highest executive officer in the county.«
    She took his arm, and he led her through the mazes of the bushes, to the
spot where most of the young men of the village were collected for the sports of
shooting a Christmas match, and whither Natty and his companions had already
preceded them.
 

                                  Chapter XVII

 »I guess, by all this quaint array,
 The burghers hold their sports to-day.«
                                                    Scott, The Lady of the Lake,
                                                                     V.xx.31-32.
 
The ancient amusement of shooting the Christmas turkey, is one of the few sports
that the settlers of a new country seldom or never neglect to observe. It was
connected with the daily practices of a people, who often laid aside the axe or
the sithe, to seize the rifle, as the deer glided through the forests they were
felling, or the bear entered their rough meadows, to scent the air of a
clearing, and to scan, with a look of sagacity, the progress of the invader.
    On the present occasion, the usual amusement of the day had been a little
hastened, in order to allow a fair opportunity to Mr. Grant, whose exhibition
was not less a treat to the young sportsmen, than the one which engaged their
present attention. The owner of the birds was a free black, who had prepared for
the occasion a collection of game, that was admirably qualified to inflame the
appetite of an epicure, and was well adapted to the means and skill of the
different competitors, who were of all ages. He had offered to the younger and
more humble marksmen divers birds of an inferior quality, and some shooting had
already taken place, much to the pecuniary advantage of the sable owner of the
game. The order of the sports was extremely simple, and well understood. The
bird was fastened by a string to the stump of a large pine, the side of which,
towards the point where the marksmen were placed, had been flattened with an
axe, in order to serve the purpose of a target, by which the merit of each
individual might be ascertained. The distance between the stump and
shooting-stand was one hundred measured yards; a foot more or a foot less being
thought an invasion of the rights of one of the parties. The negro affixed his
own price to every bird, and the terms of the chance; but when these were once
established, he was obliged, by the strict principles of public justice that
prevailed in the country, to admit any adventurer who chose to offer.
    The throng consisted of some twenty or thirty young men