I merely glanced at the ensuing twenty years, which glided peacefully
over the frontier fortress, till Ethan Allen's shout was heard, summoning
it to surrender "in the name of the great Jehovah and of the Continental
Congress." Strange allies! thought the British captain. Next came the
hurried muster of the soldiers of liberty, when the cannon of Burgoyne,
pointing down upon their stronghold from the brow of Mount Defiance,
announced a new conqueror of Ticonderoga. No virgin fortress, this!
Forth rushed the motley throng from the barracks, one man wearing the
blue and buff of the Union, another the red coat of Britain, a third a
dragoon's jacket, and a fourth a cotton frock; here was a pair of leather
breeches, and striped trousers there; a grenadier's cap on one head, and
a broad-brimmed hat, with a tall feather, on the next; this fellow
shouldering a king's arm, that might throw a bullet to Crown Point, and
his comrade a long fowling-piece, admirable to shoot ducks on the lake.
In the midst of the bustle, when the fortress was all alive with its last
warlike scene, the ringing of a bell on the lake made me suddenly unclose
my eyes, and behold only the gray and weed-grown ruins. They were as
peaceful in the sun as a warrior's grave.

Hastening to the rampart, I perceived that the signal had been given by
the steamboat Franklin, which landed a passenger from Whitehall at the
tavern, and resumed its progress northward, to reach Canada the next
morning. A sloop was pursuing the same track; a little skiff had just
crossed the ferry; while a scow, laden with lumber, spread its huge
square sail, and went up the lake. The whole country was a cultivated
farm. Within musket-shot of the ramparts lay the neat villa of Mr. Pell,
who, since the Revolution, has become proprietor of a spot for which
France, England, and America have so often struggled. How forcibly the
lapse of time and change of circumstances came home to my apprehension!
Banner would never wave again, nor cannon roar, nor blood be shed, nor