Umbagog, a little
the longest you've ever travelled, I know.

"Well, she had no sooner done than Cranbery jumps up on eend, and sais
he to the guide, 'Uncle,' sais he, 'jist come along with me, that's a
good feller, will you? We must return that good Samaritan's' cane to
him; and as he must be considerable cold there, I'll jist warm his hide
a bit for him, to make his blood sarculate. If he thinks I'll put that
treatment to my wife, Miss Lot, into my pocket, and walk off with it,
he's mistaken in the child, that's all, Sir. He may be stubbeder than I
be, Uncle, that's a fact; but if he was twice as stubbed, I'd walk
into him like a thousand of bricks. I'll give him a taste of my breed.
Insultin' a lady is a weed we don't suffer to grow in our fields
to Umbagog. Let him be who the devil he will, log-leg or
leather-breeches--green-shirt or blanket-coat--land-trotter or
river-roller, I'll let him know there is a warrant out arter him, I
know."

"'Why,' sais the guide, 'he couldn't help himself, no how he could work
it. He is a friar, or a monk, or a hermit, or a pilgrim, or somethin'
or another of that kind, for there is no eend to them, they are so many
different sorts; but the breed he is of, have a vow never to look at a
woman, or talk to a woman, or touch a woman, and if they do, there is a
penance, as long as into the middle of next week.'

"'Not look at a woman?' sais Cran, 'why, what sort of a guess world
would this be without petticoats?--what a superfine superior tarnation
fool he must be, to jine such a tee-total society as that. Mint julip I
could give up, I _do_ suppose, though I had a plaguy sight sooner not
do it, that's a fact: but as for womankind, why the angeliferous
little torments, there is no livin' without _them_. What do you think,
stranger?'

"'Sartainly,' said Squatter; 'but seein' that the man had a vow, why it
warn't his fault, for he couldn't do nothin' else. Where _he_ did wrong,
was _to look back_; if he hadn't a _looked back_, he wouldn't have
sinned.'

"'Well, well,' sais Cran, 'if that's the case, it is a hoss of another
colour, that. I won't look back nother, then. Let him he. But he is
erroneous considerable.'

"So you see, Minister," said Mr. Slick, "where there is nothin' to be
gained, and harm done, by this retrospection, as you call it, why I
think lookin' a-head is far better than--_lookin' back_."

CHAPTER XIV. CROSSING THE BORDER.

The time had now arrived when it