small
basin under the wreathed roots of the sycamore which overshadowed them.

"None of your nonsense, Forester--hand us the liquor, lad--I'm dry, I
tell you!"

"I wish you'd tell me something I don't know, then, if you feel
communicative; for I know that you're dry--now and always! Well! don't
be mad, old fellow, here's the bottle--don't empty it--that's all!"

"Well! now I've drinked," said Tom, after a vast potation, "now I've
drinked good--we'll have a bite and rest awhile, and smoke a pipe; and
then we'll use them quail, and we'll have time to pick up twenty cock in
Hell-hole arterwards, and that won't be a slow day's work, I reckon."

THE QUAIL

"Certainly this is a very lovely country," exclaimed the Commodore
suddenly, as he gazed with a quiet eye, puffing his cigar the while,
over the beautiful vale, with the clear expanse of Wickham's Pond in the
middle foreground, and the wild hoary mountains framing the rich
landscape in the distance.

"Truly, you may say that," replied Harry; "I have traveled over a large
part of the world, and for its own peculiar style of loveliness, I must
say that I never have seen any thing to match with the vale of Warwick.
I would give much, very much, to own a few acres, and a snug cottage
here, in which I might pass the rest of my days, far aloof from the
Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae."

"Then, why the h--l don't you own a few acres?" put in ancient Tom; "I'd
be right glad to know, and gladder yit to have you up here, Archer."

"I would indeed, Tom," answered Harry; "I'm not joking at all; but there
are never any small places to be bought hereabout; and, as for large
ones, your land is so confounded good, that a fellow must be a nabob to
think of buying."

"Well, how would Jem Burt's place suit you, Archer?" asked the fat man.
"You knows it--just a mile and a half 'tother side Warwick, by the crick
side? I guess it will have to be sold anyhow next April; leastways the
old man's dead, and the heirs want the estate settled up like."

"Suit me!" cried Harry, "by George! it's just the thing, if I recollect
it rightly. But how much land is there?"

"Twenty acres, I guess--not over twenty-five, no how."

"And the house?" "Well, that wants fixin' some; and the bridge over the
crick's putty bad, too, it will want putty nigh a new one. Why, the
house is a story and a half like; and it's jist an entry stret through
the middle, and a parlor on one side on't, and a kitchen