Scarborough High School - Four Corners Yearbook (Scarborough, ME)

Page 15 text:

FOUR CORNERS 13 Cbe Snowstorm One family lived in Blaine, and one in Glencoe—the families of two brothers. Each had an only child—a son and a daughter—both of the same age. Thus had these cousins grown up before their parents’ eyes, Flora King, a name hallowed of yore, the fairest, and Harry Cameron, the boldest of all the flowers in Blaine and Glencoe. It was now their seventeenth birthday, and Flora was to pass the day in Blaine. Harry was to meet her in the mountains, that he might bring her down the precipitous passes to his father’s hut; and soon they met at the trysting place, a bank of birch trees beneath a cliff that takes its name from the eagles. On their meeting, seemed not to them the whole of Nature suddenly inspired with joy and beauty? From tree roots, where the snow was thin, little flowers, or herbs flower-like, now for the first time were seen looking out as if alive; the trees seemed budding, as if it were already spring; and rare as in that rocky region are the birds of song, a faint trill for a moment touched their cars, and the flutter of a wing. Deep down beneath the snow they listened to the tinkle of rills un¬ reached by the frost, and merry, thought they, was the music of these contented prisoners. The boy starts to his feet, and his keen eye looks along the ready rifle; for his sires had been famous deer-stalkers, and the passion of the chase was in his blood. So! A deer from Dalness, hound-driven, or sullenly astray, slowly bearing his antlers up the glen, then stopping for a moment to snuff the air, then away—awayl The rifle-shot rings dully from the scarce-echoing snow cliffs, and the animal leaps aloft, struck by a certain death-wound. Laboring and lumbering heavily along, the huge animal at last disappears around some rocks at the head of the glen. “Follow me, Floral” the boy hunter cries; and flinging down their plaids they turn their bright faces to the mountain, and away up the glen after the stricken deer. Redder and redder grew the snow, and more heavily trampled, as they wound around the rocks. Yonder is the deer staggering up the mountain, not half a mile off —now standing at bay, as if before his swimming eyes came Fingal, the terror of the forest, whose howl was known to all the echoes and quailed the herd while their antlers were yet afar off. “Rest, Flora, restl While I fly to him with my rifle and shoot him.”

Page 14 text:

12 FOUR CORNERS Rejected, Mrs. Courtlandt made The path of love such thorny treading That pansy-eyed Gertrudis laid Her hand in his in secret wedding. Now jealousy had done her work On Mrs. Courtlandt’s husband, Stephen, Who made a scene denouncing Kirk— A foolish way of getting even; For when he learned his bad mistake He shot himself in deep contrition— A course which only served to make Poor Kirk a mark for worse suspicion. Accused of murder, slandered, grieved,— Our hero ' s case was most distressing When Father Anthony arrived To clear his boy and give his blessing. Though none may doubt that Mr. Beach Can put a plot through all its paces, I wish our novelist would teach A kinder view of Southern Races. For if the Nation’s spirit feeds On everything that ' s said or written, In fine contempt for “lesser breeds” We’ll soon out-Britishize the Briton. P. E. H., ’12.

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14 FOUR CORNERS The boy, maddened by the chase, pressed on, now alone, and thus he was hurried on for miles, till at last he struck the noble quarry, and down sank the antlers in the snow, while the air was spurned by the convulsive beatings of feet. Then leaped Harry upon the red deer and lifted a look of triumph to the mountain-tops. Where is Flora? Harry has forgotten her, and he is alone—he and the deer, an enormous animal, fast stiffening in the frost of death. Some large flakes of snow are in the air, and they seem to waver and whirl, though an hour ago there was not a breath. Faster they fall and faster; the flakes are as large as leaves; and overhead, whence so suddenly has come that huge yellow cloud? “Flora, where are you? Where are you, Flora?” and from the huge animal the boy leaps up and sees that no Flora is at hand. But yonder is a moving speck, far off upon the snow. ’Tis she! Shrill as the eagle’s cry, he sends a shout down the glen, and Flora is at last by his side. Panting and speechless she stands, and then diz¬ zily sinks at his feet. Her hair is ruffled by the wind, her face moist¬ ened by the snowflakes, now not falling but driven. Her shivering frame misses the warmth of the plaid, which almost no cold can penetrate. What would the miserable boy give now for the coverings lying far away, which in his foolish passion he had flung down to chase that fatal deer? “Oh, Flora, if you would not fear to stay here by yourself, under the protection of God, soon would I go and come from the place where our plaids are lying; aud under the shelter of the deer we may be able to outlive the hurricane.” “I will go with you down the glen, Harry.” But, weak as a day- old lamb, she tottered and fell down in the snow. The cold had chilled her very heart, after the heat of that long race, and it was manifest that here she must be for the night, to live or die. “I will go, and leave you with God,” said Harry; and he went and came as if he had been endowed with eagle’s wings. All at once Harry lifted Flora in his arms, and walked up the glen. Some walls of what had once been a house, he had suddenly remem¬ bered were but a short way off. There it was—a snowdrift at the open¬ ing that had once been a door; the wood of the roof had been carried off for fuel, and the snowflakes were falling in, as if they would soon fill the imide of the ruin. The snow in front was all trampled, as if by