Hark! Suddenly the cock paused, lifted his head still higher, ruffled his plumes, seemed inspired, and sent forth a lusty crow. October Mountain echoed it; other mountains sent it back; still others rebounded it; it overran the country round. Now I plainly perceived how it was I had chanced to hear the gladdening sound on my distant hill. ‘Good heavens! do you own the cock? Is that cock yours?’ ‘Is it my cock!’ said Merrymusk, looking slyly gleeful out of the corner of his long, solemn face. ‘Where did you get it?’ ‘It chipped the shell here. I raised it.’ ‘You?’ Hark! Another crow. It might have raised the ghosts of all the pines and hemlocks ever cut down in that country. Marvellous cock! Having crowed, he strode on again, surrounded by a bevy of admiring hens. ‘What will you take for Signor Beneventano?’ ‘Sir?’ ‘That magic cock!--what will you take for him?’ ‘I won’t sell him.’ ‘I will give you fifty dollars.’ ‘Pooh!’ ‘One hundred!’ ‘Pish!’ ‘Five hundred!’ ‘Bah!’ ‘And you a poor man?’ ‘No; don’t I own that cock, and haven’t I refused five hundred dollars for him?’ ‘True,’ said I, in profound thought; ‘that’s a fact. You won’t sell him, then?’ ‘No.’ ‘Will you give him?’ ‘No.’ ‘Will you _keep_ him, then!’ I shouted, in a rage. ‘Yes.’ I stood a while admiring the cock, and wondering at the man. At last I felt a redoubled admiration of the one, and a redoubled deference for the other. ‘Won’t you step in?’ said Merrymusk. ‘But won’t the cock be prevailed upon to join us?’ said I. ‘Yes. Trumpet! hither, boy! hither!’ The cock turned round, and strode up to Merrymusk. ‘Come!’ The cock followed us into the shanty. ‘Crow!’ The roof jarred. Oh, noble cock! I turned in silence upon my entertainer. There he sat on an old battered chest, in his old tattered gray coat, with patches at his knees and elbows, and a deplorably bunged hat. I glanced round the room. Bare rafters overhead, but solid junks of jerked beef hanging from them. Earth floor, but a heap of potatoes in one corner, and a sack of Indian meal in another. A blanket was strung across the apartment at the farther end, from which came a woman’s ailing voice and the voices of ailing children. But somehow in the ailing of these voices there seemed no complaint. ‘Mrs. Merrymusk and children?’ ‘Yes.’ I looked at the cock. There he stood majestically in the middle of the room. He looked like a Spanish grandee caught in a shower, and standing under some peasant’s shed. There was a strange supernatural look of contrast about him. He irradiated the shanty; he glorified its meanness. He glorified the battered chest, and tattered gray coat, and the bunged hat. He glorified the very voices which came in ailing tones from behind the screen. ‘Oh, father,’ cried a little sickly voice, ‘let Trumpet sound again.’ ‘Crow,’ cried Merrymusk. The cock threw himself into a posture. The roof jarred. ‘Does not this disturb Mrs. Merrymusk and the sick children?’