XIV. The Turn of the Wheel
XV. Gay Discovers Himself
XVI. The End

Author's Note: The scene of this story is not the
place of the same name in Virginia.



BOOK FIRST

JORDAN'S JOURNEY

THE MILLER OF OLD CHURCH



CHAPTER I


AT BOTTOM'S ORDINARY


It was past four o'clock on a sunny October day, when a stranger, who
had ridden over the "corduroy" road between Applegate and Old Church,
dismounted near the cross-roads before the small public house known to
its frequenters as Bottom's Ordinary. Standing where the three roads
meet at the old turnpike-gate of the county, the square brick building,
which had declined through several generations from a chapel into a
tavern, had grown at last to resemble the smeared face of a clown under