Page:Tales of the White Hills.djvu/90

84 by twenty voices. Meantime, a veteran in the corner is prosing about Dettingen and Fontenoy, and relates camp-traditions of Marlborough&rsquo;s battles, till his pipe, having been roguishly charged with gunpowder, makes a terrible explosion under his nose. And now they all vanish in a puff of smoke from the chimney.

I merely glanced at the ensuing twenty years, which glided peacefully over the frontier fortress, till Ethan Allen&rsquo;s shout was heard, summoning it to surrender &ldquo;in the name of the great Jehovah and of the Continental Congress.&rdquo; Strange allies! thought the British captain. Next came the hurried muster of the soldiers of liberty, when the cannon of Burgoyne, pointing down upon their stronghold from the brow of Mount Defiance, announced a new conqueror of Ticonderoga. No virgin fortress, this! Forth rushed the motley throng from the barracks, one man wearing the blue and buff of the Union, another the red coat of Britain, a third a dragoon&rsquo;s jacket, and a fourth a cotton frock; here was a pair of leather breeches, and striped trousers there; a grenadier&rsquo;s cap on one head, and a broad-brimmed hat, with a tall feather, on the next; this fellow shouldering a king&rsquo;s arm, that might throw a bullet to Crown Point, and his comrade a long fowling-piece, admirable to shoot ducks on the lake. In the midst of the bustle, when the fortress was all alive with its last warlike scene, the ringing of a bell on the lake made me suddenly unclose my eyes, and behold only the gray and weed -grown ruins. They were as peaceful in the sun as a warrior&rsquo;s grave.

Hastening to the rampart, I perceived that the signal had been given by the steamboat Franklin, which landed a passenger from Whitehall at the tavern, and resumed its progress northward, to reach Canada the