Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

98 AT THE POINT OF THE SWORD. CHAPTER XVIII. AT THE POINT OF THE SWORD. A week passed. | Moses Bluff improved rapidly, his wound proving to be of a nature that was quick to heal. He was able to sit up now, and accepted the ministrations of his fair nurse with a smile of pleasure. In this time these two had grown to be friends— this terrible Union ranger and fair Southern rebel. Bertha was still a bitter little fire-eater, but be- tween her and Bluff, politics had been discussed only in a temperate manner. ‘(Some Southerners may feel that they are right in this war. I will not condemn all,’’ the youth was wont to say. ‘‘Your uncle and aunt have been very kind to me, and I am willing to concede pure motives to such as they.’”’ The boom of guns and crack of conflict -had not been heard in the neighborhood of the farm-house since the eventful time when Fisher’s Hill rang with the crash of arms. No foraging or plundering parties had passed the house, and it seemed that peace and quiet were to once more reign in this part of the valley. : One morning, while Bertha was at work in the frent room, setting things to rights, as her aunt ex- pressed it, she was a little startled at hearing the clatter of hoofs down the flinty Virginia road. Quickly she went to the window and peered out. . A dozen. horsemen were coming, and they. soon reined up before the house. These men wore the Confederate gray, a color that was entirely pleasing in the eye of Bertha McVane. Gomicbooks.co