The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Henchman, by Mark Lee Luther

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Title: The Henchman

Author: Mark Lee Luther

Release Date: August 31, 2006 [EBook #19148]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HENCHMAN ***

Produced by Al Haines

THE HENCHMAN

BY

MARK LEE LUTHER

AUTHOR OF "THE FAVOR OF PRINCES," "THE RECKONING," "THE LIVERY OF
HONOR," ETC.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1902

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1901,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

TO

GEORGE RICE CARPENTER

OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Those familiar with the early history of Western New York will know the
"Tuscarora Stories" of this volume for twice-told tales which the
author has ventured to adapt from the suggestive "Pioneer History of
Orleans County," by Judge Arad Thomas.

BOOK I

The Henchman

CHAPTER I

It was the custom of the geographers of a period not remote to grapple
somewhat jejune facts to the infant mind by means of fanciful
comparison: thus, Italy was likened to a boot, France to a coffee-pot,
and the European domain of the Sultan to a ruffling turkey. In this
pleasant scheme the state of New York was made to figure as a couchant
lion, his massy head thrust high in the North Country, his forepaws
dabbled in the confluence of the Hudson and the Sound, his middle and
hinder parts stretched lazily westward to Lake Erie and the Niagara.
Roughly speaking, in this noble animal's rounding haunch, which Ontario
cools, lies the Demijohn Congressional District whose majority party
was now in convention assembled. In election returns and official
utterances generally the Demijohn District bore a number like every
district in the land, but the singular shape lent it by the last
gerrymander had settled its popular title till another political
overturn should distort its outline afresh.

The spokesman of the defeated faction had been recognized by the chair,
and was moving that the convention's choice of the gentleman from
Tuscarora County be declared unanimous. His manner was even more
perfunctory than his words