Page 101
THE ORDEAL
A MOUNTAIN ROMANCE OF TENNESSEE
BY
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
AUTHOR OF
"THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA,"
"THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS,"
"THE FAIR MISSISSIPPIAN," ETC.
WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY
DOUGLAS DUER
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1912
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
Transcriber's Notes:
This paragraph in Chapter II. is obviously a printer's error:
Here they found a change of sentiment prevailing. Although failing in no observance of courtesy, Mrs. Briscoe had been a little less than complaisant toward the departed guest. This had been vaguely perceptible to Briscoe at the time, but now she gency constrained him."
In addition, a Table of Contents has been created for the convenience of the reader.
Contents
THE ORDEAL
Nowhere could the idea of peace be more serenely, more majestically, expressed. The lofty purple mountains limited the horizon, and in their multitude and imposing symmetry bespoke the vast intentions of beneficent creation. The valley, glooming low, harbored all the shadows. The air was still, the sky as pellucid as crystal, and where a crag projected boldly from the forests, the growths of balsam fir extending almost to the brink, it seemed as if the myriad fibres of the summit-line of foliage might be counted, so finely drawn, so individual, was each against the azure. Below the boughs the road swept along the crest of the crag and thence curved inward, and one surveying the scene from the windows of a bungalow at no great distance could look straight beyond the point of the precipice and into the heart of the sunset, still aflare about the west.
But the realization of solitude was poignant and might well foster fear. It was too wild a cou