Nothing would satisfy our Forester but that some of us should ride over with him, some nine miles through the forest, to see Glades, the farm upon which he has been for the last eight years. He led the way, on his yellow mare, an animal who had nearly given us sore trouble here. The head stableman turned all the horses out one day for a short run, and she being amongst them, and loving her old home best, went off straight for Glades through the woods, with every hoof after her. Luckily, Alfred, the Forester’s son, was there, and guessing what was the matter, just rode her back, all the rest following. The ride was lovely, glorious peeps of distant blue ranges, and the forest just breaking out all over into golds, and vermilions, and purples, and russets. We only passed two small farms on the way, both ramshackle, and so the treat of coming suddenly on some one hundred acres cleared, drained, with large, though rough, farm buildings, and bearing the look of being cared for, was indescribably pleasant. Mrs. Hill and her son Alfred received us, both worthy of the head of the house; more I cannot say. They run the farm in his absence with scarcely any help, Alfred having also to attend to a grist and saw mill in the neighbouring creek. There were a fine mare and filly in the yard, as tame as pet dogs, coming and shoving their noses into your pockets and coaxing you for apples. The hogs are good Berkshire breed, the sheep Cotswolds. The cows (it is the only place where we have had cream on the mountains), Alderney or shorthorns. The house is a large log-cabin, one big room, with a deep, open fireplace, with a great pine-log smouldering at the back across plain iron dogs, a big hearth in front, on which pitch-pine chips are thrown when you feel inclined for a blaze. The room is carpeted and hung with photographs and prints, a rifle and shot gun, and implements of one kind or another. A small collection of books, mostly theological, and founded on two big Bibles, two rocking and half a dozen other chairs, a table, and two beds in the corners furthest from the fire, complete the furniture of the room, which opens on one side on a deep verandah, and on the other on a lean-to, which serves for kitchen and diningroom, and ends in a small, spare bedroom. A loft above, into which the family disappeared at night, completes the accommodation. I need not dwell on our supper, which included tender mutton, chickens, apple-tart, custard pudding, and all manner of vegetables and cakes. Mrs. Hill is as notable a cook as her husband is a forester. After supper we drew round the big fireplace, and soon prevailed on our host to give us a sketch of his life, by way of encouragement to his three young countrymen who sat round, and are going to try their fortunes in these mountains:—

“I was born and bred up in one of Lord Denbigh’s cottages, at Kirby, in Warwickshire. My father was employed on the great place, that’s Newnham Paddocks, you know. He was a labourer, and brought up sixteen children, not one of whom, except me, has ever been summonsed before a justice, or got into any kind of trouble. I went to school till about nine, but I was always longing to be out in the fields at plough or birdkeeping; so I got away before I could do much reading or writing. But I kept on at Sabbath School, and learnt more than I did at the other. The young ladies used to teach us, and they’d set us pieces and things to learn for them in the week. My CÆsar (the only ejaculation Amos allows himself; he cannot remember where he picked it up), how I would work at my piece to get it for Lady Mary! I’ve fairly cried over it sometimes, but I always managed to get it, somehow. After a bit, I was taken on at the house. At first, I did odd jobs, like cleaning boots and carrying messages; and then I got into the garden, and from that into the stable, and then for a bit with the keepers, and then into livery, to wait on the young ladies. So you see I learnt something of everything, and was happy, and earning good wages. But I wanted to see the world, so I took service with a gentleman who was a big railway contractor. I used to drive him, and do anything a’most that he wanted. I stayed with him nine years, and ’twas while going about with him that I met my wife here. We got married down in Kent, thirty-six years ago. Yes (in answer to a laughing comment by his wife), I wanted some one to mind me in those days. That poaching trouble came about this way. I had charge for my master of a piece of railway that ran through Lord————‘s preserves, in Wales. There were very strict rules about trespassing on the lines then, because folks there didn’t like our line, and had been putting things on it to upset the trains. One day I saw two keepers coming down the line, with a labourer I knew between them. He was all covered with blood, from a wound in his head. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘what’s the matter now?’ ‘I’ve been out of work,’ he said, ‘this three weeks, and I was digging out a rabbit to get something to eat, when they came up and broke my head.’ From that time the keepers and I quarrelled. I summonsed them, and got them fined for trespassing on the line; and then they got me fined for trespassing on their covers. We watched one another like hawks. I’d often lie out at night for hours in the cold, in a ditch, where I knew they’d want to cross the line, and then jump up and catch them; and they’d do the same by me. Once they got me fined £3: 10s. for poaching. I remember it well. I was that riled, I said to the justices right out, ‘How long do you think it’ll take me, gentlemen, to pay all that money, with hares only 1d. apiece?’ Then I went in for it. I remembered the text, ‘What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’ I did it. I used to creep along at night, all up the fences, and feel for the places where the hares came through, and set my wires; and I’d often have ten great ones screaming and flopping about like mad. And that’s what the keepers were, too. I’ve given a whole barrowful of hares away to the poor folk of a morning. Well, I know (in answer to an interpellation of Mrs. Hill), yes, ’twas all wrong, and I was a wild chap in those days. Then I begun to hear talk about America, and all there was for a man to see and do there, so I left my master, and we came over, twenty-seven years ago. At first I took charge of gentlemen’s gardens, in New York and New Jersey. Then we went to Miscejan, where I could earn all I wanted. Money was of no account there for a good man in those days, but the climate was dreadful sickly, and we had our baby; the first we had in twelve years, and wanted to live on bread and water, so as we could save him. So we went up right amongst the Indians, to a place they call Grand Travers, a wonderful healthy place, on a lake in the pine-forest country, as it was then. I went on to a promontory, where the forest stood, not like it does here, but the trees that thick, you had scarce room to swing an axe. Well, it was a beautiful healthy place, and we and baby throve, and I soon made a farm; and then folk began to follow after us, and before I left, there were twenty-three saw-mills, cutting up from 80,000 to 150,000 feet a day, week in and out. They’ve stripped the country so now, that there’s no lumber for those mills to cut, and most of them have stopped. I used to have a boat, with just a small sail, and I’d take my stuff down in the morning, and trade it off to the lumber-men, and then sail back at night, for the wind always changed and blew back in the evenings, most part of the year. Well, then, the war came, and for two years I kept thinking whether I oughtn’t to do my part to help the Government I’d lived under so long. Besides, I hated slavery. So in the third year I made up my mind, and ’listed in the Michigan Cavalry. I took the whole matter before the Lord, and prayed I might do my duty as a soldier, and not hurt any man. Well, we joined the Cavalry, near 60,000 strong down in these parts; and I was at Knoxville, and up and down. It was awful, the language and the ways of the men, many of them at least, swearing, and drinking, and stealing any kind of thing they could lay hands on. Many’s the plan for stealing I’ve broken up, telling them they were there to sustain the flag, not to rob poor folks. I spoke very plain all along, and got the men, many of them any way, to listen. I got on famously, too, because I was never away plundering, and my horse was always ready for any service. An officer would come in, after we had had a long day’s work, to say a despatch or message must go, and no horse in our company was fit to go but mine, so the orderly must have him; but I always said no, I was quite ready to go myself, but would not part company from my horse. The only time 1 took what was not mine was when we surprised a Confederate convoy, and got hold of the stores they were carrying. There they were lying all along the roads, greatcoats and blankets, and meal bags, and good boots, with English marks on them. My CÆsar, how our men were destroying them! I got together a lot of the poor, starving folk out of the woods that both sides had been living on, and loaded them up with meal and blankets. My CÆsar, how I loved to scatter them English boots! They never had seen such before. No, sir (in reply to one of us), I never fired a shot all that time, but I had hundreds fired at me. I’ve been in the rifle-pits, and now and again seen a fellow drawing a bead on me, and I’d duck down and hear the bullet ping into the bank close above. They got to employ me a good deal carrying despatches and scouting. That’s how I got took at last. We were at a place called Strawberry Plains, with Breckenridge’s division pretty near all round us. I was sent out with twelve other men, to try and draw them out, to show their force and position; and so we did, but they were too quick for us. Out they came, and it was a race back to our lines down a steep creek. My horse missed his footing, and down we rolled over and over, into the water. When I got up, I was up to my middle, and, first thing I knew, there was a rebel, who swore at me for a G—d d———Yankee, and fired his six shooter at me. The shot passed under my arm, and before he could fire again an officer ordered him on, and gave me in charge. I was taken to the rear, and marched off with a lot of prisoners. The rebels treated me as if I’d been their father, after a day or two. I spoke out to them about their swearing and ways, just as I had to our men; and I might have been tight all the time I was a prisoner, only I’m a temperance man. They put me on their horses on the march, and I was glad of it, for I was hurt by my roll with my horse, and had about the chest. After about six days I got my parole, with five others. They were hard pressed then and didn’t want us toting along. Then we started north, with nothing but just our uniforms, and they full of vermin. The first house we struck I asked where we could find a Union man about there. They didn’t know any one, didn’t think there was one in the county. I said that was bad, as we were paroled Union soldiers,—and then all was changed. They took us in and wanted us to use their beds, which we wouldn’t do, because of the vermin on us. They gave us all they had, and I saw the women, for I couldn’t sleep, covering us up with any spare clothes they’d got, and watching us all night long. They sent us on to other Union houses, and so we got north. I was too ill to stay north at my old work, so I sold my farm, and came south to Knoxville, where I had come to know many kind, good people, in the war. They were very kind, and I got work at the improvements on Mr. Dickenson’s farm (a model farm we had gone over), and in other gentlemen’s gardens. But I didn’t get my health again, so eight years ago I came to this place on the mountains, which I knew was healthy, and would suit me. Well, they all said I should be starved out in two years and have to quit, but before three years were out I was selling them corn and better bacon than they’d ever had before. Some of ’em begin to think I’m right now, and there’s a deal of improvement going on, and if they’d only, as I tell ’em, just put in all their time on their farms, and not go loafing round gunning, and contented with corn-dodgers and a bit of pork, and give up whisky, they might all do as well as I’ve done. I should like to go back once more and see the old country; but I mean to end my days here. There’s no such country that I ever saw. The Lord has done all for us here. And it seems like dreams, that I should live to see a Rugby up here on the mountains. I mean to take a lot in the town, or close by, and call it Newnham Paddocks. So I shall lay my bones, you see, in the same place, as it were, that I was reared in.”

I do not pretend that these were his exact words,—the whole had to be condensed to come within your space,—but they are not far off. It was now past nine, the time for retiring, when Amos told us that he always ended his day with family prayers. A psalm was read, and then we knelt down, and he prayed for some minutes. Extemporary prayers always excite my critical faculty, but there was no thought or expression in this I could have wished to alter. Then we turned in, I, after a pipe in the verandah, in one clean white bed, and two of the boys in the big one in the opposite corner. There I soon dozed off, watching the big, smouldering, white pine-log away in the depth of the chimney-nook, and the last flickerings of the knobs of pitch pine in front of it, between the iron dogs, and wondering in my mind over the brave story we had just been listening to, so simply told (of which I fear I have succeeded in giving a very poor reflection), and whether there are not some—there cannot, I fear, be many—such lives lying about in out-of-the-way corners, on mountain, or plain, or city. My last conscious speculation was whether the Union would have been saved if all Union soldiers had been Amos Hills.

I waked early, just before dawn, and was watching alternately the embers of the big log, still aglow in the deep chimney, and the white light beginning to break through the honeysuckles and vines which hung over the verandah, and shaded the wide, open window, when the clock struck five. The door opened softly, and in stepped Amos Hill in his stockings. He came to the foot of our beds, picked up our dirty boots, and stole out again, as noiselessly as he had entered. The next minute I heard the blacking brushes going vigorously, and knew that I should appear at breakfast with a shine on in which I should have reason to glory, if I were preparing to walk in Bond Street, instead of through the scrub on the Cumberland Mountains. I turned over for another, hour’s sleep (breakfast being at 6.30 sharp), but not without first considering for some minutes which of us two—if things were fixed up straight in this blundering old world—ought to be blacking the other’s boots. The conclusion I came to was that it ought not to be Amos Hill.