CHAPTER XVIII.

NOVEMBER DAYS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN-THE STORY OF HIRAM BRAMBLE.

On a recent summer vacation an intelligent bookseller sent to me two very delightful books, written by Mr. Rowland Robinson, of Ferrisburgh, Vt., under the titles of "Uncle 'Lisha's Shop" and "Sam Lovell's Camp." The dialects reproduced by Mr. Robinson-Vermont Yankee by several characters and Canuck-French by Ant-Twine Bissette-are excellent, much the most successful I have seen.

In reading these books, it occurred to me that if Mr. Robinson could imagine incidents enough to make a book out of the experiences of a fishingcamp at the mouth of Little Otter Creek in the outseason month of June, a true relation of some of my own experiences in a neighboring region, on East Creek and Bullwagga Bay, might be equally entertaining to the reading public. For there are few square acres of that creek and bay, including the narrow lake from Chimney Point to Ticonderoga, that I have not been rowed over by one of nature's original characters, more or less in company with one of the best shots and most entertaining companions who ever pulled a trigger or winged a "pintail." Oh, what sport we had on those long-past November days! Here are some of their memories.

Hiram Bramble, or, as his neighbors called him,

"Old Bramble," was an original character. He lived in a log house on the high south bank of East Creek, in Orwell, a half mile above its mouth. He was skilled in wood and water craft-many were the flocks of different species of water-fowl within shot of which he has rowed or paddled an eminent American diplomat and myself in those days of long ago. Bramble loved us well enough to have gone through fire to serve us if we had made such a demand upon him. He gave us great sport and we rewarded him, as he thought, royally. He was himself a successful hunter, but he was disinclined to waste his ammunition upon birds on the wing, a style of shooting in which he became skilful under our instruction.

Bramble had a wife when we knew him-a second Mrs. Bramble. He was poor and sometimes dissipated, but whenever he spoke of his first wife his voice was tremulous, and he had a habit of brushing something out of his eyes. Those who knew them said he always treated her with the affection of a loving husband and the courtesy of a gentleman by nature until she was laid away under the green turf of the Orwell churchyard, under a little mound planted with roses, and even then very carefully tended. When she died Bramble was captured by a masculine widow with a voice like a bark-mill and the temper of a demon. She did not like either my companion or myself. She always spoke of us as "them rascal Burlington lawyers" who paid Bramble to be idle, lazy, and drunk. I think she was impartial, for she abused every one who gave Bramble any employment.

How well I remember the day when I accepted

the invitation of a friend, afterward an honor to his country, to go with him on a shooting excursion to East Creek! He, I am sure, will recall our first visit to this locality-our trip on the steamer through the beautiful lake; our sumptuous dinner; our landing at Orwell, where Bramble was waiting for us, and those two days which followed, of which I hesitate to give, at this late day, the details.

Bramble had made the plans for our afternoon and evening. The teal, both kinds, were just coming from the north. The best stations were on the bank at the mouth of the creek-the best time, the last hour of daylight. One of us, he said, would go with him to his boat, which lay up the creek, where it was nearest to the highway, and he would row us down toward its mouth. We might pick up a stray duck or two on the way. P. would take the short cut through the woods to the mouth of the creek, and in the wood which he would go through scare up one or two ruffed grouse and possibly an English snipe or a gray squirrel.

I went with Bramble. As we came to the bank near the highway bridge, under which he had moored his boat, a mallard drake rose sluggishly from the opposite shore, fifty yards away. He was turned over with a No. 4 Eley's wire cartridge from the right barrel of my muzzle-loader; breech-loaders being then unknown. "He's a goner," said Bramble as he launched his boat. I took my seat in its stern; he rowed across and picked up the duck and said:

"We don't want to hurry. We've two good hours before the ducks begin to come in-two hours at Did Squire P. ever tell you about Mr. B.,

least.

that he brought down here last year? Well, he was a terror, he was. Every time anything with wings got up, bang! bang! went both of his barrels. He never hit anything because there was never anything

in front of his gun. When we picked up Squire P.

I told him that I didn't think I ought to row his friend any more unless he would be responsible for his accidents, the same as the town was for an accident on a road which was out of repair. Some day his friend would shoot the top of my head off, and somebody ought to be good for the damages!"

We rowed leisurely down the creek. I then knew nothing of Bramble's home or household. As we came around a sharp bend in the creek, I saw on the top of the next high point of land a small house. A person in female dress came out of the door and made an angry stride toward the bank. Her arms were swinging like those of a windmill. She was shouting something at the top of her voice, in which I could only distinguish the words "Old Bramble" and "rascally Burlington lawyers." She was apparently addressing her observations to us.

"Who is that woman?" I demanded of Bramble, somewhat peremptorily.

"Judge," he answered very seriously, "I know all the creeturs that ever lived in these parts-some ov 'em I would not care to meet in the night, but I can truly say that I ain't afeared of none of 'em. Now that there woman" (pointing to where she seemed to have reached the climax of her gymnastics)—" that woman is the only thing on this 'vairsal 'arth that I'm afraid of; that's Mrs. Bramble, my wife!"

"I am surprised, Bramble," I said. "I thought you were a brave man-not afraid of anything.”

"No more did I. I have choked a bull-dog to death that went mad. I stopped a runaway team, with a man's wife and children in the buggy, and the owner wanted to pay me four shillin' for it, when he knew it put my arm out of joint. I was never scairt by a ghost nor a jack-o'-lantern; but when that woman goes for me in one of her tantrums, the pluck runs out of me like cider out of a cheese of ground apples in a cider-mill. She is a devil-a full-grown, heaped-up, four-pecks-to-thebushel she-devil, with a tongue like a fish-spear. I don't guess-I know."

"Never mind," I said, "I will manage her!" Bramble looked at me with admiration. I remembered how O'Connell silenced the fishwoman. I could not recall his mathematical terms, but I could try her with linguistics. As the boat neared the house I laid down my gun, took off my coat, and flourishing my arms began with a quotation from Virgil, in the closing words of which I put great emphasis, and, so far as I knew them, the motions of a prize-fighter. The vixen hesitated. This species of warfare was new. Then she resumed: "You drunken, good-for-nothing Old Bramble! Wait till I get you home once more!" Carramba! Mille tonnerre! Habeas corpus. Ille "Sine qua non, sink

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ego qui quondam!" I shouted. or swim, I am for Bramble!" I was too much for her. "He's one of them college chaps," I heard her say. "They meet with the devil every week; but when I get you alone, Old Bramble" Here I took up my gun, and, pointing to the house, fired some other nonsense at her in a sepulchral voice. She retreated into the habitation. Bramble was in ecstasies. He "must learn them words," he said.