The festival, so far as events allowed it to proceed, was rather a pic-nic, of a somewhat patriotic character, than a true national celebration; and such indeed it might have been esteemed, had it not been for the occasional roar of the six-pounder, and the ambitious din kept up by the muskets, and the drum and fife of a small company of volunteers, the only portion of the county military who could be induced to honour Hawk-Hollow with their attendance. Few, however, as were the persons present, they claimed to form in themselves the flower of the district; and rather rejoicing in than regretting the absence of the great multitude, they proceeded with zeal to despatch what was esteemed the business of the day, in order that they might the sooner advance to its pleasures. In fact, all interest in the proper business of celebration was soon found to be confined to Captain Loring, the officers of the day, and their immediate adherents and partisans; the greater number of revellers, both male and female, preferring to ramble about in groups along the river shore, rather than to sit in solemn expectation on the promontory, awaiting the beginning of the proceedings. There were more attractive charms to the mass in the grassy glades below, where attendants were busily occupied in preparing for the feast and the dance, some arraying stores of napkins and platters along the course of the brook, and others matting together bushes and branches of trees, so as to form temporary canopies. In some places might be seen a knot of Sabbath-clad bumpkins, moving among the horses that were tied under the trees, and discoursing learnedly upon their good and bad points; in others, were collected divers rural beauties, admiring one another's bonnets, or exchanging, like merchants at a fair, their little stock of innocent scandals--the peculiar products of their respective neighbourhoods; and in one place, an amalgamation of the two interests was already effected, and a romping country-dance begun upon the green sward. Some idlers, incapable of any other exercise of their faculties, had begged pins of their cousins and sweethearts, converted them into minnow-hooks, and were already angling from the rocks; some, more gallant, were paddling their favourites about in canoes; some were singing; some rejoicing in the felicity of a jest; and in two different places afar off, was heard the screaming plaint of flutes, sounded by as many youthful followers of the Musagetes, who had stolen to their solitudes alone.