The Night Riders. Henry Cleveland Wood
price, by
LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 263–265 Wabash Avenue, CHICAGO
"A fence between makes love more keen."
The Night Riders
A Thrilling Story of Love,
Hate and Adventure, graphically depicting the
Tobacco Uprising in Kentucky
BY
HENRY C. WOOD
"Who warms in his bosom the eggs of hatred hatches a nest of snakes."
CHICAGO
Laird & Lee, Publishers
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1908,
By William H. Lee,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington, D. C.
DRAMATIC RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.
Preface
The author has cleverly interwoven a tale of absorbing heart interest with a graphically depicted view of the present Tobacco Troubles in Kentucky and the exciting times when the people formed into bands, known as THE NIGHT RIDERS, to protest against what they considered the unjust tax of the Toll Gate System. These protests were of a strenuous nature, not unlike those of the tobacco-growing section today, and as the characters in the story are real, live beings, who did things, the reader's interest never flags.
THE PUBLISHERS.
CHAPTER I.
The early morning sunlight entered boldly through the small panes of glass into the kitchen of the toll-house and fell in a checkered band across the breakfast table set against the sill of the one long, low window.
The meal was a simple one, plainly served, but a touch of gold and purple—royal colors of the season—was given it by a bunch of autumn flowers, golden-rod and wild aster, stuck in a glass jar set on the window sill.
A glance at the two seated at each end of the narrow table would have enabled one to decide quickly to whom was due this desire for ornamentation, for the mother was a sharp-featured, rather untidy-looking woman, on whom the burden of hard work and poverty had laid certain harsh lines not easily eradicated, while the daughter's youth and comeliness had overcome them as a fine jewel may assert its beauty despite a cheap setting.
The sun's lambent rays, falling across the girl's shapely head and shoulders, touched to deeper richness the auburn hair, gathered in a large, loose coil, that rested low upon her neck, and also accentuated the clear, delicately-tinted complexion like a semi-transparency that is given rare old china when the light illumines it.
The meal was eaten almost in silence, but toward the end of the breakfast Mrs. Brown looked up suddenly, her cup of coffee raised partly to her lips, and said, in her querulous treble:
"Sally, Foster Crain says aigs air fetchin' fo'hteen an' a half cents in town. Count what's stored away in the big gourd, when you git through eatin', an' take 'em in this mornin'."
"How am I to go?" asked her daughter, looking up from her plate. "Joe's limping from that nail he picked up yesterday."
"Likely somebody'll be passin' the gate that'll give you a seat. The Squire may be along soon." A certain inflection crept into the speaker's voice.
"I'll walk," announced Sally, with sudden determination. "It's cool and pleasant, and I'd as soon walk as ride."
The mother looked across furtively to where her daughter sat.
"I don't see what makes you so set ag'in the Squire," she said, plaintively, a few moments later, as if she had divined her daughter's unuttered thoughts.
"He's an old fool!" declared Sally, promptly.
"An' it strikes me that you're somethin' of a young one!" retorted her mother sharply.
The girl made no answer, save a perceptible shrug of her pretty shoulders, and soon afterward got up and began to clear away the breakfast dishes. Mrs. Brown sighed deeply.
"Most girls would be powerful vain to have the Squire even notice 'em," the mother continued, in a more persuasive tone, as a sort of balm offering to the girl's wounded feelings. She placed her cup and saucer in her plate and put back a small piece of unused butter on the side of the butter dish, then slowly arose from the table.
"It's seldom a po' gyurl has such a good chance to better her condition, if she was only willin' to do so," she continued argumentatively, for the subject was a favorite theme with her, and she had rung its changes for the listener's benefit on more than one occasion. She gave her daughter a sidelong glance—partly of inquiry, partly of reproach—and turned to her work.
Sally, with something like an impatient jerk, lifted from the stove the steaming kettle and poured a part of the hot contents into the dish-pan on the table, but she made no answer, though soon the clatter of tins and dishes—perhaps they rattled a little louder than usual—mingled as a sort of accompaniment to the reminiscent monologue that Mrs. Brown carried on at intervals during her work.
"It's all owin' to the Squire's kindness an' interest in us that we're fixed this comfortable, for, dear knows I'd never got the toll-gate in the first place if it hadn't been for his influence, an' now, if you'd only give him any encouragement at all, you might be a grand sight better off. Such chances don't grow as thick as blackberries in summer, I can tell you."
The dishes and tins rattled angrily, but Sally said not a word.
"About the only good showin' a poor gyurl has in this world is to marry as well as she can, an' when she neglects to do this, she's got nobody to blame but herself—not a soul."
Sally had the dishes all washed and laid in a row on the table to drain, and now she caught them up, one by one, and began to polish away vigorously, as if the effort afforded a certain relief to her feelings, since she had chosen to take refuge in silence.
"S'posin' he is old an' ugly," soliloquized Mrs. Brown, abruptly breaking into speech again, and seemingly addressing her remarks to the skillet she was then cleaning, and which she held up before her and gazed into intently, as a lady of fashion might do a hand