midnight
The sky was pure blue overhead ; the birds carolled from every clump of foliage about us ; the scenery , to which Mr. Cross paid much delighted attention , first grew nobly wild and impressive when we skirted the Little Falls -- as grand and gloomy in its effect of towering jagged cliffs and foaming cataracts as one of Jacob Ruysdael 's pictures -- and then softened into a dream of beauty as it spread out before us the smiling , embowered expanses of the German Flatts . Time and time again my companion and I reined up our horses to contemplate the charms of this lovely scene . We had forded the river near Fort Herkimer , where old Hon Yost Herkimer , the father of the Colonel , lived , and were now once more on the north side . From an open knoll I pointed out to my friend , by the apple and pear blossoms whitening the deserted orchards , the site of the Palatines ' village where Daisy 's father had been killed , fifteen years ago , in the midnight rout and massacre . `` It was over those hills that the French stole in darkness . Back yonder , at the very ford we crossed , her poor mother was trampled under foot and drowned in the frightened throng . It was at the fort there , where we had the buttermilk and _ Kuchen , _ that your cousin , Major Cross , found the little girl .