then dumped into a blackberry-patch, where we were informed that we must
wait seven hours. So much for the afternoon ride through summer fields and
"Sunset on Lake George" from the top of a coach. But I made no unmanly
laments, for we were out of Saratoga, and that was happiness. We were
among cows and barns and homely rail-fences, and that was comfort; so we
strolled contentedly through the pastures, found a river,--I believe it
was the Hudson; at any rate, Halicarnassus said so, though I don't imagine
he knew; but he would take oath it was Acheron rather than own up to
ignorance on any point whatever,--watched the canal-boats and boatmen go
down, marvelled at the arbor-vitæ trees growing wild along the
river-banks, green, hale, stately, and symmetrical, against the dismal
mental background of two little consumptive shoots bolstered up in our
front yard at home, and dying daily, notwithstanding persistent and
affectionate nursing with "flannels and rum." And then we went back to the
blackberry-station and inquired whether there was nothing celebrated in
the vicinity to which visitors of received Orthodox creed should dutifully
pay their respects, and were gratified to learn that we were but a few
miles from Jane McCrea and her Indian murderers. Was a carriage
procurable? Well, yes, if the ladies would be willing to go in that. It
wasn't very smart, but it would take 'em safe,--as if "the ladies" would
have raised any objections to going in a wheelbarrow, had it been
necessary, and so we bundled in. The hills were steep, and our horse, the
property of an adventitious bystander, was of the Rosinante breed; but we
were in no hurry, seeing that the only thing awaiting us this side the
sunset was a blackberry-patch without any blackberries, and we walked up
hill and scraped down, till we got into a lane which somebody told us led
to the Fort, from which the village, Fort Edward, takes its name. But,
instead of a fort, the lane ran full tilt against a pair of bars.

"Now we are lost," I said, sententiously.