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 in remote districts were accustomed thus to pass the summer nights, with no other covering save the blue vault above them.