We now came to the entrance of the lane, that led up to Overlook House.
Two large cherry trees stood on either side of the gate. I drew the attention of my companion to them. They were very venerable, and their winter boughs showed some signs of decay.
"Them big trees,"--said he. "Either of them, I'll engage is as old as three average men. They say a man averages thirty years of life. Now they are full ninety years old, and big at that."
"Bless your heart, sir, long indeed. But he's a good man. There's few that don't say so--well, thank God, it is those kind of people that don't. When he speaks and acts, you feel that our Lord has taught him his religion--just as we know it is Sunday, when we wake and hear the church-bells ringing, and all the sun-light seems full of the sweet sound, and all the sound as if it had gone through the bright sun. I do love Sunday."
Here we were close to the house. "Come and see me," he said, "down at my house there. It is not as big as the judge's, but then there is room in it for a hearty welcome. I will give you a glass of good cider, or two, or three, for that matter. As for wine, I never keep any. It seems to me to be poor stuff, as if it was trying to be brandy, and couldn't." The mission of the sleigh was now over. I and my trunks were at the porch of the house. So the worthy farmer and I parted for the present.
A colored servant man, of most respectable appearance, and of quiet manners, evidently glad of my arrival ushered me into the house, saying that Judge Almore would be home in a short time, as he had gone but a little distance on the farm; and that his good lady would come down stairs in a few minutes. The hall of the house was large, and decorated with Indian relics; with long deer-horns, also, and other trophies of the hunting ground. I was hastened into an adjoining room, which I had scarcely entered, before I felt the invigorating heat from the great fire-place. There the hickory logs seemed doing their best, with their immense flame, to make me feel as if I was cared for, a stranger from a distance. On the hearth there was a small mountain of glowing coals. How pleasant it is to sit before such a fire, and to think that our interminable forests, will supply abundant fuel, for the inhabitants of our cities for hundreds of years to come. Even when New York, and Philadelphia, Trenton, and Boston, may, two or three centuries hence, have each two or three hundred thousand inhabitants, and that expectation of their increase in population, is not so chimerical as it seems, and when the country round them, may be so cleared and cultivated, that in a circle of fifteen or twenty miles in diameter, the farm-houses may generally be in sight of one another, it is probable that the decrease of our woods will scarcely be perceptible.
