"I love those hills of Warwick--many a glorious day have I passed in their green recesses; many a wild tale have I heard of sylvan sport and forest warfare, and many, too, of patriot partisanship in the old revolutionary days--the days that tried men's souls--while sitting at my noontide meal by the secluded wellhead, under the canopy of some primeval oak, with implements of woodland sport, rifle or shot-gun by my side, and well-broke setter or stanch hound recumbent at my feet. And one of these tales will I now venture to record, though it will sound but weak and feeble from my lips, if compared to the rich, racy, quaint and humorous thing it was, when flowing from the nature-gifted tongue of our old friend Tom Draw." "Hear! hear!" cried Frank, "the chap is eloquent!" "It was the middle of the winter 1832--which was, as you will recollect, of most unusual severity--that I had gone up to Tom Draw's, with a view merely to quail shooting, though I had taken up, as usual, my rifle, hoping perhaps to get a chance shot at a deer. The very first night I arrived, the old bar-room was full of farmers, talking all very eagerly about the ravages which had been wrought among their flocks by a small pack of wolves, five or six, as they said, in number, headed by an old gaunt famished brute, which had for many years been known through the whole region, by the loss of one hind foot, which had been cut off in a steel trap. "More than a hundred sheep had been destroyed during the winter, and several calves beside; and what had stirred especially the bile of the good yeomen, was that, with more than customary boldness, they had the previous night made a descent into the precincts of the village, and carried off a fat wether of Tom Draw's.