Transcriber's note:
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. Please see the
end of this book for further notes.
THE THORN IN THE NEST
BY
MARTHA FINLEY,
Author of "THE ELSIE BOOKS," "SIGNING THE CONTRACT," "WANTED
A PEDIGREE," "THE MILDRED SERIES," ETC., ETC.
"He puts a thorn in our nest to drive us to the wing, that we may
not be grovellers forever."
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1886,
BY
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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."
"Dat I will, Massa Doctah; I neber 'glects ole Romeo," returned the
lad, vaulting into the saddle and cantering off to the stable, while
the gentleman walked quickly up the path leading to the house.
Within a wood fire burned brightly in the wide chimney of the living
room. An arm-chair stood on each side of the hearth, the master of
the house occupying one, his wife the other, she with her knitting,
he half crouching over the fire, watching the flickering flames in
moody silence.
At a table on the farther side of the room, a little girl was poring
over a book by the light of a tallow candle. She had seemed very
intent upon its pages, but at the first sound of the approaching
footsteps sprang up and ran to open the door.
"At last, Kenneth!" she cried, in a joyous but subdued tone.
"Yes, little sister," he said, laying his hand caressingly for an
instant on her pretty brown hair, and smiling into the bright, dark
eyes. "I'm glad to find you up, I thought you went to bed with the
chickens."
"Not to-night--the last--O Kenneth! Kenneth!" and she burst into
passionate weeping.
"Marian, my little pet sister," he whispered, sitting down and
drawing her to his breast with a tender caress, "try to be cheerful
for mother's sake."
"I will," she answered, hastily wiping away her tears. "I have a
parting present for you, Kenneth," she went on with a determined
effort to seem bright and gay; "a pair of stockings made of my own
lamb's wool, and every stitch knit by my own fingers--I took the last
to-night, and you're to travel in them."
"Many thanks," he said, "my feet will surely keep warm in such hose,
though the nights are still very cool."
"Yes, come nearer to the fire, Kenneth," said the mother, who had
been watching the two, silently, but with glistening eyes.
She was a woman of middle age, gentle mannered, with a low and
peculiarly sweet-toned voice, a tall and stately figure, and a
face that told a story of trial and sorrow borne with patience and
resignation.
Kenneth resembled her strongly in person and manner, he had the same
noble contour of features--the broad high forehead, the large dark
gray eye, keen yet tender in expression.
"Thank you," he said, coming forward and taking his stand upon the
hearth, where the firelight fell full upon his tall, manly form, "its
warmth is by no means unpleasant."
"Sit down, Kenneth; sit down, and take me on your knee," said Marian,
bringing him a chair.
"Are you not growing rather large and heavy for that?" the mother
asked with a slight smile, as Kenneth good-humoredly complied with
the request.
"I'll be bigger and heavier before he has another chance," remarked
the child, putting an arm about Kenneth's neck and gazing wistfully
into his eyes.
"But not too big, never too big, to take your seat here," he
responded, drawing her closer. "Ah, there will be many a lonely hour
when I shall long for my little sister, long to feel her weight upon
my knee, her arm about my neck, just as I feel them now."
"Why do you all talk so much?" queried the older man sharply,
speaking for the first time since Kenneth's entrance, and turning
somewhat angrily toward the little group. "You leave me no peace of
my life with your incessant gabble, gabble."
With the last word he rose and withdrew to an inner room.
No one answered or tried to detain him: the shade of sadness deepened
slightly on the mother's calm face, and Marian's arm tightened its
hold on Kenneth's neck, but no one spoke and the room was very still
for a moment.
Then the mother, glancing at the dial-plate of a tall old-fashioned
clock, ticking in a corner, said, "Marian, my child, it is growing
late, and you will want to be up betimes in the morning."
The little girl, heaving a sigh, reluctantly bade them good-night and
retired.
Kenneth looked after her.
"What a sweet creature she is! what a lovely woman a few years will
make of her," he said; but catching the expression of the mother's
countenance, he ended abruptly, with almost a groan.
She had dropped her knitting in her lap, her face had grown very
pale, her lips quivered, and there was a look of anguish in her eyes.
Kenneth longed to comfort her, but could find no words. He brought a
glass of water and held it to her lips.
She swallowed a mouthful, and as he set the glass down on a stand
by her side, took up her work again with a slight sigh. The spasm
of pain seemed to have passed, and her face resumed its accustomed
expression of patient endurance.
He stood gazing down on her, his eyes full of a wistful tenderness.
"Mother," he said, bending over her and speaking in a voice scarce
raised above a whisper, "our God is very good, very merciful, surely
He will hear our united prayers that it--that fearful curse--may
never light on her."
"His will be done with me and mine," she answered low and
tremulously. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
He turned and paced the room for several minutes, then came back to
her side.
"And I--am I right to go and leave you thus?--alone--unprotected,
if--"
She looked up with a great courage in her noble face. "Yes, go,
Kenneth; I do not fear, and it is best for you and for him. You
forget how fully we have both been convinced of that."
"How brave you are, how strong in faith!" he cried admiringly.
She shook her head in dissent. "You do not know how my heart fails me
at times when I think of my dear boy far away in that Northwestern
Territory fighting his battle with the world among strangers, often
exposed to the pitiless storms, or in danger from wild beasts or
savage Indians; coming home from his long rides over prairies and
through forests, wet, cold, and weary, and finding no one to cheer
him and comfort him."
There were tears in her eyes and in her voice.
"Don't be troubled about me," Kenneth said cheerily, "I am young and
vigorous, and shall rather enjoy roughing it, in the pursuit of my
calling?"
"A noble calling to one who follows it in the right spirit, Kenneth.
Your arrangements are all completed?"
"Yes; we meet at the cross-roads an hour after sunrise."
She gave him a troubled, anxious look, opened her lips as if to
speak, then closed them again.
"What is it, mother?" he asked. "Why should you hesitate to say to me
all that is in your heart?"
"Miss Lamar! I saw her the other day. She is sweet and fair to look
upon, and very winsome in her ways, but--"
The sentence was left unfinished, while her eyes sought his with a
yearning, wistful look.
"I will be on my guard," he said, huskily. "I know that marriage is
not for me--as a physician I am convinced of it as another might not
be--unless--oh, there will come to me, at times, a wild hope that
there may one day be an end to this suspense--this torturing doubt
and fear!"
"Too many years have passed," she answered sadly. "I have no longer
any expectation that it will ever be cleared up this side the grave."
"Do not say it," he entreated, "it must be done! I shall never resign
hope till--I have attained to some certainty; and yet, and yet--in
either case it must be grief of heart to me."
"My poor boy!" she murmured, regarding him with tenderly
compassionate gaze; then after a pause, "Kenneth," she remarked,
"there is little Clendenin about you except the name; you strongly
resemble my mother's family in both disposition and personal
appearance."
"And yet," he said, with a melancholy smile, "there is nothing more
certain than that I am a Clendenin."
"Well," she said, gazing upon him with loving pride, yet with eyes
dim with unshed tears, "it is a family of no mean extraction; and an
honest, pious ancestry is something to be thankful for."