WARWICK WOODLANDS, 23 



scent will lie, I promise you ! make haste, I tell you, 

 breakfast is ready!" 



Stimulated by his hurrying voice. I soon completed my 

 toilet, and entering the parlor found Harry busily em- 

 ployed in stirring to and fro a pound of powder on one 

 heated dinner plate, while a second was undergoing the 

 process of preparation on the hearth-stone under a glowing 

 pile of hickory ashes. 



At the side-table, covered with guns, dog-whips, nipple- 

 wrenches, and the like, Tim, rigged like his master, in half 

 boots and leggins, but with a short roundabout of velveteen, 

 in place of the full-skirted jacket, was filling our shot- 

 pouches b.y aid of a capacious funnel, more used, as its 

 odor betokened, to facilitate the passage of gin or Jamaica 

 spirits than of so sober a material as cold lead. 



At the same moment entered mine host, togged for the 

 field in a huge pair of cow-hide boots, reaching almost to 

 the knee, into the tops of which were tucked the lower 

 ends of a pair of trowsers, containing yards enough of 

 buflfalo-cloth to have eked out the main-sail of a North 

 River sloop; a waistcoat and single-breasted jacket of the 

 same material, with a fur cap, completed his attire ; but in 

 his hand he bore a large decanter filled with a pale yellow- 

 ish liquor, embalming a dense mass of fine and worm-like 

 threads, not very diiferent in appearance from the best 

 vermicelli. 



"Come, boys, come — here's your bitters," he exclaimed; 

 and as if to set the example, fiJled a big tumbler to the 

 brim, gulped it down as if it had been water, smacked his 

 lips, and incontinently tendered it to Archer, who, to my 

 great amazement, filled himself likewise a more moderate 

 draught, and quaffed it without hesitation. 



"That's good, Tom," he said, pausing after the first sip; 

 "that's the best I ever tasted here; how old's that f 



"Five years!" Tom replied: "five years last fall ! Daddy 

 Tom made it out of my own best apples — take a horn, Mr. 

 Forester he added, turning to me — "it's first best cider 

 sperits — better a darned sight than that Scotch stuff you 

 make such an eternal fuss about, toting it up here every 

 time, as if we'd nothing fit to drink in the covmtry!" 



And to my sorrow I did taste it — old apple whiskey, 

 with Lord knows how much snake-root soaked in it for 

 five years! They may talk, about gall being bitter; but, 



