“Mayhap, then, you'll take a bit of a dram?—a thimble-full won't come amiss. You know the shelf where it's kep'—reach to, and help yourself, and then help me to a drop.”
Dr. Deane rose and took down the square black bottle and the diminutive wine-glass beside it. Half-filling the latter,—a thimble-full in verity,—he drank it in two or three delicate little sips, puckering his large under-lip to receive them.
“It's right to have the best, Friend Barton,” he said, “there's more life in it!” as he filled the glass to the brim and held it to the slit in the old man's face.
The latter eagerly drew off the top fulness, and then seized the glass in his shaky hand. “Can help myself,” he croaked—“don't need waitin' on; not so bad as that!”
His color presently grew, and his neck assumed a partial steadiness. “What news, what news?” he asked. “You gather up a plenty in your goin's-around. It's little I get, except the bones, after they've been gnawed over by the whole neighborhood.”
“There is not much now, I believe,” Dr. Deane observed.
“Jacob and Leah Gilpin have another boy, but thee hardly knows them, I think. William Byerly died last week in Birmingham; thee's heard of him,—he had a wonderful gift of preaching. They say Maryland cattle will be cheap, this fall: does Alfred intend to fatten many? I saw him riding towards New-Garden.”
“I guess he will,” the old man answered,—“must make somethin' out o' the farm. That pastur'-bottom ought to bring more than it does.”
“Alfred doesn't look to want for much,” the Doctor continued. “It's a fine farm he has.”
“Me, I say!” old Barton exclaimed, bringing down the end of his stick upon the floor. “The farm's mine!”