A conical eminence arose,
at a short distance, in the rear of the principal dwelling. It was covered
with that beautiful and peculiar ornament of an American farm, a regular,
thrifty, and luxuriant apple-orchard. Still, age had not given its full
beauty to the plantation, which might have had a growth of some eight or
ten years. A blackened tower of stone, which sustained the charred ruins
of a superstructure of wood, though of no great height in itself, rose
above the tallest of the trees, and stood a sufficient memorial of some
scene of violence, in the brief history of the valley. There was also a
small block-house near the habitation; but, by the air of neglect that
reigned around, it was quite apparent the little work had been of a
hurried construction, and of but temporary use. A few young plantations of
fruit-trees were also to be seen in different parts of the valley, which
was beginning to exhibit many other evidences of an improved agriculture.
So far as all these artificial changes went, they were of an English
character. But it was England devoid alike of its luxury and its poverty,
and with a superfluity of space that gave to the meanest habitation in the
view, an air of abundance and comfort that is so often wanting about the
dwellings of the comparatively rich, in countries where man is found
bearing a far greater numerical proportion to the soil, than was then, or
is even now the case, in the regions of which we write.
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