WARWICK WOODLANDS. 149 



drink, boys, while he's lookin' arter 'em and then when he's 

 found them, and's jest a gittin' on his horse, he'll find he's left 

 his powder-horn or knife, or somethin' else, behind him ; and 

 then we'll drink agin, while he snoops back to fetch it." 



" You be hanged, you old rascal," replied Forester, a little 

 bothered by the huge shouts of laughter which followed this 

 most strictly accurate account of his accustomed method of pro- 

 ceeding ; an account which, by the way, was fully justified not 

 twenty minutes afterward, by his galloping back, neck or nothing, 

 to get his pocket handkerchief, which he had left " in course" 

 as Tom said, in his dressing-gown beside the fire. 



" Come, bustle bustle !" Harry added, as he put on his 

 hunting cap and pulled a huge pair of fen boots on, reaching to 

 the midthigh, which Timothy had garnished with a pair of bright 

 English spurs. In another minute they were all on horseback, 

 trotting away at a brisk pace toward the little glen, wherein, ac- 

 cording to Jem's last report, the stag was harbored. It was in 

 vain that during their quick ride the old man was entreated to 

 inform them where they were to take post, or what they were 

 to do, as he would give them no reply, nor any information 

 whatever. 



At last, however, when Forester rejoined them, after his re- 

 turn to the village, he turned short off from the high road to 

 the left, and as he passed a set of bars into a wild hill pasture, 

 struck into a hard gallop. 



Before them lay the high and ridgy head of Round Top, his 

 flanks sloping toward them, in two broad pine-clad knobs, with 

 a wild streamlet brawling down between them, and a thick tan- 

 gled swamp of small extent, but full of tall dense thornbushes, 

 matted with vines and cat-briers, and carpeted with a rich under- 

 growth of fern and wintergreen, and whortleberries. To the 

 right and left of the two knobs or spurs just mentioned, were 

 two other deep gorges, or dry channels, bare of brushwood, and 

 stony rock-walled, with steep precipitous ledges toward the 

 mountain, but sloping easily up to the lower ridges. As they 

 reached the first of these, Tom motioned Forester to stop. 



" Stand here," he whispered, " close in here, jest behind this 

 here crag and look out hereaways toward the village. If he 

 comes down this runway, kill him, but mind you doosn't show 

 a hair out of this corner ; for Archer, he'll stand next, and if so 

 be he crosses from the swamp hole hereaways, you'll chance to 



