we stand on this silent hill, the prize of so many struggles,
our own hearts swell with the hopes and sink with the fears
that its green old bluffs have roused. Up from yon water-side
came stealing the Green-Mountain Boys, with their grand and
grandiloquent leader, and, at the very gateway where we stand,
as tradition says, (et potius Dii numine firment,) he thundered
out, with brave, barbaric voice, the imperious summons, "In the
name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." No
wonder the startled, half-dressed commander is confounded, and
"the pretty face of his wife peering over his shoulder" is
filled with terror. Well may such a motley crew frighten the
fair Europeanne. "Frenchmen I know, and Indians I know, but
who are ye?" Ah! Sir Commander, so bravely bedight, these are
the men whom your parliamentary knights are to sweep with their
brooms into the Atlantic Ocean. Bring on your besoms, fair
gentlemen; yonder is Champlain, and a lake is as good to drown
in as an ocean. Look at them, my lords, and look many times
before you leap. They are a rough set, roughly clad, a
stout-limbed, stout-hearted race, insubordinate, independent,
irrepressible, almost as troublesome to their friends as to
their foes; but there is good stock in them,--brain and brawn,
and brain and brawn will yet carry the day over court and
crown, in the name of the right, which shall overpower all
things. We clamber down into arched passages, choked with
debris, over floors tangled with briers, and join in the wild
wassail of the bold outlaw, fired by his victorious career.
We clamber up the rugged sides and wind around to the headland.
Brilliant in the "morning-shine," exultant in the pride and
pomp of splendid preparation, ardent for conquest and glory,
Abercrombie sails down the lovely inland sea, to sail back