of yellow flowers was waving on the highest peak of the gable. Some
spicy herb diffused a pleasant odor through the ruin. A verdant heap of
vegetation had covered the hearth of the second floor, clustering on the
very spot where the huge logs had mouldered to glowing coals, and
flourished beneath the broad flue, which had so often puffed the smoke
over a circle of French or English soldiers. I felt that there was no
other token of decay so impressive as that bed of weeds in the place of
the backlog.

Here I sat, with those roofless walls about me, the clear sky over my
head, and the afternoon sunshine falling gently bright through the
window-frames and doorway. I heard the tinkling of a cow-bell, the
twittering of birds, and the pleasant hum of insects. Once a gay
butterfly, with four gold-speckled wings, came and fluttered about my
head, then flew up and lighted on the highest tuft of yellow flowers, and
at last took wing across the lake. Next a bee buzzed through the
sunshine, and found much sweetness among the weeds. After watching him
till he went off to his distant hive, I closed my eyes on Ticonderoga in
ruins, and cast a dream-like glance over pictures of the past, and scenes
of which this spot had been the theatre.

At first, my fancy saw only the stern hills, lonely lakes, and venerable
woods. Not a tree, since their seeds were first scattered over the
infant soil, had felt the axe, but had grown up and flourished through
its long generation, had fallen beneath the weight of years, been buried
in green moss, and nourished the roots of others as gigantic. Hark! A
light paddle dips into the lake, a birch canoe glides round the point,
and an Indian chief has passed, painted and feather-crested, armed with a
bow of hickory, a stone tomahawk, and flint-headed arrows. But the
ripple had hardly vanished from the water, when a white flag caught the