A Daughter of Maryland — page 189: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

pee SY ae ~~ Oe ek eee ae a = n re re ms * . e : * . ; “2 3 oO a eo ~ « hha ee Sty Ft ce ew ° =< a ch _ ~* — se . 166 A DAUGHTER OF MARYLAND. CHAPTER XIX. THE TRUE HERO. ‘No more the thunder of cannon, No more the clashing of swords, No more the rage of the contest, Nor the rush of contending hordes} But instead the glad reunion, The clasping of friendly hands, The song, for the shout of battle, Heard over the waiting lands.” ‘“WHO comes here?’’ The slanting sunbeams streamed athwart the peaks of South Mountain like arrows of burnished silver, while the deepening shadows of the approaching night settled swiftly and silently down upon valley and forest. From a pool of stagnant water, dark at midday, the deep, resonant croak of a frog announced him the usher of the twilight, while a moment later in the gloaming of a neighboring woodland, as if not to be outdone, a solitary firefly swung his tiny lantern. The evening air was somnolent with the sweet incense of the spring day. A carriage drawn by a large brown horse, driven by a smiling, fat-jowled negro of uncertain age, and containing an elderly, martial-appearing man and a young, beautiful woman evidently his daughter, came to a sudden standstill near the junction of the Sharpsburg pike and Hagerstown road at the demand of him who had thus unexpectedly chal- lenged their advance. Their close proximity, unknown to each other until that moment, by a singular coincidence a second party, consisting of one man and two women, and mn comicbooks co