the farmer a certain number of gallons of brandy for every hundred bushels of apples delivered. And as numerous as were these great cider mills, I have seen the gates locked and teams turned away because of the supply exceeding the capacity of the presses. There were Germans who wove carpets, and mills that converted the wool into cloth. All along the king's highway, which was marked with granite shafts for milestones, each one denoting, in carved letters, how many miles it was to Camden (Cooper's Ferry), there were smith's shops, wheelwrights, cabinetmakers, and country shoemakers, and taverns for entertainment of "man and beasts." Daily, four-horse stagecoaches, carrying the mail and passengers, passed over the road, and, by common consent, I suppose, they were granted the right of way, or it may have been the last lingering observance of respect to kingly prerogative. Now somewhere in this part of the country there lived an old and very polite Frenchman. He possessed a pony and a little wagon, and in that wagon he carried a bench, his lasts, and his tools, for he was a shoemaker, and went the rounds of the neighborhood to make, yearly, the family shoes. Out of morocco imported from Barbary, calfskin from France, and leather from the village tannery he fashioned most beautiful boots and shoes for male and female; yes, neat and befitting they were; and how long they lasted! Wonder not that I have introduced you to this polite and kind old Frenchman. He belonged to the Emperor's old guard, and after Waterloo he came to this country. Young as I was, many times and oft would I persuade him to tell me of "the battles, sieges, fortunes he had passed, of moving incidents of flood and field, of hairbreadth escapes," and grand charges he had made under the eye of the Emperor, how he detested England and loved the vine-clad hills and pleasant fields of France. At our house he would fix himself up in the loft over the carriage house, and then while at work he would tell us boys so much about the "Little Corporal" and the grand marshals of France. His abiding faith in and admiration for the Emperor passed all bounds. When it was known to all the world that Napoleon was dead, sleeping in a lone grave in a far distant island, guarded by English bayonets, as though he might "awake to glory again" and make the little monarchs tremble once more even at his name, this devoted soldier of the old guard would not believe it, and swore it was an English lie.