WARWICK WOODLANDS. 21 



brought up five gallons of exceedingly stout, rather fiery, young, 

 brown sherry draught wine, you know ! and what did Tom 

 do here, but mix it, half and half, with brandy, nutmeg, and 

 sugar, and drink it for milk punch !" 



" I did so, by the eternal," replied Tom, bolting a huge lump 

 of beef, in order to enable himself to answer " I did so, and 

 good milk punch it made, too, but it was too weak ! Come, 

 Mr. Forester, we harn't drinked yet, and I'm kind o' gittin 

 dry !" 



And now the mirth waxed fast and furious the champagne 

 speedily was finished, the supper things cleared off, hot water 

 and Starke's Ferintosh succeeded, cheroots were lighted, we 

 drew closer in about the fire, and, during the circulation of two 

 tumblers for to this did Harry limit us, having the prospect 

 of unsteady hands and aching heads before him for the morrow 

 never did I hear more genuine and real humor, than went 

 round our merry trio. 



Tom Draw, especially, though all his jokes were not such al- 

 together as I can venture to insert in my chaste paragraphs, 

 and though at times his oaths were too extravagantly rich to 

 brook repetition, shone forth resplendent. No longer did I 

 wonder at what I had before deemed Harry Archer's strange 

 hallucination ; Tom Draw is a decided genius rough as a pine 

 knot in his native woods but full of mirth, of shrewdness, of 

 keen mother wit, of hard horse sense, and last, not least, of the 

 most genuine milk of human kindness. He is a rough block ; 

 but, as Harry says, there is solid timber under the uncouth 

 bark enough to make five hundred men, as men go now-a-days 

 in cities ! 



At ten o'clock, thanks to the excellent precautions of my 

 friend Harry, we were all snugly berthed, before the whiskey, 

 which had well justified the high praise I had heard lavished 

 on it, had made any serious inroads on our understanding, but 

 not before we had laid in a quantum to ensure a good night's 

 rest. 



Bright and early was I on foot the next day, but before I 

 had half dressed myself I was assured, by the clatter of the 

 breakfast things, that Archer had again stolen a march upon 

 me ; and the next moment my bed-room door, driven open by 

 the thick boot of that worthy, gave me a full view of his per- 

 son arrayed in a stout fustian jacket with half a dozen pock- 

 ets in full view, and Heaven only knows how many more lying 



