a kinsman of his own; and his neighbor claimed
the palm for the Noah's Ark, in Ship Street, kept
by old John Viale; until at last Cheeseboro, smiling
broadly on all around, tossed down the threepence
due for his ale, and said:
"If but one man had spoke, I might have pondered his counsel, but since there are so many and so good ordinaries, I'll e'en keep to my first choice and get me to the State Arms, as I was bidden before I left home. So a fair good e'en to ye all, neighbors."
"Good e'en, drover," replied the landlord, carelessly;" and since you will go, it is as well for you to get on, for more than one wayfarer has been swamped in the marshes either hand the roadway across The Neck. One poor fellow got stuck there, and froze to death, in a bitter night last winter."
"Yes, 'tis a parlous place of a dark evening, what with the trees and bushes, and the swamps and flats," said the gray beard.
"They've cut pretty nigh all the trees that were fit for firing, but there's a mort o' scrub left," remarked another; and leaving them to their gossip, Cheeseboro mounted his horse, whistled to Rover, who at once began collecting and driving on the cattle, and in a few moments the herd moved briskly down Meeting-House Lane, which we now call Roxbury Street, past the stately Dudley mansion, over the ford of Smelt Brook, and, leaving the houses behind, entered upon the dreary stretch of waste and broken land then lying between Rox-
