If any one, however, had taken the trouble to peep into this resplendent headpiece, he would have seen enough to satisfy him that this exalted personage was now bent on some peaceful mission, and had not the most remote fears of any encounter. Potatoes and onions, with a great piece of ancient Dutch cheese, a goodly lump of salt pork, and a great variety of smaller articles, all of the like harmless and soft-hearted temper, reposed quietly in its warm belly, as the lion, in early days, dandled the kid. The squire, who, according to the custom of the time, walked a few paces in the rear, carried, with no little difficulty, the remainder of his master's armour. It consisted of a puzzling pair of large brass tubes, somewhat in shape resembling an opera-glass; but the experienced observer had no difficulty in determining at once their dangerous and destructive nature. They were the invention of a very profound philosopher, who proposed to destroy his enemies without the effusion of blood, by cunningly sucking the breath out of their body. The squire carried this cumbrous implement of destruction astride on his shoulders, and in his right hand grasped a weapon more suited to his degree, and of the same description as was erewhile employed by that distinguished jester, the Saxon Wamba, in his renowned combat with Isaac the Jew.
A stout pair of blankets, strapped firmly to his back, completed the squire's equipment, and showed that he was ready at any time, if need were, to bivouac in the open air.
The sun had sunk behind the western hills—the broad shadow had slid across the river and crept noiselessly up the steep face of the mountain on their right; but still our travellers toiled on, now dipping their dusty, burning feet in the cooling flood, now balancing cautiously along the narrow path, where a single false step would have been destruction, and where one resolute man could have held the pass against a thousand foes. The stars were already appearing in the darkened sky, when they at last halted beneath a sombre pine that had thrust its roots deep in among the rocks.
The place seemed well chosen to guard against attack; on one side was the river shutting off all approach in that direction; behind them was a rugged mountain which no one in his senses would think of descending; and on either hand the narrow path rendered all access almost equally difficult. The knight disencumbered himself of his helmet, and laid it, with due regard to its precious contents, carefully in a hollow beside him; the squire did the same with his breath-compelling weapon, and after a frugal supper of bread and cheese they stretched themselves on the smoothest part of the rock, and were soon fast asleep.
All this might have been seen, dear reader, and that too without any greater stress of imagination than is usually demanded on similar occasions; though strict veracity, that veracity that forms so pleasing and fundamental a part of the character of bully Bottom, may require a little explanation.
In good sooth then, our knight was no knight at all, but simple Ethan Allen, not of revolutionary memory, but one of his numerous descendants, degenerated from that rantipole, thundering, Ticonderoga hero into a soft-tongued, smooth-faced varlet, who hated the British by hereditary right, and still swore by the Continental Congress. I had the honour of being his humble companion, and the deadly mischief on my aching shoulders was neither more nor less than the ponderous air-pumps that were to furnish a substitute for gills in our proposed aquatic incursions.
Having given this brief word of caution, we will continue our narrative in the more sober style befitting a grave and discreet chronicler. We had expected to find the rest of our companions awaiting us at the appointed place of meeting; but they did not make their appearance till the next morning, when we at once set about making the necessary preparations for putting the machine in operation.
From one to two hundred pounds of shot were required to overcome the buoyancy of the armour; and as this could not be obtained nearer than Coloma, Allen started alone on this errand, leaving to the rest of us the work of constructing a raft. Incredible as it may seem, the preliminary operations necessary to this simple undertaking occupied us a whole week; the only trees fit for the purpose grew high up on the mountain, and when we had at last succeeded in felling them, the still more arduous task remained of getting them safely down to the river's brink. The easiest and most natural method was to set them in motion by crowbars and long levers, when their own momentum would without any further trouble on our part carry them crashing down the steep; but besides the danger of losing them altogether by their plunging into the river, their ungovernable rage and impetuosity would, in case of their striking any sufficient obstacle, dash them into a hundred pieces. We were accordingly compelled to proceed with the utmost caution, and let them down gradually by a rope passed once or twice round a tree, in the same way that whalemen check the fierce flight of their victim in his frenzied efforts to escape.
This being at length accomplished, we proceeded to throw them into the river, when one after another, as fast as they reached the water, sunk like a stone beneath the surface, and settling cosily side by side at the bottom, left us staring at each other with a ludicrous mixture of amazement and indignation. Greater amaze could hardly have seized the followers of the pious Eneas when their ships threatened with hostile flames plunged goddesses of the sea beneath the waves. There was no time to be lost, however, in useless lamentation; and finding by this decisive experiment that live timber knew too much to swim, we immediately commenced a search for some drier and more stupid material. Some distance above our claim we found lodged among the jagged rocks where it had been left by some previous freshet, a mighty pine bleached as dry and white as the thigh bone of some antediluvian monster. Its spongy elastic fibre long set at defiance our united efforts, but having at last cut it into logs of a convenient length, we rolled them into the water, and guided them down the river by long ropes, the rapidity of the current rendering the task as difficult as the steepness of the hill had done before, and often threatening to wrest the log entirely from our control.
It was usual for the miners to rest several hours during the heat of the day; but though our work was far more laborious, our impatience to finish this undertaking hardly permitted us to relax our efforts for a moment. Several days while we were thus occupied, the mercury stood at 105° in the shade and the reader can but faintly imagine what we endured standing on burning rocks, exposed to the fierce reflection from the water, and at the same time obliged to exert our energies to the utmost in overcoming the stupid obstinacy of large sticks of timber, of all labour the most humiliating and discouraging.