least, think themselves justified in the movement, surely. Do they
consider themselves aggrieved by any past decisions of the court?"

"O, there are grumblers enough, doubtless, in that respect," answered
the sheriff. "And among other things, they complain that their
property is taken and sold to pay their honest debts, when money is so
scarce, they say, that they cannot pay their creditors in
currency--just as if the court could make money for the idle knaves!
But that is mere pretence. They have other motives, and those, too, of
a more dangerous character to the public peace."

"And what may those motives be, if it be proper for me to inquire,
sir?" resumed the fair questioner.

"Why, in the first place," replied the sheriff, "they have an old and
inveterate grudge against New York, whose jurisdiction they are much
predisposed to resist. But to this they might have continued to demur
and submit, as they have done this side of the mountain, had New York
adopted the resolves of the Continental Congress of last December, and
come into the _American Association_, as it is called, which has no
less for its object, in reality, than the entire overthrow of all
royal authority in this country. But as our colony has nobly refused
to do this, they are now intent on committing a double treason--that
of making war on New York and the king too."

"Well, I should have little suspected," remarked Haviland, "that the
people of this section, who have shown themselves commendably
conservative, for the most part, had any intention of yielding to the
mob-laws of Ethan Allen, Warner, and others, who place the laws of New
York at defiance on the other side of the mountains; and much less