floating merrily onward to their market; and the village dignified with the title of County-town, was not above seven or eight miles distant; so that the valley was not always invested with a Sabbath-day silence; and, besides, his protegée, the widow, had, with Mr. Gilbert's consent, converted her hovel into a house of entertainment, which sometimes seduced a wayfarer to sojourn for a period in the valley. Mr. Gilbert himself did all he could to add life and bustle to his possessions, by doing honour to such well behaved villagers, or even strangers, as he could induce to ruralize with him; for having built and planted, and torn down and transplanted, until he knew not well what to do with himself, he hit upon that expedient for driving away ennui which passes for hospitality,--namely, converting into guests all proper, and indeed improper, persons from whom he could derive amusement, and who could assist him to kill time. To this shift he was driven, in great part, by the undomestic character of his children; who, so soon as they arrived at an age for handling the rifle, individually and infallibly ran off into the woods, until, as the passion for hunting grew with their growth, they might be said almost to live in them. It was this wild propensity, acting upon a disposition unusually self-willed and inflexible, in the case of his eldest boy, Oran, that defeated his scheme of spending the remainder of his days in England. He actually crossed the sea, with his whole family, and remained in the neighbourhood of Bristol, his native town, for the space of a year; but in that time, Oran, a boy only twelve years old, 'heartily sick,' as he said, 'of a land where there were no woods, and no place where he could get by himself,' finding remonstrance and entreaty fail to move his father's heart to his purpose, took the desperate resolution of returning to America alone; which he did, having concealed himself in the hold of a vessel, until she was out of the Channel. His sufferings were great, but he endured them with incredible fortitude; and finally after many remarkable adventures, he found himself again in his happy valley, in the charge or protection, if it could be so called, of the good widow Bell,--for that was the name of the poor woman befriended by his father. In a few months, his father followed him, perhaps instigated by affection, (for Oran, being the worst, was therefore the most favoured of his children,) by the murmurs of the others, or by the discovery he undoubtedly made, that his wealth would secure him, if not equal comfort, at least superior consideration, in the New World.