of. Farming was not to his liking and his house had been an inn, doing a
thriving business with travelers going out along that great National
highway in ante-railway days. But when the village took root and grew into
a little town, the village tavern absorbed the revenue from the traveling
public, and Francis Aydelot had, perforce, to put his own hands to the
plow and earn a living from the land. It was never a labor of love with
him, however, and although he grew well-to-do in the tilling, he resented
the touch of the soil as something degrading.

Cloverdale did not grow toward him, because, out of prejudice at its
being, he would not sell one foot of his ground for town lot purposes.
Nevertheless, since he was upright in all his dealings, the villagers grew
proud of him, deferred to his judgment, quoted his opinions, and rated him
generally the biggest asset of the community, with one exception. That
exception was young Asher Aydelot, a pink-cheeked, gray-eyed boy, only son
of the House of Aydelot and heir to all the long narrow acres from the
wooded crest on the east to the clear waters of Clover Creek on the west.
He was heir to more than these, however, if the heritage of ancestry
counts for anything.

Jean Aydelot, the first of the name in America, driven from France by his
family on account of his Huguenot beliefs, had settled in Virginia. He had
quickly grasped the American ideals of freedom, the while he affiliated
easily with the exclusive English Cavaliers. Something of the wanderlust
in his blood, however, kept him from rooting too firmly at once. It
happened that when a band of Quaker exiles had sought refuge in Virginia
and was about to be driven out by the autocratic Cavaliers, young Aydelot,
out of love for a Quaker girl, had championed their cause vehemently. And
he was so influential in the settlement that he might have succeeded, but
for one family--the wealthy and aristocratic Thaines. Through the son of
this family the final expulsion of these Quakers was accomplished. The
woman in the case was Mercy Pennington, a pretty Quakeress with whom young
Jerome Thaine fell in love, promising protection to all her people in
return for her hand. When she refused his offer, the Thaines carried the
day, and the Quakers again became exiles. Jean Aydelot followed them to
Pennsylvania and married Mercy Pennington, who was promptly disowned by
the Quaker Church for this marriage to one outside its membership.

In