led
the ploughman away from the furrow to the appointed gathering-place.
Three musket-shots fired in succession from a lonely cabin, at
dead of night, awakened the sleeper in the next homestead; the three
shots, repeated from house to house, across this silent waste of
forest and field, carried the alarm onward; and before break of day a
hundred stout yeomen, armed with cutlass and carbine, were on foot to
check and punish the stealthy foray of the Sasquesahannock against
the barred and bolted dwellings where mothers rocked their children
to sleep, confident in the protection of this organized and effective
system of defence.

In this region Talbot himself held a manor which was called New
Connaught, and here he had his family mansion, and kept hospitality
in rude woodland state, as a man of rank and command, with his
retainers and friends gathered around him. This establishment was
seated on Elk River, and was, doubtless, a fortified position. I
picture to my mind a capacious dwelling-house built of logs from the
surrounding forest; its ample hall furnished with implements of war,
pikes, carbines, and basket-hilled swords, mingled with antlers of
the buck, skins of wild animals, plumage of birds, and other trophies
of the hunter's craft; the large fireplace surrounded with hardy
woodsmen, and the tables furnished with venison, wild fowl, and fish,
the common luxuries of the region, in that prodigal profusion to
which our forefathers were accustomed, and which their descendants
still regard as the essential condition of hearty and honest
housekeeping. This mansion I fancy surrounded by a spacious picketed
rampart, presenting its bristling points to the four quarters of the
compass, and accessible only through a gateway of ponderous timber
studded thick with nails: the whole offering defiance to the grim
savage who might chance to prowl within the frown of its midnight
shadow.

Here Talbot spent the greater portion of the year with his wife and
children. Here he had his yacht or shallop on the river, and often
skimmed this beautiful expanse of water in pursuit of its abundant
game,--those hawks of which tradition preserves the memory his
companions and auxiliaries in this pastime. Here, too, he had his
hounds and other hunting-dogs to beat up the game for which the banks
of Elk River are yet famous.

This sylvan lodge was cheered and refined by the presence of his wife
and children, whose daily household occupations