Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

6) WHA'T THE MOON SAW ON THE OLD STONE PIKE. Bevo eeretty officers they are, indeed, » with a sneer, “Captain—I didn’t catch his name, and Major de Banyan. I presume he’s some cashiered officer of the British Army. What shall Ido? Things are at such sixes and sevens here to-day, that I can scarcely ask any of these people, whom I now regard in the light of enemies, to take a hand in this matter. ‘There are but two of them, and I fancy one honest, determined inan is more than their match. PI arm myself and essay the adventure alone. Heaven will surely assist the side of justice and humanity.’’ Royal Chetwood looked every inch the man he was. ; Handsome, stalwart, athletic—a true specimen of nature’s nobleman. Well might beauty’s eye be attracted to him: Young, it is true, but none the less able to rise to the level of any emergency. On a particularly lonesome stretch of the old stone turnpike leading north from Charleston, about the hour of eleven, stood a broad-shouldered young man, his attention strained in the direction of the city. The reader will easily recognize the hero of this story—Royal Chetwood. His horse was tethered close by. The bright early moon hung like a silver crescent in the blue ether. The monotonous croak of the frog was to be heard on all sides, Far away, mellowed by distance, came the deep booming of cannon, and the sky in that direction was aglow as with a fearful conflagration. There was scarcely any breeze, and the trees lining the road-way cast ghostly shadows. Nature seemed to cower under sue lurid gloom of | the war- goa s eye, Hark! GEomicboo CS (E(0)