of
a raw November, that four of these raftsmen sat at their smoky fire, in
company with two travellers on foot, whose humble means compelled them
to await the arrival of some one rich enough to hire the raft. Meanly
clad and wayworn were the strangers who now sat endeavoring to dry their
dripping clothes at the blaze, and conversing in a low tone together.
If the elder, dressed in a russet-colored blouse and a broad-leafed hat,
his face almost hid in beard and moustaches, seemed by his short and
almost grotesque figure a travelling showman, the appearance of the
younger, despite all the poverty of his dress, implied a very different
class.

He was tall and well knit, with a loose activity in all his gestures
which almost invariably characterizes the Englishman; and though his
dark hair and his bronzed cheek gave him something of a foreign look,
there was a calm, cold self-possession in his air that denoted the
Anglo-Saxon. He sat smoking his cigar, his head resting on one hand, and
evidently listening with attention to the words of his companion. The
conversation that passed will save us the trouble of introducing them to
our reader, if he have not already guessed them.

"If we don't wait," said the elder, "till somebody richer and better
off than ourselves comes, we 'll have to pay seven francs for passin' in
such a night as this."

"It is a downright robbery to ask so much," cried the other, angrily.
"What so great danger is there, or what so great hardship, after all?"

"There is both one and the other, I believe," replied he, in a tone
evidently meant to moderate his passion; "and just look at the poor
craytures that has to do it. They're as weak as a bit of wet paper;
they haven't strength to make themselves heard when they talk out there
beside the river."

"The fellow yonder," said the youth, "has got good brawny arms and
sinewy legs of his own."

"Ay, and he is starved after all. A cut of rye bread and an onion
won't keep the heart up, nor a jug of red vinegar, though ye call it
grape-juice. On my conscience, I 'm thinkin' that the only people that
preserves their strength upon nothin' is the Irish. I used to carry
the bags over Slieb-na-boregan mountain and the Turk's Causeway on wet
potatoes and buttermilk, and never a day late for eleven years."

"What a life!" cried the youth, in an accent of utter pity.

"Faix, it was an elegant life,--that is, when the weather was anyways
good. With a bright sun