The House of the Black Ring

Cover

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pp. i-ii

Title Page, Copyright

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pp. iii-iv

Contents

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pp. v-

Acknowledgments

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pp. vi-

For recognizing that The House of the Black Ring remains a provocative product of its time, and for returning it to contemporary readers, thanks go to Penn State Press director Patrick Alexander and to Kathryn B. Yahner, assistant acquisitions...

Introduction

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pp. vii-xxiv

Fred Lewis Pattee had never traveled west of New York City when he set out to interview for his first college teaching job in the spring of 1894. As the train snaked along a single track through the isolated valleys and rocky mountainsides...

Note on the Publication History

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pp. xxv-xxvi

Fred Lewis Pattee’s The House of the Black Ring was first published in March 1905 by Henry Holt and Company—printed on faux laid paper with a frontispiece (a map) on glossy stock, and with a pictorial cloth binding of green linen stamped...

Map

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pp. 2-4

Preface to the 1916 Edition

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pp. 5-6

The House of the Black Ring was first issued from the press of Henry Holt & Co., New York, in 1905. During the following year it appeared serially in several papers, notably The Syracuse Herald and The Washington Star....

Chapter I: The Affair at Tressler's Farm

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pp. 7-21

When the great architect had finished building the earth, he dumped the chips and débris into the centre of Pennsylvania, and men called the heap the Seven Mountains....

Chapter II: Where the Devil Treads, Who Looks for Snow?

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pp. 22-32

The valley of Hell Bottom lies like a giant stocking at full stretch among the ridges. There are three ragged holes: at the heel, Bald Eagle Gap, walled in on one side by Nance Mountain, and cut deep by a little stream; at the toe, Gum Run...

Chapter III: Rose Hartswick

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pp. 33-39

Since Rose Hartswick had come back from her three years at the seminary, the life of the whole valley somehow had been changed. In the old days she had been simply one of the valley girls, a freckled, sunny-faced tomboy, the leader...

Chapter IV: The Wooing at Hartswick Hall

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pp. 40-48

A Young man in the early forties, a fleck of grey at the temples, a silver dollar at the crown, a trace of advancing corpulency in his rounding figure, but withal settled in character and income and looking confidently out upon life, is in a position..

Chapter V: The Horse-Racing on Moon Run

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pp. 49-63

It had been an open winter. For six weeks the roads had been half-spoke deep, not with mud, but with that thick, yellow smear that clings like birdlime. There had been flurries of snow when the wind had roared and when the black...

Chapter VI: The Windy Side of the Law

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pp. 64-74

During the ride from Moon Run, Rose had done some rapid thinking. How was Karl to get back to Sugar Valley? The bob-sled would go no further than Dan Tressler’s, and there he would be, stranded in the middle of the...

Chapter VII: The Flitting Dinner

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pp. 75-84

All Fools' Day in the Seven Mountains is the time for “flitt’ns,” be the sign and the moon’s phase what they may. Everywhere on this April morning you will meet long lines of vehicles loaded with household goods,—everywhere...

Chapter VIII: The Firing of Heller's Cabin

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pp. 85-98

On the night of the ninth of April there swirled over the Seven Mountains a wild whisk of snow that plastered the landscape as with whitewash. Five inches deep it lay and hung and stuck. Every flake clung where it fell, and in...

Chapter IX: The Fire on Cherry Creek

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pp. 99-110

The “saplin’-bender” was followed by a week of perfect weather. It was unseasonably warm. The yellow mud, half-spoke-deep on the back roads, began to harden into brick-like welts and ragged pits and ruts; the wheat fields had emerged from...

Chapter X: The Mill Down Foaming Valley

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pp. 111-121

After a moment they found themselves by the brook in a place where a deep pool was overhung by a limestone ledge. Rose, struggling with the frantic horse, saw nothing. She was crashing through the brush just a step behind...

Chapter XI: Lona Heller

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pp. 122-128

Even in the remotest mountain cabin one may find comeliness— roundness of figure, and lustre of eyes, and even perfection of colour and mould of feature. But beauty is quite another thing. It is an atmosphere rather than a contour...

Chapter XII: the Play and the Chorus

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pp. 129-137

During the days following the fire, Rose seemed sober and preoccupied,—a new mood for her. She did not laugh and sing as of old, and she did not go out of afternoons to drive. Therefore she is sick, reasoned her father, and he...

Chapter XIII: The Pow-Wowing at Roaring Run

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pp. 138-145

The habitation of Poppy Miller at the mouth of the Run had been seen by few of the valley people,—at least by day. The children of the region for half a century and more had been taught to avoid the uncanny place and by no means to...

Chapter XIV: In the Wild Azalea

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pp. 146-152

In the late spring and early summer the Seven Mountains burst suddenly from their sombre melancholy and bury themselves for a month in a wealth of efflorescence such as one may look for in vain elsewhere north of the tropics. The wild...

Chapter XV: The Murder in Sugar Valley

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pp. 153-167

Karl Keichline was dead; the news flew over the valleys like wild-fire. He was found on the morning of June first lying in a huddle in his back-store amid a tumble of scattered goods and packing cases. The front door was wide open, and...

Chapter XVI: The Mob at Heller's Gap

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pp. 168-180

Squire Hartswick was first of all a man of action. He struck when the iron was hot and he struck hard. He formed his theory instantly and acted instantly. Rose was ill: the shock at the fire had unbalanced her; she was not responsible...

Chapter XVII: The Hour of the Powers of Darkness

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pp. 181-188

The night following the day on which the Farthings disappeared stands as the blackest in the valley annals. Few who have not passed their childhood amid the dark whisperings of witchcraft and the evil eye and of unseen presences...

Chapter XVIII: In the Heart of the Limestone

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pp. 189-197

It was ten o’clock when Jim left the Farthing place with the colt; it was five minutes to one when he swung into Poppy Miller’s yard, a record that has never been equalled even by daylight. The colt was streaming wet and dripping...

Chapter XIX: The Last of the Hartswicks

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pp. 198-208

It seems to be a rule of nature that like shall seek like, and that they shall move together in swarms. Hence a variety of proverbs: “Birds of a feather,” and “It never rains but it pours,” and “Misfortunes never come singly.” Life drones on for...

Chapter XX: The Revenge of Matthew Heller

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pp. 209-216

The autumn landscape in the Seven Mountains is sombre rather than gay. There are few rock maples to furnish the vivid yellows and scarlets. Here and there a sassafras adds its splash of ochre, and a chestnut or a shell-bark varies...

Notes

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pp. 217-228

Bibliography

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pp. 229-230