of some Hengist and Horsa could not be more silent.

This old fosse seemed to strike the somewhat forgotten, out-of-the-world
note of the surrounding country. Picturesque to the eye, with bounteous
green prospects and smooth, smiling hills, it was not, we were told, as
prosperous as it looked. For some vague reason, the tides of agricultural
prosperity had ebbed from that spacious sunlit vale. A handsome old
trapper, who sat at his house door smoking his pipe and looking across
the green flats, set down the cause to the passing of the canal. Ah, yes!
it was possible for him, thirty years ago, to make the trip to Rochester
and back by the canal, and bring home a good ten dollars; but now--well,
every one in the valley was poor, except the man whose beehives we had
seen on the hillside half-a-mile back. He had made no less than a
thousand dollars out of his honey this last season. He was an old
bachelor, too, like himself. There were no less than five bachelors in
the valley--five old men without a woman to look after them.

"--or bother them," the old chap added humorously, relighting his pipe.
Mrs. Mulligan, half a mile farther up the valley, was the only woman
thereabouts; and she, by the way, would give us some lunch. We could say
that he had sent us.

So we left the old trapper to his pipe and his memories, and went in
search of Mrs. Mulligan. Presently a poor little house high up on the
hillside caught our eye, and we made toward it. As we were nearing the
door, a dog, evidently not liking our packs, sprang out at us, and from
down below in the marshy flats floated the voice of a man calling to us.

"Get out o' that!" hailed the voice. "There's nothing there for you."