my friend Pyncheon came in, and cried, rubbing his hands, "I guess this is a deal better than a London fog, arn't it now? It don't snow in England at all, do it?" I replied that it did sometimes. "Waal, you can't raise such snow "But then this as we have here," he rejoined. It can't be is a real good climate anyhow. matched nowheres: that's generally allowed." "You Americans," I said, "boast of your climate as if it was one of your own patented inventions; and if a man says anything against it, you are much put out, as if he had attacked your glorious constitution."

"Waal," said he, "that's so. And you didn't make your face: but if I was to tell you that it was damnation ugly, you'd feel sort o' riled, I guess, now wouldn't you?"

I was forced to admit that there was something in that, and asked him what were his plans for the day. For Ebenezer Pyncheon had taken me under his especial charge, and had vowed I should see all there was to be seen in Boston, which he led me to infer would be a stupendous undertaking. In reply he announced that he intended to take me for a sleigh. Now I may here confess that I am by nature excessively timid; but my timidity is not of a vulgar nature. When actually in the presence of danger I preserve an external calmness. What I suffer inwardly is known only to myself. In order to avoid such disagreeable sensations, I abstain from those pleasures and duties which might possibly occasion them. I do not shoot, I do not hunt, I do not sail under amateurs in yachts or If I had cutters, I never enter a sick-room. crossed the Atlantic with the intention of travelling in a country where the sacredness of human life is notoriously disregarded, it was because I was compelled to do so. But because I had now entered a semi-civilised land, because I was encircled by dangers, should I therefore wantonly increase them? On the contrary, I determined to be all the more careful. And I say at once that I am by no means ashamed of my peculiarity—if it is one, whih I greatly doubt,-for as other people suppose me to be courageous, I suppose other people to be courageous, and perhaps we all deceive one another. But to return. What is this nervousness, this timidity, this cowardice, if you prefer the word, to which I am subject? It is simply an implicit, unswerving adherence to the first law of nature. It is a delicate, refined susceptibility of the hostile agents of the material world. It is one of those qualities which distinguish man from the lower animals. What is courage, in fact, but blind rage, vile

"Very well," said he. Mike," calling a hall-boy, "run round to Snagg's stables, and tell him I'll want my sleigh here at three o'clock; and 'say, tell him I want my best buffalo."

No sooner had he pronounced these words than the bison of the prairies sprang up before me, as I had read of him in a hundred books, with his huge tangled mane, his small bloodshot eye, his gigantic hoof, his terrible branching horns. I immediately determined to invent a pretext for not going; but to avert suspicion, began to expatiate on the pleasures of novelty, and found it difficult to imagine anything more delightful than driving a tame buffalo. Pyncheon stared at me for some time with a puzzled look, and then, bursting into a coarse laugh, informed me that he had ordered his buffalo robe. Another vulgar abbreviation, thought I. The Americans are always in such a hurry that they have no time to pronounce their words.

The sleigh was brought round at three o'clock, and I proceeded to examine the horse with the jaunty air of a connoisseur, but really to make sure that he was not vicious. More than once a certain look about a horse's eyes, or his manner of laying back his ears, has induced me to simulate faintness, or bleeding at the nose, in preference to placing myself behind him. But Pyncheon's horse appeared to be spirited-nothing more.

A trotter, I suppose?" said I. "We all drive trotters here," said he. "Fast?" I asked.

"Pretty well. 2'45."

making one or two ill-bred remarks on my mistake, and off we went. I had taken it for granted that Pyncheon could drive, and I was not deceived. He was a skilled whip, and there was evidently a good understanding between horse and man that put me quite at my ease. I leaned back in my seat and enjoyed the smooth, swift, gliding movement of the sleigh, which Pyncheon compared to that of a boat running before the wind under full sail. He drove at a moderate pace; but as we approached the outskirts of the city, a sleigh passed us at full speed. At the same time, its occupant turned round in his seat, and cast upon Pyncheon a look half-defiance, half-recognition. This strange look puzzled me. I had a moment of vague uneasiness; my self-preserving instincts arose within me, and I was about to crossexamine Pyncheon about him when, after calling my attention to the fact that a trotting horse at full speed is driven with a tight rein, he burst into a long harangue about trotting parks, the mysteries of which he had not fully expounded when we found ourselves out upon the Brighton Road.

At ordinary seasons there is nothing at Boston which corresponds to the carriage promenades in Hyde Park, Central Park, the Cascine, and the Bois. It is perhaps for that reason that private carriages in Boston are comparatively scarce, and so closely resemble the hackney-coaches. But during the sleighing season, a hill on the Brighton Road is the fashionable or rather the popular, resort; for the ladies present apparently did not belong to the Beacon Street order. But the jeunesse dorée of the Somerset Club were there in all their glory; and I was much impressed by observing the dignified manner in which they saluted one another, namely, with short nods, and without moving a muscle of their faces, looking as if some one had suddenly jerked their noses forward with a string. We drove up the hill, which a vast number of sleighs were ascending and descending. I asked my companion why a hill was chosen as the promenade; he told me that I would see presently. I asked him what he meant; he replied by asking me if I liked egg-flip; I said I did. We were now on the top of the hill; he pointed to a tavern at a little distance, and said we could get it there. We did get it there, and it was very good: the beer and egg were harmoniously compounded, and the mixture, instead of being brewed over the fire as in England, was heated by the insertion of a redhot poker. Pyncheon, having remarked that it made him feel "good," resumed his seat, and

in a few moments we had again arrived at the crest of the hill.

I now observed something very peculiar in my friend's manner; it was not only the vivacity which might reasonably be ascribed to the flip; it was something more than that, it was something different from that. What it meant I could not conjecture. But it was evidently preparation. He folded the buffalo carefully under him, looked down his coatbuttons, pushed back his wrist-bands, and settled his cap more firmly on his head. Before us lay the hill; and now I saw that a regular avenue of sleighs was formed; they lined each side of the road, and moved slowly along like carriages at a drawing-room. In the narrow space between these lines a few sleighs were passing sinuously. Pyncheon took the middle of the road and went along at a gentle trot. But now there was something peculiar about the horse: he had his ears pricked up, and his tail stood out like a pointer's. Something was about to happen. What could it be? I became nervous. I spoke to Pyncheon—what about I don't know, the weather, I think. He did not reply, but kept looking round him and behind him, as if expecting somebody. Suddenly the bells jingled, the man passed us again, and gave my companion a look of withering contempt. diabolical yell sounded in my ears. I started and stared at Ebenezer. It was he. His face, usually so stern, so prim, so Pilgrim-Fatherly, was convulsed with excitement. "Yah! Yah! Yah!" he shouted. "What are you waiting for? Push along the-re!"

A

"Cock-a-doodle doo!" cried the other, and flapped his arms up and down. Then all around us rose shrieks, groans, Indian warwhoops, cries of every description. In the midst of it all the horse bolted. I gave myself up for lost. But Pyncheon flogged the horse, and then the truth flashed upon me. We were racing,-not only the man and Pyncheon, but everybody inside the lines. Imagine a dozen sleighs going at railroad speed down a narrow lane flanked by sleighs, and others coming up. We were saved from collision half-a-dozen times by miracles of skill on the part of Ebenezer; but at length I became unable to observe what passed. The bells clanked savagely in my ears with iron tones. I saw nothing but a maze of men darting to and fro: the sleigh danced under me, and dashed the snow into my face, and continually I repeated to myself "If two sleighs, each going at 2'45 strike one another, to what distance will their occupants be thrown, and

Once a Week,]

PLOUGHING.-By C. O. MURRAY.