The public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1913-1968, 1914-03-14

month why should he go at all!-
| Colonel Hampton asked. If he were to
be only year or two in Virginia, why
| trouble to set up housekeeping alone
in that big house, when Roanoke house
was here and in order, and only too
glad to keep him. So Francois for a
week or two stayed. And found him
self. shortly, notability. Harry Hamp-
ton, his boyish ambition for adventure
and daring denied every personal out
| let, because of that accident in baby
hood which had started him in life
hopelessly lame, was as proud Of his
salvage from the Austrian bird of
prey as II Francois record had been
his own. Much more frankly proud. for
he could talk about it, and did. Alike
had told him a great deal, and the
episode OF the headlong rescue Of
Prince Louis Napoleon, the capture
and Imprisonment and final theatrical
escape, went like wild-fire about the
countryside, and stirred all the ro-
nance of the warm-blooded southern
ers. Every house wanted the hero to
break bread, and under young Harrys
proud wing Francois went gladly to
meet all these friends of his friend.
AS the general had said years ago.
his simplicity struck the finest note
Of sophisticated high breeding; more
over he had lived with high-bred
people in more than one country; the
aristocrats of Virginia were delighted
with his young nobleman, as they
thought him-with his charm of man.
ner and his stirring history, with the
lines of suffering still in his thin face
and the broad lock of gray--the badge
of that suffering-in his dark hair;
with the quaint foreign accent too, and
the unexpectedness in the turns of
his rapidly increasing English.
And now he had left Roanoke, and
was living in the great old house on
Pietro's land, the old house which had
been lived in a hundred years before
Pietro's father had bought it, the old
house in which grandchildren of Pie
tro live today.
Something in his odd broken Eng.
lish, something in his vivacity and en-
ergy, something In the warmth OF the
heart which the poor souls felt in
him-none quicker than negroes to
feel heart-fascinated the slaves
who fell to his unaccustomed manage
ment. He had met Henry Clay and
the proud aristocrats of Virginia as
men and women, and given them the
best OF himself; he met these thick.
Tipped, dim-souled, black people no
otherwise, and gave them the same.
By the crystal truth in him the first
had been vanquished, and II happened
not differently with these other human
beings. Pietro's mishandled property
grew orderly month by month; Fran.
co.'s, in the saddle most of the time,
riding from end to end of the planta-
ton, found his hands full and his work
interesting, and his health and
strength coming back-though that
was slower progress.
The people who do most are likely
to be the people who can do a thing
more. Young Henry Hampton. ruled
out of the larger part of his natural
pleasures by that stern bylaw OF ma
ture, which had made him lame, APP
pealed to Francois sympathy every
day more deeply. The one thing
which the lad could do was riding.
Henry" Francois spoke, as the two
trotted together down a shady lane of
the plantation on the way to the far
fields where negroes worked In the
autumn sunlight, what would you
think Of orqanizinR n mounted troon
Of militia?"
The boys face famed with excite.
ment. What would he think Of IL? He
would think II glorious. wonderful,
half dozen big adjectiyes.
There were many young men in the
neighborhood; all OF them rode; none
OF them had enough to do; Francois
had hold on them---a man may not
spend Ave years In dungeon because
OF dashing mad act OF bravery with