Buell Hampton

Willis George Emerson

• Publisher: Read & Co. Classics
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781528711869
• eBook ISBN: 9781528786829
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Westerns
• Index: Literature

"Buell Hampton " is a 1902 novel by Willis G. Emerson. Based upon many real people, places, and events in the Southwest of England that the author was families with, this charming tale is almost more fact than fiction, offering the reader an authentic glimpse into England and English society at the turn of the 19th century. Willis George Emerson (1856 – 1918) was an American lawyer, novelist, politician, and founder of the North American Copper Company and the town of Encampment in Wyoming. His most famous novel is "The Smoky God, or A Voyage Journey to the Inner Earth", presented as a real account penned by the author in 1908 concerning the escapades of a Norwegian sailor named Olaf Jansen who sailed through a hole to the Earth's interior at the North Pole. Other notable works by this author include: "Winning Winds" (1885), "Grey Rocks: A tale of the Middle West" (1894), and "Was It a Crime? 'Coin at School' dissected" (1900). Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.

CHAPTER I.

AT LAKE GENEVA

IT was only a game of tennis that brought on this affair of love’s entanglement.

Ethel Horton, with rich, maidenly flushes on her soft cheeks, played as she had never played before—played and won.

Athletic suppleness and vivacious buoyancy were emphasized in every movement of this intense American girl.

With heightened color, she contested the game, point by point.

It was thrilling sport, and her clever opponent was Lenox Avondale, an Englishman.

And while this exciting neck and neck game was in progress, her mother, Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton, was idly conversing with Mrs. Lyman Osborn on a wide veranda of the hotel that overlooked the blue waters of the lake.

“Really,” she observed, leaning back in her easy chair, “Lake Geneva is not such a bad place, after all. One can get on here very well for a few days.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Lyman Osborn, as she seated herself languidly, and gazed across the blue waters, “yet I fancy that in time it would become quite dull for us, it is so thoroughly American. Let me push the cushions under your shoulder a little farther, dear.”

“Thank you,” replied Mrs. Horton, “that is more comfortable. What does Doctor Redfield say of my illness?”

“That in a week’s time we can continue our journey to the Southwest.”

“My dear husband,” murmured Mrs. Horton, reflectively, “how glad he will be to see Ethel! It has been four years since the child was placed in that fashionable London school; she was then only fifteen. Her dear father will hardly know her.”

“The thanks of all are due to you, my dear Mrs. Horton, for the educational advantages that Ethel has enjoyed.”

“Yes, my husband is so determined in his ideas; but I manage to spend as little of my time on the frontier, you know, as possible, and I certainly shall see to it that Ethel does not deteriorate under the influence of our stupid American ways. She is certainly a girl of rare gifts, and I could never have forgiven myself had she been educated in the States.”

“Quite right,” assented Mrs. Osborn, “your husband may stay with his herds of cattle, and my husband may stand at his bank counter, year in and year out, if it pleases them to do so, but you and I will take our annual trip to merry England,” and Mrs. Osborn laughed a ripple of indifference at the crude taste of their respective husbands.

Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton was a woman in her early forties. Her features were regular, and her complexion had a youthfulness not in keeping with her age. Her heavy brown hair was most becomingly arranged. Her neatly fitting suit of tweed,—a production of Redfern,—in keeping with the latest London style, admirably set off her rather stately figure. Her companion, Mrs. Lyman Osborn, was probably thirty-five, although in appearance she seemed much younger. A pink and white skin, fair hair, and blue eyes combined in giving her a bewitching appearance.

They were returning from a trip to England, whither they had gone to bring home with them Ethel Horton, who had recently finished her education in a London school. At Chicago Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton had been taken suddenly ill; and Doctor Redfield had been recommended and summoned. On his advice they had come to Lake Geneva until Mrs. Horton sufficiently recovered to continue their journey to southwestern Kansas.

Mr. John B. Horton was known in the West as a great cattle baron. Soon after the war he married in Baltimore, and moved West to engage in the cattle business. His lonely dugout of frontier days had given way to one of the most palatial residences in the West. This beautiful home had been erected on the site of the dugout, near the line between Kansas and No-Man’s-Land, and not far from the Cimarron River. Horton’s Grove was known far and wide. Indeed, it was practically the only timber in that section of the country. In this grove two mammoth springs burst forth from the hillside, and formed a beautiful stream named Manaroya. Here, near the edge of the grove, and on the banks of the gurgling brook, less than three miles from Meade, Kansas, John Horton had erected his home.

With their accumulation of wealth had come an ambition on the part of Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton—as she inscribed her cards—to give her daughter Ethel all the advantages of a thorough education. Vassar had been thought of; but the banker’s wife, Mrs. Lyman Osborn, had suggested that foreign travel was indispensable in reaching a correct decision.

Captain Lyman Osborn was a veteran of the Union army, and was many years his wife’s senior. He was engaged in the banking business at Meade, and divided his time between his duties at the bank, and his son, Harry, who was not more than five years of age. The father fairly idolized the boy, and, while he was with him, was quite content that his young wife should travel abroad—if that were her pleasure.

Against her husband’s wishes and advice, Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton had selected a London school for their daughter, and since Ethel had been placed therein, she had spent a portion of each year in England, accompanied by her bosom friend, Mrs. Lyman Osborn. In many ways these two women were dissimilar, but their very dissimilarity seemed to bind them more closely together. They had both become tinctured with the weakness of title-worship, and perhaps the most cherished wish of Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton was that Ethel should marry into some titled English family.

“I do wonder,” she sighed, “if there are any people desirable for one to know stopping at the hotel.”

“Very doubtful,” lamented Mrs. Osborn. “The fewer Americans we know the better for us when among our friends on the other side.”

“Quite true,” assented the other, devoutly.

“It is so embarrassing, when one is among one’s English friends, to have American acquaintances intruding themselves. Oh, here comes Eth...

Table of contents

• Willis George Emerson
• Dedicated to my old sweetheart
• Theme
• CHAPTER I.
• CHAPTER II.
• CHAPTER III.
• CHAPTER IV.
• CHAPTER V.
• CHAPTER VI.
• CHAPTER VII.
• CHAPTER VIII.
• CHAPTER IX.
• CHAPTER X.
• CHAPTER XI.
• CHAPTER XII.
• CHAPTER XIII.
• CHAPTER XIV.
• CHAPTER XV.
• CHAPTER XVI.
• CHAPTER XVII.
• CHAPTER XVIII.
• CHAPTER XIX.
• CHAPTER XX.
• CHAPTER XXI.
• CHAPTER XXII.
• CHAPTER XXIII.
• CHAPTER XXIV.
• CHAPTER XXV.
• CHAPTER XXVI.
• CHAPTER XXVII.
• CHAPTER XXVIII.
• CHAPTER XXIX.
• CHAPTER XXX.
• CHAPTER XXXI.
• CHAPTER XXXII.
• CHAPTER XXXIII.
• CHAPTER XXXIV.
• CHAPTER XXXV.
• CHAPTER XXXVI.
• CHAPTER XXXVII.
• CHAPTER XXXVIII.
• CHAPTER XXXIX.
• CHAPTER XL.
• CHAPTER XLI.
• CHAPTER XLII.
• CHAPTER XLIII.