and the tale adorned, and the impression deepened, solemnized, and struck
home by the fact that the very horse concerned in the "casualty" was to be
fastened behind our coach, and the whole population came out with lanterns
and umbrellas to tie him on,--all but one man, who was deaf, and stood on
the piazza, anxious and eager to know everything that had been and was
still occurring, and yet sorry to give trouble, and so compromising the
matter and making it worse, as compromises generally do, by questioning
everybody with a deprecating, fawning air.

Item. We shall all, if we live long enough, be deaf, but we need not be
meek about it. I for one am determined to walk up to people and demand
what they are saying at the point of the bayonet. Deafness, if it must be
so, but independence at any rate.

And when the fulness of time is come, we alight at Fort-William-Henry
Hotel, and all night long through the sentient woods I hear the booming of
Johnson's cannon, the rattle of Dieskau's guns, and that wild war-whoop,
more terrible than all. Again old Monro watches from his fortress-walls
the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain for help, save to his own
brave heart. I see the light of conquest shining in his foeman's eye,
darkened by no shadow of the fate that waits his coming on a bleak
Northern hill; but, generous in the hour of victory, he shall not be less
noble in defeat,--for to generous hearts all generous hearts are friendly,
whether they stand face to face or side by side.

Over the woods and the waves, when the morning breaks, like a bridegroom
coming forth from his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race,
comes up the sun in his might and crowns himself king. All the summer day,
from morn to dewy eve, we sail over the lakes of Paradise. Blue waters and
blue sky, soft clouds, and green islands, and fair, fruitful shores,