"Oh, damn it! Poor thing! She won't know anything for a bit," said Gurney, laying her head back against the sandstone. "I'll be off. What a devil she is, to be sure! Boy, you'd best put some water on your sister's face in a minute or two,"—to the whimpering Pen. "If I was safe out of this scrape, and off from the Ferry"——
And thrusting his eye-glass into his pocket, he went up the hill, still chafing his whiskers. Near the town he met Paul Blecker. The sun was nearly down. The Doctor stopped short, looking at the man's face fixedly. He found nothing there, but a vapid self-complacency.
"He has not seen her," said Paul, hurrying on. "Another hour, and I am safe."
But Gurney had a keen twinkle in his eye.
"It's not the first time that fellow has looked as if he would like to see my throat cut," he muttered. "I begin to understand, eh? If he has a mind to the girl, I'm not safe. Jack Gurney, you'd best vamose this ranch to-night. Sheppard will parole me to headquarters, and then for an exchange."
THE HANCOCK HOUSE AND ITS FOUNDER.
"Every man's proper mansion-house and home, being the Theater of his hospitality, the seate of selfe-fruition, the comfortablest part of his own life, the noblest of his sonne's inheritance, a kind of private princedome, nay, to the possessors thereof, an epitome of the whole world, may well deserve, by these attributes, according to the degree of the master, to be decently and delightfully adorned."—Sir Henry Wotton.
In the year of grace 1722, Captain John Bonner, Ætatis suæ 60, took it upon himself to publish a plan of "The Town of Boston in New-England. Engraven and printed by Fra: Dewing and Sold by Capt. Bonner and Willm. Price, against ye Town House." From the explanation given on the margin, it appears that the town then contained "Streets 42, Lanes 36, Alleys 22, Houses near 3000, 1000 Brick rest Timber, near 12,000 people." The area of the Common shows the Powder-House, the Watch-House, and the Great Elm, venerable even then in its solitary grandeur,—the Rope-Walks line the distant road to Cambridge Ferry, and far to the west of houses and settlements rises the conical peak of Beacon Hill,—a lonely pasture for the cattle of the thrifty and growing settlement.