The Rangers | Page 7

the subject.
"It may have been so," rejoined the former, doubtfully; "but I should
have hardly inferred it from Mr. Jones's description of the man and his
conduct."
"Nor I," interposed the other lady, playfully, but with considerable
spirit. "Mr. Jones has really excited my curiosity by his account of this
young plough-jogger. I should like to get a sight of him--shouldn't you,
Sabrey?"
But the latter, though evidently musing on the subject, and mentally
discussing some unpleasant doubts and inferences which it seemed to
present to her active mind, yet evaded the question, and turned the
conversation, by directing the attention of her companion and the rest
of the company to a distant object in the wild landscape, which here
opened to their view. This was the tall, rugged mountain, which, rising

from the eastern shore of the Connecticut, was here, through an
opening in the trees, seen looming and lifting its snowy crest to the
clouds, and greeting the gladdened eyes of the way-worn travellers with
the silent but welcome announcement that they were now within a few
miles of the great river, and in the still more immediate vicinity of their
intended halting-place--the thriving little village which was then just
starting into life, under the auspices of the man from whom its name
was derived--the enterprising Colonel Brattle, of Massachusetts.
Having now the advantage of a road, which, as it received the many
concentrating paths of a thicker settlement, here began to be
comparatively firm, the travellers passed rapidly over the descending
grounds, and, in a short time, entered the village. As they were dashing
along towards the village inn, at a full trot, a man, with a vehicle drawn
by one horse, approaching in an intersecting road from the south, struck
into the same street a short distance before them. His whole equipment
was very obviously of the most simple character,--a rough board box,
resting on four upright wooden pins inserted into a couple of saplings,
which were bent up in front for runners--the whole making what, in
New England phrase, is termed a _jumper_, constituted his sleigh. And
this vehicle was drawn by a long switch-tailed young pony, whose
unsteady gait, as he briskly ambled along the street, pricking up his ears
and veering about at every new object by the way-side, showed him to
be but imperfectly broken. The owner of this rude contrivance for
locomotion was evidently some young farmer from the neighboring
country. But although his dress and mode of travelling seemed thus to
characterize him, yet there was that in his personal appearance, as plain
as was his homespun garb, which was calculated to command at once
both attention and respect. And as he now rose and stood firmly planted
in his sleigh, occasionally looking back to watch the motions of the
team behind him, with his long, toga-like woollen frock drawn snugly
over his finely-sloping shoulders and well-expanded bust, and closely
girt about at the waist by a neatly-knotted Indian belt, while the flowing
folds below streamed gracefully aside in the wind, he displayed one of
those compact, shapely figures, which the old Grecian sculptors so
delighted to delineate. And in addition to these advantages of figure, he
possessed an extremely fine set of features, which were shown off
effectively by the profusion of short, jetty locks, that curled naturally

around his white temples and his bold, high forehead.
"Miss McRea--Jane," said Jones, turning round to the amiable girl, and
tapping her on the shoulder, with the confiding smile and tender
playfulness of the accepted lover, as he was,--"Jane, you said, I think,
that you should like to get a sight of that spunky opponent of Mr. Peters,
whom we were talking of a little while since--did you not?"
"O, yes, yes, to be sure I did," replied the other briskly; "but why that
question, just at this time?"
"Because, if I do not greatly mistake, that man who is pushing on
before us, in yon crazy-looking establishment, is the self-same young
fellow. Is it not so, Peters?"
"I have not noticed him particularly, nor do I care whether it is he or
not," answered Peters, with an affected indifference, with which his
uneasy and frowning glances, as he kept his eye keenly fixed on the
person in question, but illy comported. "Well that is the fellow--that is
Harry Woodburn, you may rely on it, ladies," rejoined Jones, gayly, as
he faced about in his seat.
Both young ladies now threw intent and curious glances forward on the
man thus pointed out to them, till they caught, as they did the next
moment, a full and fair view of his personal appearance; when they
turned and looked at each other with expressions of surprise, which
plainly indicated that the object of their