 11UIU I Nortlibeacli, tho harbor town, fifteen j miles distant, at which his schooner 1 sometimes received lior lading. On en- ] tering Guruham, he met his friend < James Hulliday, to whom he mentioned 1 that ho should remain until Sunday, this i being Tuesday. On the Thursday fol- i lowing, Halliday, having some little i business affairs to discuss with Captain i Gentry, about dark stepped over to the ] homestead for that purpose. < Harriet Gentry stood at the supper- 1 table, washing knives and forks with i great energy, while her tongue was evi- 1 dently going at an equal rate, fler husband sat in an arm-chair beside the fire, < smoking a pipe; not in his usual placid, i dreamy manner, but with short irregular I puffs, both were evidently excited and ] angry, and as tho visitor stood for a mo- 1 meut without the window, he caught the ] nnnnil of the woman's voiiifl. ntt/trinor in , broken phrases: "Lazy, good-for-notliing lubber; Wonder what I could have been thinking of when I married you, or why I married you at all ?" " You married me, may be, for money and a home," returned Ezra, apparently aroused by tliis cut. "And a pretty home it is, where everything depends upon me to be kept in order. 'Twould go to rock and ruin but for me, as you know very well. There's to-day's work of yours, for instance; the garden gate left open, and the pigs ruined a whole patch of cabbages. Dear knows the trouble I have whenever you come home I" "And the Lord knows what trouble I have I" returnod Ezra. " It is the first time in my recollection that the peace of this roof has boon destroyed by a woman's ill tongue and ill temper. I wish to heaven that my good old mother were alive again I" " Thnr? if i? !?alwavs thrnwinc vonr dead matlior into ray teeth, as if I be < lieved all you say about her. I've no i doubt she was a stingy, stuck up, hypo- 1 critical"? 1 " Woman 1" thundered Captain Gen- i try, rising, and laving down his pipe, "I've borne enough from you already. < You may abuse me as muoh as you will; < jut just buy another word against my ilessed motner, and I'll "? "You'll what?" retorted Harriet, layng down her towel, and advancing tovard him with inflamed faco and arms ikimbo. " D'ye think I'm afraid of you, rou poor pretence of a man, that yoti tare to threaten me ? What is it you'll lo, I should like to know ?" " I'll teach you, once for all, who is uaster here. I'll put a stop to all this, )nce and forever ! I'll rid myself of Here the words were lost to the lisioner outside the window, as Ezra crossid to the furthest side of the room, and ook dotal a clothes-lino which hung ooped over a wooden peg in the wall. Chen ho turned toward his wife, but in 10 doing appeared to catch sight of the incurtained window, and came directly oward it. Halliday, unwilling to be caught in the ict of eavesdropping, hastily slipped iside ; but he saw the solid wooden ihutters drawn in, and heard again the roice of Harriet Gentry in a high key, hen a half-stifled scream, and the sound >f a struggle, and a chsiir knocked over, le retreated, thinking over the scene, ind feeling rather glad that Gentry had it last taken so decided a position?"a ihiug," he said to his wife, m describing he scene, "which, if he'd been a man iroper spirit, he'd have done long ago. But she'll be more quiet after this, take ny word for it." Very quiet, indeed, appeared the lomesteod on the following day, as Haliday and his wife glanced curiously icross the road, watching in vain for the ippearance of either Mrs. Gentry or her lusbond. That evening, a neighbor of the name >f Grimes stepped overto " have a chat" with the captain. Gentry himself aniwered his knock, and with a very sober ind Cast-down countenance, led the way \o the kitchen. In answer to Grimes's natural inquiry 'or his wife, he answered briefly that 14 Harriet had gone on a visit to her reations." Grimes saw that something was wrong, md, as the captain seemed depressed, ihortoned his visit. The following norning the house was discovered to be flosed, the gate nailed up, and the premises entirely deserted. Very soon, however, the matter asrumed an aspect which was the furthest possible removed from the ludicrous, ind aroused not only Gurnham, but the whole country, into a thrill of horror and ndignation. Late one summer morning, Michael Bweeney, having gone out to look for his pigs, and having searched in vain about ;heir usual haunts, was returning home, ind "for shortness," instead of pursuing die circuitous road, took a direct cut icross the marshy waste known as Tylei's LTaCK. It wa? wet, slimy, and overgrown with rushes, bushes, and briers. As Michael arudged along, ho hod occasionally to ook carefully to his footsteps to avoid a mee-deep plunge into the mire. His attention was arrested by something white ust at his feet, and at the same moment, iv a sudden, gleam or flash beside it. Se stopped, and bending, looked down juriously. What was his surprise to see that it was a brilliant jewel, evidently set m gold. In trembling fear and eageriess he ventured to put forth his hand uid touch the mysterious treasure. He lext essayed to take it up, when, to his borror, he lifted with it from the dark waters of the marsh a hand?a small and white woman's hand. And at the same InBtiint he saw, by the rising moonbeams, the cold, dead face of a woman I With a cry, the affrighted Michael Iropped his new-found treasure, and in ? few desperate leaps had cleared the treacherous marsh. Never pausing until tie reached his own oottage, he there, in broken gasps, poured out to the ears of bis wifv), and a chance visitor, his mar melons story. Thence it soon got wind; md in an hour thereafter some dozen men were on their way to the haunted rpot?some believing, some doubting, others ridiculing the story. The cause of the believers was, howaver, triumphant, when, upon reaching the spot, under the guidance of Micliael, tiis courage fortified by numerous glasses of his national beverage, they discovered, truly, the same dead, unnaturally white and sodden woman's face glaring ghastly up in the moonlight. They drew her out of the dank weeds md dark waters. Halliday, who, living nearest the spot, had joined the group on their expedition, drew near, and with the others gazed upon the face. <? Tt ttri?i? i?> 1 j XV ID UU111DV UDUllJT j lie Hill(1. An inquest was next morning held upon the body, and the idontity established by the testimony of more than fifty persons who had known Mrs. Gentry while living. The body of the unfortunate woman was horribly bruised; vet death had evidently been produced by strangulation,'a pieoe of rope about three yards in length being found tightly drawn around the aeek. And this rope, when examined and compared, corresponded exactly with the clothes-line which James Halliday testified to having seen in the hands of Esra Gentry, as he advanoed threat eningly towards his wife on the night ' we have mentioned. Doctor Martin, the chief physician of Guruham, testified thut on the might of i; j Thursday, the 15th day of June (the day on which Halliday paid his visit to Gentry's house), he was returning at a ; late hour from visiting a patient in tlio ] I country, when, on the road near Tyler's < Track, he saw a woman walking rapidly, a carpet-bag in her hand, and that slio i ' stopped and inquired of him whether 1 she could reach Land's tavern, two miles J 1 from town, in time for the stage-coach 1 to North beach. He replied in the , i j affirmative, and passed on, when, at a turn of the road a little further on, he i came suddenly upon a man, in whom, the 1 j moon being clenr, he recognized Captain 1 Ezra Gentry. The latter was also walk- < ing fast, following the woman, and, as i he passed, he looked down, as if un- i willing to be recognized. Doctor Martin could swear to the ' man's having been Ezra Gentry. About 11 the woman he could not bo certain, not | 1 seeiug her face distinctly; yet her figure, I step and voice, as described by him, cor responded with those of Gentry's wife. ? . On the strength of all this testimony, J the opinion of the townspeople was * quickly formed. Harriet Gentry had 1 lieen murdered by her husband, Ezra 1 Gentry; and upon this conclusion a war rant was issued, and two officers dis- i 1 patched to Northbeach in time to arrest j the suspected murderer, just as he was \ I about getting his vessel under weigh. : Captain Gentry turned pale when the | officer laid his hand upon his shoulder, i ! and informed him that he was arrested ' on the charge of having murdered his ? wife. "Harriet ain't dead ?" he gasped, in- J distinctly. " She is dead," said the officer. " She was found dead and buried, in the marsh | on Tyler's Track, with a rope around ! her neck." "Gracious heavens!" gasped Ezra, 1 sinking nervelessly into a chair; it was about there I parted from her. Who ' could have done it? Poor Harriet 1"? and a moisture rushed to his eye. "You are suspected," said the officer; 1 and proceeded to mention to him the 1 | suspicious circumstances of the case as 1 | regarded himself. j The captain listened in silence, a thick ' ! perspiration breaking out upon his fore- ' j head, which he mechanically wiped away | with a cotton liandkerchief. i When the man had concluded, he re- 1 j marked quietly: "I see. It does look against me, no doubt; but as I live, I'm an 1 innocent man, and know no more about this affair than you do. All that Halli- i day says he saw between me and Harriet is true; but I merely tied her with the clothesline to the bed-post, to show I was the strongest, and when she com; menced again abusing me and my mother, I tied a handkerchief over her mouth. But I felt tlidt I was acting like a brute to treat a woman in that way; so : i I soon unloosed her, when she directly ; /v\mmnrinn<l noolr n*\ 1?a?? I i ? * n | wiuimvuwu |/icvaiii^ Up liUl U1 UpO, 111 11 I ! towering rage?as, p'raps, poor woman, ! i I she'd cause to be?declaring she'd go 1 I back to her Uncle Neal's, and never see i j me again. Well, I hardly believed she was ' j in earnest, knowing that, generally, her 1 j bark was worse than her bite; so I sat 1 j smoking, and let her Rtart off with her 1 | carpet-bag; but when she had been gono I about fifteen minutes, I started in her wake, and overhavded her in Tyler's ' Track, just after I passed the doctor on ' the road. I did feel ashamed to look j the doctor in the faco; for I fancied he'd met Harriet, and that she'd naturally explained how she came to be out all alone at that time of night. When I came alongside of her I spoke as mildly as I could; said I was sorry I'd treated her so, and asked lie'r to go back with me, when we'd both try to behave better. But she wouldn't answer mo?wouldn't listen to me; and so I was forced to return alone. I felt so badly about it, nnd so ashamed of myself, that I left Gurnham tho next day without seeing any one." This was the explanation given the officer by Captain Gentry; and this was also, nearly word for word, his testimony j in court, wnen orougnt up lor trial. It was two days previous to that appointed for the final hearing of the case, when a now horror arose in the town of Gurnham. The house of Ezra Gentry was haunted?haunted by the ghost of the murdered woman! There could bo no doubt of tho fact. James Halliday, standing in the dusk at tho door of his house, had seen a pale, uncertain shadow of a woman pass from the house to the well and back again. She hail her throat wrapped around with a white band or cloth; and though he was too distant to see her face, yet the figure and walk were those of Harriet Gentry. Such wero the rumors afloat in Gumham ; and so respectable were the charac- j ters of the witnesses, that even the least superstitious wero forced to admit that j there must be " something " in it. To explain the mystery, and set the | matter at'rest, it was proposed to go in a ! body to the house on the following night (the night before the trial), and fully investigate the whole promises; but only two young men volunteered, and even 1 these declared that they would not go ' unless reinforced by others. And so the t plan was postponed. c The next day was the day ef the t trial. The court house was crowded, the f judge, the jury, the counsel, and the c prisoner all in their places. The pris- ( oner looked pale, but quiet and resigned. 1 tY breathless interest pervaded the as- 8 sembly during the proceedings, until at 8 length the judge commenced delivering a his address to the jury. Scarcely had 1 lie spoken a dozen words when he was 1 interrupted by a commotion without. t There was a rush, a confusion of cries I and exclamations ; and the next moment c there stalked into the court room, and t up towards the judge's seat, the ghost 1 of the Geutry house, the form of the t murdered Harriet Gentry herself?tho i identical form, with the identical face f which nearly the whole concourse had ] scon lying Rtark and cold in death, and < then lowered into tho grave, and covered i over with earth. > The excitement may bo imagined. ^ A.11 rose to their feet; many shrank back, i ind some lied. The ghost staggered 1 forward to the box in which sat tho pris- s oner, laid its thin hand gently on his 1 shoulder, and turning its sunKen eyes i upon the judge, said, in a hollow voice, 1 " Ho is innocent! It was not I who 1 was murdered." e " Who are you ?" inquired the judge, t ip-avely ; for even he had been startled f ioy this unexpected apparition. f " I am Harriet Gentry?his wife ! I i left him, in a pet of ill-temper, to go to I \ friend at a distance. I returned three I .lays ago, wet with the rain, tired and f ill. I haven't been able to leave the i liouse since ; and all whom I spoke to as a they passed the house, fled from me. I t thought it was on acoount of my having j left home as I did, until to-day a good c woman came in and told me everything, i [ couldn't rest then. I got out of bed t rod dressed, and came here." s She spoke these words with difficulty, s 3cc:isionally pressing her hand to her throat, as though it pained her, and 1 was more than once interrupted by a fit s if coughing, such as one may have who 1 is suffering from a violent cold and sore c throat. * r To describe the excitement produced J by this scene would defy description. It * was soon made evident that the woman ? was no ghost, but in reality the living * and breathing Harriet Gentry. Yet, in * this case, who was the murdered woman ? * Hnd a ghost itself appeared in court, it J could not have occasioned more astonish- J ment and bewilderment than was pre- * 1.1 _ 1L5- _ 1 suinvu iii mis simple question. me perfect resemblance of tliifl corpse, in J form and feature, to Harriet Gentry had ' been in itself sufficient to justify overy person who knew her in swearing that it 1 was here; and the identity had been T corroborated by the shawl m which the 8 body had been found wrapped ; and the A rope about its neck, corresponding so | exactly with the clothes-lino in Gentry's * house, and the knife on the floor, show- 8 ing in what manner the rope had been 1 cut. Yet here was Harriet alive ; while 1 a score of persons liad seen the body of j 4 the murdered woman buried in the old ; 1 churchyard, where tlio grave still was ; j as arrrnnged on the day of her burial, i * and presenting no appearance of having 1 been since disturbed. 4 Captain Gentry was, of course, at once 1 set at liberty, and accompanied liis wife f home, where he remained, amusing and 1 attending her with assiduous care. Har- * riet was for some weeks very ill; and, as she slowly mended, people were sur- J prised to find how changed in disposi- J tion she appeared?how patient and * quiet, and how uuwontedly gentle to- 4 wards her husband. But the truth was, 1 that she had received a great shock in the 4 circumstances above related; and, re- ? fleeting how nearly she had been the 1 cause of the death of her husband, who, * but for her timely appearance, must as- ' suredly have been hanged for a crime he hud not committed, her heart was soft- 1 ened towards him. She had, beneath all 1 her irritability, a real regard for her hus- 1 band; and, being in the main a well- 1 meaning woman, it had needed only this to open her eyes to her own faults, and J work a reformation in both temper and ' tongue. And, from this time forth, * Captain Ezra found himsolf a much 1 happier man than ho had ever before 1 been. Just ten voars after the events here related, Fatter Brian, a priest, in Wheeling, was summoned at midnight to visit a man who, the physician said, had not many hours to live. He called himself ] Gustavo Weimar; and the following was 1 the confession which, on his deathbed, he made to the good priest: > About twelve years previous, he said, he had met in London a young woman i who wont by the name of Matilda Roche, i whom ho had marriod. The union was t not a happy one. Matilda was pretty and vain, and her husband jealous. ( Repeatedly ho had remonstrated with e her upon her light conduct and neglect i j of home duties, until at length she j 1 threatened to leave him entirely, and re- ! turn to Londou. She was of a respecta- j t ble family, she said, and being an or- j 1 phan, had, together with a sister named j Harriet, been brought up by a certain ' Uncle Neal," from -whom Bhe had run iway at fourteen, and, to prevent pursuit >r inquiry, had caused a report of her leath to be circulated among her former riends. This had succeeded, and none >f them huh pec ted that she was still % dive. Yet, since her marriage with Weimar, she had become exceedingly mxious to once more see her relatives, ind especially her sister, whom she said vas married, and living in Gum ham. Weimar refused to allow her to leave , lome; and she was equally determined o do so. Many bitter scenes took place >etween them, and at length the wife lisappeared, taking with her a sum of hirty pounds from her husband's desk. This conduct so exasperated Weimar hat he set out in pursuit of her, and vent directly to Gurnham, whither he tut comment sne nau nrsi proceeded. 3e easily traced her thither, and went at nice to the house of Ezra Gentry, to vkich a stranger directed him. This vas past nine o'clock in the evening. As tVeimar knocked at the front door, it v' vas opened by his wife. Upon seeijig iim, she looked more indignant than ilarmed, and, at first, refused to allow iim to enter; but he pushed his way last her. In the discussion that ensued, le learned that she had arrived but one lour before him, had found the house ilint up and deserted, but the back ddbr in locked; and, concluding that the amily would return that night or the 'ollowing day, had entered, and, over:ome with fatigue, had directly gone to >ed, when she was aroused by her husband's knock. She reproached him for ollowing her, bade him leave the house, vherq, she said, he had no right to be, ind refused to give up the money. He hereupon commenced searching her lerson, which she resisted, and a scene if struggling and violence succeeded, n which the woman had nearly gotten he mastery, when Weimar, catching ight of the clothes-line hanging near, ' * leized upon it. " At first," he said, " I thought merey to frighten her by threatening to tranglo her with it ; but no sooner had ' got the rope round her neck than a lemon seemed to possess me. I could 10 more have let loose my strain upon x hat rope than a starving man oould lave refrained from swallowing the meat let Ibcforo him. I killed her; taking a , rind of fiendish joy in witnessing her leatk-ngonies, and yet all the time knowng that I loved her, and would fur a uenme rue tne aeea. ana bo it was ; 'or, from that day to this, I have never mow peace of mind or of conscience." The deed committed, the next care vas to conceal the body. His wife had irought with her merely a valise ; and his and its contents he carefully burned n the fireplace of the bedroom. There vas no time, lie thought, to dig a grave ; ind he was not sufficiently acquainted vitli the premises and the neighborhood o choose a safe place of concealment or the body. Yet he had observed, on lis way to Gurnham, a lonely fend marshy vaste about half a mile from the house, vliere, it occurred to him, he might consent the body, for at least such time as vould allow of his getting far away from ,liat part of the country. And as neither lis wife nor himself were known there? lor, indeed, having both arrived after lark, had been seen sufficiently to be ecognized again?there was apparently 10 danger of the body, if found, being dentified, or of suspicion being directly o himself. The concealment of the body of the nurdered woman effected, the murderer lad lost no time in making his escape rom the nlace?stealthilv crossincr the sountry by night, and striking for the learest railroad. At his own home, no longer menaced him. Bis acquaintances dl knowing the circumstances of his wife's departure, it was easy to satisfy heir inquiries by saying that he had not seen able to discover her. And thus he had lived for ten years, insuspected, and regarded as a good nan and neighbor?he whose hands were dyed with the blood of his own wife. At the request of tho dying man, the ?ood griost forwarded tliis statement to \Irs. Gentry. And thus was at length explained the mystery of the strange iffair which had so long puzzled and bewildered the good people of Gurham. A King in Brooklyn. John King, when called before Justioe Delmar, to answer the oomplaint preferred against him, said to the officer : _ " Now tell the trnth, and that is all I want vou to do." " lou were drnnk, and you know you rere, and you know, and so do all the leighbors know, that you are a subject o the"? " Stop," said King, interrupting the )fficer, " you see that you confute yourlelf, and the judge there can see that pou do, for how, let me ask you. can a ling l?e a subject, eh ?" " Give the officer Ave days to answer hat, John," said the justice, 44 and in :hr meantime you go to Raymond street 1