A MAID OF THE KENTUCKY HILLS

BY EDWIN CARLILE LITSEY

Author of "The Man from Jericho," etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
JOHN CASSEL

CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

COPYRIGHT, 1913
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY

Copyright in England
All rights reserved

PUBLISHED, NOVEMBER, 1913

THE PLIMPTON PRESS
NORWOOD, MASS, USA

TO
SARA
OF THE SUNNY HAIR

I knelt on the tree, bent down, and took her upheld hand in mine.

CONTENTS

Chapter One
In Which I Go to 'Crombie

Chapter Two
In Which I Go to 'Crombie Again

Chapter Three
In Which I Find a Lodge in the Wilderness

Chapter Four
In Which I Meet a Dryad

Chapter Five
In Which I Say What I Please

Chapter Six
In Which I Meet a Satyr

Chapter Seven
In Which the Satyr and I Sit Cheek by Jowl

Chapter Eight
In Which I Pitch My Tent Toward Hebron for the Space of an Afternoon

Chapter Nine
In Which I Sit Upon a Hilltop and Reflect to no Advantage

Chapter Ten
In Which I Spend a Pleasant Hour and Hear Some News

Chapter Eleven
In Which Other Characters Come Into Our Story

Chapter Twelve
In Which I Attend an Oratorio

Chapter Thirteen
In Which I Suffer Four Shocks, Three of the Earth and One From the Sky, and Find Another Maid A-Fishing

Chapter Fourteen
In Which Yet a Fifth Shock Arrives, and Rounds Out the Day

Chapter Fifteen
In Which the Historian Unblushingly Shows Himself to be a Human

Chapter Sixteen
In Which Much Added Light is Shed Upon Miss Beryl Drane, but Only a Glimmer Upon My Problem

Chapter Seventeen
In Which I Entertain Seriously a Chivalrous Notion to my Great Detriment

Chapter Eighteen
In Which I Descend Into Hell

Chapter Nineteen
In Which the Satyr and the Narrator Become Very Drunk, and the Latter is Lifted to Earth Again

Chapter Twenty
In Which I View an Empty World, Act a Hypocrite, and Hear a Confession of Love

Chapter Twenty-one
In Which, Strange to Say, Time Passes. Also I Receive Three Warnings, and Witness an Unparalleled Episode in the Smithy of Buck Steele

Chapter Twenty-two
In Which I Spar With Death

Chapter Twenty-three
In Which, Though the World is Still a Void, There is the Shining of a Great Light

Chapter Twenty-four
In Which I Vanquish a Demoniac, and Enter Into Glory

A MAID OF THE KENTUCKY HILLS

CHAPTER ONE

IN WHICH I GO TO 'CROMBIE

When a man of thirty who has been sound and well since boyhood suddenly realizes there is something radically wrong with him, it amounts almost to a tragedy.

It was mid-March when I became convinced that I was "wrong." Near the close of winter I had developed a hacking cough with occasional chest pains, but with masculine mulishness had refused to recognize any untoward symptoms. I was not a sissy, to let a common cold frighten me