



Produced by Al Haines








The Old Blood


By FREDERICK PALMER


AUTHOR OF

"The Last Shot," "My Year of the Great War," Etc.




A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers ---- New York


Published by Arrangements with DODD, MEAD & COMPANY




COPYRIGHT, 1916,

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

      I  A HOME-COMING
     II  TWO GIRLS ON A TRAIN
    III  AN INVITATION
     IV  TOO MUCH ANCESTOR
      V  THE FLAVOUR OF GRAPES
     VI  AT MERVAUX
    VII  A FULL-FACE PORTRAIT
   VIII  ANOTHER PHASE OF HELEN
     IX  A MESSAGE FROM ALSACE
      X  THE VOICE AT HIS ELBOW
     XI  SHE SAID, "YES!"
    XII  THE GUNS SPEAK
   XIII  A MATTER OF GALLANTRY
    XIV  "IF I WISH IT!"
     XV  HELEN ASKS A FAVOUR
    XVI  A CHANGE OF PLANS
   XVII  UNDER FIRE
  XVIII  A RUN FOR IT
    XIX  A CHOICE OF BILLETS
     XX  UNDER ARREST
    XXI  A BIT FROM THE MOVIES
   XXII  VICTORY!
  XXIII  LONGFIELD DECIDES
   XXIV  HELEN ARRIVES
    XXV  HENRIETTE WAITS
   XXVI  A DIRECT HIT
  XXVII  A SMILING HELEN
 XXVIII  A "SITTING CASE"
   XXIX  IN HER PLACE AGAIN
    XXX  PETER SMITHERS IN ACTION
   XXXI  A THOUGHT FOR HELEN
  XXXII  LIGHT
 XXXIII  SPINNING WEBS




THE OLD BLOOD



CHAPTER I

A HOME-COMING

Perhaps a real story-teller, who leaps into the heart of things, would
have begun this story in France instead of with a railroad journey from
the Southwest to New England; perhaps he would have taken the view of
"our Philip's" mother that Phil fought the whole war in Europe himself;
perhaps given the story the name of "The Plain Girl," leaving Phil
secondary place.

A veracious chronicler, consulting Phil's wishes, makes his beginning
with a spring afternoon of 1914, when the Berkshire <DW72>s were
dripping and glistening and smiling and the air, washed by showers and
purified by a burst of sunshine, was like some rare vintage which might
be drunk only on the premises.

Complaining in a familiar way as it followed the course of a winding
stream, which laughed in flashes of pearly white over rocky shallows,
the train ran out into a broad valley--the home valley.  Not a road
that he had not tramped over; not a woodland path that he did not know;
not a mountain trail that he had not climbed.  The scene was bred in
his blood.

If Bill Hurley were at the station the auguries would be right, and
there he was, standing on the same spot where he had stood for twenty
years when the trains arrived; there, too, the stooped old station
agent in his moment of bustling importance.  By the calendar of Bill's
chin it was Tuesday; for Bill shaved only on Sunday and Wednesday
afternoons.  A man of observation and opinion this keeper of the gate
of Longfield, who let the world come to him and took charge of its
baggage and conveyed its persons to their destinations.  He was also a
dispenser of news.

"The Jerrods have got that new porch," he said.  "They'd been talking
about it so long that they're sort of lost-minded and dumb these days.
And Hanks has put in a new soda fountain and plate glass windows.
Ambitious man, Hanks.  Nothing can keep him from branching out."

"And nothing can change you, Bill."

"Me?  I guess not.  May wither a little when the winters are hard, but
you'll find me here fifty years from now.  H-m-m!" after looking Phil
over.  "Bound to happen to young fellers out of college.  Noticed it
often.  Something rubbed off you and something rubbed in out West, I
jedge."

"You have it--and in one of your epigrams, as usual," Phil agreed.

"Folks do say that I have a tolerable understanding of