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It was as though he was subconsciously aware of some great impending change. It may be there whispered through the clouded space that lies between the dwelling-house of Fate and the place where a man's soul lives the voice of that Other Self, which every man has, warning him of darkness, or red ruin, or a heartbreak coming on.
Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, to open a farm on a large tract of land he owned on Indian Creek, forty miles west of Leavenworth, for the benefit of his grand-nephew, Henry Clark, and his grand-niece, Mrs. Walker. These arrived out in the spring, by which time I had caused to be erected a small frame dwelling-house, a barn, and fencing for a hundred acres.
He had never before seen this property when he reached it on the evening of a beautiful summer day. A long and gloomy avenue of elms, interlacing their thick branches, led to the dwelling-house, which was quite unequal to the imposing approach to it; for it was but an inferior construction of the past century, ornamented simply by a gable and a bull's-eye, but flanked by a lordly dovecote.
To his surprise no one followed; the baying of a third hound seemed to be silenced and checked; the silence was broken only by the sound of distant disputing voices and the uneasy trampling of hoofs. This was followed by two or three rifle shots in the distance, but not either in the direction of the quarters nor the Dows' dwelling-house.
I picture to my mind a capacious dwelling-house built of logs from the surrounding forest; its ample hall furnished with implements of war, pikes, carbines, and basket-hilled swords, mingled with antlers of the buck, skins of wild animals, plumage of birds, and other trophies of the hunter's craft; the large fireplace surrounded with hardy woodsmen, and the tables furnished with venison, wild fowl, and fish, the common luxuries of the region, in that prodigal profusion to which our forefathers were accustomed, and which their descendants still regard as the essential condition of hearty and honest housekeeping.
But the cairn was gone; good people had removed it secretly when Niels Koller was drowned and the girl was expected out of prison. And the farm stood out clearly in the morning light, with its high white dwelling-house, the long range of barns, and all the out-houses.
Upon the death of a man who was well-to-do, the body is kept for a period of seven days in the coffin, within the family dwelling-house, but for a poor man one day and night is long enough. Many people gather for the funeral. There is little activity in the day time, but at night the work, as the natives call it, is performed, some weeping, others dancing.
I remember thinking how afraid I should have been had I been in her place. There were no prayers. My lady thought it schismatic to have any prayers excepting those in the Prayer-book; and would as soon have preached a sermon herself in the parish church, as have allowed any one not a deacon at the least to read prayers in a private dwelling-house.
The ruins of the archiepiscopal palace, erected six hundred years ago, have been availed of in one portion for a dwelling-house. Wolsey built part of it, and beneath the battlemented wall enclosing the garden there was not long ago found the skeleton of a soldier in armor, a relic of the Civil Wars. The name of the town is derived from its wells.
In due time the wheat was sowed, the corn gathered, and a huge stack of firewood for winter cut and brought in, and piled near the dwelling-house. By this time the holiday season was approaching, which I wanted to spend at home, thinking, maybe, it might be the last.
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