NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
MCCUTCHEON 
Copyright, 1906, by Dodd, Mead & Company. 
PROLOGUE. 
An irate British lord and his 
beautiful but petulant lady; the 
Hon. Penelope Drake, youngest 
and most cherished sister of his 
lordship; Randolph Shaw, a 
handsome and athletic young 
American, and a French count 
are the leading characters in 
this amusing and highly enter- 
taining romance by McCutcheon, 
the prince of American story 
tellers. It captures the interest 
from the very first paragraph, 
and there is not adull line in tt 
from start to finish. 
CHAPTER Il. 
In Which a Young Man Trespasses. 
tio S just an infernal dude, your 
f ljordship, and I’ll throw him 
in the river if he says a word 
toe much.” 
said too much, 
“He has already 
Tompkins, confound him, don’t you 
know.” 
“Then [U’m to throw him in wnether 
he says anything or not, sir?” 
“Have you seen him?” 
“No, your lordship, but James has. 
James says he wears a red coat and’— 
“Never mind, Tompkins. He has no 
right to fish on tnis side of that log. 
The insufferable ass may own the land 
on the opposite side, but, confound his 
impertinence, I own it on this side.” 
This concluding assertion of the usu- 
ally placid but now irate Lord Bazel- 
hurst was not quite as momentous as 
it sounded. As a matter of fact, the 
title to the land was vested entirely 
in his voung American wife, his sole 
possession, according to report, being 
a title much less substantial but a 
great deal more picturesque than the 
large, much. handled piece of paper 
down in the safety deposit vault--lying 
close and crumpled among a million 
sordid. homely little slips called cou- 
pons. 
It requires no great stretch of imagi- 
nation to understand that Lord Bazel- 
hurst had an undesirable neighbor. 
That neighbor was voung Mr. Shaw— 
Randolph Shaw, heir to the Randolph 
fortune. It may be fair to state that 
Mr. Shaw also considered himself to 
be possessed of an odious neighbor, 
In other words, although neither had 
seen the other, there was a feud be- 
tween the owners of the two estates 
that had all the earmarks of an ancient 
romance, 
Lady Bazelhurst was the daughter 
of a New York millionaire. She was 
young, beautiful and arrogant. Nature 
gave her youth and beauty. Marriage 
gave her the remaining quality. Was 
she not Lady Bazelhurst? What odds 
i? Lord Bazelhurst happened to be a 
middle aged, addlepated ass? So much 
the better. Bazelhurst castle and the 
Bazelhurst estates (heavily encumber- 
ed before her father came to the res- 
cue) were among the oldest and most 
coveted in the English market. Her 
mother noted, with unctuous joy, that 
the present Lady Bazelhurst in baby- 
hood had extreme difficulty in master- 
ing the eighth letter of the alphabet, 
certainly a most flattering sign of 
natal superiority, notwithstanding the 
fact that her father was plain old John 
Banks (deceased), formerly of Jersey 
City, more latterly of Wall street and 
St. Thomas’. 
Bazelhurst was a great catch, but 
Banks was a good name to conjure 
with, so he capitulated with a willing- 
ness that savored somewhat of sus- 
pended animation, so fearful was he 
that he might do something to dis- 
turb the dream before it came true. 
That was two years ago. With ex- 
quisite irony Lady Bazelhurst decided 
to have a country place in America. 
Her agents discovered a glorious sec- 
tion of woodland in the Adirondacks 
teeming with trout streams, game 
haunts, unparalleled scenery. Her 
ladyship instructed them to buy with- 
out delay. It was just here that young 
Mr. Shaw came into prominence. 
His grandfather had left him a for- 
tune, and he was looking about for 
ways in which to spend a portion of 
it. College, travel and society having 
palled on him, he hied himself into 
the big hills west of Lake Champlain, 
searching for beauty, solitude and life 
as he imagined it should be lived. He 
found and bought 500 acres of the 
most beautiful bit of wilderness 1n the 
mountains. 
The same streams coursed through 
his hills and dales that ran through 
those of Lady Bazelhurst, the only dis- 
tinction being that his portion was the 
more desirable. When her ladyship’s 
agents came leisurely up to close their 
deal they discovered that Mr. Shaw 
fiad snatched up this choice 500 acres 
of the original tract intended for their 
client. At least a thousand acres were 
left for the young lady, but she was 
petulant enough to covet all of it. 
Overtures were made to Mr. Shaw, 
but he would not sell. He was pre- 
paring to erect a handsome country 
place, and he did not want to alter his 
plans. Courteously at (first, then 
somewhat scathingly, he declined te 
discuss the proposition with her 
agents. After two months of pres- 
sure of the most tiresome persistency 
he lost his temper and sent a message 
to his inquisitors that suddenly termi- 
nated all negotiations. Afterward 
when he learned that their client was 
a lady he wrote a conditional note of 
apology, but if he expected a response 
he was disappointed. A year went by, 
and now with the beginning of this 
narrative two newly completed coun- 
try homes glowered at each other 
from separate hillsides, one envious 
and spiteful, the other defiant and a 
bit satirical. 
Bazelhurst Villa looks across the val- 
ley and sees Shaw’s cottage command- 
ing the most beautiful view in the 
hills; the very eaves of his ladyship’s 
house seem to have wrinkled into a 
constant scowl of annoyance. Shaw’s 
long, low cottage seems to smile back 
with tantalizing security, serene in its 
more lofty altitude, in its more gor- 
geous raiment of nature. The brooks 
laugh with the glitter of trout, the 
trees chuckle with the flight of birds, 
the hillsides frolic in their abundance 
of game, but the acres are growling 
like dogs of war. “Love thy neighbor 
as thyself” is not printed on the boards 
that line the borders of the two estates. 
In bold black letters the signboards 
laconically say: ‘No trespassing on 
these grounds. Keep off!’ 
“Yes, I fancy you’d better put him 
off the place if he comes down here 
again to fish, Tompkins,” said his lord- 
ship, in conclusion. Then he touched 
whip to his horse and bobbed off 
through the shady lane in a most pain- 
fully upright fashion, his thin legs 
sticking straight out, his breath com- 
ing in agonized little jerks with each 
succeeding return of his person to the 
saddle. 
“By Jove, Evelyn, it’s most annoying 
about that confounded Shaw chap,” he 
remarked to his wife as he mounted 
the broad steps leading to the gallery 
half an hour later, walking with the 
primness which suggests pain. Lady 
Bazelhurst looked up from her book, 
her fine aristocratic young face cloud- 
ing with ready belligerence. 
