Our weather-besieged manor was the center of it. Vaguely I knew there was life on the other side of great seas, and that New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Orleans were cities in which men moved and had their being. My country, the United States, had bought from Napoleon Bonaparte a large western tract called Louisiana, which belonged to France. A new state named Ohio was the last added to the roll of commonwealths. Newspapers, which the Indian runner once or twice brought us from Albany, chronicled the doings of Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States, who had recently drawn much condemnation on himself by a brutal duel.
"Aaron Burr was here once," said my master.
"What is he like?" I inquired.
"A lady-killer."
"But he is next in dignity to the President."
Doctor Chantry sniffed.
"What is even the President of a federation like this, certain to fall to pieces some fine day!"
I felt offended; for my instinct was to weld people together and hold them so welded.
"If I were a president or a king," I told him, "and men conspired to break the state, instead of parleying I would hang them up like dogs."
"Would you?"