in honor of our confederation. Casting our eyes northward, we beheld
a horseman approaching leisurely, and splashing through the little
puddles on the Stamford road. Onward he came, sticking up in his
saddle with rigid perpendicularity, a tall, thin figure in rusty
black, whom the showman and the conjurer shortly recognized to be,
what his aspect sufficiently indicated, a travelling preacher of great
fame among the Methodists. What puzzled us was the fact, that his
face appeared turned from, instead of to, the camp-meeting at
Stamford. However, as this new votary of the wandering life drew near
the little green space, where the guidepost and our wagon were
situated, my six fellow-vagabonds and myself rushed forward and
surrounded him, crying out with united voices,--

"What news, what news from the camp-meeting at Stamford?"

The missionary looked down, in surprise, at as singular a knot of
people as could have been selected from all his heterogeneous
auditors. Indeed, considering that we might all be classified under
the general head of Vagabond, there was great diversity of character
among the grave old showman, the sly, prophetic beggar, the fiddling
foreigner and his merry damsel, the smart bibliopolist, the sombre
Indian, and myself, the itinerant novelist, a slender youth of
eighteen. I even fancied that a smile was endeavoring to disturb the
iron gravity of the preacher's mouth.

"Good people," answered he, "the camp-meeting is broke up."

So saying, the Methodist minister switched his steed, and rode
westward. Our union being thus nullified, by the removal of its
object, we were sundered at once to the four winds of heaven. The