The hour was about ten o’clock in the morning, when the old men of the town began to gather at the tavern for a gossip over the war news, and to indulge in their daily allowance of rum in the tap-room. As Barclugh dismounted and sauntered up the steps which led into the public house, all eyes were turned upon the stranger. He seated himself in an arm-chair at a round table. A large square room having a low ceiling and settles standing at right angles to the fireplace met his glance; the smoke was curling slowly from smouldering logs into the chimney-space; a lazy, fat, round-faced Swede was lolling at the end of the bar, and several casks of wine and liquor placed upon racks to the left of the counter were labelled, “Rum,” “Madeira,” “Canary,” “Cherry Bounce,” “Perry,” and “Cider.” A brace of old cronies whose only cares now were to meet each other in the tap-room daily and talk over the prowess among men in their youthful days, and despair about the effeminate youth of the present; and wonder what the world was coming to, were seated at a table and gazed at the stranger. “He, he, he!” chuckled old Samuel Whitesides, as Barclugh seated himself and ordered a hot rum punch, for the morning air was chilly. “I declare, those whippersnappers daown in Philadelphia are makin’ a fool aout of Ben Arnold,--he’s got a mighty high snortin’ kind of a gal that he’s hitched up to,--and I b’leave, brother Hopper, that he would like to be out of the clutches of them money-grabbers. He’s too good a fighter to be gallavantin’ around in silks and satins.” “How queer! how queer!” squeaked out old Jonathan Hopper, as he leaned over and poked his old companion in the ribs. “Say, Sam, if we were young agin like Ben, we would not prefer to stay ’round with aour wife in the city than to be chasing those redcoats from Dan to Beshabee, partic’larly if we had been married less than a year, eh, Sam’l! Wall, I guess not! He, he, he! Eh, Samuel?” as he poked old Sam in the ribs again with his cane. “Wa’al, Jonathan, when we were boys, thar was no time for this high-fa-lutin’ keepin’ honey-moon, keepin’ honey-moon. What we had to do was to git married and leave Betsy at home while we went to work to git som’thin’ to keep body and soul together. But naow, even in these war times, our Ginerals are snoopin’ araound in these high jinks fashion, waitin’ on their leedies in taown.” “Quite keerect, quite keerect, Sam’l, but I calcalate if you and I were to live it over agin and had a chanc’t to git into all these doin’s that the young sprouts now have, in the large taowns, I b’leeve we would be as keen as ennybody for pleesure. For what’s the use of you, you old rascal, skrewin’ yourself up into a pritty pass over the young uns, for natur’ is natur’ and let natur’ take its course, Sam’l. But how queer! how queer!” said old Jonathan as he again poked Samuel in the ribs and took another sip out of the rum glass.