ie, and announced his
own determination to compensate himself for his broken rest, by devoting
the remainder of the night to sleep.

The trapper gave his ready assent to the measure, and adjusted his gaunt
form on the pile of brush that was offered him, with as much composure
as a sovereign could resign himself to sleep, in the security of his
capital and surrounded by his armed protectors. The old man did not
close his eyes, however, until he had assured himself that Ellen Wade
was among the females of the family, and that her relation, or lover,
whichever he might be, had observed the caution of keeping himself out
of view: after which he slept, though with the peculiar watchfulness of
one long accustomed to vigilance, even in the hours of deepest night.

CHAPTER VI

He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,
As it were too peregrinate, as I may call it.
--Shakspeare.

The Anglo-American is apt to boast, and not without reason, that his
nation may claim a descent more truly honourable than that of any other
people whose history is to be credited. Whatever might have been the
weaknesses of the original colonists, their virtues have rarely been
disputed. If they were superstitious, they were sincerely pious, and,
consequently, honest. The descendants of these simple and single-minded
provincials have been content to reject the ordinary and artificial
means by which honours have been perpetuated in families, and have
substituted a standard which brings the individual himself to the ordeal
of the public estimation, paying as little deference as may be to those
who have gone before him. This forbearance, self-denial, or common
sense, or by whatever term it may be thought proper to distinguish the
measure, has subjected the nation to the imputation of having an ignoble
origin. Were it worth the enquiry, it would be found that more than a
just proportion of the renowned names of the mother-country are, at this
hour, to be found in her ci-devant colonies; and it is a fact well known
to the few who have wasted sufficient time to become the masters of so
unimportant a subject, that the direct descendants of many a failing
line, which the policy of England has seen fit to sustain by collateral
supporters, are now discharging the simple duties of citizens in the
bosom of this republic. The hive has remained stationary, and they
who flutter ar