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 th