freeman

- A Canadian Trapper.-A Freeman of the Forest- An Iroquois Hunter.- Winter on the Columbia.-Festivities of New Year.

Such was Regis Brugiere, a freeman and rover of the wilderness.

No longer a serf, but a freeman and a landholder, Gurth sprung upon his feet, and twice bounded aloft to almost his own height from the ground.

``A smith and a file,'' he cried, ``to do away the collar from the neck of a freeman! Noble master!

``Nay,'' said Wamba, ``never think I envy thee, brother Gurth; the serf sits by the hall-fire when the freeman must forth to the field of battle And what saith Oldhelm of Malmsbury Better a fool at a feast than a wise man at a fray.''

It is true that an observer, under that softening influence of the fine arts which makes other people's hardships picturesque, might have been delighted with this homestead called Freeman's End: the old house had dormer-windows in the dark red roof, two of the chimneys were choked with ivy, the large porch was blocked up with bundles of sticks, and half the windows were closed with gray worm-eaten shutters about which the jasmine-boughs grew in wild luxuriance; the mouldering garden wall with hollyhocks peeping over it was a perfect study of highly mingled subdued color, and there was an aged goat (kept doubtless on interesting superstitious grounds) lying against the open back-kitchen door.

Some things he knew thoroughly, namely, the slovenly habits of farming, and the awkwardness of weather, stock and crops, at Freeman's End-- so called apparently by way of sarcasm, to imply that a man was free to quit it if he chose, but that there was no earthly "beyond" open to him.