The Land Claim — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

76 THE LAND-CLAIM. she’ll be hurried off and hid away in some convent. That, I suspect, is the Frenchman’s plan. There comes Wyman in a terrible hurry ; I wonder what’s the matter now ?” “T’ve just run in to tell you, Squire Allen, that our little girl is poisoned. “The doctor’s gone to see her, and I mustn't stop to talk. You’d mebbe better come and see her too, though it won’t do any good as I know of. She’s mighty bad ;” and without stopping to answer questions, the constable was gone in a twinkling. “Good God! what next?’ cried Allen, bursting into tears, and burying his face in his hands. “Why, Allen, my friend,” said Flag, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder gently, “don’t give up that way. It may not be so bad as you think.” “Bad!” ejaculated Allen, with boyish petulance of man- ner; “I think the evil one has been let loose in Fairview.” “Nonsense, Squire. His Satanic Highness has deen loose these six thousand years, going about all the time like a raging lion, seeking whom he may eat. So his presence is nothing new; and all we’ve got to do is to turn him a cold shoulder whenever we can; or, if he gets to be too impudent, to thrash him soundly. And as to this Fairview devil, if I were you I'd give him the slip by kidnapping that young lady-loye of yours, and running away with her. I'll help you do it if you need any help.” “You talk as if she wasn’t dying perhaps—or dead,” said Allen, choking on the word. - “I’m going to see how she is, and what this means. Come in again this evening, Flag, for I want to talk with you.” | Allen arrived at the constable’s house almost as soon as the physician, and found Mrs. Wyman in a state of the greatest alarm. And truly the patient’s appearance was sufficiently alarming. Her complexion, so lately pale, now was a bright scarlet; her eyes distended, and the pupil enlarged, though apparently visionless; and she was suffering from distressing nausea, while she was, at the same time, in a muttering delirium. Of the cause of these symptoms Mrs. Wyman knew nothing. Evidently they were the effects of poison, but how administered she could not tell. “ What has she eaten to-day?” asked the physician, at the Comicloooks.conn