a minute's warning!"

"Well, I had always reckoned you for a home-staying and a peaceable man,
neighbour;" returned the admiring countryman; "nor did I ever dream that
you had seen such serious movings."

"I have not boasted, Pardon, or I might have added other heavy matters to
the list. There was a great struggle in the East, no longer than the year
'32, for the Persian throne. You have read of the laws of the Medes and
the Persians: Well, for the very throne that gave forth those unalterable
laws was there a frightful struggle, in which blood ran like water; but,
as it was not in Christendom, I do not account it among my own
experiences; though I might have spoken of the Porteous mob with great
reason, as it took place in another portion of the very kingdom in which I
lived."

"You must have journeyed much, and been stirring late and early, good-man,
to have seen all these things, and to have got no harm."

"Yes, yes, I've been something of a traveller too, Pardy. Twice have I
been over land to Boston, and once have I sailed through the Great Sound
of Long Island, down to the town of York. It is an awful undertaking the
latter, as it respects the distance, and more especially because it is
needful to pass a place that is likened, by its name, to the entrance of
Tophet."

"I have often heard the spot call'd 'Hell Gate' spoken of, and I may say,
too, that I know a man _well_ who has been through it twice; once in going
to York, and once in coming homeward."