about the throat, and raising himself up, with the air of a drill-sergeant,—"they were led by a man, who know'd how to bring them on, in spite of the ravine."
"Is it lade on ye would?" cried the landlady, "when ye know yourself, Mr. Hollister, that the baste he rode was but little able to joomp from one rock to another, and the animal was as spry as a squirrel? Och! but it's useless to talk, for he's gone this many a long year. I would that he had lived to see the true light; but there's mercy for a brave sowl, that died in the saddle, fighting for the liberty. It's a poor tomb-stone they have given him, any way, and many a good one that died like himself: but the sign is very like, and I will be kapeing it up, while the blacksmith can make a hook for it to swing on, for all the 'coffee-houses' betwane this and Albany."
There is no saying where this desultory conversation would have led the worthy couple, had not the men who were stamping the snow off their feet, on the little platform before the door, suddenly ceased their occupation, and entered the bar-room.
For ten or fifteen minutes, the different individuals, who intended either to bestow or receive edification, before the fires of the "Bold Dragoon," on that evening, were collecting, until the benches were nearly filled with men of different occupations. Dr. Todd, and a slovenly-looking, half-genteel young man, who took tobacco profusely, wore a coat of imported cloth, cut with something like a fashionable air, frequently exhibited a large, French silver watch, with a chain of woven hair, and who, altogether, seemed as much above the artisans around him, as he was inferior to the real gentleman, occupied at high-
