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Swallow Barn, or A Sojourn in the Old Dominion.
In Two Volumes. Vol. II:
Electronic Edition.

Kennedy, John Pendleton, 1795-1870.

Funding from the University of North Carolina Library supported the electronic publication of this title.

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First edition, 2006
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University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
2006.

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Source Description:
(title page) Swallow Barn, or A Sojourn in the Old Dominion. In Two Volumes. Vol. II.
[Kennedy, John Pendleton]
iv, 320 p.
Philadelphia:
Carey & Lea, Chestnut Street.
1832.

Call number PS2162 .S9 (Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)


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SWALLOW BARN, OR
A SOJOURN IN THE OLD DOMINION.
IN TWO VOLUMES.

        And, for to pass the time, this book shall be pleasant to read in. But for to give faith and believe that all is true that is contained therein, ye be at your own liberty.

Prologue to the Morte D'Arthur.

VOL. II.

PHILADELPHIA:
CAREY & LEA, CHESTNUT STREET.
1832.

Page verso

C. SHERMAN & CO. PRINTERS,
St. James Street, Philadelphia.

Page iii

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

ERRATA.

VOL. I.

        
Page 12, line 11, from the top, instead of 'had died of,' read 'had died off.'
42, " 2, ""'imbued,' read 'imbibed.'
103, " 11,""'appertinences,' read 'appertenances.'
103, " 13,"" 'disease,' read 'disuse.'
221," 21," "'trays,' read 'treys.'
225, " 10," " 'Megara,' read 'Mægara.'

Page 1

CHAPTER I.

STORY-TELLING.

        IN the time of the Revolution, and for a good many years afterwards, Old Nick enjoyed that solid popularity which, as Lord Mansfield expressed it, follows a man's actions rather than is sought after by them. But in our time he is manifestly falling into the sere and yellow leaf, especially in the Atlantic states. Like those dilapidated persons who have grown out at elbows by sticking too long to a poor soil, or who have been hustled out of their profitable prerogatives by the competition of upstart numbers, his spritish family has moved off, with bag and baggage, to the back settlements. This is certain, that in Virginia he is not seen half so often now as formerly. A traveller in the Old Dominion may now wander about of nights as dark as pitch, over commons, around old churches, and through graveyards, and all the while the rain may be pouring down with its solemn hissing sound, and the thunder may be rumbling over his head, and the wind moaning through the trees, and the lightning flinging its sulphurous glare across the skeletons of dead horses, and over the grizzly rawheads upon the tombstones; and, even, to make the case stronger, a

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drunken cobbler may be snoring hideously in the church door, (being overtaken by the storm on his way home,) and every flash may show his livid, dropsical, carbuncled face, like that of a vagabond corpse that had stolen out of his prison to enjoy the night air; and yet it is ten to one if the said traveller be a man to be favoured with a glimpse of that old-fashioned, distinguished personage who was wont to be showing his cloven foot, upon much less provocation, to our ancestors. The old crones can tell you of a hundred pranks that he used play in their day, and what a roaring sort of a blade he was. But, alas! sinners are not so chicken-hearted as in the old time. It is a terribly degenerate age; and the devil and all his works are fast growing to be forgotten.

        Except Mike Brown's humoursome pot-companion, I much question if there is another legitimate goblin in the Old Dominion; and in spite of Ned Hazard and Hafen Blok, who do all they can to keep up his credit, I am much mistaken if he does not speed away to the Missouri or the Rocky Mountains one of these days, as fast and as silently as an absconding debtor. Lest, therefore, his exploits should be lost to the world, I will veritably record this "Chronicle of the Last of the Virginia Devils," as it has been given to me by the credible Hafen, that most authentic of gossips, as may be seen by the perusal of what I am going to write.

        The substance of this narrative--for I do not deny some rhetorical embellishments--was delivered by Hafen after supper, as we sat in the porch at Swallow

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Barn until midnight, Hafen all the while puffing a short pipe, and only rising on his feet at such times as his animation got beyond control, and inspired him to act the scene he was describing. The witnesses were Mr. Wart and Frank Meriwether, who sat just inside of the door, attended by Lucy and Vic, who for the greater part of the time had their arms about Frank's neck; and Mr. Chub, who, though within hearing,--for he was seated at the window, also smoking,--I do not believe paid much attention to the story; although he was heard once or twice to blow out a stream of smoke from his mouth, and say "balderbash!"--an epithet in common use with him. But there were Ned and myself close beside Hafen; and Rip, who sat on the steps in the open air, with his head occasionally turned over his shoulder, looking up at the storyteller with the most marked attention: and lastly, there were sundry wide-mouthed negroes, children and grown, who were clustered into a dusky group beneath the parlour window, just where a broad ray of candlelight fell upon them; and who displayed their white teeth, like some of Old Nick's own brood, as they broke out now and then into hysterical, cowardly laughs, and uttered ejaculations of disbelief in Hafen's stories that showed the most implicit faith.

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MIKE BROWN.

        MIKE BROWN was a blacksmith, who belonged to Harry Lee's light-horse, and shod almost all the hoofs of the legion. He was a jolly, boisterous, red-faced fellow, with sandy hair, and light blue eyes so exceedingly blood-shot, that at a little distance off you could hardly tell that they were eyes at all. He had no leisure, during the Revolutionary war, to get them clarified; for, what with the smoke of his furnace, and keeping late hours on patroles, and hard drinking, his time was filled up to the entire disparagement of his complexion. He was a stark trooper, to whom no service came amiss, whether at the anvil or in the field, having a decisive muscle for the management of a piece of hot iron, and an especial knack for a marauding bout; in which latter species of employment it was his luck to hold frequent velitations with the enemy, whereby he became notorious for picking up stragglers, cutting off baggage-wagons, and rifling rum-casks, and, now and then, for easing a prisoner of his valuables. He could handle a broadsword as naturally as a sledge-hammer; and many a time has Mike brandished his blade above his beaver, and made it glitter in the sun, with a true dragoon flourish, whilst he gave the huzza to his companions as he headed an onset upon Tarleton's cavalry.

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        Towards the close of the war, he served with Colonel Washington, and was promoted to the rank of a sergeant for leading a party of the enemy into an ambuscade; and, in addition to this honour, the colonel made him a present of a full suit of regimentals, in which, they say, Mike was a proper-looking fellow. His black leather cap, with a strip of bearskin over it, and a white buck-tail set on one side, gave a martial fierceness to his red flannel face. A shad-bellied blue bobtail coat, turned up with broad buff, and meeting at the pit of his stomach with a hook and eye, was well adapted to show the breadth of his brawny chest, which was usually uncovered enough to reveal the shaggy mat of red hair that grew upon it. A buckskin belt, fastened round his waist by an immense brass buckle, sustained a sabre that rattled upon the ground when he walked. His yellow leather breeches were remarkable for the air of ostentatious foppery that they imparted to the vast hemisphere of his nether bulk; and, taken together with his ample horseman's boots, gave the richest effect to his short and thick legs, that, thus appareled, might be said to be gorgeous specimens of the Egyptian column.

        Such was the equipment of Sergeant Brown on all festival occasions; and he was said to be not a little proud of this reward of valour. On work days he exhibited an old pair of glazed, brown buckskin small-clothes, coarse woollen stockings, covered with spatterdashes made of untanned deer hide, and shoes garnished with immense pewter buckles; though, as

Page 6

to the stockings, he did not always wear them. Hose or no hose, it was all the same to Mike! I am minute in mentioning the regimentals, because, for a long time after the war, Sergeant Mike was accustomed to indue himself in this identical suit on Sundays, and strut about with the air of a commander-in-chief.

        Mike's skill in horseshoes rendered him very serviceable in the campaigns. On a damp morning, or over sandy roads, he could trail Tarleton like a hound. It was only for Mike to examine the prints upon the ground, and he could tell, with astonishing precision, whether the horses that had passed were of his own shoeing, how many were in company, how long they had gone by, and whether at a gallop, a trot, or a walk; whether they had halted, or had been driving cattle, and, in fact, almost as many particulars as might be read in a bulletin. Upon such occasions, when appearances were favourable, he had only to get a few of his dare-devils together, and Tarleton was sure to have some of Sergeant Brown's sauce in his pottage, before he had time to say grace over it.

        Mike used always to commence these adventures by drinking the devil's health, as he called it; which was done, very devoutly, in a cup of rum seasoned with a cartridge of gun-powder, which, he said, was a charm against sword cuts and pistol shot. When his expedition was ended, he generally called his roll, marked down the names of the killed, wounded and missing by a scratch of his black thumb-nail,

Page 7

and then returned the dingy scroll into his pocket, with a knowing leer at the survivors, and the pithy apothegm, which he repeated with a sincere faith, "that the devil was good to his own." This familiarity with the "old gentleman," as Mike himself termed him, added to his trooper-like accomplishment of swearing till he made people's hair stand on end, begat a common belief in the corps that he was on very significant terms with his patron; and it was currently said, "that Mike Brown and the devil would one day be wearing each other's shirts."

        When the war was over, the sergeant found himself a disbanded hero, in possession of more liberty than he knew what to do with; a sledge and shoeing hammer; an old pair of bellows; a cabinet of wornout horseshoes; a leather apron; his Sunday regimentals in tolerable repair; and a raw-boned steed, somewhat spavined by service:--to say nothing of a light heart, and an arm as full of sinew as an ox's leg. Considering all which things, he concluded himself to be a well furnished and thriving person, and began to cast about in what way he should best enjoy his laurels, and the ease the gods had made for him.

        In his frequent ruminations over this momentous subject, he fell into some shrewd calculations upon the emolument and comfort which were likely to accrue from a judicious matrimonial partnership. There was at that time a thrifty, driving spinster, bearing the name of Mistress Ruth Saunders, who lived at the landing near Swallow Barn. This dame was now somewhat in the wane, and, together with her mother,

Page 8

occupied a little patch of ground on the river, upon which was erected a small one-storied frame house, the very tenement now in possession of Sandy Walker. Here her sire had, in his lifetime, kept a drinking tavern for the accommodation of the watermen that frequented the landing. The widow did not choose to relinquish a lucrative trade, and therefore kept up the house; whilst the principal cares of the hostelry fell upon the indefatigable and energetic Mistress Ruth, who, from all accounts, was signally endowed with the necessary qualifications which gave lustre to her calling.

        Mike, being a free and easy, swaggering, sociable chap, and endowed with a remarkable instinct in finding out where the best liquors were to be had on the cheapest terms, had fallen insensibly into the habit of consorting with a certain set of idle, muddy-brained loiterers, that made the widow Saunders' house their head-quarters on Sunday afternoons, and as often on week days as they could find an excuse for getting together. And such had been Mike's habits of free entertainment in the army, that he acquired some celebrity for serving his comrades in the the same manner that he had been used to treat the old Continental Congress; that is, he left them pretty generally to pay his scot.

        By degrees, he began to be sensible to the slow invasion of the tender passion, which stole across his ferruginous bosom like a volume of dun smoke through a smithy. He hung about the bar-room with the languishing interest of a lover, and took upon himself sundry minute cares of the household, that excused some increase of familiarity. He laughed very

Page 9

loud whenever Mistress Ruth affected to be witty; and pounced, with his huge ponderous paws, upon the glasses, pitchers, or other implements that the lady fixed her eye upon, as needful in the occasions of her calling: not a little to the peril of the said articles of furniture:--for Mike's clutch was none of the gentlest, in his softest moods. In short, his assiduities soon made him master of the worshipful Mistress Ruth, her purse and person. She had seen the devil, according to the common computation, three times, and had been so much alarmed at his last visit that--the story goes--she swore an oath that she would marry his cousin-german, rather than be importuned by his further attentions. There is no knowing what a woman will do under such circumstances! I believe myself, that Mistress Ruth chose sergeant Mike principally on account of his well known dare-devil qualities.

        The dame whose worldly accomplishments and personal charms had dissolved the case-hardened heart of the redoubted blacksmith of the legion, was altogether worthy of her lord. A succession of agues had spun her out into a thread some six feet long. A tide-water atmosphere had given her an ashen, dough face, sprinkled over with constellations of freckles, and exhibiting features somewhat tart from daily crosses. Her thin, bluish lips had something of the bitterness of the crab, with the astringency of the persimmon. Her hair, which was jet black, was plastered across her brow with the aid of a little tallow, in such a manner as to give it a rigid smoothness, that pretty accurately typified her temper on

Page 10

holiday occasions, and also aided, by its sleekness, in heightening the impression of a figure attenuated to the greatest length consistent with the preservation of the bodily functions. A pair of glassy dark eyes, of which one looked rather obliquely out of its line, glared upon the world with a habitual dissatisfaction; and in short, take her for all and all, Mistress Ruth Saunders was a woman of a commanding temper, severe devotion to business, acute circumspection, and paramount attraction for Mike Brown.

        After the solemnization of the nuptials, Mike took a lease of Mr. Tracy of the small tract of land bordering on the Goblin Swamp, which, even at that day, was a very suspicious region, and the scene of many marvellous adventures. Of all places in the country, it seemed to have the greatest charm for Mike. He accordingly set up his habitation by the side of the old county road, that crossed the marsh by the causeway; and here he also opened his shop. Mistress Mike Brown resumed her former occupation, and sold spirits; whilst her husband devoted his time to the pursuits of agriculture, the working of iron, and the uproarious delights of the bottle: whereto the managing Ruth also attached herself, and was sometimes as uproarious as the sergeant.

        In process of time they were surrounded by four or five imps, of either sex, whose red hair, squinting eyes, and gaunt and squat figures, showed their legitimate descent. As these grew apace, they were to be seen hanging about the smithy bare-footed, half covered with rags, and with smutty faces looking

Page 11

wildly out of mops of hair, that radiated like the beams of the sun in the image of that luminary on a country sign.

        The eldest boy was bred up to his father's trade; that is, he flirted a horse-tail tied to a stick, all day long in summer, to keep the flies from the animals that were brought to be shod; at which sleepy employment Mike was wont to keep the youngster's attention alive by an occasional rap across the head, or an unpremeditated application of his foot amongst the rags that graced the person of the heir-apparent. Upon this system of training, it is reported, there were many family differences betwixt Mike and his spouse, and some grievously disputed fields. But Mike's muscle was enough to settle any question. So that it is not wonderful that the suffering Ruth should sometimes have taken to flight, and had recourse to her tongue.

        In this way, the spoiler Discord stealthily crept into the little Eden of the Browns; and from one flower bed advanced to another, until he made himself master of the whole garden. Quarrels then became a domestic diversion; and travellers along the road could tell when the patriarch Mike was putting his household in order, by the sound of certain lusty thwacks that proceeded from the interior, and the frequent apparition of a young elf darting towards the shop, with one hand scratching his head, and the other holding up what seemed a pair of trowsers, but which, in reality, were Mike's old leather breeches. The customers at the shop, too, affirmed that it was a usual thing to hear Mistress Brown

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talking to herself, for two or three hours, in an amazingly shrill key, after Mike had gone to his anvil. And some persons went so far as to say, that in the dead hour of night, in the worst weather, voices could be heard upon the wind, in the direction of Mike Brown's dwelling, more than a mile off; one very high, and the other very gruff; and sometimes there was a third voice that shook the air like an earthquake, and made the blood run cold at the sound of it.

        From this it may be seen that Mike's house was not very comfortable to him; for he was, at bottom, a good-natured fellow, that loved peace and quiet; or, at any rate, who did not like the clack of a woman, which, he said, "wore a man out like water on a drip-stone." To be sure, he did not care about noise, if it was of a jolly sort; but that he never found at home, and therefore, "as he took no pride in Ruth," to use his own phrase, upon Hafen's report, "he naturally took to roaming."

        He was an open-hearted fellow too, that liked to spend his money when he had it; but the provident Mistress Mike began to get the upper hand; and in nothing are the first encroachments of female despotism more decisively indicated than in the regulation of what is called the family economy. Ruth purloined Mike's breeches, robbed the pockets, and secured the treasure. She forestalled his debtors, and settled his accounts, paralyzed his credit, and, in short, did every thing but publish her determination to pay no debts of his contracting. The stout dragoon quailed before these vexatious tactics. He could never have

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been taken by storm; but to turn the siege into a blockade, and to fret his soul with mouse-nibblings, it was enough to break the spirit of any man! Mike, however, covered himself with glory; for after being reduced to the last stage of vassalage, as happens sometimes with an oppressed nation, he resolved to be his own master again, (thanks to the lusty potations, or he would never have made so successful a rebellion!) and gave Mrs. Brown, on a memorable occasion, a tremendous beating, by which he regained the purse-strings, and spent where and when and as freely as suited his own entertainment.

        There was one thing in which Mike showed the regularity and discipline of an old soldier. He was steady to it in the worst of times. No matter where his vagrant humours might lead him, to what distance, or at what hours, or how topsy-turvy he might have grown, he was always sure to make his way home before morning. From this cause he became a frequent traveller over the country in all weathers, and at all times of night. Time or tide did not weigh a feather. "He would snap his fingers," said Hafen, "at the foggiest midnight, and swear he could walk the whole county blindfold." The fact was, Mike was a brave man, and feared neither ghost nor devil,--and could hardly be said to be afraid even of his wife.

        One winter night,--or rather one winter morning, for it was past midnight,--Mike was coming home from a carouse. The snow was lying about half-leg deep all over the fields; and there was a crust frozen upon it, that was barely strong enough to support

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his weight; at every other step he took, it broke through with him, so that he floundered along sadly without a track; and there was a great rustling and creaking of his shoes as he walked. A sharp northwesterly wind whistled with that shrillness that showed the clearness of the atmosphere; and the moon was shining as bright as burnished silver, casting the black shadows of leafless trees, like bold etchings, upon the driven snow. The stars were all glittering with that fine frosty lustre that makes the vault of heaven seem of the deepest blue; and except the rising and sinking notes of the wind, all was still, for it was cutting cold, and every living thing was mute in its midnight lair. Yet a lonely man might well fancy there were sentient beings abroad besides himself, for on such a night there are sounds in the breeze of human tones, like persons talking at a distance. At all events, Mike was at such a time on his way home; and as he crossed the trackless field that showed him his own habitation at a distance, being in the best possible humour with himself, and whistling away as loud as he could--not from fear, but from inward satisfaction--he all at once heard somebody whistling an entirely different tune close behind him. He stopped and looked around, but there was nothing but the moon and trees and shadows; so, nothing daunted, he stepped on again, whistling as before, when, to his great amazement, the other note was instantly resumed. He now halted a second time. Immediately all was still. Mike then whistled out a sort of flourish, by way of experiment. The other did the very same

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thing. Mike repeated this several times, and it was always answered quite near him.

        "Who the devil are you!" exclaimed Mike, holding his hand up to his ear to catch the sound.

        "Look behind you, and you will see," replied a harsh, screaming voice.

        Mike turned suddenly round, and there he saw on the snow the shadow of a thin, queer-looking man, in a very trig sort of a dress, mounted upon a horse, that, by the shadow, must have been a mere skeleton. These were moving at full speed, although there was no road for a horse to travel on either; but the shadow seemed to go over shrubs and trees and bushes, as smoothly as any shadow could travel; and Mike distinctly heard the striking of a horse's hoofs upon the snow at every bound; though he could see nothing of the real man or horse. Presently, as the sound of the feet died away, Mike heard a laugh from the voice in the direction of the swamp.

        "Hollo!" cried Mike, "what's your hurry?" But there was no answer.

        "Humph!" said Mike, as he stood stockstill, with his hands in his breeches' pockets, and began to laugh. "That's a genius for you!" said he, with a kind of perplexed, drunken, half-humorous face.

        As he found he was not likely to make much out of it, he walked on, and began to talk to himself, and after a while to whistle louder than ever. Whilst he was struggling forward in this way, he heard something like a cat-call down towards the swamp; and immediately there rushed past him the shadows

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of a pack of hounds, making every sort of yelping, deep-mouthed cry. He could even hear the little chips of ice that were flung from their feet, whizzing along the crust of the snow; but still he could see nothing but shadows; and the sounds grew fainter and fainter until they melted away in the bosom of the swamp.

        Mike now stopped again, and folded his arms across his breast,--although he could not help tottering a little, from being rather top-heavy;--and, in this position, he fell gravely to considering. First, he looked all around him: then he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, and after that he rubbed his eyes. "Tut," said he, "it's all a botheration! There's no drag in the world will lie upon this snow. That's some drunken vagabond that had better be in his bed."

        "What's that you say, Mike Brown?" said the same harsh voice that he had heard before, "you had better look out how you take any freedom with a gentleman of quality."

        "Quality!" cried Mike, turning his head round as he spoke. "You and your quality had better be a bed, like a sober man, than to be playing off your cantrips at this time of night."

        Mike looked on the snow, and there was the shadow of the horse again, standing still, and the figure upon it had one arm set a-kimbo against his side. Mike could now observe, as the shadow turned, that he wore something like a hussar-jacket, for the shadow showed the short skirt strutting out behind, and under this was the shadow of a tail turned upwards,

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and thrown across his shoulder. His cap appeared to be a fantastical thing perched on the very top of his head; and below the ribs of the skeleton horse he could perceive the legs dangling with hoofs, one of which was cloven.

        "Aha!" exclaimed Mike, "I begin to understand you, sir. You are no better than you should be; and I will not keep company with such a blackguard."

        "Then, good night, Mike Brown!" said the voice, "you are an uncivil fellow, but I'll teach you manners the next time I meet you;" and thereupon the shadow moved off at a hard trot, rising up and down in his saddle, like a first-rate jockey.

        "Good night!" replied Mike; and he made a low bow, taking off his hat, and scraping his foot, in a very polite fashion, through the snow.

        After this, Mike pushed home pretty fast, for he was growing more sober, and his teeth began to chatter with cold. He had a way of thrusting aside a back-door bolt, and getting into the house without making a disturbance; and then, before he went to bed, he usually took a sleeping-draught from a stone jug that he kept in the cupboard. Mike went through this manual on the night in question, and was very soon afterwards stretched out upon his couch, where he set to snoring like a trumpeter.

        He never could tell how long it was after he had got to bed that night, but it was before day, when he opened his eyes and saw, by the broad moonlight that was shining upon the floor through the window, a comical figure vapouring about the room. It had a thin, long face, of a dirty white hue, and a mouth

Page 18

that was drawn up at the corners with a smile. A pair of ram's horns seemed to be twisted above his brows, like ladies' curls; and his head was covered with hair that looked more like a bunch of thorns, with a stiff cue sticking straight out behind, and tied up with a large knot of red ribbons. His coat was black, herring-boned across the breast with crimson, and bound round all the seams with the same colour. It fitted as close to his body as the tailor could make it; and it had a rigid standing collar that seemed to lift up a pair of immense ears, that were thus projected outwards from the head. The coat was very short, and terminated in a diminutive skirt that partly rested upon a long, pliant tail, which was whisked about in constant motion. He wore tight crimson small-clothes, bound with black; and silk stockings of black and red stripes, one of which terminated in a hoof instead of a human foot. As he walked about the room he made a great clatter, but particularly with the hoof, that clinked with the sound of loose iron. In his hand he carried a crimson cap with a large black tassel at the top of it.

        Mike said that as soon as he saw this fellow in the room, he knew there was something coming. He therefore drew his blanket well up around his shoulders, leaving his head out, that he might have an eye to what was going forward. In a little time the figure began to make bows to Mike from across the room. First, he would bow on one side, almost down to the floor, so as to throw his body into an acute angle; then, in the same fashion, on the other side, keeping his eyes all the time on Mike. He

Page 19

had, according to Mike's account, a strange swimming sort of motion, never still a moment in one place, and passing from spot to spot like something that floated. At one instant he would brandish his arms, and whisk his tail, and take one step forward, like a dancing master beginning to dance a gavot. In the next, he would make a sweep, and retreat to his first position; where he would erect his figure very stiffly, and strut with pompous strides all round the room. All this while he was twisting his features into every sort of grimace. Then he would shake himself like a merry-andrew, and spring from the floor upwards, flinging out his arms and legs like a supple-jack, which being done, he would laugh very loud, and wink his eye at Mike. Then he would skip on the top of a chest, and from that to a table, from the table to a chair, from the chair to the bed, and thence he would skip off, putting his foot upon Mike's breast as he passed, and pressing upon him so heavily, that for some moments Mike could hardly breathe. After this, he would dance a morrice close up to the bedside, and fetch a spring that would bring him astride upon Mike's stomach; where he would stoop down so as to bring his long nose almost to touch Mike's, and there he would twist his eyebrows and make faces at him for several minutes; and from that position he would fling a somerset backwards, as far as the room would permit.

        All this time the foot with the loose iron clanked very loud. Mike was not in the least afraid; but

Page 20

he tried several times to speak without being able to utter a word. He was completely tongue-tied, nor could he move a limb to help himself, being, as he affirmed, under a spell. But there he lay, looking at all these strange capers, which appeared so odd to him, that if he had had the power he would have laughed outright.

        At last the figure danced up to him, and stood still.

        "I have the honour to address myself to Sergeant Brown the blacksmith?" said he interrogatively, making a superlatively punctilious bow at the same time.

        "The same," replied Mike, having in an instant recovered the power of speech.

        "My name," said the figure, "is--," here he pronounced a terrible name of twenty syllables, that sounded something like water pouring out of a bottle, and which Mike never could repeat; "I am a full brother of Old Harry, and belong to the family of the Scratches. I have taken the liberty to call and make my respects this morning, because I want to be shod."

        Thereupon he made another bow, and lifted up his right foot to let Mike see that the shoe was loose.

        "No shoeing to be done at this time of night," said Mike.

        "It does not want but two new nails," said the figure, "and the clinching of one old one."

        "Blast the nail will you get till daylight!" replied Mike.

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        "I will thank you, Mr. Brown," said the figure, "if you will only take my hoof in your hand, and pull out the loose nail that makes such a rattling."

        "I can't do that," answered Mike.

        "Why not?"

        "Because I am afraid of waking Ruthy."

        "I'll answer for the consequences," said the other. "Mistress Brown knows me very well, and will never complain at your doing a good turn to one of my family."

        "I'm sleepy," said Mike, "so, be about your business."

        "Then, Mike Brown, I will waken you," cried the other in a rage; "I told you I would teach you manners."

        Saying these words he came close to Mike, and seized his nose between the knuckles of the two first fingers of his right hand, and wrung it so hard that Mike roared aloud. Then, letting go his hold, he strutted away with a ludicrous short step, throwing his legs upwards as high as his head, and bringing them back nearly to the same spot on the floor, and, in this fashion, whistling all the time a slow march, he passed directly out of the window.

        When Mike had sufficiently come to his senses, he found his gentle consort standing by his bedside, with a blanket wrapt round her spare figure, calling him all sorts of hard names for disturbing her rest.

        Her account of this matter, when she heard from the neighbours Mike's version of this marvellous visit from the devil, was, that she did not know when he came into the house that night; nor did she

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see any thing of his strange visiter; although she was sure Old Nick must have been with him, and flung him into such an odd position as he was in; for he made a terrible, smothered sort of noise with his voice, which wakened her up, and there she found him stretched across the bed with his clothes on, and his head inclined backwards over the side, with both arms down towards the floor. She said, moreover, that he was a drunken brute, and she had a great mind to tweak his nose for him.

        "And I will be bound she helped the old devil to do that very thing!" said Rip.

        "I don't know how that was," replied Hafen, "but Mike's nose got bluer and bluer after that, and always looked very much bruised, which he said was upon account of the devil's fingers being hot, and scorching him very much."

        This adventure of Mike's gave him great celebrity in the neighbourhood; and, by degrees, the people began to be almost as much afraid of Mike as they were of the goblin who was supposed to frequent the swamp. Mike added to this impression by certain mysteries that he used in his craft. He had the art of taming wild colts by whispering in their ears, which had such an effect that he could handle them at his shop as safely as the oldest horses. And he professed to cure the colt's distemper, sweeny, and other maladies, by writing some signs on a piece of paper, and causing the horse to swallow it in his oats.

        These accomplishments, of course, were set down to the proper account; namely, to Mike's intimacy with his old companion, which was known now to

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be very great, as will appear by the following incidents.

        Some years after the last adventure, in the summer, about the month of June, when the moon was in her third quarter, Mike was crossing the common late at night, just as the moon was rising. He was in his usual condition; for latterly Mike was scarcely ever sober. There had been rain that night, but the clouds had broken away, and he was talking to himself, and making the road twice as long as it was, by crossing and recrossing his path, like a ship tacking in the wind, and every now and then bringing himself up against a tree or sapling, and sometimes stepping, with a vast stride, across a streak of shadow, thinking it a gully; and at others, walking plump into a real gully without seeing it, until he came upon his back in the mud. On such accidents, he would swear out a good-natured oath, get up, and go on his way rejoicing, as usual.

        It happened, as he was steering along in this plight, there suddenly stood before him his old friend in the herring-boned jacket.

        "How do you do, Mike?" was his usual salutation.

        "Pretty well, I thank you, sir." Mike was noted for being scrupulously polite when he was in his cups. So, he made a bow, and took off his hat, although he could hardly keep his ground.

        "Sloppy walking to night, Mr. Mike."

        "Sloppy enough, sir," replied Mike, rather short, as if he didn't wish to keep company with the devil.

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        "How is Mistress Brown this evening?" said the other, following Mike up.

        "Pretty well, I thank you, sir," returned the blacksmith, walking as fast as he could.

        "Trade brisk, Mr. Brown?"

        "Quite the contrary," replied Mike; "there's nothing to do worth speaking of."

        "How are you off for cash?" asked the other, coming up close along side.

        "I have none to lend," answered the blacksmith.

        "I did not suppose you had, sergeant; you and I have been acquainted a long while. I hope there is no grudge betwixt us."

        "I never knew any good of you," said Mike.

        "Let us drink to our better friendship," said the gentleman, taking a flat bottle from his pocket.

        "With all my heart!" cried Mike, as he stretched out his hand and took the flask. "Here's to you, Mr. Devil!"

        Hereupon they both took a drink.

        "Now," said Mike, "let us take another to old Virginia."

        "Agreed," answered the gentleman; so they took another.

        "You're a very clever fellow!" said Mike, beginning to brighten up.

        "I know that," replied the gentleman.

        "You are a man after my own heart," continued Mike, "here's your health again. Give us your paw, old fellow." Then they shook hands.

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        "Let us drink to Mistress Brown," said the gentleman politely.

        "Damn Mistress Brown! I'll make you a present of her."

        "I accept your offer," replied the other; "here's her health."

        "Well," said Mike, "here's the health of your wife."

        "I am much obliged to you," replied the gentleman. "Mistress (here he pronounced his own unspellable name,) will thank you herself some of these days, when you may honour her with your company. But Mike, as I have taken a liking to you, I'll make your fortune."

        "Will you?" cried the blacksmith; "then I'm your man!"

        "Come with me," said the other, "and I will show you where you may find as much gold as you can carry home in a bag. But you must not mind trouble."

        "Trouble!" exclaimed Mike. "Any trouble for money!"

        "Follow me," said the gentleman.

        Upon this they both turned their steps towards the swamp, the broadest part of which they reached not very far from the scene of their colloquy. The morass here was covered with sheets of water, some of them ten or twelve yards in diameter. The gentleman in black and crimson easily traversed these, without soiling his habiliments more than if he had been in a drawing-room; but Mike made his way

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with great difficulty, miring himself first in one hole, and then in another, and sometimes plunging up to his middle in water. But his companion exhorted him to persevere, and kept up his resolution by presenting him now and then with the flask, which, Mike said, was of great use to him.

        At last they arrived at the inmost part of the swamp, upon the margin of one of the ponds, in the middle of which the water was about two feet deep, but shallow towards the edges.

        "Now," said the gentleman, "Mike, my brave fellow! do you take a drink."

        "Certainly," replied Mike.

        "The bottom of this pond," continued the other, "is full of gold; and all that you have to do is to rake it out. I'll get you a light rake."

        With this he withdrew for a few moments, and returned with a rake made of a white-oak sapling, with twelve iron teeth to it, each about a foot long, and put the implement in Mike's hand, who, having taken a good deal from his host's flask, had much ado to stand up. But still he was full of resolution, and very much determined to make money.

        The image of the moon was reflected upon the water, whose surface being slightly agitated by the breeze and the frequent movement of small insects, broke the reflection into numberless fragments, that glittered upon Mike's vision like pieces of bright gold at the bottom.

        "All that you have to do," said Mike's conductor, "is to rake out these scraps of metal, and put them

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in your pocket. Work hard, don't give up; and wet your feet as little as possible. So make yourself at home, for I must bid you good night."

        "Good night," uttered Mike, "and joy go with you, my old boy!"

        Finding himself alone in the bosom of the swamp at this hour, and on the high road to fortune, the blacksmith addressed himself to his task as vigorously as the inordinate depth of his potations would allow. He took up the rake, that was lying on the ground, and raised it perpendicularly, which was as much as he could do and keep his balance, considering the state of his head, and the slippery ground he had for a footing. Besides, the rake was very heavy, being made of green wood, and at least twenty feet long. When he had it well poised, and ready to make a stroke in the water, he took two steps forward to bring him immediately to the edge of the pond.

        "Here goes!" he cried aloud, at the same time flinging the rake downwards, which motion disturbed his centre of gravity, and plunged him headlong into the pool. At the same moment with the plash were heard a dozen voices, laughing from the midst of the bushes, with a prolonged and loud ho, ho, ho! that echoed frightfully through the stillness of the night. Mike crawled out of the water, keeping hold of the rake, and once more stood upright on his former foothold.

        "Well!" ejaculated Mike, with a thick utterance, and a kind of peevish gravity, "what do you see to laugh at in that? Never see a man in the water before?"

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        He now very seriously raised the rake a second time, and made a more successful pitch, driving it into the bottom, and breaking the water into a thousand ripples. Then, taking hold of the long shaft, which he straddled, as children when they ride a stick, he began to pull with might and main. He strained until the perspiration poured down his cheeks in large drops; but the teeth had sunk so deep in the mud, that the rake was immovable.

        "Pretty tough work!" said Mike, stopping to run his finger along his brow.

        But all his efforts proved unavailing; and he was therefore forced to wade into the pond again to release the iron teeth from their bed; and, resting them lightly on the bottom, he again began to pull, and succeeded in bringing the rake to the shore. Upon examination, the fruit of all this labour was nothing more than some decayed brushwood and grass.

        "No great haul that!" muttered Mike to himself; and instantly the swamp was alive again with the same reverberations of the choir of laughers. Mike considering this as a taunt that he would bear from neither devil nor imp, returned it scornfully and in defiance, by an equally loud and affected ho, ho, ho! delivered in bass tones. "I can laugh as well as the best of you," he said, nodding his head towards the quarter from which the noises came.

        Mike's temper now began to give way; and as he grew angry, he toiled with proportionate energy, but with the same disappointment, which was always mocked by the same coarse laugh. The violence of his exertions, the weight of the implement

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with which he worked, and his frequent drenchings, gradually overcoming his strength, he grew disheartened, and began to wake up to the real nature of his employment. The chill of the night slowly dispelled the fever of his brain, and at last the full conviction of the truth broke upon him.

        "If I was not a born fool," said he, "I should think I was drunk. I see how it is: that fellow that left the marks of his hot fingers upon my nose, has been playing his tricks upon me again. It is unaccountable; but if I don't have my revenge, he may bridle and saddle me both, and ride me over the swamp as much as he pleases."

        So saying, Mike threw down his rake, and resolutely retraced his steps through the marsh. As soon as he set his foot upon the firm land, he heard the voice of his late companion calling out, "Good night, Sergeant Brown!" which was instantly followed with the accustomed laugh.

        "Good night, you blackguard!" cried Mike, as loud as he could bawl. "Your liquor is as bad as your lodgings!" and posted off homeward as fast as his legs could carry him.

        All the next day Mike ruminated sullenly over this adventure, and the more he thought upon it the more wroth he became. There is nothing more to be dreaded than a pleasant-tempered, sociable, frolicksome fellow, of good bone and muscle, when he is once roused. Quarrel not being one of his habits, he manages it roughly and with great energy,--or as Mike would say,--"like a new hand at the bellows." The affront put upon him the night before

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went very hard with Mike, and he therefore resolved to call his false friend to an account. It was singular that after this thought took possession of his mind, there seemed to be a relish in it that almost brought him into a good humour. The idea of standing upon his prowess with the devil, and giving him a fair beating, was one of those luxurious imaginings that no man ever dreamt of but Mike Brown. There was a whimsicalness in it that vibrated upon the strongest cord in his character. Mike had never met his match in daylight, and he had a droll conviction that he could master any thing in darkness, if he could only come to it, arm to arm. His first and most natural suggestion was, to put himself in order for the projected interview, by making a merry evening of it, and then to depend upon his genius for his success in the subsequent stages of the adventure.

        Mike followed one half of the old Scythian custom in all affairs of perplexity: he first considered the subject when he was drunk, but he did not revolve it again in a sober mood. On the present occasion his reflections had the advantage of being matured under circumstances of peculiar animation, induced by the disturbed state of his feelings; for he has often said that when any thing fretted him it made him awfully thirsty. There was one determination that was uppermost in all the variety of lights in which he contemplated his present purpose;--and that was, as it was a delicate affair, to treat it like a gentleman, and to give his adversary fair play. Accordingly, as soon as Mike had cast off work for the day,

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he put on his regimentals, took his broadsword, and set out for his usual haunt to prepare himself for the business in hand. Never did he enter upon a campaign with a more wary, circumspect or soldier-like providence.

        He remained at the tavern in the neighbourhood until he had fairly put all his compotators asleep; and then, in the dead hour of the night, when the moon was but a little way above the horizon, and divided her quiet empire with Mike's own nose, he crept forth silently upon his destined exploit. It was a goodly sight to see such a valiant blacksmith, so martially bedight, with his trusty sword tucked under his arm, stealing out at such an hour, and wending his silent way to the Goblin Swamp, there to have a pass at arms with the fiend! the night breeze blowing upon his swarthy cheek, and his heavy, sullen tramp falling without an echo upon his own ear, and not a thought of dread flickering about his heart.

        With his head spinning like a top, and his courage considerably above striking heat, Mike, after many circumgyrations, arrived in about half an hour on the frontier of the field of action. Here he halted, according to a military fashion; and, like a cautious officer entering upon an enemy's territory, he began to explore the ground. Then, drawing his sword and straightening his person, he commenced an exhortation to himself in the manner of a general addressing his troops.

        "Now, my brave boy, keep a stiff upper lip!

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mind your eye! look out for squalls! don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes; carry swords; advance!"

        All this he uttered with a solemn, drunken wisdom, and with the flourish of an old soldier. At the words he stepped forward, and continued to approach the swamp, muttering half articulated sounds, and occasionally falling one step backward, from carrying himself rather too erect. As soon as he reached the edge of the morass, he gave the word "halt" in a loud and defying tone of voice, as if to inform his adversary of his presence. He did not wait long before he heard a crackling noise as of one breaking through the thick shrubbery; and full before him stood, on an old log within the swamp, his adversary, in his customary dress, with the addition of a Spanish cloak of scarlet that was muffled about his neck.

        Mike, immediately upon seeing this apparition, brought his sword with an alert motion up to his breast, with the blade reaching perpendicularly upward in the line of his face; then, with a graceful sweep of his arm, he swung it down diagonally, with the point to the ground, in the usual manner of a salute.

        "Your honour!" said Mike, as he performed this ceremony.

        "Walk in, Sergeant Brown!" said the devil, with a husky voice, that was scarcely above a whisper. "I did not expect to see you to night; I have caught a bad cold, and am not able to stir abroad."

        "I am come to night," said Mike very stiffly,

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and with an affectation of cold politeness, "to see you on a piece of business. I require satisfaction for the affront you put upon me last night."

        "You shall have it. What's your weapon?"

        "It is in my hand," answered the sergeant.

        "Then follow me," said the devil with great composure.

        They both stepped forward into the swamp; and, after traversing some defiles, and passing around ponds, and making many tiresome circuits through the most intricate parts of the marsh, Mike at length stopped to inquire which way the devil meant to lead him.

        "As I am the challenged party, I have the right to choose my own ground," said the other.

        "Certainly!" rejoined Mike. "It is all one to me."

        At length they reached a spot that was covered with tall trees, at the foot of which the earth seemed to be of a more firm texture than in the rest of the fen. There was a fire smoking through a heap of rubbish near the middle of the ground, and a little, peaked old woman, almost black with the smoke, sat upon her haunches so near the fire that by the flash of the small flame Mike could perceive that she was smoking a pipe: Her elbows were placed upon her knees, and her chin rested in the palms of her hands in such a manner that her long fingers were extended, like the bars of a gridiron, over her cheeks. Her eyes looked like burning coals, and could be seen through the dark at a great distance.

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        "Wife," said the devil, "Mike Brown, Mike Brown, my wife."

        "Your servant," said Mike, with one of his best flourishes, and a bow.

        "Pish!" cried the old woman with a sort of scream, "sit down!"

        "Much obliged to you, Ma'am," replied Mike, "I'd rather stand."

        "What brings you with Mike Brown into my bedroom at this time of night?" said the old woman to her husband.

        "Mind your own business," was the reply, "and give me my sword. I have an affair of honour to settle with this gentleman."

        "Get it yourself," said the wife.

        So the devil stepped inside of a hollow tree, and brought out a huge old-fashioned, two-handed straight sword, that was covered with rust, and immediately began to feel the edge with his thumb.

        "It is very dull; but it will do. Now, sergeant, we will go a little way further, and settle this matter in a twinkling."

        "Agreed! and remember, as you set up for a gentleman, I expect fair play."

        "Honour bright!" said the devil, putting his hand to his breast.

        "No striking till each says he is ready."

        "By no means," said the devil.

        "Nor no hit below the knee."

        "Of course not," said the devil.

        "Time to breathe, if it is asked."

        "Assuredly!"

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        "Points down at the first blood."

        "Just as you say," replied the devil.

        "Then," said Mike, "move on."

        "We ought to drink together, sergeant, before we get to blows. I am for doing the thing civilly," said the devil.

        "So am I," replied Mike. "I am entirely of your opinion."

        So the devil put into Mike's hands a large gourd, that had a stopper in the top of it, which the sergeant pulled out, and applying the orifice to his mouth, took a hearty drink, first turning to the old woman, who sat all this time in silence by the fire, and saying, "My service to you, Ma'am!" The devil having likewise performed his part in this ceremony, they once more resumed their walk.

        In their progress towards the ground which the devil had chosen for the theatre of this mortal rencounter, they came to two small islands, the soil of which was a yielding black mud covered with moss. These little parcels of ground arose out of the marsh, with well defined banks, perhaps twelve inches high, and were separated from each other by a channel of deep water, not more than five feet in width, so that to pass from one to the other required a leap that was somewhat perilous, because the foothold on the opposite bank was not only very soft, but the ground itself scarcely one pace in breadth. The chances were, therefore, that in leaping to it, the momentum employed would precipitate the leaper into another pond of water beyond it. The devil skipped over this strait with great ease, and called on Mike to follow.

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The sergeant, however, hesitated, and looked for some moments upon the spot with anxious concern. He traversed the ground in the neighbourhood, to observe if there was any other passage round this hazardous channel; meditated upon the consequences of a failure in the attempt to cross it; looked at his legs, as if to compare their capabilities with the obstacle before him; and, at last, wisely determined that the risk was more than he ought, in prudence, to run. So, taking the next expedient,--which was to make a long step, in such wise as to plant one foot on the opposite bank, and rely upon the assistance of his adversary to drag him over,--he forthwith essayed the effort. By one prodigious stride, he succeeded in fixing his left foot on the desired spot, his legs being extended in the endeavour to their greatest possible compass; and there he remained in this ludicrous position, like the colossus of Rhodes, his feet sliding imperceptibly outward in the slimy material of the banks, thus more effectually splitting him asunder, whilst the great weight of his body denied him all power to extricate himself, even if he had stood upon a firmer base, and with a less relaxed frame. He was, of course, wholly at the mercy of his antagonist, upon whose generosity he relied with the confidence of a true soldier; if this failed him, he had nothing better left than to fall side-wise, in the manner of a pair of distended compasses, into the water, and abide the consequences of going headlong to the bottom of a stagnant pool, where, for aught he knew, he should not only be compelled to swallow a portion of the noxious liquid,

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but come into familiar contact with toads, snakes, snapping-turtles, and other abominable inhabitants of such a place. For the present, therefore, he began to entreat the aid of his old companion in the most supplicating terms. To his utter dismay, the gentleman in the scarlet mantle not only refused him a hand, but answered his request with a malignant laugh, so loud as to make the swamp ring with its reverberations.

        "Blood and fury! why don't you give me your hand?" cried Mike at last, in an extremity of torture; "where are your manners?"

        "What ails you?" said the devil, "that you roar so loud?"

        "I'm in a quandary!" bellowed the sergeant. "Is this the way you treat a gentleman in distress? Don't you see I'm splitting up to my chin?"

        "When I fight," replied the other calmly, "I choose my own ground, and if you can't reach it, it is no fault of mine."

        "Don't you mean to give me satisfaction?" asked Mike.

        "All the satisfaction in the world, Sergeant Brown. Rare satisfaction," said the devil, laughing and holding his sides.

        "You are a coward," cried Mike, drawing his sword, and flourishing it over his head.

        "Step out, sergeant, and make your words good."

        "You are no gentleman."

        "Granted," said the devil; "I never set up for one. But I don't think you are much better, or you would never stand vapouring there with your sword,

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and straddling as if you thought yourself a man of consequence."

        "What's the use," said Mike, in a gentle persuasive tone, "of keeping a man here all night, tearing the life out of him by inches? Just give us a hand, like a genteel christian; and as to the quarrel, I'll not be particular about it."

        "Good night, Sergeant Brown," said the devil; "I see you have no mind to fight; and as I did not come here to trifle, I will wait no longer for you."

        So the devil turned round and disappeared from Mike's view, with a bitter, scoffing laugh.

        The sergeant being thus left alone without relief, found his torment becoming every moment more insupportable; and therefore, without further effort to reach the ground on either side, he plunged headforemost into the pond, from which he rose in a moment covered with black mud, and with a multitude of ropes of green slime clinging to his shoulders, and platted about his throat.

        This shock had the effect to bring the blacksmith partially to his senses. He awoke from his intoxication, like one from a dream, wondering at the chances that brought him into such a predicament, and with a confused recollection of the strange adventure he had just been engaged in. His conclusion was, "that the old chap had taken him in again," and he therefore set off homeward, very much ashamed of the failure of his expedition, and not less vexed to hear, as he once more arrived on dry land, the usual valedictory, "Good night!" with its hoarse; wild and fiendish accompaniment.

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        I will not pretend to give any further avouch for these facts than the authority of Hafen, who affirmed that he had them from Mike himself; and as Mike was a little prone to exaggerate when his personal prowess was in question, the judicious reader will make some grains of allowance on that score.

        There were various incidents in Mike's life similar to those above narrated; but it is only material to know, that not long after this last adventure, Mike began to grow jealous of his old crony's attentions to Mistress Brown. There was a spirited intercourse kept up between this worthy and the family, which resulted at last in the sudden disappearance of the matron from the neighbourhood. The folks in these parts have their own notions of the matter; but they don't like to speak freely on the subject. Mike, however, bore his misfortune like a philosopher. He very sedately increased his allowance of comfort by doubling the strength of his cups, and, in consequence, was more frequently than ever beside himself,--a very refreshing expedient for a man who has been left alone in the world. The heir apparent and the rest of the progeny abdicated their birth-right, and wandered off, it is supposed, in search of food. The shop was deserted, the anvil was sold, and the bellows fell a victim to a pulmonary attack. The roof of the dwelling had decayed so as to give the wind and rain free admission. The relics of the smithy were, one windy night, blown down. The frame of the house first became twisted out of its perpendicular line, and gradually sunk to earth, at the base of the brick chimney that stands, at this day, a

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monument to show that another of the host of Revolutionary heroes has departed. The well grew to be choked up with weeds; the balance-pole waxed stiff, and creaked in its swivel; and, finally, Mike ceased to be seen in the country side.

        It is now many years gone by, since these mysterious events employed the gossip of the neighbourhood; and many credible witnesses,--amongst the rest Hafen Blok,--affirm that Mike and his wife are yet seen to hold occasional conventicles with their old associate, in that part of the swamp known as the devil's bed-chamber.

        "Well, Hafen," said I, when this story of Mike Brown was concluded, "do you believe it all?"

        "Why, I don't know," replied Hafen, "it does seem to me as if it might be partly true. But Mike was a monstrous liar, and an uncommon hard drinker."

        "It is reasonable," said Hazard, "to suppose that the devil should be fond of such a fellow as Mike Brown."

        Said Rip, "For my share, I don't believe it. Hafen's making fun: how could the devil walk over the swamp in silk stockings, and not get them muddy?"

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CHAPTER II.

AN INTERLUDE.

        ABOUT the same hour of the night when Hafen Blok was regaling his circle of auditors in the porch at Swallow Barn, it fell out that two sympathetic souls, who have frequently been brought to view in this narrative, were weaving closer the network of sentimental affinities in a quiet conference in one of the chambers at the Brakes. As this contemporary incident may serve to give my readers some insight into the family history, I will relate it as it was told to me by Harvey Riggs; only premising that Harvey is somewhat dramatic in his nature, and therefore apt to put words into the mouths of his actors, which, if the matter were investigated, it might be discovered that they never spoke. Be that as it may, if the story be not a positive fact, (Harvey makes a distinction between a positive and a simple fact,) it is at least founded on a real event.

        The bustle attending the negotiation of the treaty that had just been concluded by our plenipotentiaries at the Brakes, had subsided, upon the departure of the Swallow Barn cavalcade, into an unusual calm. The family retired from the tea table with a sedateness that might be ascribed to exhausted spirits; and, what was most worthy of observation, Swansdown,

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neglectful of his customary assiduities, relinquished the company of the ladies, and sauntered with Mr. Tracy towards the backdoor, where, in a chair inclined against a column of the portico, he fixed himself, with one foot resting against the front bar, and with his right leg thrown across his left knee in such fashion as to point upwards at an angle of forty-five; and in this posture he incontinently launched into a long, prosing discourse with Mr. Tracy, who sat opposite to him, that lasted, for aught I know, three hours or more. He was tuned to too high a key for light company. The achievement of the award had wrought him into that state of self-complacency that generally attends upon ambition when saturated with a great exploit. He had done a deed of mould, and was pleased to float upon the billow of his vanity, high borne above all frivolous things.

        This humour did not pass unobserved, nor, perhaps, unresented: for as soon as affairs had fallen into the posture I have described, Prudence Meriwether and Catharine Tracy, in an apparently careless spirit, set to walking up and down the hall, and afterwards sallied forth, amidst the lingerings of the twilight, upon the open hill side, and, with no better protection against the damps of the evening than their handkerchiefs thrown across their shoulders, strolled at a snail's pace towards the river; and talked--heaven knows what!--or, at least, they only know, who know what ruminative virgins, on river banks at dewy eve, are wont to say.

        It was nine by the clock,--or even later,--when

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they returned to the front door and sat down upon the steps, still intent upon the exchange of secret thoughts. After a brief space, they rose again, and with locked arms stepped stately through the hall, to and fro. Still the interminable Swansdown pursued his incessant discourse. Another interval, and the two ladies slowly wended their way up stairs, and in the eastern chamber, looking towards the river, lighted by a solitary taper that threw a murky ray across the room, they planted their chairs at the window; beneath which, until late at night, was heard a low, murmuring, busy note of ceaseless voices, like the flutter of the humming-bird in a wilderness of honeysuckles.

        Harvey pretends that the subject of this long communing between our thoughtful dames had a special regard to that worthy personage whom but now my reader has seen seated at the porch, with his foot as high as his head. I have said somewhere that Prudence was oratorical; and, indeed, I have heard it remarked that the ladies of the Old Dominion, in general, are not sparing of their tropes. Upon that subject I have no opinion to give, but leave the world to draw its own conclusions from the following authentic conversation; authentic as far as Harvey Riggs is a credible witness.

        It is characteristic of Prudence Meriwether,--as it is of sundry other ladies of my acquaintance,--to throw the whole fervour of her imagination into the advocacy of any favourite opinion. The glow of her feelings is, of course, reflected upon her subject, and the glow of her subject is again reflected back

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upon her feelings; and thence, backward and forward successively, until the greatest possible degree of heat is obtained by the process; exactly as we see the same result produced between two concave mirrors. It seems to me that an attentive observation of this phenomenon may go a great way to explain the mystery of a love affair.

        The present theme was one of those upon which Prudence was wont to expatiate with a forcible emphasis. Her rhetoric might be said to be even hyperbolical, and her figures of speech were certainly of the most original stamp. First, she gave an inventory of Swansdown's gentle qualities. "He was amiable, mild, soft and polished." Then again, "his voice was silvery, his motion graceful, his manners delicate." In this enumeration of dainty properties she sometimes paused to ask Catharine if she did not think so.

        Catharine thought exactly so.

        "There was a gravity in his demeanor," said Prudence, "which gave authority to his presence, and seemed to rebuke familiarity; and yet it was so mixed up with the sallies of a playful imagination, that it won the good opinion of the world almost by stealth."

        "He is very generally respected," said Catharine.

        Prudence continued the catalogue with increasing warmth; and although Catharine was not so figurative, she was not less energetic in her panegyric. She not only echoed Pru's sentiments, but even magnified their proportions. Where two persons agree, the debate must be short. Such congeniality of

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thinking occludes discussion, and the two ladies, therefore, travelled rapidly through the inventory.

        Prudence rose to the height of the stature of his mind, and descanted upon his abilities.

        "He had the art," she said, "to impart a charm to the dullest subjects. His discrimination was intuitive, and facilitated his journey through the mazes of research, like one that wandered over a shorn meadow. Who but a man of genius could unravel the occult darkness of the boundary line, and shed certainty, in one day, upon an important question, in opposition to all the courts and all the lawyers of a state that boasted of both? with that forensic jurist Mr. Wart (manifestly prejudiced against his opinion,) on the other side! There was a moral romanticity in it. It was like casting a spell of "gramarie" over his opponents. The world would talk of this thing hereafter!"

        "It is very surprising," muttered Catharine.

        "Think of it, my dear!" cried Prudence. "The country, before long, will discover his dormant talents, and he will be compelled to forego his reluctance to guide the destinies of his native state."

        "It can be nothing but his modesty," rejoined Kate, "that keeps him in the back ground now. He never would have been beaten three times for congress, if he had not been so diffident."

        "He is what I denominate emphatically," said Prudence, "a man of lofty sentiments: nothing sordid, nothing paltry, nothing tawdry, nothing--"

        "Nothing," replied Kate, "nothing of the sort."

        "Such sound opinions!"

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        "And spoken in such chaste language!"

        "Such a strain of charity! such a beautiful commingling of the virtues that mollify, with the principles that fortify, the heart!"

        "Such a rare union!" echoed Kate.

        Never has the world seen more perfect harmony than that which ruled in the counsels of our two damsels.

        At length they fell into a speculation upon the question, why he did not marry. Women consider, very naturally, life to be a sort of comedy, and constantly look to see the hero pairing off by way of preparation for the catastrophe. They agreed that there were not many of the sex who would not think themselves blessed by an overture from Mr. Swansdown. But it was allowed that he was fastidious. It resulted from the peculiar nature of his organization.

        "I confess," said Prudence, "it puzzles me. It is one of the inexplicable arcana of human action that I cannot dissolve."

        "Nor I, neither," replied Kate.

        "There are men," said Miss Meriwether, "of such attenuated fibre, that they shrink at the rude touch of reality. They have the sensitiveness of the mimosa, and find their affections withering up where the blast of scrutiny blows too roughly upon them. Such a man is Singleton."

        "I believe that is very true," rejoined Miss Tracy; "and besides, I think Mr. Swansdown is a little dashed by being refused so often."

        To this succeeded a shrewd inquiry as to what was his present purpose.

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        "For," said Prudence, "it is quite clear to me that he meditates an important revolution in his fate."

        "On my word, Prudence, I have lately taken up the same idea."

        "There is something," continued Prudence, "in his thoughts that disturbs him. He is variable, vacillating and visionary: sometimes, you would suppose, all mirthful exuberance,--if you were governed by the beaming expression of his face,--but, when he speaks, it is only to say some common-place thing, with an air of earnestness, that shows his thoughts to be looking upon some invisible idea. He is, at other times, so pensive, that one would think 'melancholy had marked him for her own.' What can it signify?"

        "Can he have taken a religious turn?" asked Kate, with an air of wonder.

        "No," replied the other, thoughtfully. "It has the fitfulness of genius distracted by its own emotions. It is not religion: we should wish it were so. But it is not that. It is the aspen agitation of sensibility. An imaginative temperament recreating amidst the attractive creations of its own handiwork."

        "Oh, Prudence! how much that is like Swansdown himself?"

        "I think," returned Miss Meriwether, "I have studied his character well. There is a kindred congeniality in our natures, which attaches me to his eccentricities. My life has been a tissue of similar emotions. And, to tell you the truth, my dear Catharine, I fancy he recognizes some affinity between us. I

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perceive that when he is anxious to share his thoughts with a friend, he flies to me; and it strangely happens, that some secret instinct brings us into that holy confidence, where friendship puts on its garb of naked simplicity, and ideas flow together on the same high road, without reserve."

        "Indeed! I did not know you were so intimate with Mr. Swansdown. It is strange it should have escaped me."

        "Why, it was a sudden thing. It is wonderful to think how long two spirits may associate in the same sphere without striking upon that chord which undulates in unison in the hearts of both. But for an accidental walk we took three or four mornings ago, before breakfast, I doubt if I should ever have been brought to that effulgent conviction which I entertain of his high qualities. And, take him altogether, Kate, I think him a timid man. He is even timid in his intercourse with me; although he passes almost every unoccupied moment in my company."

        "I did not think him timid," said Kate.

        "Oh, I am sure that he is so, my dear! To tell you the truth, with that frankness which should preside over the breathings of inviolable friendship, I have no question, from his manner, that he has something of a very delicate nature to communicate to me."

        "No! Prudence! You don't think so! My dear, you deceive yourself. You are entirely mistaken in his views. Indeed, I know you are," cried Catharine with energy.

        "Indeed, I am sure I am not, Kate. I have it in every thing but words."

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        "Then," said Kate with emphasis, "there's no faith in man!"

        "Why not, my dear Catharine?"

        "It is of no consequence," replied the other, in a tremulous, murmuring voice. "The thing is not worth investigating. From any other lips than yours, Pru, I never would have believed that Swansdown harboured a deceitful thought. Well, I wish you joy of your conquest. I renounce--"

        "Heavens, Catharine! Do I understand you right? What a dreadful truth do you divulge to my mind! I comprehend your silence, my dearest Catharine, and do not ask an explanation, because I see it all. This is one of the cruelest bolts that Fate has treasured up in her quiver in order that she might launch it at a heart consecrated by its sensibility, and torn by misfortune."

        "What shall we do, my dear Prudence? I am all amazement!"

        "Do! What ought we to do, but banish him from our favour as a false-hearted minion; banish him to the antarctic circle of our regard, and fix upon him the indelible stain of our contempt? From this moment I discard him from my heart."

        "And I from mine," said Catharine.

        "Now we are free," cried Prudence. "Is it not lucky that we have had this interview?"

        "Most fortunate. But are you sure, my dear Prudence, that you have not made some mistake? Do you think he seriously aimed at entrapping your affections?"

        "Sure, my love! He did every thing that man could do, and said every thing that man could say,

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short of falling on his knee and offering me his hand."

        "What unparalleled perfidy! When I contrast what you tell me with what I know, and for seven long months have so frequently experienced--"

        "For seven months?"

        "For seven months, believe me, my dear Prudence, for seven months."

        "Why he told me, Catharine, only this morning, that he never could grow intimate with you. That you had a reserve in your manners that repelled all advances; that--"

        "Good heavens! does Swandown say so? There is a hypocrisy in that, my dear Prudence, that shocks me. He has had some sinister design in this falsehood."

        "Oh! forbear, Catharine. Do not mention it. I always thought him somewhat worldly-minded; a little hollow-hearted. He shows it in the expression of his countenance."

        "Particularly," replied Catharine, "about the eyes, when he smiles. Do you know, I always suspected him. I have a perfect horror of a man of extravagant professions, and have often doubted the sincerity of Swansdown."

        "Sincerity! Let not the word be profaned by wedding it with his name. It is plain, that all those deep and solemn emotions by which he vainly endeavoured to wrench from me--yes, to wrench from me, my affections, were nothing more than the false glitter that plays about the sunny summit of unsubstantial deceit."

        "But when you tell me," said Catharine, interrupting

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her friend, "that he has made an assault upon your affections, I am lost in amazement. He has twenty times insinuated to me, that although he thought you a woman of some pretensions, yet you were the last woman in the world that could interest his regard. He said he thought your manners unnatural, and your tone of feeling superficial. I recollect his very words."

        "What reason have I to be thankful," exclaimed Prudence, clasping her hands, "that I have escaped the snare he has infused into my cup! He has been lavish of expedients to entrap me. Would you believe it, Catharine, he has actually written a long, and, I must do him the justice to say, talented letter, depicting the misery of the Greek matrons, and their devotion to the cause of their country, with a view to gratify me, and inspire me with a loftier sentiment of admiration for him. He was aware of my zeal in that cause."

        "The Greeks!" said Catharine. "Does he pretend to be an advocate for the cause of the Greeks? His precise words to me were, that he thought the Greeks the most barbarous, the most uninteresting, and the vilest wretches in the world."

        "The infidel! the preposterous man! What a fatal mildew must have struck its fangs into the understanding and the heart of the wretch that uttered such a sentiment! And then, what immeasurable hypocrisy must have varnished his face, whilst his pen traced his appeal to the sensibilities of Virginia in behalf of the suffering patriots!["]

        "It could not have been his own," replied Catharine.

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        "Indeed, I should doubt it myself," said Prudence, "if it were not remarkable for those meretricious ornaments of style that disfigure even the best of his effusions. It has, however, the marks of the beast upon it. You may very easily see that it abounds in those vicious decorations that betray a false taste, those turgid, inflated, bombastic, superfluous redundancies that sparkle out in his compositions, like the smothered embers of an extinguished furnace."

        "I think," added Catharine, "that it will invariably be found that a bad heart--"

        "Yes, my dear, that is perfectly true: a bad heart never puts pen to paper, but its guardian imp stands at its elbow, and infuses into the composition his corrupt effluvia. And had he the assurance to say that he thought my manners unnatural?"

        "Yes; he said you were stiff and formal, and almost inaccessible."

        "That shows his poverty of thought, Catharine; for he made use of the same terms in reference to you."

        "He said he thought it strange, too," continued Catharine, "that you should fancy you were doing good by circulating tracts. He observed this was another of your follies; that these tracts--"

        "And so he had the effrontery to attack the Tract Society!"

        "He had, and went further; he remarked that the society was a mere invention to give employment to busy-bodies and country-gossips."

        "Heavens and earth! had he the rashness to question my motives?"

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        "To be sure he had; and called you one of the immaculates."

        "Then, I am done with man. Depend upon it, Catharine, the sex is not to be trusted. There is a natural propinquity--proclivity I mean--in this baser part of creation, to undervalue all that is glorious. I never saw one man whose impulses were not essentially wicked."

        "Nor I, neither, except my father," replied Catharine.

        "Of course, I except my brother Frank," said Prudence. "Henceforward I abjure the sex."

        "I think I will too," said Catharine in a lower tone.

        "Well now, Catharine," continued Miss Meriwether, "it becomes us to take a decided part in reference to this Mister Swansdown."

        "What do you propose, Pru?"

        "To treat him with that cutting coldness that we both so well know how to assume."

        "I don't think we ought to make him of so much importance."

        "My dear," said Prudence, after a moment's hesitation, "perhaps you are right. There is nothing puffs up these lords of creation so much as to find our sex guilty of the weakness of even the homage of contempt. Suppose we indicate to him by our manner that we have unveiled his treachery, and show him, that although it has been the labour of his life to insinuate himself into our good opinion, we regard him as an object of perfect indifference."

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        "As one," added Catharine, "whose ways were known to us."

        "Whose fate," said Prudence, in continuation, "is a subject that has never occupied our thoughts."

        "Whose duplicity has failed of its aim," said Catharine.

        "Whose tergiversation and ambidexterity have alike excited our ridicule," replied Prudence.

        "Agreed! let us do so," continued Catharine; "how shall we manage it?"

        "By our looks, my dear Catharine! I will look into the deepest recesses of his heart with a glance, and wither him into a spectacle of scorn."

        "Looks may do a great deal," replied Catharine, "and I will regulate my demeanor by yours."

        "The heathen! the Turk! the pretender! the cormorant!" said Miss Meriwether.

        "I am glad we have found him out!" cried Miss Tracy.

        "Let us retire to rest my dear," said the other. "Let us to our prayers, and be thankful that we have escaped these impending dangers."

        For a while, all was silent. But at midnight again, and long afterwards, a buzzing sound of suppressed voices was heard from the chamber.

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CHAPTER III.

SUMMER MORNINGS.

        IN the country every thing wears a Sunday look. The skies have a deeper blue than common, the clouds rest upon them like paintings. The soft flutter of the groves hushes one into silence. The chirp of the grasshopper, as he leaps in his short semi-circles along your path, has the feebleness of a whisper; and the great vagabond butterfly, that gads amongst the thistles, moves noiseless as a straggling leaf borne upon a zephyr. Then, there is a lowing of cows upon a distant meadow, and a scream of jay-birds, heard at intervals; the sullen hammer of a lonely woodpecker resounds from some withered trunk; and, high above, a soaring troop of crows, hoarse with bawling, send forth a far-off note. Sometimes a huge and miry mother of the sty, with her litter of querulous pigs, steps leisurely across the foreground; and a choir of locusts in the neighbouring woods spin out a long stave of music, like the pupils of a singing-school practising the elements of psalmody. Still, this varied concert falls faintly upon the ear, and only seems to measure silence.

        Our morning pursuits at Swallow Barn partake somewhat of the quiet character of the scenery. Frank Meriwether is an early riser at this season,

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and generally breakfasts before the rest of the family. This gives him time to make a circuit on horseback, to inspect the progress of his farm concerns. He returns before the heat of the day, and, about noon, may be found stretched upon a broad settee in the hall, with a pile of books on the floor beneath him, and a dozen newspapers thrown around in great confusion: not unfrequently, too, he is overtaken with a deep sleep, with a volume straddling his nose; and he will continue in this position, gradually snoring from a lower to a higher key, until he awakens himself by a sudden and alarming burst that resembles the bark of a mastiff. He says the old clock puts him asleep, and, in truth, it has a very narcotic vibration; but Frank is manifestly growing corpulent. And, what is a little amusing, he protests in the face of the whole family that he does not snore.

        The girls get at the piano immediately after breakfast; and Ned and myself usually commence the morning with a stroll. If there happen to be visiters at Swallow Barn, this after-breakfast hour is famous for debates. We then all assemble in the porch, and fall into grave discussions upon agriculture, hunting or horsemanship, in neither of which do I profess any great proficiency, though I take care not to let that appear. Some of the party amuse themselves with throwing pebbles picked from the gravel walk, or draw figures upon the earth with a rod, as if to assist their cogitations; and when our topics grow scarce, we saunter towards the bridge, and string ourselves out upon the rail, to watch the bubbles that float down the stream; and are

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sometimes a good deal perplexed to know what we shall do until dinner time.

        There is a numerous herd of little negroes about the estate; and these sometimes afford us a new diversion. A few mornings since, we encountered a horde of them, who were darting about the bushes like untamed monkeys. They are afraid of me, because I am a stranger, and take to their heels as soon as they see me. If I ever chance to get near enough to speak to one of them, he stares at me with a suspicious gaze; and, after a moment, makes off at full speed, very much frightened, towards the cabins at some distance from the house. I believe they think I am a Georgia man, which they all consider a kind of hobgoblin. They are almost all clad in a long coarse shirt that reaches below the knee, without any other garment: but one of the group, that we met on the morning I speak of, was oddly decked out in a pair of ragged trowsers, conspicuous for their ample dimensions in the seat. These had evidently belonged to some grown-up person, but were cut short in the legs to make them fit the wearer. A piece of twine across the shoulder of this grotesque imp, served for suspenders, and kept his habiliments from falling about his feet. Ned ordered this crew to prepare for a foot-race, and proposed a reward of a piece of money to the winner. They were to run from a given point, about a hundred paces distant, to the margin of the brook. Our whole suite of dogs were in attendance, and seemed to understand our pastime. At the word, away went the bevy, accompanied by every dog of the

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pack, the negroes shouting and the dogs yelling in unison. The shirts ran with prodigious vehemence, their speed exposing their bare, black and meager shanks, to the scandal of all beholders; and the strange baboon in trowsers struggled close in their rear, with ludicrous earnestness, holding up his redundant and troublesome apparel with his hand. In a moment they reached the brook with unchecked speed; and, as the banks were muddy, and the dogs had become tangled with the racers in their path, the entire herd were precipitated, one over the other, into the water. This only increased their merriment, and they continued the contest in this new element, by floundering, kicking and splashing about, like a brood of ducks in their first descent upon a pool. These young negroes have wonderfully flat noses, and the most oddly disproportioned mouths, which were now opened to their full dimensions, so as to display their white teeth in striking contrast with their complexions. They are a strange pack of antic and careless animals, and furnish the liveliest picture that is to be found in nature, of that race of swart fairies which, in the old time, were supposed to play their pranks in the forest at moonlight. Ned stood by, enjoying this scene like an amateur; encouraging the negroes in their gambols, and hallooing to the dogs, that by a kindred instinct entered tumultuously into the sport, and kept up the confusion. It was difficult to decide the contest in favour of any of the actors. So the money was thrown into the air, and as it fell to the ground, there was another rush, in which the hero of the trowsers succeeded

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in getting the small coin from the ground in his teeth, but to the great prejudice of his finery.

        Rip asserts a special pre-eminence over these young serfs, and has drilled them into a kind of local militia. He sometimes has them all marshalled in the yard, and entertains is with a review. They have an old watering-pot for a drum, and a dingy pockethandkerchief for a standard, under which they are arrayed in military order. As they have no hats amongst them, Rip makes each stick a cock's feather in his wool; and in this guise they parade over the grounds with a riotous clamour, in which Rip's shrill voice, and the clink of the old watering-pot, may be heard at a great distance.

        Besides these occupations, Hazard and myself frequently ride out during the morning; and we are apt to let our horses take their own way. This brings us into all the by-places of the neighbourhood, and makes me many acquaintances. Lucy and Victorine often accompany us, and I have occasion to admire their expert horsemanship. They have a brisk little pony that is a wonderful favourite with them; and, to hear them talk, you would suppose them versed in all the affairs of the stable.

        With such amusements, we contrive to pass our mornings, not listlessly, but idly. This course of life has a winning quality that already begins to exercise its influence upon my habits. There is a fascination in the quiet, irresponsible and reckless nature of these country pursuits, that is apt to seize upon the imagination of a man who has felt the perplexities of business. Ever since I have been at Swallow Barn, I

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have entertained a very philosophical longing for the calm and dignified retirement of the woods. I begin to grow moderate in my desires; that is, I only want a thousand acres of good land, an old manor-house, on a pleasant site, a hundred negroes, a large library, a host of friends, and a reserve of a few thousands a year in the stocks,--in case of bad crops,--and, finally, a house full of pretty, intelligent and docile children, with some few et ceteras not worth mentioning.

        I doubt not, after this, I shall be considered a man of few wants, and great resources, within myself.

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CHAPTER IV.

A COUNTRY GATHERING.

        THE day that followed our adventure in the Goblin Swamp, was one of more bustling pursuits than those described in the last chapter. It was distinguished by its active preparations for the dinner party at Swallow Barn.

        Sometime before breakfast a servant waited at the front door for Hazard's orders: this was a negro boy, not quite full grown, who, without jacket or shoes, but tricked out in a hat with a yellow ribbon for a band, and set a little to one side on his head, was mounted, bare-backed, upon a tall, full-blooded horse, just ready to start, when Hazard came to instruct him in the purpose of his errand.

        "Ganymede," said Ned, "you will go to the Court House, and give my compliments--"

        "Yes, sir," said the messenger, with a joyful countenance.

        --"To Mister Toll Hedges and the doctor, and tell them that we expect some friends here at dinner today."

        "Yes, sir," shouted the negro, and striking his heels into his horse's sides at the same instant, plunged forward some paces.

        "Come back," cried Ned; "you hair-brained fool, what are you going after?"

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        "To ax Mas Toll Hedges and the doctor to come here to dinner to-day," returned the impatient boy.

        "Wait until you hear what I have to tell you," continued Ned. "Say to them that your Master Frank will be glad to see them; and that I wish them to bring any body along with them they choose."

        "That's all!" exclaimed the negro again, and once more bounded off towards the high road.

        "You black rascal!" cried Ned at the top of his voice, and laughing, "come back again. You are in a monstrous hurry. I wish you would show something of this activity when it is more wanting. Now, hear me out. Tell them, if they see the 'squire, to bring him along."

        "Yes, sir."

        "And as you pass by Mr. Braxton Beverly's, stop there, and ask him if he will favour us with his company. And if he cannot come himself, tell him to send us some of the family. Tell him to send them, at any rate. Let me see; is there any body else? If you meet any of the gentlemen about, give them my compliments, and tell them to come over."

        "Yes, sir."

        "Now can you remember it all?"

        "Never fear me, Mas Ned," said the negro, with his low-country, broad pronunciation, that entirely discards the letter R.

        "Then be off," cried Hazard, "and let me hear of no loitering on the road."

        "That's me!" shouted Ganymede, in the same tone of excessive spirits that he evinced on his first appearance.

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"I'll be bound I make tracks!" and, saying this, the negro flourished his hand above his head, struck his heels again on the horse's ribs, hallooed with a wild scream, and shot forward like an arrow from a bow.

        Soon after breakfast the visiters from the Brakes began to appear. First came Prudence Meriwether with Catharine, in Mr. Tracy's carriage. About an hour afterwards, Swansdown's glittering curricle arrived, bringing Bel Tracy under the convoy of the gentleman himself. After another interval, Harvey Riggs and Ralph followed on horseback. Mr. Tracy had not accompanied either of these parties; but Harvey brought an assurance from him that he would be punctual to the engagement.

        A dinner party in the country is not that premeditated, anxious affair that it is in town. It has nothing of that long, awful interval between the arrival of the guests and the serving up of the dishes, when men look in each other's faces with empty stomachs, and utter inane common-places with an obvious air of insincerity, if not of actual suffering. On the contrary, it is understood to be a regular spending of the day, in which the guests assume all the privileges of inmates, sleep on the sofas, lounge through the halls, read the newspapers, stroll over the grounds, and, if pinched by appetite, stay their stomachs with bread and butter, and toddy made of choice old spirits.

        There were several hours yet to be passed before dinner time. Our company, therefore, began to betake themselves to such occupations as best sorted with their idle humours. Harvey Riggs had already

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communicated to me the incidents I have recorded of the interview between Prudence and Catharine, and our curiosity had been accordingly aroused to see in what way the two damsels intended to pursue the measures which both had voted necessary in their emergency. An occasion now occurred to put them in practice. Prudence was seated at the piano strumming a tune; Swansdown was in the courtyard, looking through the open window, with a flower in his hand regaling his nose, and listening to the strains, the syren strains, that fell from his fair enemy. Presently the piano ceased, the maiden turned carelessly towards the window. Swansdown put on a winning smile, said some unheard, gallant thing, and presented the nosegay to the lady. She smelt it, and sat down at that very window. This position brought her ear right opposite the gentleman's lips. It is pretty obvious what must follow, when a cavalier has such an advantage over even an angry dame. Soon Prudence was observed to smile; and, straightway, the conference became soft and low, accompanied with earnest, sentimental looks, and ever and anon relieved by a fluttering, short, ambiguous, and somewhat breathless laugh. It was plain, Prudence was enforcing her tactics. She was heaping coals of fire upon the head of the luckless swain. In truth, if she yet nursed her wrath, it seemed to have grown monstrous charitable. Perhaps she relented in her stern purpose, and gave way to the gentler emotions of pity, in the hope of converting the sinner. Perhaps she had tempered her censure of man's obliquities, by the spontaneous and irresistible overflow of

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her own tenderness; or, perhaps she had been altogether in a mistake. Whatever was the truth, her present purpose, motive and action certainly seemed to me marvellously inexplicable.

        Whilst this private interview was going on, the members of the household passed freely along the hall. A drawing would show my reader how one might have looked thence into the parlour, and seen the position of the speakers; and how from the little porch where Harvey and I were seated, we could discern Swansdown through a screen of rose bushes, as he stood with his head rather inside of the casement. But, for want of a good map or sketch of the premises, these things must be conceived. At length Catharine, who till now had been engaged with other cares, and who had, I presume, supposed that the war against the perfidious poet, philosopher, and future pillar of the state was to be one of extermination, came flaunting along the hall, carolling a gay tune, and wearing an outside of unaccustomed levity. When she arrived opposite the parlour door, the same phenomenon that had put us at fault seemed all at once to strike her. An emotion of surprise was visible upon her countenance. She passed, went back, looked into the parlour, hesitated, returned towards the front door, stood still a moment in a fit of abstraction, wheeled round, and finally entered the room with a face all smoothness and pleasure. Her plans were concerted during these motions. Her accost was playful, loud, and even unusually gracious; and from that moment the trio fell into an easy, voluble and pleasant discourse, in which the

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two ladies talked without intermission, and without listening to each other, for a good half hour.

        "That's strange!" said Harvey, looking at me with a face full of wonder.

        "You have misrepresented them, Harvey," said I.

        "Not a jot; for Bel has had the whole detailed to her, not exactly in the words I have given you, but in substance, from each of them separately this morning. They have both, in turn, confided to her the conversation of last night; and, like a good secret-keeper, she has told it all to me,--knowing my anxiety in the matter,--but with a strict injunction that it was to go no further. And so I, in order that I may have a witness to my fidelity, have told it all to you, who of course will understand it as confidential, and not permit a word of it to escape your lips. There you have the whole pedigree of the secret, and you see that I am as close as a woman. In the detail, I have not in any degree impaired the excellence of the story, I assure you."

        "Then the wind blows from another quarter today," said I.

        "The thing is perfectly plain," said Harvey; "that solemn ass, Swansdown, has a greater hold on these women than they are willing to allow to each other. Prudence is not quite agreed to trust Kate; and Kate is half inclined to disbelieve every word that Prudence has told her. And both of them think it at least very probable that there is some mistake in the matter. So, for fear there might be a mistake, Pru has set about making a demonstration for herself; and Kate has taken the alarm from what

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she has discovered, and is afraid that Pru, if let alone, will get the whip-hand of her. In this state of things, they have dissolved the alliance, and each one is coquetting on her own account. It is something like a panic against a bank, when the creditors are all dashing in to get the preference in the payment of their notes."

        Swansdown was at last relieved from the spirited run that had been made upon his courtesy. The two ladies drew off to other engagements, and the disencumbered gentleman came round to the door where we were sitting. It happened that Rip, a few moments before, had been released from school, and had walked into the parlour where Prudence and Catharine were entertaining the poet; but, finding them earnestly occupied, had made a circuit round the room and out again without stopping, and then came and seated himself on the sill of the front door, where he remained when Swansdown joined our party. What had previously been occupying Rip's brain I know not, for he sat silent and abstracted; but at last, drawing up his naked heels on the floor, so as to bring his knees almost in contact with his chin, and embracing his legs with his arms, in such manner as to form a hoop round them with his fingers interlaced, he looked up at us with a face of some perplexity, as he broke out with the exclamation,--

        "Dog them women! If they ar'nt too much!"

        "Whom do you mean, Rip?" inquired Harvey.

        "Aunt Pru and Catharine."

        "What have they been doing? you seem to be in a bad humour."

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        "Oh, dog 'em, I say! they won't let Mr. Swansdown do any thing he wants: always tagging after him. (Swansdown was a great favourite of Rip's, principally on account of his horses.) I don't wonder he don't like to stay with them."

        "What fault have you to find with the ladies, Rip?" asked Swansdown, amused with the boy's manner. "You are not angry with them on my account, I hope?"

        "Yes, I am. They're always a talking about you. For my share, I think they must be in love with you."

        Here Harvey laughed aloud. "What do they say of Mr. Swansdown, Rip?"

        "You needn't laugh, Mr. Riggs," said Rip. "Hav'nt I heard them both talking about Mr. Swansdown? Oh, oh! I wouldn't like any body to talk about me so!"

        "I hope they said nothing ill of me, Rip?" said Swansdown, a little confused.

        "I guess they didn't," replied Rip. "But you had better look out, else every body will say that you are going to get married to both of them. That would be queer, wouldn't it?"

        "But you hav'nt told us what they said," interrupted Harvey.

        "No matter, Rip, about that," said Swansdown. "We must not tell tales out of school, you know."

        "Catch me!" replied Rip, "I'm