|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 83
Sir Everhard FitzArmond picked up the paper and read its contents. It
was Lord Oakhurst's will, bequeathing all his property to a scientific
institution which should have for its object the invention of a means
for extracting peach brandy from sawdust.
Sir Everhard glanced quickly around the room. No one was in sight.
Dropping the will, he rapidly transferred some valuable ornaments and
rare specimens of gold and silver filigree work from the centre table to
his pockets, and rang the bell for the servants.
III--THE CURSE
Sir Everhard FitzArmond descended the stairway of Oakhurst Castle and
passed out into the avenue that led from the doorway to the great iron
gates of the park. Lord Oakhurst had been a great sportsman during his
life and always kept a well-stocked kennel of curs, which now rushed out
from their hiding places and with loud yelps sprang upon the physician,
burying their fangs in his lower limbs and seriously damaging his
apparel.
Sir Everllard, startled out of his professional dignity and usual
indifference to human suffering, by the personal application of feeling,
gave vent to a most horrible and blighting CURSE and ran with great
swiftness to his carriage and drove off toward the city.
BEXAR SCRIP NO. 2692
[From The Rolling Stone, Saturday, March 5, 1894.]
Whenever you visit Austin you should by all means go to see the General
Land Office.
As you pass up the avenue you turn sharp round the corner of the court
house, and on a steep hill before you you see a medieval castle.
You think of the Rhine; the "castled crag of Drachenfels"; the Lorelei;
and the vine-clad slopes of Germany. And German it is in every line of
its architecture and design.
The plan was drawn by an old draftsman from the "Vaterland," whose heart
still loved the scenes of his native land, and it is said he reproduced
the design of a certain castle near his birthplace, with remarkable
fidelity.
Under the present administration a new coat of paint has vulgarized its
ancient and venerable walls. Modern tiles have replaced the limestone
slabs of its floors, worn in hollows by the tread of thousands of feet,
and smart and gaudy fixtures have usurped the place of the time-worn
furniture that has been consecrated by the touch of hands that Texas
will never cease to honor.
But even now, when you enter the building, you lower your voice, and
time turns backward for you, for the atmosphere which you breathe is
cold with the exudation of buried generations.
The building is stone with a coating of concrete; the walls are
immensely thick; it is cool in the summer and warm in the winter; it is
isolated and sombre; standing apart from the other state buildings,
sullen and decaying, brooding on the past.
Twenty years ago it was much the same as now; twenty years from now the
garish newness will be worn off and it will return to its appearance of
gloomy decadence.
People living in other states can form no conception of the vastness and
importance of the work performed and the significance of the millions of
records and papers composing the archives of this office.
The title deeds, patents, transfers and legal documents connected with
every foot of land owned in the state of Texas are filed here.
Volumes could be filled with accounts of the knavery, the
double-dealing, the cross purposes, the perjury, the lies, the bribery,
the alteration and erasing, the suppressing and destroying of papers,
the various schemes and plots that for the sake of the almighty dollar
have left their stains upon the records of the General Land Office.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|