portions,
each of which became a house somewhere on the plain, and perhaps they
are standing now. The proprietor, being a royalist, became an exile when
the Revolution broke out, and I suppose died abroad. I know not whether
the house was intended as a permanent family-residence or merely as a
pleasure-place for the summer; but from its extent I should conceive the
former to have been its purpose. Be that as it may, it has perpetuated
an imputation of folly upon the poor man who erected it, which still
keeps his memory disagreeably alive after a hundred years. The house
must have made a splendid appearance for many miles around; and the
glare of the old-fashioned festivities would be visible, doubtless, in
the streets of Salem, when he illuminated his windows to celebrate a
king's birthday, or some other loyal occasion. The barberry-bushes,
clustering within the cellars, offer the harsh acidity of their fruit
to-day, instead of the ripe wines which used to be stored there.

Descending the hill, I entered a green, seldom-trodden lane, which runs
along at a hundred yards or two from its base, and parallel with its
ridge. It was overshadowed by chestnut-trees, and bordered with the
prevalent barberry-bush, and between ran the track,--the beaten path of
the horses' feet, and the even way of either wheel, with green strips
between. It was a very lonely lane, and very pleasant in the warm,
declining sun; and, following it a third of a mile, I came to a place
that was familiar to me when I was a child, as the residence of a
country cousin whom I used to be brought to see. There was his old house
still standing, but deserted, with all the windows boarded up, and the
door likewise, and the chimneys removed,--a most desolate-looking place.
A young dog came barking towards me as I approached,--barking, but
frisking, between play and watchfulness. Within fifty yards of the old
house, farther back from the road, stands a stone house, of some dozen
or twenty years' endurance,--an ugly affair, so plain is it,--which was
built by the old man in his latter days. The well of the old house, out
of which I have often drunk, and over the curb of which I have peeped to
see my own boy-visage closing the far vista below, seems to be still in
use for the new edifice. Passing on a little farther, I came to a brook,
which, I remember, the old man's son and I dammed up, so that it almost
overflowed the road. The stream has strangely shrunken now; i