thirty pound, because she looks as if she was used up.

"I intended to a had that mare, for I'd a made her worth twelve hundred
dollars. It was a dreadful pity, I let go, that time, for I actilly
forgot where I was. I'll know better next hitch, for boughten wit is
the best in a general way. Yes, I'm peskily sorry about that mare. Well,
swappin' I've studied, but I doubt if it's as much the fashion here as
with us; and besides, swappin' where you don't know the county and its
tricks, (for every county has its own tricks, different from others), is
dangersome too. I've seen swaps where both sides got took in. Did ever I
tell you the story of the "Elder and the grave-digger?"

"Never," I replied; "but here we are at our lodgings. Come in, and tell
it to me."

"Well," said he, "I must have a glass of mint julip fust, to wash down
that ere disappointment about the mare. It was a dreadful go that. I
jist lost a thousand dollars by it, as slick as grease. But it's an
excitin' thing is a trottin' race, too. When you mount, hear the word
'Start!' and shout out 'G'lang!' and give the pass word."

Good heavens! what a yell he perpetrated again. I put both hands to my
ears, to exclude the reverberations of it from the walls.

"Don't be skeered, Squire; don't be skeered. We are alone now: there is
no mare to lose. Ain't it pretty? It makes me feel all dandery and on
wires like."

"But the grave-digger?" said I.

"Well," says he, "the year afore I knowed you, I was a-goin' in the
fall, down to Clare, about sixty miles below Annapolis, to collect some
debts due to me there from the French. And as I was a-joggin' on along
the road, who should I overtake but Elder Stephen Grab, of Beechmeadows,
a mounted on a considerable of a clever-lookin' black mare. The Elder
was a pious man; at least he looked like one, and spoke like one too.
His face was as long as the moral law, and p'rhaps an inch longer, and
as smooth as a hone; and his voice was so soft and sweet, and his tongue
moved so ily on its hinges, you'd a thought you might a trusted him with
ontold gold, if you didn't care whether you ever got it agin or no. He
had a bran new hat on, with a brim that was none of the smallest, to
keep the sun from makin' his inner man wink, and his go-to-meetin'
clothes on, and a pair of silver mounted spurs, and a beautiful white
cravat, tied behind, so as to have no bows to it, and look meek. If
there was a good man on airth, you'd a said it