At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 183: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

172 | AT A GIRL’S MERCY. though it was a dreadful time. Every man who could helped defend the city, and they did it bravely, though the defense was weakened because some of the force had been called away. Well, it seems that since then these dreadful men found out the squire had considerable to do with their defeat, though who told them no one seems to know, and they made up their minds to revenge themselves on him. Oh, it was dreadful, Nell, and for a time we thouvht they would surely win. They took the most cowardly way of doing this, too. - Of course they would do nothing else. Such cowards take some sneaking way of ‘getting even’ with any one they think is doing them an injury. And they got up here one night, a whole body of them, and set the dear old Hall on fire, and, oh, Nell, it was a terrible time. At first they thought there could be nothing saved, it did burn so, but finally they got the fire under con- trol, and put it out without injuring much of any- thing. Every one—excepting the cowards, of course —was so glad, the old Hall seems so a part of the place, and there was no one hurt, only, as I said; the excitement threw Mrs. Courtland into those dread- ful fits of delirium such as she had after the bur- glary. And the old Hall looks natural as ever, ex- cepting the blackened corners where the fire started, and where it leaped up the walls. You cannot imagine what a terrible sight it was, and how every one turned out to help put it out. There is not a soul anywhere around here who doesn’t just love the old Hall and its master and mistress. So they did what they could, and they saved the place, and there is only little damage done. But we are all excited, of course, to find out who was the instigator of the deed. Some think it was some of those government fellows—excuse the liberty, Nell, of this dreadful expression, but I don’t know what else to say—told about the squire, and in some way this mob heard of it. We’re all so glad there was nothing worse. And there you are away off in the midst of the war, and there is Nan, and Ned gone, and nobody home to de- fend us but we to defend each other. Oh, Nell, will the terrible war never stop and let us have the dear 7 oO 7 ie : ; ate * ’ comicbooks.com P ~~ > . ae uy . ¥ tier é ’ . — 2 be: we a — . Ay