DEPARTURE. 73 



We have just time to build a fire, for Charlie and 

 the madam would die if they couldn't have their 

 cup of tea, when we hear a crackling of the bushes, 

 and a trampling of feet ; and the old black mare, 

 her tail revolving like a windmill, in vain attempts 

 to switch off the flies, followed by Uncle John's 

 smiling face and white beard, emerges from a wil- 

 derness of leaves. 



"Well, boys, what luck?" was John's first salu- 

 tation, as with the back of his hand he brushed 

 the perspiration, and a few black flies, from his 

 forehead. 



" Splendid." 



"Capital." 



"Lovely," was the quick response from the 

 united voices (I leave it to the reader to distin- 

 guish them), as we point with pride to the boxes, 

 under which the guides are struggling, and which 

 soon are securely lashed to the buckboard, and 

 are completely sheltered from the sun by John's 

 forethought in covering them, as the robins did the 

 little babes in the woods, " all over with leaves." 



"Any thing new down in the world, John, the 

 wicked world? " 



" No, nothing to speak of: hay's promisin'." 



Our thoughts just then were farther on than the 

 hay-fields, to the region of bricks and granite, 



