| Page | ||
| [CHAPTER I.] | 7 | |
| [CHAPTER II.] | 14 | |
| [CHAPTER III.] | 24 | |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | 33 | |
| [CHAPTER V.] | 44 | |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | 54 | |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | 63 | |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | 74 | |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | 84 | |
| [CHAPTER X.] | 91 | |
| [CHAPTER XI.] | 102 | |
| [CHAPTER XII.] | 114 | |
| [CHAPTER XIII.] | 123 | |
| [CHAPTER XIV.] | 136 | |
| [CHAPTER XV.] | 145 | |
| [CHAPTER XVI.] | 153 | |
| [CHAPTER XVII.] | 162 | |
| [CHAPTER XVIII.] | 173 | |
| [CHAPTER XIX.] | 176 | |
| [CHAPTER XX.] | 183 | |
| [CHAPTER XXI.] | 193 | |
| [CHAPTER XXII.] | 202 | |
| [CHAPTER XXIII.] | 206 | |
| [CHAPTER XXIV.] | 214 | |
| [CHAPTER XXV.] | 225 | |
| [CHAPTER XXVI.] | 235 | |
| [CHAPTER XXVII.] | 241 | |
| [CHAPTER XXVIII.] | 251 | |
| [CHAPTER XXIX.] | 262 | |
| [CHAPTER XXX.] | 272 | |
| [CHAPTER XXXI.] | 283 | |
| [CHAPTER XXXII.] | 288 | |
| [CHAPTER XXXIII.] | 296 |
THE THORN IN THE NEST.
[CHAPTER I.]
"A malady
Preys on my heart, that medicine cannot reach."
Our story opens in spring of 1797, in a sequestered valley in Western Pennsylvania. On a green hillside dotted here and there with stately oaks and elms, and sloping toward the road, beyond which flowed the clear waters of a mountain stream, stood a brick farm-house—large, roomy, substantial; beautiful with climbing vines and flowering shrubs. Orchard, meadow, wheat and corn fields stretched away on either hand, shut in by dense forests and wooded hills; beyond and above which, toward the right, towered the giant Alleghenies; their summits, still white from the storms of the past winter, lying like a bank of snowy clouds against the eastern horizon.
But night drew on apace, the light was fast fading even from the mountain tops, and down in the valley it was already so dark that only the outlines of objects close at hand were discernible as our hero, Kenneth Clendenin, mounted upon Romeo, his gallant steed, entered it from the west and slowly wended his way toward its one solitary dwelling. The road was familiar to both man and horse, and ere long they had reached the gate.
A negro boy perched on the top of the fence, with his hands in his pockets, whistling softly to himself in the dark, broke off suddenly in the middle of his tune, sprang nimbly to the ground and took the bridle, exclaiming, "Ki, Massa Doctah! t'o't dat you and ole Romeo comin' up de road. Ole Aunt Vashti she tole me watch out hyar an' ax you ef you's had yo' suppah, sah?"
"Yes, Zeb, tell her I have and shall want nothing more to-night," answered the traveller, alighting. "Rub Romeo down and give him a good feed."