The Thorn in the Nest

"Help! help!" she shrieked wildly till the woods rang again with the sound, and striking madly at him with the whip.

She was answered instantly by the Indian warwhoop close at hand, and half a dozen savages, armed with rifles and tomahawks, sprang out from the wood, not a hundred yards away.

Wolf, having left his gun leaning up against a tree at some little distance, was unarmed except the hunting knife in his belt, and seeing himself about to be overpowered by numbers, fled with the utmost precipitation, plunging into the forest and instantly disappearing in its depths.

Nell, not knowing whether to look upon the red men as friends or foes, felt her heart leap into her mouth, expecting to be tomahawked and scalped on the spot; but the next moment, recognizing in the foremost warrior her friend Wawillaway, she uttered a cry of joy.

"Very bad white man," he said coming up to her, "want killee you."

"No, I hope not," she said carefully steadying her voice, "but I am so glad, so glad you came and drove him away, Wawillaway. Oh, you have done me a greater service to-day than even the killing of the panther!" she added with an irrepressible shudder.

It was long before Nell ventured again beyond the limits of the town without a protector; but fearing Wolf's vengeance upon her brother, should he bring the ruffian to punishment, as he undoubtedly would should he hear of this day's peril to her, she carefully concealed the occurrence, exacting a promise from her Indian friend to do the same.

CHAPTER XIII

At about the same time that Nell Lamar met with her adventure with Wolf, important events were transpiring at Glen Forest.

Mrs. Clendenin was summoned away to a distance from home by the serious illness of a sister of her late husband. Ignorant of the precise nature of the disease, she was unwilling to expose Marian to it, and though almost equally reluctant to leave her behind, decided upon that as the safer course.

So with much tender, motherly counsel bestowed upon this child of her love, and many an injunction to Vashti to watch over her darling, she took her departure.

The young girl felt inexpressibly lonely without the mother who had been to her friend, teacher and almost sole companion, everything in one, for they had led a very secluded life, paying and receiving few visits; indeed, seldom going anywhere but to church, except that Marian took many a ramble and many a ride on her pony through the adjacent woods and over the nearer hills, usually unaccompanied save by Caius, a huge mastiff who had hitherto proved a most efficient protector.

Mrs. Clendenin had indeed never been neglectful of the Christian duty of ministering to the sick and suffering so far as lay in her power, and Marian was in this regard following in her mother's footsteps.

A mile away over the eastern hills lived two elderly maiden ladies, Esther and Janet Burns, the one a paralytic, the other feeble and nearly blind from cataract.

They had a farm, the rent of which yielded them a support, but their lives were lonely, and Marian's visits were a great boon.

She had fallen into the habit of going over almost daily to Woodland, as their place was called, and spending an hour in reading to them from the works of one or another of her favorite authors.

The Clendenins had been for generations great lovers of books, and the library at Glen Forest, though what would be considered small and of little value in these days, was large and select compared with those of their neighbors.

Marian continued her visits to Woodland after her mother had gone, and, because she found it so much less lonely there than at home, sometimes lingered half the day, to the great content of the Misses Burns.

They would gladly have induced her to take up her abode with them during her mother's absence, but to that she would by no means consent; home was home after all, and though it might be pleasant to spend a part of the day elsewhere, when night came she wanted to be in her own familiar room, with old Vashti within call.

On Sunday Marian always attended service in the little country church spoken of in a former chapter.

The neighborhood was a very quiet one, few coming or going, the same faces showing themselves in the sanctuary Sunday after Sunday, and the sight of a new one was always a source of no little interest; it may therefore be supposed that the advent among them, a week after Mrs. Clendenin set out on her journey, of a fine looking young man, a total stranger, well dressed, and of serious and gentlemanly deportment, created some little stir and excitement; especially among the younger portion of the congregation.

He sat in the pew of Mr. George Grimes, who kept the nearest inn, the sign of the Stag and Hounds, and the services had not been over many minutes before every one knew that he had engaged board there for a month, and that he was an Englishman, apparently wealthy, having brought a valet with him.

The congregation had passed out into the churchyard, and a subdued hum of voices exchanging neighborly greetings and inquiries after each other's health, mingled pleasantly with the twittering of birds, the sighing of the wind through the forest, and the low murmur of the stream on the farther side of the road.

The stranger stood aside, looking on and listening with a well bred air of kindly interest.

"Who is that, Grimes?" he asked, his eye following admiringly a graceful girlish figure as it tripped past them down the path that led out to the road where the horses were tied, and, with the assistance of one of the young men, who stepped eagerly forward to give it, sprang lightly into the saddle.

"Miss Marian Clendenin, of Glen Forest, Mr. Lyttleton: one of the prettiest young ladies in the county, if I'm a judge o' beauty," replied Grimes, lifting his hat to the fair girl.

"She sits her horse well," remarked the stranger, still following her with his eyes as she cantered away in the direction of her home, Caius bounding nimbly on by the pony's side. "But she seems quite alone, is there no more of the family?"

"Most of 'em lie yonder," replied Grimes, pointing to a row of graves not far from the spot where they stood. "Children all died young but this girl and an older brother who went West years ago. Father died within the last year, and the mother's away nursing a sick sister, I hear."

Lyttleton seemed interested, asked several more questions, walked over to the graves and carefully read the inscriptions on the tombstones; Grimes standing by his side and going on with much garrulity to tell all he knew or had ever heard of the family, and that was not a little, for he was a great gatherer and retailer of news, for which few had better opportunities.

He spoke of the late Mr. Clendenin as a man of singularly secluded habits, upright and honest in all his dealings, but strangely averse to the society of his kind.

"And I suppose," he added, "that's what has kept his wife and daughter pretty much shut up at home: at any rate the girl's never seen at a cornhusking or quilting, or any sort o' merry making, and the young fellows never get a chance to wait on her. About the only place she does go to is Woodland, to read to those poor sickly old ladies; but she's there every day I'm told."

"She is then of a literary turn, this young heroine of yours?" sneered the stranger interrogatively.

"That's just what she is, sir, so I've heard on good authority, they're a bookish family." And as they rode homeward Grimes went on to expatiate at length upon Marian's reputed literary tastes and acquirements.

"You are a good trumpeter," remarked Lyttleton. "Pray tell me, are the Clendenins wealthy?"

"Glen Forest's a valuable place, and there's only the two of them, as I told you, after the mother dies."

"And the son doesn't get it all, as is usually the way with us?"

"No: and I dare say there's money laid by, too."

The next afternoon Marian, reading to her friends in the wide, cool porch that ran along the front of the house at Woodland, saw a horseman coming leisurely along the road, as, looking up from her book, she sent a casual glance in that direction.

"It is the English gentleman," she said in a low tone, as he drew rein at the gate.

It was long since either Esther or Janet Burns had been able to go to church, and Monday's visit from Marian was anticipated with even more than ordinary eagerness because of the detailed account she would bring of all she had seen and heard the previous day. Of course she had not, on this occasion, omitted to mention the stranger in Grimes's pew.

"Where, my dear?" asked purblind Janet, straining her eyes in a vain effort to see him. "Is he riding? I surely heard horse's hoofs."

"Yes, and he is alighting at the gate," said her sister. "What can he want here? Marian, child, will you call Kitty to see what he wishes?"

"I'se here, missus," the girl answered for herself, coming round the corner of the house. "What do you want, sah?" hurrying down the path to meet the approaching stranger.

"I am very thirsty and would be thankful for a glass of milk or cold water, my good woman," he answered, lifting his hat to the ladies.

At that Miss Janet stepped forward and hospitably invited him to come in and rest himself for a little, remarking that the day was very sultry and he must have found the heat of the sun very oppressive.

"I have indeed, madame," he said, accepting the offered kindness with alacrity, and stealing a glance of mingled curiosity and admiration at the fresh, blooming face of the young girl guest. "I think the sun shines with a fiercer heat here than in Europe, and if I do not intrude shall be very glad to rest in this shady nook until he approaches somewhat nearer his setting."

Both the sisters assured him he was welcome, and Kitty was directed to bring a glass of morning's milk and some home-made cake for his refreshment.

The Misses Burns were good, simple-minded, unsuspicious women, Lyttleton an accomplished man of the world, thoroughly unscrupulous and selfish, but able, when it suited his purpose, as it did on this occasion, to conceal his true character by polished manners and a most pleasing and insinuating address.

He was a fluent talker and knew how to adapt his conversation to those with whom he was thrown, in whatever station in life.

He addressed the older ladies almost exclusively, but his eyes continually sought Marian's face, which glowed with interest and intelligence.