tionary that way, aint it? How nateral he is!
Guess they don't often see such a 'postle as that in these diggins. Yes,
it's pretty is this cottage; but it's small, arter all. You feel like a
squirrel in a cage, in it; you have to run round and round, and don't go
forward none. What would a man do with a rifle here? For my part, I have
a taste for the wild woods; it comes on me regular in the fall, like the
lake fever, and I up gun, and off for a week or two, and camp out, and
get a snuff of the spruce-wood air, and a good appetite, and a bit of
fresh ven'son to sup on at night.

"I shall be off to the highlands this fall; but, cuss em, they hante got
no woods there; nothin' but heather, and thats only high enough to tear
your clothes. That's the reason the Scotch don't wear no breeches, they
don't like to get 'em ragged up that way for everlastinly, they can't
afford it; so they let em scratch and tear their skin, for that will
grow agin, and trowsers won't.

"Yes, it's a pretty cottage that, and a nice tidy body that too, is Mrs.
Hodgins. I've seen the time when I would have given a good deal to have
been so well housed as that. There is some little difference atween that
cottage and a log hut of a poor back emigrant settler, you and I know
where. Did ever I tell you of the night I spent at Lake Teal, with old
Judge Sandford?"

"No, not that I recollect."

"Well, once upon a time I was a-goin' from Mill-bridge to Shadbrooke,
on a little matter of bisness, and an awful bad and lonely road it was,
too. There was scarcely no settlers in it, and the road was all made
of sticks, stones, mud holes, and broken bridges. It was een amost
onpassible, and who should I overtake on the way but the Judge, and his
guide, on horseback, and Lawyer Traverse a-joggin' along in his gig, at
the rate of two miles an hour at the fardest.

"'Mornin,' sais the Judge, for he was a sociable man, and had a kind
word for every body, had the Judge. Few men 'know'd human natur' better
nor he did, and what he used to call the philosophy of life. 'I am
glad to see you on the road, Mr. Slick, sais he, 'for it is so bad I
am afraid there are places that will require our united efforts to pass
'em.'

"Well, I felt kinder sorry for the delay too, for I know'd we should
make a poor journey on't, on account of that lawyer critter's gig, that
hadn't no more busness on that rough track than a steam engine had. But
I see'd the Judge wanted me to stay co