"Ha! hath there been a call at the dwelling of my brother Ring?" demanded the pedestrian, observing, by the direction of the other's eye, the road he had been travelling. "Truly, there hath; and at the unseasonable hour that is wont, in a very unreasonable proportion of the cases of my practice." "And Reuben numbereth another boy to the four that he could count yesterday?" The medical man held up three of his fingers, in a significant manner, as he nodded assent. "This putteth Faith something in arrears," returned he who has been called Ensign, and who was no other than the reader's old acquaintance Eben Dudley, preferred to that station in the train-band of the valley. "The heart of my brother Reuben will be gladdened by these tidings, when he shall return from the scout." "There will be occasion for thankfulness, since he will find seven beneath a roof where he left but four!" "I will close the bargain with the young captain for the mountain lot, this very day!" muttered Dudley, like one suddenly convinced of the prudence of a long-debated measure. "Seven pounds of the colony money is no usurer's price, after all, for a hundred acres of heavily-timbered land; and they in full view of a settlement where boys come three at a time!" The equestrian stopped his horse, and regarding his companion intently and with a significant air, he answered-- "Thou hast now fallen on the clue of an important mystery, Ensign Dudley. This continent was created with a design. The fact is apparent by its riches, its climate, its magnitude, its facilities of navigation, and chiefly in that it hath been left undiscovered until the advanced condition of society hath given opportunity and encouragement to men of a certain degree of merit, to adventure in its behalf. Consider, neighbor, the wonderful progress it hath already made in the arts and in learning, in reputation and in resources, and thou wilt agree with me in the conclusion that all this hath been done with a design." "'Twould be presuming to doubt it; for he hath indeed a short memory, to whom it shall be necessary to recall the time when this very valley was little other than a den for beasts of prey, and this beaten highway, a deer-track. Dost think that Reuben will be like to raise the whole of the recent gift?" "With judgment, and by the blessing of Providence. The mind is active, Ensign Dudley, when the body is journeying among the forests; and much have my thoughts been exercised in this matter, whilst thou and others have been in your slumbers. Here have we the colonies in their first century, and yet thou knowest to what a pass of improvement they have arrived. They tell me the Hartford settlement is getting to be apportioned like the towns of mother England, that there is reason to think the day may come when the provinces shall have a power, and a convenience of culture and communication, equalling that which belongeth to some parts of the venerable island itself!"