oaks, surrounded with a picket-fence, is the open porch, with broad wooden benches, and within is an ample hall, looking out upon well-cultivated fields, and beyond—blue water! This is the "Oakery," as Captain Belgrave calls it. Here he lives with his brother Adolphus—bachelors both.
His title is a mystery. There is a legend in the village, that in the last war Belgrave was enrolled in the militia on some frontier. One night he was pacing as sentinel on a long wooden piazza in front of the General's quarters. It was midnight; the camp was asleep, and the moon was just sinking in a bank of clouds. Belgrave heard a footstep on the stairs at the end of the piazza. "Who goes there?" No answer. Another step. "Who goes there?" he repeated, and his heart began to fail him. No answer—but another step. He cocked his musket. Step, step, step, and then between him and the sinking moon appeared an enormous head decorated with diabolical horns. Belgrave drew a long breath and fired. The next instant the spectre was upon him; he was knocked down; the drums beat to arms; the guard turned out, and found the sentinel stretched upon the floor, with an old he-goat, full of defiance and odor, standing on him. From that time he was called "Captain."
No place, though it be a paradise, is perfect without one of the gentler sex. There is a lady at the Oakery. Miss Augusta Belgrave is a maiden of about—let me see; her age was formerly inscribed on the fly-leaf of the family Bible between the Old and New Testaments; but the page was torn out, and now it is somewhere in the Apocrypha. No matter what it may be; if you were to see her, you would say she was safe over the breakers. Two unmarried brothers, with a spinster sister, living alone: it is not unfrequent in old families. The rest of the household may be embraced in Hannah, the help, who is also "a maiden all forlorn," and Jim, the stable-boy. Jim is a unit, as well as the rest. Jim has been a stable-boy all his life, and now, at the age of sixty, is only a boy ripened. His chief pride and glory is to drive a pair of bob-tailed bay trotters that are (traditionally) fast! Adolphus, who has a turn for literature, christened the off-horse "Spectator;" but the near horse came from a bankrupt wine-broker, who named him "Chateau
