THE WARWICK WOODLANDS 



MY FIRST VISIT. 



DAY THE FIRST. 



It was a fine October evening when I was sitting on the 

 back stoop of his cheerful little bachelor's establishment in 

 Mercer street, with my old friend and comrade. Henry 

 Archer. Many a frown of fortune had we two weathered 

 out together; in many of her brightest smiles had we two 

 revelled — never was thei'e a stauncher -friend, a merrier 

 companion, a keener sportsman, or a better fellow, than 

 this said Harry ; and here had we two met, three thousand 

 miles from home, after almost ten years of separation, just 

 the same careless, happy, dare-all do-no-goods that we were 

 when we parted in St. James's street, — he for the West, I 

 for the Eastern World — he to fell trees, and build log huts 

 in the back-woods of Canada, — I to shoot tigei's and drink 

 arrack punch in the Carnatic. The world had wagged 

 with us as with most otliers : now up, now down, and laid 

 U3 to, at last, far enough from the goal for which we start- 

 ed — so that, as I have said already, on landing in New 

 York, having heard nothing of him for ten years, whom 

 the deuce should I tumble on but that same worthy, snugly 

 housed, with a neat bachelor's menage, and every thing 

 ship-shape about him ? — So, in the natural course of 

 things, we were at once inseparables. 



Well, as I said before, it was a bright October evening, 

 with the clear sky, rich sunshine, and brisk breezy fresh- 

 ness, which indicate that loveliest of the American months, 

 — dinner was over, and wnth a pitcher of the liquid rub.y 

 of Latour, a brace of half-pint beakers, and a score — my 

 contribution — of those most exquisite of smokables, the 



