of the adventure in which they were acquired.  A stout frame and an eager spirit, impatient of restraint, soon enabled our young traveller to conquer much of the pain and inconvenience which his hurts gave him, proving how much the good condition of the physical man depends upon the will.  He lifted himself about in five days as erectly as if nothing had occurred, and was just as ready for supper, as if he had never once known the loss of appetite.  Still he was tolerably prudent and did not task nature too unreasonably.  His exercises were duly moderated, so as not to irritate anew his injuries.  Forrester was a rigid disciplinarian, and it was only on the fifth day after his arrival, and after repeated entreaties of his patient, in all of which he showed himself sufficiently impatient, that the honest woodman permitted him to descend to the dinner-table of the inn, in compliance with the clamorous warning of the huge bell which stood at the entrance.

The company at the dinner-table was somewhat less numerous than that assembled in the great hall at the trial of the pedler.  Many of the persons then present were not residents, but visiters in the village from the neighboring country.  They had congregated there, as was usually the case, on each Saturday of the week, with the view not less to the procuring of their necessaries, than the enjoyment of good company.  Having attended in the first place to the ostensible objects of their visit, the village tavern, in the usual phrase, “brought them up;” and in social, yet wild carousal, they commonly spent the residue of the day.  It was in this way that they met their acquaintance—­found society, and obtained the news; objects of primary importance, at all times, with a people whose insulated positions, removed from the busy mart and the stirring crowd, left them no alternative but to do this or rust altogether.  The regular lodgers of the tavern were not numerous therefore, and consisted in the main of those laborers in the diggings who had not yet acquired the means of establishing households of their own.

There was little form or ceremony in the proceedings of the repast.  Colleton was introduced by a few words from the landlord to the landlady, Mrs. Dorothy Munro, and to a young girl, her niece, who sat beside her.  It does not need that we say much in regard to the former—­she interferes with no heart in our story; but Lucy, the niece, may not be overlooked so casually.  She has not only attractions in herself which claim our notice, but occupies no minor interest in the story we propose to narrate.  Her figure was finely formed, slight and delicate, but neither diminutive nor feeble—­of fair proportion symmetry, and an ease and grace of carriage and manner belonging to a far more refined social organization than that in which we find her.  But this is easily accounted for; and the progress of our tale will save us the trouble of dwelling farther upon it now.  Her skin, though slightly tinged