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Tales of Trail and Town

Chapter 2 2

Word Count: 3448    |    Released on: 28/11/2017

he country until one summer afternoon when his carriage rolled alon

can in his personality, that it awakened interest. A recognition that he was a foreigner, but a puzzled doubt, however, of his exact nationality, which he found everywhere, at first pained him, but he became reconciled to it at about the same time that his English acquaintances abandoned their own reserve and caution before the greater reticen

u say he has absolutely no other

on of any claim which might arise out of this information. It is rather a singular

uite sure he i

establish a legal marriage he could expect nothing as next of kin, as you had children of your

kinship and all that sort o

an interview with you, but he seemed to think it quite unn

Lady Atherly can bring in some people to see him. Is h

e is no resemblance to Mr. Philip," he said, glancing at the painting of

oes," said Sir Edward with an Englishman's tolerant regard for the vagaries of

est in the family, and being rich, and apparently only anxious to enhance the family prestige,

ckly; "we'll have him down here

ntinued Sir Edward, "there was a girl too,

has left he

hott and Sir Roger and old Lady Everton,-she knows all ab

, I should sa

ve Lady Elfrida ove

in the West and on the Atlantic coast, but not to his own individuality, and he seemed even more a stranger here-where he had expected to feel the thrill of consanguinity-than in the West. He had accepted the invitation of the living Atherly for the sake of the Atherlys long dead and forgotten. As the great quadrangle of stone and ivy lifted itself out of the park, he looked longingly towards the little square tower which peeped from betwe

wn in the few words of greeting with Sir Ashley, and in his later simple yet free admissions regarding his obscure youth, his former poverty, and his present wealth. He boasted of neither; he was disturbed by neither. Standing alone, a stranger, for the first time in an assemblage of distinguished and titled men and women, he betrayed no consciousness; surrounded for the first time by objects which he knew his wealth could not buy, he showed the most unmistakable indifference,-the indifference of temperament. The ladies vied with each other to attack this unimpressible nature,-this prof

chyard, where, oddly enough, the green earth heaved into little billows as if to show the turbulence of that life which those who lay below them had lately quitted. It was a relief to the somewhat studied and formal monotony of the well-ordered woodland,-every rood, of which had been paced by visitors, keepers, or p

isle and vaulted roof; there was an earthy odor, as if the church itself, springing from the fertilizing dust below, had taken root in the soil; the chequers of light from the faded stained-glass windows fell like the flicker of leaves on the pavement. He paused before the cold altar, and started, for beside him lay the recumbent figure of a warrior pillowed on his helmet with the paraphernalia of his trade around him. A sudden childish memory of the great Western plains, and the biers of the Indian "braves" raised on upright poles against the staring sky and above the sunbaked prairie, rushed upon him. There, too, had lain the weapons of the departed chieftain; there, too, lay the Indian's "faithful hound

the uncompromising and material freshness of English girlhood. The wild rose in the hedgerow was not more tangible than her cheek, nor the summer sky more clearly cool and blue than her eyes. The vigor of health and unfettered freedom of limb was in her figure from her buckled walking-shoe to her brown hair

be careful what he SAID, for some of her own people were there,-manifestly this one. (She put the toe of her buckled shoe on the crusader Peter had just looked at.) And then there was another in the corner. So she had a right to come there as well as he,-and she could act as cicerone! This one was a De Brecy, one of King John's knights, who married an Atherly. (She swung herself into a half-sitting posture on the effi

appeared to talk with greater freedom to a stranger than an American girl would,-that she at once popped off the cr

feat. The tablet was supported on the one side by a weeping Fame, and on the other by a manacled North American Indian. She stammered and

y-a still more wild and terrible idea sprang up in his fancy. He knew it was madness, yet for a moment he could only stand and grapple with it silently and breathlessly. It was to seize this young and innocent girl, this witness of his disappointment, this complacent and beautiful type of all they valued here, and bear her away-a prisoner, a hostage-he knew not why-on a galloping horse in the dust of the prairie-far beyond the seas! It was only when he saw her cheek flush and pale, when he saw her staring at him with helpless, frightened, but fascinated eyes,-the eyes of the fluttering bird under the spell of the rattlesnake,-that he drew his breath and turned bewildered away. "And do you know, dear," she said with naive si

trict. It determined his resolution, which for a moment at the church porch had wavered under the bright eyes of Lady Elfrida. He telegraphed

is popularity and won his election, are details that do not belong to this chronicle of his quest. And tha

opposite doors, the crowd fell back, and five figures stalked majestically into the centre of the room. They were the leading chiefs of an Indian reservation coming to pay their respects to their "Great Father," the President. Their costumes were a mingling of the picturesque with the grotesque; of tawdriness with magnificence; of artificial tinsel and glitter with the regal spoils of the chase; of childlike vanity with barbaric pride. Yet before these the glittering orders and ribbons of the diplomats became dull and meaningless, the unifor

speak with you. Come on! Here's your chance! You may be put on the Committee on Indian Relations, and pick up a few facts. Remember we want a firm policy; no more palaver about the

bered the figure of the Indian on the tomb at Ashley Grange, and felt a slig

nstinctively. At a gesture from Gray Eagle the interpreter said: "Let your friend

efs. A few guttural words followed to the interpreter, who turned, and facing Peter with the monotonous impassiveness which he ha

lip Atherly!" said Peter, with an

to Grey Eagle, who, after a guttura

te woman. She was captured with an Englishman, but she became the wife of the chief while in captivity. She was only released before the birth of her children, but a year or t

ther, big Injin, take common white squaw! Papoose no good,-too much white squaw

ed in time to catch

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