"This day, no man thinks He has business at his house."
KING HENRY VIII.
The warm weather, which was always a little behind that of the lower
counties, had now set in among the mountains, and the season had
advanced into the first week in July. "Independence Day," as the
fourth of that month is termed by the Americans, arrived; and the
wits of Templeton were taxed, as usual, in order that the festival
might be celebrated with the customary intellectual and moral treat.
The morning commenced with a parade of the two or three uniformed
companies of the vicinity, much gingerbread and spruce-beer were
consumed in the streets, no light potations of whiskey were swallowed
in the groceries, and a great variety of drinks, some of which bore
very ambitious names, shared the same fate in
