In one of the lower districts he still held, in fee, a small but inefficient patrimony; the profits of which were put to the use of a young sister.

Times, however, had grown hard, and with the impatience and restlessness so peculiar to nearly all classes of the people of that state, Mark set out in pursuit of his fortune among strangers.

He loved from his childhood all hardy enterprises; all employments calculated to keep his spirit from slumbering in irksome quiet in his breast.

He had no relish for the labors of the plough, and looked upon the occupation of his forefathers as by no means fitted for the spirit which, with little besides, they had left him.

The warmth, excitability, and restlessness which were his prevailing features of temper, could not bear the slow process of tilling, and cultivating the earth--watching the growth and generations of pigs and potatoes, and listening to that favorite music with the staid and regular farmer, the shooting of the corn in the still nights, as it swells with a respiring movement, distending the contracted sheaves which enclose it.