Evening had closed before we reached the well known tavern-stand, and
the merry blaze of the fire, and many candles, showed us, while yet far
distant, that due preparations were in course for our entertainment.
"What have we here?" cried Harry, as we reached the door--"Race horses?
Why, Tom, by heaven! we've got the Flying Dutchman here again; now for a
night of it."
And so in truth it was, a most wet, and most jovial one, seasoned with
no small wit; but of that, more anon.
DAY THE FOURTH
When we had entered Tom's hospitable dwelling, and delivered over our
guns to be duly cleaned, and the dogs to be suppered, by Tim Matlock, I
passed through the parlor, on my way to my own crib, where I found
Archer in close confabulation with a tall rawboned Dutchman, with a keen
freckled face, small 'cute gray eyes, looking suspiciously about from
under the shade of a pair of straggling sandy eyebrows, small reddish
whiskers, and a head of carroty hair as rough and tangled as a fox's
back.
His aspect was a wondrous mixture of sneakingness and smartness, and his
expression did most villainously belie him, if he were not as sharp a
customer as ever wagged an elbow, or betted on a horse-race.
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