“You hold your horses a minute,” grinned Bishop.  “The ladies like sweet cider, God bless ’em, and I made this for them.  If any of you fellows would like to try some real cider, the best that ever was raised in this State, come on and follow me.  I reckon the ladies have seen all they want to of you for a while.  Come on; I’ll show you some cider that is cider.”

He led us around the house until he came to a cellar door, which he threw back and we followed him.  When our eyes became accustomed to the dim light we saw long rows of huge casks, mounted on frames so that the spigots were eighteen inches from the floor.  The air was deliciously cool.  It was permeated with the subtle odour of apple juice long confined in wood.  Films of cobwebs softened the sharp lines of the cask heads and faintly gleamed between the rafters where the light struck them.

“Here’s cider that is cider!” declared Bishop, proudly tapping on the heads of the great casks as he led the way into the darker recesses of the cellar.  “I reckon, Bob,” he said to Harding, “that it’s a long time since you’ve had a chance to try a swig of real old Down East hard cider.”

“It’s been a long time, Jim,” admitted Harding.  “How old is this?”

“I’ve put in a cask every year since I took the place,” he replied, “and that’s more’n thirty years ago, and not a cask here but has cider in it.”

“Cider thirty years old!” exclaimed Chilvers.  “You mean vinegar, don’t you?”

“I said cider, young man; an’ when I say cider I mean cider,” retorted Bishop, rather indignantly.  “It is no more vinegar than brandy’s vinegar, nor champagne’s vinegar.  Now, I don’t reckon none of you, barring my old friend John Harding, here, ever tasted a drop of real hard cider.  Oh, yes, Smith has, of course; but how about the rest of ye?”

Carter, LaHume, Marshall, and Chilvers admitted that their idea of hard cider was a beverage which had started to ferment.

Bishop placed his hand reverently on a blackened, time-charred cask.  It was evident he was as proud of that possession as others might be of an authenticated Raphael.

“I don’t tap this here very often,” he said, “but in honour of this occasion I’ll let it run a bit.  This here cider is fifty years old!”

He drew off a pint or so in a stone jug, and we went out into the light to examine it.  It was almost colourless, slightly amber in shade, if any tint can describe it.  I had seen that sacred cask when a boy, and I recall now that Joe Bishop did not dare touch it, and there were few things of which he was afraid.

We all solemnly sampled it from small glasses, which Bishop produced from some mysterious hiding place.

“There is no taste to it,” declared Chilvers.  “It’s smooth as oil, but it has no flavour.”

“Hasn’t, eh?” smiled Bishop.  “You just wait a minute and you’ll get the bouquet—­as you wine experts call it.  It’s one of these coming tastes, but when it hits you you cry for more.”