ndian walked away, in offended dignity.

Such was the commencement of the domestication of the Willoughbys at
the Hutted Knoll. The plan of our tale does not require us to follow
them minutely for, the few succeeding years, though some further
explanation may be necessary to show why this settlement varied a
little from the ordinary course.

That very season, or, in the summer of 1765, Mrs. Willoughby inherited
some real estate in Albany, by the death of an uncle, as well as a few
thousand pounds currency, in ready money. This addition to his fortune
made the captain exceedingly comfortable; or, for that day, rich; and
it left him to act his pleasure as related to his lands. Situated as
these last were, so remote from other settlements as to render
highways, for some time, hopeless, he saw no use in endeavouring to
anticipate the natural order of things. It would only create
embarrassment to raise produce that could not be sent to market; and he
well knew that a population of any amount could not exist, in quiet,
without the usual attendants of buying and selling. Then it suited his
own taste to be the commander-in-chief of an isolated establishment
like this; and he was content to live in abundance, on his flats,
feeding his people, his cattle, and even his hogs to satiety, and
having wherewithal to send away the occasional adventurer, who entered
his clearing, contented and happy.

Thus it was that he neither sold nor leased. No person dwelt on his
land who was not a direct dependant, or hireling, and all that the
earth yielded he could call his own. Nothing was sent abroad for sale
but cattle. Every year, a small drove of fat beeves and milch cows
found their way through the forest to Albany, and the proceeds returned
in the shape of foreign supplies. The rents, and the interests on
bonds, were left to accumulate, or were applied to aid Robert in
obtaining a new step in the army. Lands began to be granted nearer and
nearer to his own, and here and there some old officer like himself, or
a solitary farmer, began to cut away the wilderness; but none in his
immediate vicinity.

Still the captain did not live altogether as a hermit. He visited
Edmeston of Mount Edmeston, a neighbour less than fifty miles distant;
was occasionally seen at Johnson Hall, with Sir William; or at the
bachelor establishment of Sir John, on the Mohawk; and once or twice he
so far overcame his indolence, as to consent to serve as a member fo