Bishop was at the gate waiting for us, and back of him two good-natured dogs bayed a noisy welcome.

"Come right in," he said, shaking hands with Harding. "If I'd known that you had to walk I'd hitched up a rig and come after ye. This is Mrs.

Harding, I reckon," he said, grasping that lady's hand. "Glad to meet ye, Mrs. Harding! I knowed that thar husband of your'n when he wasn't bigger nor a pint of cider."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "At the gate waiting for us"]

"Robert has often spoken of you, Mr. Bishop," said that lady. "How is Mrs. Bishop?"

"She's well; first-rate, thank ye. Come right in and we'll hunt her up," he said, leading the way. "I suppose she's puttering around in the kitchen."

I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Bishop through the window. She was hurriedly shedding a large calico ap.r.o.n, and met us as we were on the steps of the veranda. A woman trained in the conventionalities of society could not have conducted herself better than did this American wife of an American farmer, and I was proud of her as if she had been my own mother. She had the rare tact of making her guests feel perfectly at home.

Bishop had disappeared, but soon returned with an enormous gla.s.s pitcher and a tray of gla.s.ses.

"Here's some new sweet cider for the ladies," he said, pouring out a gla.s.s and handing it to Mrs. Harding. "Pressed it out this afternoon, and picked out the apples myself. Try some, Miss Harding. Here's a gla.s.s for you, Miss----, blamed if I hav'n't forgot your name already,"

proffering a gla.s.s to Miss Lawrence, "but we don't mind a little thing like that, do we."

"Indeed we do not," laughed Miss Lawrence.

"How about this?" demanded Chilvers. "What was that you said about cider for the ladies? My friend Marshall is dying for a drink, and my throat is as dusty as his boots. Do we walk two miles and then choke to death?

We don't want to lose Marshall like this."

"You hold your horses a minute," grinned Bishop. "The ladies like sweet cider, G.o.d bless 'em, and I made this for them. If any of you fellows would like to try some real cider, the best that ever was raised in this State, come on and follow me. I reckon the ladies have seen all they want to of you for a while. Come on; I'll show you some cider that is cider."

He led us around the house until he came to a cellar door, which he threw back and we followed him. When our eyes became accustomed to the dim light we saw long rows of huge casks, mounted on frames so that the spigots were eighteen inches from the floor. The air was deliciously cool. It was permeated with the subtle odour of apple juice long confined in wood. Films of cobwebs softened the sharp lines of the cask heads and faintly gleamed between the rafters where the light struck them.

"Here's cider that is cider!" declared Bishop, proudly tapping on the heads of the great casks as he led the way into the darker recesses of the cellar. "I reckon, Bob," he said to Harding, "that it's a long time since you've had a chance to try a swig of real old Down East hard cider."

"It's been a long time, Jim," admitted Harding. "How old is this?"

"I've put in a cask every year since I took the place," he replied, "and that's more'n thirty years ago, and not a cask here but has cider in it."

"Cider thirty years old!" exclaimed Chilvers. "You mean vinegar, don't you?"

"I said cider, young man; an' when I say cider I mean cider," retorted Bishop, rather indignantly. "It is no more vinegar than brandy's vinegar, nor champagne's vinegar. Now, I don't reckon none of you, barring my old friend John Harding, here, ever tasted a drop of real hard cider. Oh, yes, Smith has, of course; but how about the rest of ye?"

Carter, LaHume, Marshall, and Chilvers admitted that their idea of hard cider was a beverage which had started to ferment.

Bishop placed his hand reverently on a blackened, time-charred cask. It was evident he was as proud of that possession as others might be of an authenticated Raphael.

"I don't tap this here very often," he said, "but in honour of this occasion I'll let it run a bit. This here cider is fifty years old!"

He drew off a pint or so in a stone jug, and we went out into the light to examine it. It was almost colourless, slightly amber in shade, if any tint can describe it. I had seen that sacred cask when a boy, and I recall now that Joe Bishop did not dare touch it, and there were few things of which he was afraid.

We all solemnly sampled it from small gla.s.ses, which Bishop produced from some mysterious hiding place.

"There is no taste to it," declared Chilvers. "It's smooth as oil, but it has no flavour."

"Hasn't, eh?" smiled Bishop. "You just wait a minute and you'll get the bouquet--as you wine experts call it. It's one of these coming tastes, but when it hits you you cry for more."

It was as the farmer said. There came to our palates the subtle gustatory perfume of apple blossoms. Within the old cask there had been stored the fragrance and the spell of the orchard of half a century agone. It was the wine of the apple; the favoured fruit of the G.o.ds.

"Is it supposed to be intoxicating?" asked Marshall. Bishop laughed uproariously, and Harding joined in his merriment.

"My boy," Bishop said, "it's as intoxicating as the feel of your sweetheart's cheek against your own, only it affects you in a different way. I've known a man to fill up on that smooth-tastin' and innocent lookin' stuff an' not come tew until he was on shipboard, an' half way to Cape Horn. Under its influence the secretary of a peace society would tackle the j.a.panese navy in a rowboat. From what I know about mythology I'm sure Mars drank it regular."

Our host drew a generous allowance from a cask containing a more recent vintage, and led the way from out the old cellar to seats beneath the trees facing the smooth turf of an unused croquet ground.

LaHume wandered away in search of the ladies, whose laughter and chatter from the near-by veranda proved they were cheerfully enduring his absence. I caught a glimpse of Wallace as he drove the cows into the old barn, and wondered if LaHume seriously considered the "hired man" as a rival.

We filled our pipes and lay back in the comfortable seats, content to listen to the music of the birds overhead, and follow aimlessly the conversation between Bishop and Harding. The cider from the sacred cask had bridged the years which separated them from boyhood days back in Buckfield, Maine.

The old grindstone reminded Harding of an incident, to the telling of which both contributed details. They told of swimming exploits; of how they helped lock the school teacher out of the little red building which seemed to them a prison; they told of blood-curdling feats of coasting and of skating on thin ice, and of other things more or less distorted, perhaps, when seen through the haze of forty years.

Then they told of the boys they had "licked," and of the boys who had whipped them, also of the feud between the lads of Buckfield and Sumner and the desperate encounters which resulted from it.

"Do you remember, Bob," asked Bishop, after a moment's pause, "of that 'ra.s.slin' match we had on the floor of your dad's barn?"

"The time I got a black eye, and you lost part of your ear?" asked Harding, his eyes brightening at thought of it.

"That's the time," declared Bishop. "I tore your clothes most to pieces."

"I don't remember about that," responded the railroad magnate, "but I do remember that I flopped you three times out of five."

"Three times outer nothin'!" exclaimed the farmer. "I put you down fair and square three times running, Bob, and if you'll stop and think a minute you'll recollect it."

"Recollect nothing!" defiantly laughed Harding. "You never saw the day in your life, when you or any boy in Buckfield could put my shoulders to the ground three times running. You're losing your memory, Jim."

"I did it all right."

"I say you didn't!"

"And I can do it again!"

"You can, eh?" shouted Harding, springing to his feet and pulling off his coat. "We'll mighty quick see if you can! I'll tackle you right here on this croquet ground!"

"Side holt, square holt, or catch-as-catch-can?" asked Bishop, casting one anxious look towards the house.

"We always ra.s.sled catch-as-catch-can, and you know it," declared Harding. "I suppose you think just because I do nothing but build railroads and things that I've grown effeminate since you tackled me the last time. Come on; I'll show you!"

"I'm afraid I'll hurt you, Bob," said Bishop, and I could see that he honestly meant it. "I've been outer doors all my life, an' you've been----"

"I suppose you think I've been in an incubator, don't ye?" snorted Harding. "Don't weaken! Don't be a coward, Jim! There's the line; toe it!" and he marked a crease in the soft turf.

"You bet I'll toe it!" growled the now irate farmer. "And don't whimper if I break a bone or two when I flop ye!"

As Bishop threw his cap to the ground and rushed toward the defiant millionaire Carter saw fit to interfere.

"Don't do this," he protested, jumping between them. "One of you will get hurt! It's dangerous for men of your age to wrestle!"