ted in all the hilly portions of the interior--in
order to prevent the heavy rains from channelling the descent, afforded
him a chance of stopping on the hill, so as to slack his traces. "How
now," he exclaimed; "what the deuce ails you now, you old rhinoceros?"

"Oh, Archer, I feels bad; worst sort, by Judas! It's that milk punch, I
reckon; it keeps a raising--raising, all the time like..."

"And you want to lay it, I suppose, like a ghost, in a sea of whiskey;
well, I've no especial objection! Here, Tim, hand the case bottle, and
the dram cup! No! no! confound you, pass it this way first, for if Tom
once gets hold of it, we may say good-bye to it altogether. There," he
continued, after we had both taken a moderate sip at the superb old
Ferintosh, "there, now take your chance at it, and for Heaven's sake do
leave a drop for Jem and Garry; by George now, you shall not drink it
all!" as Tom poured down the third cup full, each being as big as an
ordinary beer-glass. "There was above a pint and a half in it when you
began, and now there's barely one cup-full between the two of them. An't
you ashamed of yourself now, you greedy old devil?"

"It doos go right, I swon!" was the only reply that could be got out of
him.

"That's more a plaguy sight than the bullets will do, out of your old
tower musket; you're so drunk now, I fancy, that you couldn't hold it
straight enough to hit a deer at three rods, let alone thirty, which you
are so fond of chattering about."

"Do tell now," replied Tom, "did you, or any other feller, ever see me
shoot the worser for a mite of liquor, and as for deer, that's all a no
sich thing; there arnt no deer a this side of Duckseedar's. It's all a
lie of Teachman's and that Deckering son of a gun."

"Holloa! hold up, Tom--recollect yesterday!--I thought there had been no
cock down by the first bridge there, these six years; why you're getting
quite stupid, and a croaker too, in your old age."

"Mayhap I be," he answered rather gruffly; "mayhap I be, but you won't
git no deer to-day, I'll stand drinks for the company; and if we doos
start one, I'll lay on my own musket agin your rifle."

"Well! we'll soon see, for here we are," Harry replied, as after leaving
the high-road just at the summit of the Bellevale mountain, he rattled
down a very broken rutty bye-road at the rate of at least eight miles an
hour, vastly to the discomfiture of our fat host, whose fleshy sides
were jolted almost out of