The Project Gutenberg eBook, Destiny, by Charles Neville Buck

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Title: Destiny

Author: Charles Neville Buck

Release Date: November 23, 2005 [eBook #17141]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESTINY***

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DESTINY

by

CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

Author of
The Call of the Cumberlands, Etc.

New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Copyright, 1916, by
W.J. Watt & Company

OTHER BOOKS BY
CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

THE KEY TO YESTERDAY
THE LIGHTED MATCH
THE PORTAL OF DREAMS
THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS
THE BATTLE CRY
THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS

DESTINY

Part I

THE LAND OF PROMISE

CHAPTER I

Outside the subtle clarion of autumn's dying glory flamed in the torches
of the maples and smoldered in the burgundy of the oaks. It trailed a
veil of rose-ash and mystery along the slopes of the White Mountains,
and inside the crumbling school-house the children droned sleepily over
their books like prisoners in a lethargic mutiny.

Frost had brought the chestnuts rattling down in the open woods, and
foraging squirrels were scampering among the fallen leaves.

Brooding at one of the front desks, sat a boy, slender and undersized
for his thirteen years. The ill-fitting crudity of his neatly patched
clothes gave him a certain uniformity with his fellows, yet left him as
unlike them as all things else could conspire to make him. The long hair
that hung untrimmed over his face seemed a black emphasis for the cameo
delicacy of his features, lending them a wan note of pathos. On his
thin temples, bluish veins traced the hall-mark of an over-sensitive