"How not to do it, you mean," said the Anakim.
"You fired forty times," I said quietly, but firmly, "and the ducks would come out and look at you as interested as could be. You know you didn't scare a little meadow-hen. They knew you couldn't hit."
"Trade off your ducks against my sheep, and call it even?" chuckled the Anakim; and so, chatting and happy, we glided along, enjoying, not entranced, comfortable, but not sublime, content to drink in the sunny sweetness of the summer day, happy only from the pleasant sense of being, tangling each other in silly talk out of mere wantonness, purling up bubbles of airy nothings in sheer effervescence of animal delight; falling into periodic fits of useful knowledge, under the influence of which we consulted our maps and our watches in a conjoint and clamorous endeavor to locate ourselves, which would no sooner be satisfactorily accomplished than something would turn up and set our calculations and islands adrift, and we would have to begin new. Dome Island we made out by its shape, unquestionably; Whortleberry we hazarded on the strength of its bushes; "Hen and Chicks," by a biggish island brooding half a dozen little ones; Flea Island, from a certain snappishness of aspect; Half-Way Island, by our distance from dinner; Anthony's Nose, by its unlikeness to anything else, certainly not from its resemblance to noses in general, let alone the individual nose of Mark Antony, or Mad Anthony, or any Anthony between. And then we disembarked and posted ourselves on the coach-top for a six-mile ride to Champlain; and Grande said, her face still buried in the map, "Here on the left is 'Trout Brook' running into the lake, and a cross on it, and 'Lt. Howe fell, 1758.' That is worth seeing."
"Yes," I said, "America loved his brother."
"America loved HIM," howled Halicarnassus, thinking to correct me and avenge himself. Now I knew quite well that America loved him, and did not love his brother, but with the mention of his name came into my mind the tender, grieved surprise of that pathetic little appeal, and I just said thought it aloud,—assuming historic knowledge enough in my listeners to prevent misconception. But to this day Halicarnassus persists in thinking or at least in asserting, that I tripped over Lord Howe. As he does not often get such a chance, I let him comfort himself with it as much as he can; but that is the way with your whippersnapper critics. They put on their "specs," and pounce down upon some microscopic mote, which they think to be ignorance, but which is really the diamond-dust of imagination. "But let us see the place," said Grande. "We must drive within sight of it."
"Yes," I said. "Halicarnassus, ask the driver to be sure to tell us where Lord Howe fell."
"Fell into the brook," said that Oracle, and sat as stiff as a post.
Ticonderoga,—up-hill and down-hill for six miles, white houses and dark, churches and shops, and playing children and loungers, and mills, and rough banks and haggard woods, just like any other somewhat straggling country village. O no! O no! There are few like this. I have seen no other. Churches and shops and all the paraphernalia of busy, bustling common life there may be, but we have no eyes for such. Yonder on the green high plain which we have already entered is a simple guide-post, guiding you, not on to Canada, to New York, to Boston, but back into the dead century that lived so fiercely and lies so still. We stand on ground over-fought by hosts of heroes. Here rise still the breastworks, grass-grown and harmless now, behind which men awaited bravely the shock of furious onset, before which men rushed as bravely to duty and to death. Slowly we wind among the little squares of intrenchments, whose deadliest occupants now are peaceful cows and sheep, slowly among tall trees,—ghouls that thrust out their slimy, cold fingers everywhere, battening on horrid banquets,—nay, sorrowful trees, not so. Your gentle, verdant vigor nourishes no lust of blood. Rather you sprang in pity from the cold ashes at your feet, that every breeze quivering through your mournful leaves may harp a requiem for Polydorus. Alighting at the landing-place we stroll up the hill and among the ruins of the old forts, and breast ourselves the surging battle-tide. For war is not to this generation what it has been. The rust of long disuse has been rubbed off by the iron hand of fate,—shall we not say, rather, by the good hand of our God upon us?—and the awful word stands forth once more, red-lettered and real. Marathon, Waterloo, Lexington, are no longer the conflict of numbers against numbers, nor merely of principles against principles, but of men against men. And as we stand on this silent hill, the prize of so many struggles, our own hearts swell with the hopes and sink with the fears that its green old bluffs have roused. Up from yon water-side came stealing the Green-Mountain Boys, with their grand and grandiloquent leader, and, at the very gateway where we stand, as tradition says, (et potius Dii numine firment,) he thundered out, with brave, barbaric voice, the imperious summons, "In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." No wonder the startled, half-dressed commander is confounded, and "the pretty face of his wife peering over his shoulder" is filled with terror. Well may such a motley crew frighten the fair Europeanne. "Frenchmen I know, and Indians I know, but who are ye?" Ah! Sir Commander, so bravely bedight, these are the men whom your parliamentary knights are to sweep with their brooms into the Atlantic Ocean. Bring on your besoms, fair gentlemen; yonder is Champlain, and a lake is as good to drown in as an ocean. Look at them, my lords, and look many times before you leap. They are a rough set, roughly clad, a stout-limbed, stout-hearted race, insubordinate, independent, irrepressible, almost as troublesome to their friends as to their foes; but there is good stock in them,—brain and brawn, and brain and brawn will yet carry the day over court and crown, in the name of the right, which shall overpower all things. We clamber down into arched passages, choked with debris, over floors tangled with briers, and join in the wild wassail of the bold outlaw, fired by his victorious career. We clamber up the rugged sides and wind around to the headland. Brilliant in the "morning-shine," exultant in the pride and pomp of splendid preparation, ardent for conquest and glory, Abercrombie sails down the lovely inland sea, to sail back dismantled and disgraced. The retrieving fleet of Amherst follows, as brilliant and as eager,—to gain the victory of numbers over valor, but to lose its fruit, as many a blood-bought prize has since been lost, snatched from the conqueror's hand by the traitor, doubt. But this is only the prologue of our great drama. Allen leaps first upon the scene, bucklered as no warrior ever was since the days of Homer or before. Then Arnold comes flying in, wresting laurels from defeat,—Arnold, who died too late. Here Schuyler walks up at night, his military soul vexed within him by the sleeping guards and the intermittent sentinels, his gentle soul harried by the rustic ill-breeding of his hinds, his magnanimous soul cruelly tortured by the machinations of jealousy and envy and evil-browed ambition. Yonder on the hill Burgoyne's battery threatens death, and Lincoln avenges us of Burgoyne. Let the curtain fall; a bloodier scene shall follow.
And then we re-embark on Lake Champlain, and all the summer afternoon sail down through phantom fleets, under the frowning ramparts of phantom forts, past grim rows of deathful-throated cannon, through serried hosts of warriors, with bright swords gleaming and strong arms lifted and stern lips parted; but from lips of man or throat of cannon comes no sound. A thousand oars strike through the leaping waves, but not a plash breaks on the listening ear. A thousand white sails swell to the coming breeze, that brings glad greeting from the inland hills, but nothing breaks the silences of time.