Part 35

"Which will you take to drink, Tom?" inquired Forester, very gravely-- "fowl, pork, or crackers? Here they are, all of them! I prefer whiskey and water, myself!" qualifying, as he spoke, a moderate cup with some of the ice-cold water which welled out in a crystal stream from a 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 on the t'other; and a chamber behind both on 'em."

"What can it be bought for, Tom?"

"I guess three thousand dollars; twenty-five hundred, maybe. It will go cheap, I reckon; I don't hear tell o' no one lookin' at it.

"What will it cost me more to fix it, think you?"

"Well, you see, Archer, the land's ben most darned badly done by, this last three years, since old 'squire's ben so low; and the bridge, that'll take a smart sum; and the fences is putty much gone to rack; I guess it'll take hard on to a thousand more to fix it up right, like you'd like to have it, without doin' nothin' at the house."

"And fifteen hundred more for that and the stables. I wish to heaven I had known this yesterday; or rather before I came up hither," said Harry.

"Why so?" asked the Commodore.

"Why, as the deuce would have it, I told my broker to invest six thousand, that I have got loose, in a good mortgage, if he could find one, for five years; and I have got no stocks that I can sell out; all that I have but this, is on good bond and mortgage, in Boston, and little enough of it, too."

"Well, if that's all," said Forester, "we can run down tomorrow, and you will be in time to stop him."

"That's true, too," answered Harry, pondering. "Are you sure it can be bought, Tom?"

"I guess so," was the response.

"That means, I suppose, that you're perfectly certain of it. Why the devil can't you speak English?"

"English!" exclaimed Frank; "Good Lord! why don't you ask him why he can't speak Greek? English! Lord! Lord! Lord! Tom Draw and English!"

"I'll jist tell Archer what he warnts to know, and then see you, my dear little critter, if I doosn't English you some!" replied the old man, waxing wroth. "Well, Archer, to tell heaven's truth, now, I doos know it; but it's an etarnal all-fired shame of me to be tellin' it, bein' as how I knows it in the way of business like. It's got to be selled by vandoo in April*. [*Vendue. Why the French word for a public auction has been adopted throughout the Northern and Eastern States, as applied to a Sheriff's sale, deponent saith not.]

"Then, by Jove! I will buy it," said Harry; "and down I'll go to-morrow. But that need not take you away, boys; you can stay and finish out the week here, and go home in the Ianthe; Tom will send you down to Nyack."

"Sartain," responded Tom; "but now I'm most darned glad I told you that, Archer. I meant to a told you on't afore, but it clean slipped out of my head; but all's right, now. Hark! hark! don't you hear, boys? The quails hasn't all got together yit--better luck! Hush, A--- and you'll hear them callin'--whew-wheet! whew-wheet! whe-whe-whe;" and the old Turk began to call most scientifically; and in ten minutes the birds were answering him from all quarters, through the circular space of Bog-meadow, and through the thorny brake beyond it, and some from a large ragwort field further yet.