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Learn more- This is a rural subject, and one of great heart interest. The opening scene depicts the courtship of John Morgan and Bessie Farley. Another suitor of the girl, Luke Henshaw, on his way to call upon Bessie and urge his own suit, seeing the lovemaking of the happy couple, allows his jealousy to overcome his better judgment, and after John has departed, upbraids Bessie for her seeming heartlessness in turning a deaf ear to his own protestations of affection. He then leaves her, vowing vengeance upon his successful rival. As time goes on Luke's bitterness of heart increases, until the constant brooding over his fancied wrongs unbalances his mental equilibrium, and he gradually becomes a morbid, miserable wretch, shunned by his neighbors, and condemned to a life of loneliness and desolation. A year after the wedding of John and Bess, we see them a happy, contented couple with a little bouncing baby boy, living in all the enjoyment or perfect harmony on the little farm they have purchased for their home. But the black cloud of jealousy and envy again hovers over them in the shape of the wretched being who, with mind distraught, once more looks to cast a gloom over the brightness of their lives. Watching his opportunity, when Bessie is on her way back from the field, where John is plowing. Luke thrusts a letter into her hand, recalling the threat of vengeance he made a year before. Enraged beyond endurance at the picture of her happiness, a fiendish idea to destroy the little one, in whom the heart and soul of the father and mother arc centered, possesses him, and he at once begins his devilish work. Meeting a tramp on the road back of his home, he conceives of the idea of bribing that unfortunate to steal the baby of the hated couple and bring it to him, Taking the tramp to his house, he plies him with drink and tempts him with promises of substantial reward to carry out his nefarious purpose. His confederate falls readily into the plan, and, going to the Morgan home, watches his opportunity to carry off the little one. Gaining entrance to the bedroom where the baby is sleeping, he places it in a sack and hastens away, soon delivering it into the eager hands of the demented Luke. Receiving his reward in the shape of a generous roll of bills, the tramp hurries away, leaving the child to its fate. With fiendish exultation, the crazy farmer seizes it and rushes out to his underground cellar. We next see him placing the child in an old chest and locking down the lid. Then, returning to the ground above, he nails down the cellar door, and. laughing with maniacal glee, leaves the poor little one to die slowly of suffocation. Soon after the kidnapping the child's absence is noted by the fond parents, and staggering under the awful blow, the father rushes away to summon his neighbors and spread the alarm. Soon a crowd of friends assemble and the search begins. Again we come upon the tramp, who is discovered by the rescue party as he is counting the money received from the insane farmer, and, losing his head through fear in his guilty heart, he takes to his heels. John and his friends give chase and at last succeed in capturing the hobo, who in abject fear falls upon his knees and begs for mercy at the same time confessing to his share in the infamous act. Dragging him to Luke's house, they confront him with the tramp's accusation. "Well, I did do it," says Luke, "because I hate you both. Go to the cellar below and there you will find your dead child." With the frenzy of despair, the frantic parents, followed by their friends, dash outside to the cellar, break open the door and descend. In desperate haste every nook is scanned till the chest is found. One blow from an axe in the hands of the father smashes the lock, the lid is thrown hack and the precious object of their search is found, but not dead, as was feared. In an ecstasy of delight at the child's recovery, they all return to the room, where the demented farmer is found crouched on the floor strangling an imaginary foe. When he sees the child alive he springs toward it, but is held in check by willing hands. Suddenly, with a wild yell, he rushes out the door, while John, realizing his condition, requests his neighbors not to harm him. Running wildly over the meadow toward the cliffs of the sea, the unfortunate Luke, crazed by jealousy, flings himself over the precipice and is swallowed up in the dark waters of the surging tide. -- The Moving Picture World, September 19, 1908
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