les, while
a not very costly collection of pots and kettles took a less dignified
and prominent position beneath. Another corner was occupied by a bed,
the covering of which was composed of skins of different animals, with
sheetings of home-made linen. In the vicinity of the bed, along the
wall, was a row of pegs, suspending various garments of the occupants;
all of which--with the exception of a few articles, belonging to Ella,
procured for her before the death of her father--were of the plainest
and coarsest description. A churn--a clock--the latter a very rare thing
among the pioneers of Kentucky--a footwheel for spinning flax--a small
mirror--together with several minor articles, of which it is needless to
speak--completed the inventory of the apartment. From this room were two
exits, besides the outer door--one by a ladder leading above to a sort
of attic chamber, where were two beds; and the other through the wall
into the adjoining cabin, whither our hero had been borne in a state of
insensibility on the night of his mishap, and where he was for the
second time presented to the reader. This latter place was graced with a
bed, a loom for weaving, a spinning-wheel, a large oaken chest, and a
few rough benches.

Such, reader, as our description has set forth, was the general
appearance of Younker's dwelling, both without and within, in the year
of our Lord 1781; and, moreover, a fair representative of an hundred
others of the period in question--so arbitrary was necessity in making
one imitate the other. But to resume our story.

In the after part of a day as mild and beautiful as the one on which we
opened our narrative, but some four weeks later, Ella Barnwell,
needle-work in hand, was seated near the open door leading from the
apartment first described to the reader. Her head was bent forward, and
her eyes were apparently fixed upon her occupation with great
intentness--though a close observer might have detected furtive glances
occasionally thrown upon a young man, with a pale and somewhat agitated
countenance, who was pacing to and fro on the ground without. With the
exception of these two, no person was within sight--though the rattling
of a loom in the other apartment or cabin, betokened the vicinity of the
industrious hostess.

For some moments the young man--a no less personage than our hero--paced
back and forth like one whose mind is harrowed by some disagreeable
thought: then suddenly halting in front