shall be off to the highlands this fall; but, cuss em, they hante got
no woods there; nothin' but heather, and thats only high enough to tear
your clothes. That's the reason the Scotch don't wear no breeches, they
don't like to get 'em ragged up that way for everlastinly, they can't
afford it; so they let em scratch and tear their skin, for that will
grow agin, and trowsers won't.

"Yes, it's a pretty cottage that, and a nice tidy body that too, is Mrs.
Hodgins. I've seen the time when I would have given a good deal to have
been so well housed as that. There is some little difference atween that
cottage and a log hut of a poor back emigrant settler, you and I know
where. Did ever I tell you of the night I spent at Lake Teal, with old
Judge Sandford?"

"No, not that I recollect."

"Well, once upon a time I was a-goin' from Mill-bridge to Shadbrooke,
on a little matter of bisness, and an awful bad and lonely road it was,
too. There was scarcely no settlers in it, and the road was all made
of sticks, stones, mud holes, and broken bridges. It was een amost
onpassible, and who should I overtake on the way but the Judge, and his
guide, on horseback, and Lawyer Traverse a-joggin' along in his gig, at
the rate of two miles an hour at the fardest.

"'Mornin,' sais the Judge, for he was a sociable man, and had a kind
word for every body, had the Judge. Few men 'know'd human natur' better
nor he did, and what he used to call the philosophy of life. 'I am
glad to see you on the road, Mr. Slick, sais he, 'for it is so bad I
am afraid there are places that will require our united efforts to pass
'em.'

"Well, I felt kinder sorry for the delay too, for I know'd we should
make a poor journey on't, on account of that lawyer critter's gig, that
hadn't no more busness on that rough track than a steam engine had. But
I see'd the Judge wanted me to stay company, and help him along, and so
I did. He was fond of a joke, was the old Judge, and sais he,

"'I'm afraid we shall illustrate that passage o' Scriptur', Mr. Slick,'
said he, '"And their judges shall be overthrown in stony places." It's
jist a road for it, ain't it?'

"Well we chattered along the road this way a leetle, jist a leetle
faster than we travelled, for we made a snail's gallop of it, that's a
fact; and night overtook us, as I suspected it would, at Obi Rafuse's,
at the Great Lake; and as it was the only public for fourteen miles, and
dark was settin' in, we dismounte