said to have entered so keenly into the general hilarity, as to quite lay aside his accustomed gravity and reserve, and show himself almost as jovial as the merry old lord himself. Speaking of these amusements, brings to mind an anecdote of him, which I must tell you, as it will give you a still more lively idea of the promptness and decision with which he was wont to act whenever occasion demanded. In those old-fashioned times, among many other laws that would seem odd enough to us at the present day, there were many very strict and severe ones for the protection of game, which made poaching (that is to say, hunting on private grounds without leave or license from the owner) no less a crime than theft, and punished the poacher as a thief accordingly. Now, there was a certain idle, worthless fellow, notorious for his desperate character, as being the most daring poacher in seven counties, who was known to be much in the habit of trespassing on the grounds belonging to Mount Vernon. This had been forbidden him by Washington, who had warned him of the consequences if he did not cease his depredations, and keep at a safe distance; but to this the sturdy vagrant gave little heed. He would cross over the river in a canoe, which he would hide, in some secret nook best known to himself, among the reeds and rushes that fringed the banks, and with his fowling-piece make ruinous havoc among the canvas-back ducks that flocked in great multitudes to the low marsh-lands of that region. [Illustration]