aid his judgment,—­and you listen with intense admiration as he gives a loud preparatory “Ahem!” and clears away the intricacies of the case with a sweep of that strong practical sense which distinguishes the New-England farmer,—­getting at the very hinge of the matter, without any consciousness of his own precision, and satisfying the defendant by the clearness of his talk as much as by the leniency of his judgment.

His lands lie along those swelling hills, which in southern New England carry the chain of the White and Green Mountains in gentle undulations to the borders of the sea.  He farms some fifteen hundred acres,—­“suitably divided,” as the old-school agriculturists say, into “woodland, pasture, and tillage.”  The farm-house—­a large, irregularly-built mansion of wood—­stands upon a shelf of the hills looking southward, and is shaded by century-old oaks.  The barns and out-buildings are grouped in a brown phalanx a little to the northward of the dwelling.  Between them a high timber gate opens upon the scattered pasture lands of the hills; opposite to this and across the farmyard, which is the lounging-place of scores of red-necked turkeys and of matronly hens, clucking to their callow brood, another gate of similar pretensions opens upon the wide meadow-land, which rolls with a heavy “ground-swell” along the valley of a mountain river.  A veteran oak stands sentinel at the brown meadow-gate, its trunk all scarred with the ruthless cuts of new-ground axes, and the limbs garnished in summer-time with the crooked snathes of murderous-looking scythes.

The high-road passes a stone’s-throw away; but there is little “travel” to be seen; and every chance passer will inevitably come under the range of the kitchen windows, and be studied carefully by the eyes of the stout dairy-maid,—­to say nothing of the stalwart Indian cook.

This last you cannot but admire as a type of that noble old race, among whom your boyish fancy has woven so many stories of romance.  You wonder how she must regard the white interlopers upon her own soil; and you think that she tolerates the Squire’s farming privileges with more modesty than you would suppose.  You learn however that she pays very little regard to white rights—­when they conflict with her own; and further learn, to your deep regret, that your Princess of the old tribe is sadly addicted to cider-drinking; and having heard her once or twice with a very indistinct “Goo-er night, Sq-quare” upon her lips, your dreams about her grow very tame.

The Squire, like all very sensible men, has his hobbies and peculiarities.  He has a great contempt, for instance, for all paper money, and imagines banks to be corporate societies skilfully contrived for the legal plunder of the community.  He keeps a supply of silver and gold by him in the foot of an old stocking, and seems to have great confidence in the value of Spanish milled dollars.  He has no kind of patience with the new doctrines of farming.