om a height of full thirty feet, looked down upon the
stream. Here and there some broad gleam of moonlight would fall upon the
opposite bank, which, unlike the one I occupied, stretched out into rich
meadow and pasturage, broken by occasional clumps of ilex and beech. River
scenery has been ever a passion with me. I can glory in the bold and broken
outline of a mighty mountain; I can gaze with delighted eyes upon the
boundless seas, and know not whether to like it more in all the mighty
outpouring of its wrath, when the white waves lift their heads to heaven
and break themselves in foam upon the rocky beach, or in the calm beauty of
its broad and mirrored surface, in which the bright world of sun and sky
are seen full many a fathom deep. But far before these, I love the happy
and tranquil beauty of some bright river, tracing its winding current
through valley and through plain, now spreading into some calm and waveless
lake, now narrowing to an eddying stream with mossy rocks and waving trees
darkening over it. There's not a hut, however lowly, where the net of the
fisherman is stretched upon the sward, around whose hearth I do not picture
before me the faces of happy toil and humble contentment, while, from the
ruined tower upon the crag, methinks I hear the ancient sounds of wassail
and of welcome; and though the keep be fissured and the curtain fallen, and
though for banner there "waves some tall wall-flower," I can people its
crumbling walls with images of the past; and the merry laugh of the warder,
and the clanking tread of the mailed warrior, are as palpably before me as
the tangled lichen that now trails from its battlements.

As I wandered on, I reached the little rustic stair which led downward from
the path to the river's side; and on examining farther, perceived that at
this place the stream was fordable; a huge flat rock, filling up a great
part of the river's bed, occupied the middle, on either side of which the
current ran with increased force.

Bent upon exploring, I descended the cliff, and was preparing to cross,
when my attention was attracted by the twinkle of a fire at some distance
from me, on the opposite side; the flame rose and fell in fitful flashes,
as though some hand were ministering to it at the moment. As it was
impossible, from the silence on every side, that it could proceed from a
bivouac of the enemy, I resolved on approaching it, and examining it for
myself. I knew that the shepherds i