The Ladies' Magazine.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2230, 24 October 1908, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Ladies' Magazine.

ROMANCES OF UNEXPECTED FORTUNES. HOW GEORGE HARLAND BECAME A MILLIONAIRE.

“Eire!” The cry rang -out with eta riling suddenness in the silent streets ol' New York, at an early hour of a March morning in 1861, as George Harland was hurrying home to his lodging® from his work as compositor in the “Tribune” office. It was the hour between dark and dawn, when the streets were deserted save for a few homeward stragglers returning, like George Harland, lrom their night’s work, and the few who were starting for a new day’s labor while the great city' was still wrapped in slumbers.

But at the magic of that terrible word, “Fire!” the silent streets seemed to wake into life. Windows were thrown open, at which startled faces appeared; half-dressed figures emerged from hundreds of doorways; the word passed from lip to lip in increasing volume, until the streets, for and near, were -full of shouts of “Eire!” and the sound of hurrying feet.

the terrible illumination. There was no need to ask in what direction the fire lay. The s'ky to the north was already a flaming, palpitating red, against which clouds of dense smoke rose and rolled, lit up hy myriads of flying sparks; and, as he raced with the crowd, Harland could already hear the roar of the destroying flames and the distant shouts of the excited onlookers.

There was tragedy in the air, and as he ran breathlessly, as if his own life depended on the fleetness of his feet, a mighty fear, amounting to ■almost a conviction, smote the young compositor. What if the flames were destroying the hotel in which the girl, Elsie Manner, who had promised to be his wife in the coming June, and of whom he had been thinking when the horrible cry broke into bis delightful reverie, earned her modest livelihood!

The torturing fear lent wings to liis feet, which seemed ft (hod with lead, so slowly, to his disordered fancy, they seemed to move. As the roar of the flames grew nearer, and lie felt their hot breath in his face, his fears grew to an appalled certainty, for his steps wore taking him, straight as an arrow, to the hotel which sheltered all he held dearest in life ; and in a few moments more the sight he most dreaded to see burst into view.

THE DEATH TRAP. Breathless, exhausted, with his heart beating like the throbs of a mighty engine, he found himself on the fringe of a dense, excited, awestruck crowd, beyond which towered a huge building literally sheeted in fire—flames which roared and leaptin the fury of destruction, through' and round the hotel in which was Elsie. Perhaps she was saved already, was the thought that for a brief moment thrilled him with a revulsion of joy. “Are they all out?” he excitedly asked those who stood nearest, impotent onlookers at the tragedy. “All except those at the window,” was the answer; and ,looking in the direction indicated, he saw a huddled, terrified group of women gathered at a fourthfloor window. A glance, distant as it was, told him that one of the white, terror-stricken faces at the window was the face he loved most on earth. She was doomed, he could see, to a horrible death before his eyes. If she were to- die he would at least perish with her. A HERO’S RESOLVE. With a cry of the women !” which rang high above the roar of the flames, lie plunged into the dense mass of humanity which blocked the way to Else. He seemed, in that supreme moment, to possess the strength of a dozen men, for the closely-pac'ked mass divided before his onward rush, until lie found himself at its inner verge, with a clear space between him and the darting tongues which scorched his face. «There was nothing now but the flames between him and Elsie. As he dashed forward from the crowd scores of hands tried to- seize him and hurl him-' back but he shook them off as if they were so many flies, and with cries of “Madman!” “Stop him!” ringing in his ears, lie plunged into tlie blazing bu-ilding_covcring as lie went, his head ivith his coat as a protection, however poor, against the flames and .the suffocating smoke. THE RESCUE. His clothes were now aflame, the fire seemed' to be running through his very veins, when faint calls for help came to his ears. They grew nearer and nearer as he struggled onward. Flinging open the door of -a. room from' which they seemed to proceed, he found to his delight that he had reached his goal at’ last. The room was black with smoke, hut through it lie could see white-robed figures. “Elsie ! .Elsie!” he cried ; “I’ve'come to'save you!” and in a moment, with a- cry of joy, the girl was in his arms. Snatching her from the window he made for the stairs, Down, down, he plunged ; he sfity nothing, felt noth-

ing, until there came a rush oi cooler air, and with a. last desperate effort ho bore his burden out of the Gehenna of fire into the open. While hundreds of helpers ran forward to his assktencc, and with the tremendous cheers from ten thousand lungs in his ears, he gently laid his burden on the ground and removed the coat to gaze on the face of the dear one he had thus, by a miracle, restored to life. A moment, of horrified stillness folio we d; then an agonised cry rang out, as lie fell insensible by her side. The girl whom he had risked his life to save was not Elsie; it was another, whose face he had never seen before! THE SEQUEL. Such was the dramatic opening of one of the most remarkable human dramas in which love and fortune ever played the leading roles, the curtain on the concluding scene of which was rung down a few years ago under conditions as dramatic as its opening. For weeks Harland lay in the hospital hovering between life and death -—in fact, eo serious were his injuries, the 11 rice he paid for his fruitless heroism, that' liis recovery rvas one of the medical marvels of the time. Every day there appeared at the hospital a pretty and fashionable attired young lady with a tribute of flowers or fruit or invalid’s delicacies, and with an inquiry as to liis progress towards recovery. Only that; but the message helped to brighten many a dark hour of suffering and to brace the hero for t-lic stern fight for life. DAYS OF SUFFERING. How dark and bitter these hours were may bo imagined when to all his bodily pain was added the grief of the terrible news which was broken to him as gently as possible, that among the victims of the fire Avas the girl who Avas so soon to haA’e been bis wife, and Aviiom, by his splendid heroism, lie thought- he bad saA'cd. By a curious coincidence, as lie learnt at the same time, the girl avlio really owed her life to him AA'as anothei Elsie, the only daughter of a Avealtliy ranchman, avlio was staying at the hotel on the night of the tragedy. Some time before Harland Avas able to leave tlie hospital, the daily inquiries of the “other Elsie,” to AA’hick he had begun to look - forAvard to eagerly, suddenly ceased, Avithout a word of explanation. WAR. It AA'as another and very different world into which ho. iiotv emerged from that he had left. The stormclouds had filled tlie sky Avliile he had been lying on his bed of pain; tliei air was full of tlie sounds of Avar, the tramping of armed hosts, and the boom of cannon. Every possible recruit Avas Avan ted to feed the flames of ciA T il A\ r ar, which bad broken out botween the North and the South, and Harland Avas among the first to find a neAv field for liis heroism as a soldier in the Union army. In liis- first battle that of Bull Ilun —he Avas badly wounded; but lie recovered to fight again and again, A\*inning laurels by hi* valour at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. When at last the Avar Avas over, Harland, broken, in health and crip* pled by liis wounds, fell on evil days. No longer able to do compositor’s work, he wandered from one State to, another, picking up a livelihood as best he could by any kind of menial labor; and after years of Avandefing and hardship came to an anchorage in lowa., where he married the widoAV of a small farmer, and settled down as proprietor of a country grocery store, stocked with the capital his Avife brought him. THE GIRL WHO LIVED.

Meanwhile, what had become of tlie girl whose life he had so gallantly saved, and who had disappeared so strangely and, as it seemed, so ungratefully? The reason for her sudden disappearance was as simple as it was inevitable. She had received a summons to the death-bed of her father-—a summons so urgent and unexpected that she had not time even to pay a farewell call at the hospital where her hero was lying. A few weeks later her father had died, leaving her a large fortune ; and her first journey after his death had been to New York, where she found, to her dismay that her rescuer had flown — where, no one knew.

So far from forgetting him she intended to provide liberally for his future. She searched for him everywhere, but could find no -trace of him; and it was only some years later, when she became the Avifc of a Avealthy man in Chicago, that slic abondoued her search as useless. iHS REWARD.

One June day, in 1896, a stranger called at Harland’s small .-store in lowa. “Is your name George Harland?” he asked of the grizzled old soldier behind the counter. “That’s rny name, sir.” “And are you the man,” tlie stranger continued, “who saved a young lady from an hotel fire in March, 186.1?” “Tlio same, sir,” replied the storekeeper, modestly. “Well, sir,” said the unknown, I guess your the man I’ve been trying to find for the last two years ; and right glad I am I’ve run you to earth at last. Sir, I congratulate you; you

are a fortunate man,” And then, to the astonished cars of the shopkeepor, he unfolded liis story —lioav the girl Harland had saved so heroically had hunted far. and Avide for him for years; lioav, even Avlien she married and became a woman of wealth and fashion, she had always remembered him Avith gratitude; and lioav, Avlien she had died two years earlier, a childless widow, she had left -all her estate, valued at over 2,000,000d015. to one “George Harland, if lie should ever be found, avlio saved my life and lost that of thegirl ho loA r ed in - the fire at the • —— Hotel, in Noav York, in March, 1861.” “Mary,” said the storekeeper, as, Avith tears streaming tknvn liis cheek®, lie put liis arm round the Avaist of his Avife, avlio had come into the store in time to hear this remarkable story, “Mary, ray girl, Ave’re rich at last; to-morrow you shall have tho finest silk gown I can buy in De® Moines.”