{0323}
The walk around Goat Island is probably unsurpassed in the world for wonder and beauty. The Americans have every reason to be satisfied with their share of the fall; they get nowhere one single grand view like that from the Canada side, but infinitely the deepest impression of majesty and power is obtained on Goat Island. There the spectator is in the midst of the war of nature. From the point over the Horseshoe Fall our friends, speaking not much, but more and more deeply moved, strolled along in the lovely forest, in a rural solemnity, in a local calm, almost a seclusion, except for the ever-present shuddering roar in the air. On the shore above the Horseshoe they first comprehended the breadth, the great sweep, of the rapids. The white crests of the waves in the west were coming out from under a black, lowering sky; all the foreground was in bright sunlight, dancing, sparkling, leaping, hurrying on, converging to the angle where the water becomes a deep emerald at the break and plunge. The rapids above are a series of shelves, bristling with jutting rocks and lodged trunks of trees, and the wildness of the scene is intensified by the ragged fringe of evergreens on the opposite shore.
Over the whole island the mist, rising from the caldron, drifts in spray when the wind is rable; but on this day the forest was bright and cheerful, and as the strollers went farther away from the Great Fall; the beauty of the scene began to steal away its terror. The roar was still dominant, but far off and softened, and did not crush the ear. The triple islands, the Three Sisters, in their picturesque wildness appeared like playful freaks of nature in a momentary relaxation of the savage mood. Here is the finest view of the river; to one standing on the outermost island the great flood seems tumbling out of the sky. They continued along the bank of the river. The shallow stream races by headlong, but close to the edge are numerous eddies, and places where one might step in and not be swept away. At length they reached the point where the river divides, and the water stands for an instant almost still, hesitating whether to take the Canadian or American plunge. Out a little way from the shore the waves leap and tumble, and the two currents are like race-horses parted on two ways to the goal. Just at this point the water swirls and lingers; having lost all its fierceness and haste, and spreads itself out placidly, dimpling in the sun. It may be a treacherous pause, this water may be as cruel as that which rages below and exults in catching a boat or a man and bounding with the victim over the cataract; but the calm was very grateful to the stunned and buffeted visitors; upon their jarred nerves it was like the peace of God.
“The preacher might moralize here,” said King. “Here is the parting of the ways for the young man; here is a moment of calm in which he can decide which course he will take. See, with my hand I can turn the water to Canada or to America! So momentous is the easy decision of the moment.”
“Yes,” said the artist, “your figure is perfect. Whichever side the young man takes, he goes to destruction.”
“Or,” continued King, appealing to Miss Lamont against this illogical construction, “this is the maiden at the crucial instant of choosing between two impetuous suitors.”
“You mean she will be sorry, whichever she chooses?”
“You two practical people would spoil any illustration in the world. You would divest the impressive drop of water on the mountain summit, which might go to the Atlantic or to the Pacific, of all moral character by saying that it makes no difference which ocean it falls into.”
The relief from the dread of Niagara felt at this point of peace was only temporary. The dread returned when the party approached again the turmoil of the American Fall, and fell again under the influence of the merciless haste of the flood. And there every islet, every rock, every point, has its legend of terror; here a boat lodged with a man in it, and after a day and night of vain attempts to rescue him, thousands of people saw him take the frightful leap, throwing up his arms as he went over; here a young woman slipped, and was instantly whirled away out of life; and from that point more than one dazed or frantic visitor had taken the suicidal leap. Death was so near here and so easy!
One seems in less personal peril on the Canadian side, and has more the feeling of a spectator and less that of a participant in the wild uproar. Perhaps there is more sense of force, but the majesty of the scene is relieved by a hundred shifting effects of light and color. In the afternoon, under a broken sky, the rapids above the Horseshoe reminded one of the seashore on a very stormy day. Impeded by the rocks, the flood hesitated and even ran back, as if reluctant to take the final plunge! The sienna color of the water on the table contrasted sharply with the emerald at the break of the fall. A rainbow springing out of the centre of the caldron arched clear over the American cataract, and was one moment bright and the next dimly seen through the mist, which boiled up out of the foam of waters and swayed in the wind. Through this veil darted adventurous birds, flashing their wings in the prismatic colors, and circling about as if fascinated by the awful rush and thunder. With the shifting wind and the passing clouds the scene was in perpetual change; now the American Fall was creamy white, and the mist below dark, and again the heavy mass was gray and sullen, and the mist like silver spray. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is the force of nature so overpowering to the mind, and as the eye wanders from the chaos of the fall to the far horizon, where the vast rivers of rapids are poured out of the sky, one feels that this force is inexhaustible and eternal.
If our travelers expected to escape the impression they were under by driving down to the rapids and whirlpool below, they were mistaken. Nowhere is the river so terrible as where it rushes, as if maddened by its narrow bondage, through the canon. Flung down the precipice and forced into this contracted space, it fumes and tosses and rages with vindictive fury, driving on in a passion that has almost a human quality in it. Restrained by the walls of stone from being destructive, it seems to rave at its own impotence, and when it reaches the whirlpool it is like a hungry animal, returning and licking the shore for the prey it has missed. But it has not always wanted a prey. Now and again it has a wreck or a dead body to toss and fling about. Although it does not need the human element of disaster to make this canon grewsome, the keepers of the show places make the most of the late Captain Webb. So vivid were their narratives that our sympathetic party felt his presence continually, saw the strong swimmer tossed like a chip, saw him throw up his hands, saw the agony in his face at the spot where he was last seen. There are several places where he disappeared, each vouched for by credible witnesses, so that the horror of the scene is multiplied for the tourist. The late afternoon had turned gray and cold, and dashes of rain fell as our party descended to the whirlpool. As they looked over the heaped-up and foaming waters in this eddy they almost expected to see Captain Webb or the suicide of the night before circling round in the maelstrom. They came up out of the gorge silent, and drove back to the hotel full of nervous apprehension.
King found no telegram from Irene, and the place seemed to him intolerable. The artist was quite ready to go on in the morning; indeed, the whole party, although they said it was unreasonable, confessed that they were almost afraid to stay longer; the roar, the trembling, the pervading sense of a blind force and rage, inspired a nameless dread. The artist said, the next morning at the station, that he understood the feelings of Lot.
{9330}
The occupation of being a red man, a merchant of baskets and beadwork, is taken up by so many traders with a brogue and a twang at our watering-places that it is difficult for the traveler to keep alive any sentiment about this race. But at a station beyond Lewiston our tourists were reminded of it, and of its capacity for adopting our civilization in its most efflorescent development. The train was invaded by a band of Indians, or, to speak correctly, by an Indian band. There is nothing in the world like a brass band in a country town; it probably gives more pleasure to the performers than any other sort of labor. Yet the delight it imparts to the listeners is apt to be tempered by a certain sense of incongruity between the peaceful citizens who compose it and the bellicose din they produce. There is a note of barbarism in the brassy jar and clamor of the instruments, enhanced by the bewildering ambition of each player to force through his piece the most noise and jangle, which is not always covered and subdued into a harmonious whole by the whang of the bass drum.
{0331}
There was nothing of this incongruity between this band of Tuscaroras and their occupation. Unaccustomed to associate the North American Indian with music, the traveler at once sees the natural relation of the Indians with the brass band. These Tuscaroras were stalwart fellows, broad-faced, big-limbed, serious, and they carried themselves with a clumsy but impressive dignity. There was no uniformity in their apparel, yet each one wore some portion of a martial and resplendent dress—an ornamented kepi, or a scarlet sash, or big golden epaulets, or a military coat braided with yellow. The leader, who was a giant, and carried the smallest instrument, outshone all the others in his incongruous splendor. No sooner had they found seats at one end of the car than they unlimbered, and began through their various reluctant instruments to deploy a tune. Although the tune did not get well into line, the effect was marvelous. The car was instantly filled to bursting. Miss Lamont, who was reading at the other end of the car, gave a nervous start, and looked up in alarm. King and Forbes promptly opened windows, but this gave little relief. The trombone pumped and growled, the trumpet blared, the big brass instrument with a calyx like the monstrous tropical water-lily quivered and howled, and the drum, banging into the discord, smashed every tympanum in the car. The Indians looked pleased. No sooner had they broken one tune into fragments than they took up another, and the car roared and rattled and jarred all the way to the lonely station where the band debarked, and was last seen convoying a straggling Odd-Fellows' picnic down a country road.
The incident, trivial in itself, gave rise to serious reflections touching the capacity and use of the red man in modern life. Here is a peaceful outlet for all his wild instincts. Let the government turn all the hostiles on the frontier into brass bands, and we shall hear no more of the Indian question.
The railway along the shore of Lake Ontario is for the most part monotonous. After leaving the picturesque highlands about Lewiston, the country is flat, and although the view over the lovely sheet of blue water is always pleasing, there is something bleak even in summer in this vast level expanse from which the timber has been cut away. It may have been mere fancy, but to the tourists the air seemed thin, and the scene, artistically speaking, was cold and colorless. With every desire to do justice to the pretty town of Oswego, which lies on a gentle slope by the lake, it had to them an out-of-doors, unprotected, remote aspect. Seen from the station, it did not appear what it is, the handsomest city on Lake Ontario, with the largest starch factory in the world.
It was towards evening when the train reached Cape Vincent, where the steamer waited to transport passengers down the St. Lawrence. The weather had turned cool; the broad river, the low shores, the long islands which here divide its lake-like expanse, wanted atmospheric warmth, and the tourists could not escape the feeling of lonesomeness, as if they were on the other side of civilization, rather than in one of the great streams of summer frolic and gayety. It was therefore a very agreeable surprise to them when a traveling party alighted from one of the cars, which had come from Rome, among whom they recognized Mrs. Farquhar.
“I knew my education never could be complete,” said that lady as she shook hands, “and you never would consider me perfectly in the Union until I had seen the Thousand Islands; and here I am, after many Yankee tribulations.”
“And why didn't you come by Niagara?” asked Miss Lamont.
“My dear, perhaps your uncle could tell you that I saw enough of Niagara when I was a young lady, during the war. The cruelest thing you Yankees did was to force us, who couldn't fight, to go over there for sympathy. The only bearable thing about the fall of Richmond was that it relieved me from that Fall. But where,” she added, turning to King, “are the rest of your party?”
“If you mean the Bensons,” said he, with a rather rueful countenance, “I believe they have gone to the White Mountains.”
“Oh, not lost, but gone before. You believe? If you knew the nights I have lain awake thinking about you two, or you three! I fear you have not been wide-awake enough yourself.”
“I knew I could depend on you, Mrs. Farquhar, for that.”
The steamer was moving off, taking a wide sweep to follow the channel. The passengers were all engaged in ascertaining the names of the islands and of the owners of the cottages and club-houses. “It is a kind of information I have learned to dispense with,” said Mrs. Farquhar. And the tourists, except three or four resolutely inquisitive, soon tired of it. The islands multiplied; the boat wound in and out among them in narrow straits. To sail thus amid rocky islets, hirsute with firs, promised to be an unfailing pleasure. It might have been, if darkness had not speedily fallen. But it is notable how soon passengers on a steamer become indifferent and listless in any sort of scenery. Where the scenery is monotonous and repeats itself mile after mile and hour after hour, an intolerable weariness falls upon the company. The enterprising group who have taken all the best seats in the bow, with the intention of gormandizing the views, exhibit little staying power; either the monotony or the wind drives them into the cabin. And passengers in the cabin occupying chairs and sofas, surrounded by their baggage, always look bored and melancholy.
“I always think,” said Mrs. Farquhar, “that I am going to enjoy a ride on a steamer, but I never do. It is impossible to get out of a draught, and the progress is so slow that variety enough is not presented to the eye to keep one from ennui.” Nevertheless, Mrs. Farquhar and King remained on deck, in such shelter as they could find, during the three hours' sail, braced up by the consciousness that they were doing their duty in regard to the enterprise that has transformed this lovely stream into a highway of display and enjoyment. Miss Lamont and the artist went below, frankly confessing that they could see all that interested them from the cabin windows. And they had their reward; for in this little cabin, where supper was served, a drama was going on between the cook and the two waiting-maids and the cabin boy, a drama of love and coquetry and jealousy and hope deferred, quite as important to those concerned as any of the watering-place comedies, and played with entire unconsciousness of the spectators.
The evening was dark, and the navigation in the tortuous channels sometimes difficult, and might have been dangerous but for the lighthouses. The steamer crept along in the shadows of the low islands, making frequent landings, and never long out of sight of the illuminations of hotels and cottages. Possibly by reason of these illuminations this passage has more variety by night than by day. There was certainly a fascination about this alternating brilliancy and gloom. On nearly every island there was at least a cottage, and on the larger islands were great hotels, camp-meeting establishments, and houses and tents for the entertainment of thousands of people. Late as it was in the season, most of the temporary villages and solitary lodges were illuminated; colored lamps were set about the grounds, Chinese lanterns hung in the evergreens, and on half a dozen lines radiating from the belfry of the hotel to the ground, while all the windows blazed and scintillated. Occasionally as the steamer passed these places of irrepressible gayety rockets were let off, Bengal-lights were burned, and once a cannon attempted to speak the joy of the sojourners. It was like a continued Fourth of July, and King's heart burned within him with national pride. Even Mrs. Farquhar had to admit that it was a fairy spectacle. During the months of July and August this broad river, with its fantastic islands, is at night simply a highway of glory. The worldlings and the camp-meeting gatherings vie with each other in the display of colored lights and fireworks. And such places as the Thousand Islands Park, Wellesley and Wesley parks, and so on, twinkling with lamps and rosy with pyrotechnics, like sections of the sky dropped upon the earth, create in the mind of the steamer pilgrim an indescribable earthly and heavenly excitement. He does not look upon these displays as advertisements of rival resorts, but as generous contributions to the hilarity of the world.
It is, indeed, a marvelous spectacle, this view for thirty or forty miles, and the simple traveler begins to realize what American enterprise is when it lays itself out for pleasure. These miles and miles of cottages, hotels, parks, and camp-meetings are the creation of only a few years, and probably can scarcely be paralleled elsewhere in the world for rapidity of growth. But the strongest impression the traveler has is of the public spirit of these summer sojourners, speculators, and religious enthusiasts. No man lives to himself alone, or builds his cottage for his selfish gratification. He makes fantastic carpentry, and paints and decorates and illuminates and shows fireworks, for the genuine sake of display. One marvels that a person should come here for rest and pleasure in a spirit of such devotion to the public weal, and devote himself night after night for months to illuminating his house and lighting up his island, and tearing open the sky with rockets and shaking the air with powder explosions, in order that the river may be continually en fete.
At half-past eight the steamer rounded into view of the hotels and cottages at Alexandria Bay, and the enchanting scene drew all the passengers to the deck.
The Thousand Islands Hotel, and the Crossman House, where our party found excellent accommodations, were blazing and sparkling like the spectacular palaces in an opera scene. Rows of colored lamps were set thickly along the shore, and disposed everywhere among the rocks on which the Crossman House stands; lights glistened from all the islands, from a thousand row-boats, and in all the windows. It was very like Venice, seen from the lagoon, when the Italians make a gala-night.
If Alexandria Bay was less enchanting as a spectacle by daylight, it was still exceedingly lovely and picturesque; islands and bays and winding waterways could not be better combined for beauty, and the structures that taste or ambition has raised on the islands or rocky points are well enough in keeping with the general holiday aspect. One of the prettiest of these cottages is the Bonnicastle of the late Dr. Holland, whose spirit more or less pervades this region. It is charmingly situated on a projecting point of gray rocks veined with color, enlivened by touches of scarlet bushes and brilliant flowers planted in little spots of soil, contrasting with the evergreen shrubs. It commands a varied and delicious prospect, and has an air of repose and peace.
I am sorry to say that while Forbes and Miss Lamont floated, so to speak, in all this beauty, like the light-hearted revelers they were, King was scarcely in a mood to enjoy it. It seemed to him fictitious and a little forced. There was no message for him at the Crossman House. His restlessness and absentmindedness could not escape the observation of Mrs. Farquhar, and as the poor fellow sadly needed a confidante, she was soon in possession of his story.
“I hate slang,” she said, when he had painted the situation black enough to suit Mrs. Bartlett Glow even, “and I will not give my sex away, but I know something of feminine doubtings and subterfuges, and I give you my judgment that Irene is just fretting herself to death, and praying that you may have the spirit to ride rough-shod over her scruples. Yes, it is just as true in this prosaic time as it ever was, that women like to be carried off by violence. In their secret hearts, whatever they may say, they like to see a knight batter down the tower and put all the garrison except themselves to the sword. I know that I ought to be on Mrs. Glow's side. It is the sensible side, the prudent side; but I do admire recklessness in love. Probably you'll be uncomfortable, perhaps unhappy—you are certain to be if you marry to please society and not yourself—but better a thousand times one wild rush of real passion, of self-forgetting love, than an age of stupid, conventional affection approved by your aunt. Oh, these calculating young people!” Mrs. Farquhar's voice trembled and her eyes flashed. “I tell you, my friend, life is not worth living in a conventional stagnation. You see in society how nature revenges itself when its instincts are repressed.”
Mrs. Farquhar turned away, and King saw that her eyes were full of tears. She stood a moment looking away over the sparkling water to the soft islands on the hazy horizon. Was she thinking of her own marriage? Death had years ago dissolved it, and were these tears, not those of mourning, but for the great experience possible in life, so seldom realized, missed forever? Before King could frame, in the tumult of his own thoughts, any reply, she turned towards him again, with her usual smile, half of badinage and half of tenderness, and said:
“Come, this is enough of tragedy for one day; let us go on the Island Wanderer, with the other excursionists, among the isles of the blest.”
The little steamer had already its load, and presently was under way, puffing and coughing, on its usual afternoon trip among the islands. The passengers were silent, and appeared to take the matter seriously—a sort of linen-duster congregation, of the class who figure in the homely dialect poems of the Northern bards, Mrs. Farquhar said. They were chiefly interested in knowing the names of the successful people who had built these fantastic dwellings, and who lived on illuminations. Their curiosity was easily gratified, for in most cases the owners had painted their names, and sometimes their places of residence, in staring white letters on conspicuous rocks. There was also exhibited, for the benefit of invalids, by means of the same white paint, here and there the name of a medicine that is a household word in this patent-right generation. So the little steamer sailed, comforted by these remedies, through the strait of Safe Nervine, round the bluff of Safe Tonic, into the open bay of Safe Liver Cure. It was a healing voyage, and one in which enterprise was so allied with beauty that no utilitarian philosopher could raise a question as to the market value of the latter.
The voyage continued as far as Gananoque, in Canada, where the passengers went ashore, and wandered about in a disconsolate way to see nothing. King said, however, that he was more interested in the place than in any other he had seen, because there was nothing interesting in it; it was absolutely without character, or a single peculiarity either of Canada or of the United States. Indeed, this north shore seemed to all the party rather bleak even in summertime, and the quality of the sunshine thin.
It was, of course, a delightful sail, abounding in charming views, up “lost channels,” through vistas of gleaming water overdrooped by tender foliage, and now and then great stretches of sea, and always islands, islands.
“Too many islands too much alike,” at length exclaimed Mrs. Farquhar, “and too many tasteless cottages and temporary camping structures.”
The performance is, indeed, better than the prospectus. For there are not merely the poetical Thousand Islands; by actual count there are sixteen hundred and ninety-two. The artist and Miss Lamont were trying to sing a fine song they discovered in the Traveler's Guide, inspired perhaps by that sentimental ditty, “The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece,” beginning,
“O Thousand Isles! O Thousand Isles!”
It seemed to King that a poem might be constructed more in accordance with the facts and with the scientific spirit of the age. Something like this:
“O Sixteen Hundred Ninety-two Isles!O Islands 1692!Where the fisher spreads his wiles,And the muskallonge goes through!Forever the cottager gilds the sameWith nightly pyrotechnic flame;And it's O the Isles!The 1692!”
Aside from the pyrotechnics, the chief occupations of this place are boating and fishing. Boats abound—row-boats, sail-boats, and steam-launches for excursion parties. The river consequently presents an animated appearance in the season, and the prettiest effects are produced by the white sails dipping about among the green islands. The favorite boat is a canoe with a small sail stepped forward, which is steered without centre-board or rudder, merely by a change of position in the boat of the man who holds the sheet. While the fishermen are here, it would seem that the long, snaky pickerel is the chief game pursued and caught. But this is not the case when the fishermen return home, for then it appears that they have been dealing mainly with muskallonge, and with bass by the way. No other part of the country originates so many excellent fish stories as the Sixteen Hundred and Ninety-two Islands, and King had heard so many of them that he suspected there must be fish in these waters. That afternoon, when they returned from Gananoque he accosted an old fisherman who sat in his boat at the wharf awaiting a customer.
{0345}
“I suppose there is fishing here in the season?”
The man glanced up, but deigned no reply to such impertinence.
“Could you take us where we would be likely to get any muskallonge?”
“Likely?” asked the man. “What do you suppose I am here for?”
“I beg your pardon. I'm a stranger here. I'd like to try my hand at a muskallonge. About how do they run here as to size?”
“Well,” said the fisherman, relenting a little, “that depends upon who takes you out. If you want a little sport, I can take you to it. They are running pretty well this season, or were a week ago.”
“Is it too late?”
“Well, they are scarcer than they were, unless you know where to go. I call forty pounds light for a muskallonge; fifty to seventy is about my figure. If you ain't used to this kind of fishing, and go with me, you'd better tie yourself in the boat. They are a powerful fish. You see that little island yonder? A muskallonge dragged me in this boat four times round that island one day, and just as I thought I was tiring him out he jumped clean over the island, and I had to cut the line.”
King thought he had heard something like this before, and he engaged the man for the next day. That evening was the last of the grand illuminations for the season, and our party went out in the Crossman steam-launch to see it. Although some of the cottages were vacated, and the display was not so extensive as in August, it was still marvelously beautiful, and the night voyage around the illuminated islands was something long to be remembered.
There were endless devices of colored lamps and lanterns, figures of crosses, crowns, the Seal of Solomon, and the most strange effects produced on foliage and in the water by red and green and purple fires. It was a night of enchantment, and the hotel and its grounds on the dark background of the night were like the stately pleasure-house in “Kubla Khan.”
But the season was drawing to an end. The hotels, which could not find room for the throngs on Saturday night, say, were nearly empty on Monday, so easy are pleasure-seekers frightened away by a touch of cold, forgetting that in such a resort the most enjoyable part of the year comes with the mellow autumn days. That night at ten o'clock the band was scraping away in the deserted parlor, with not another person in attendance, without a single listener. Miss Lamont happened to peep through the window-blinds from the piazza and discover this residuum of gayety. The band itself was half asleep, but by sheer force of habit it kept on, the fiddlers drawing the perfunctory bows, and the melancholy clarionet men breathing their expressive sighs. It was a dismal sight. The next morning the band had vanished.
The morning was lowering, and a steady rain soon set in for the day. No fishing, no boating; nothing but drop, drop, and the reminiscence of past pleasure. Mist enveloped the islands and shut out the view. Even the spirits of Mrs. Farquhar were not proof against this, and she tried to amuse herself by reconstructing the season out of the specimens of guests who remained, who were for the most part young ladies who had duty written on their faces, and were addicted to spectacles.
“It could not have been,” she thought, “ultrafashionable or madly gay. I think the good people come here; those who are willing to illuminate.”
“Oh, there is a fast enough life at some of the hotels in the summer,” said the artist.
“Very likely. Still, if I were recruiting for schoolmarms, I should come here. I like it thoroughly, and mean to be here earlier next year. The scenery is enchanting, and I quite enjoy being with 'Proverbial Philosophy' people.”
Late in the gloomy afternoon King went down to the office, and the clerk handed him a letter. He took it eagerly, but his countenance fell when he saw that it bore a New York postmark, and had been forwarded from Richfield. It was not from Irene. He put it in his pocket and went moodily to his room. He was in no mood to read a homily from his uncle.
Ten minutes after, he burst into Forbes's room with the open letter in his hand.
“See here, old fellow, I'm off to the Profile House. Can you get ready?”
“Get ready? Why, you can't go anywhere tonight.”
“Yes I can. The proprietor says he will send us across to Redwood to catch the night train for Ogdensburg.”
“But how about the Lachine Rapids? You have been talking about those rapids for two months. I thought that was what we came here for.”
“Do you want to run right into the smallpox at Montreal?”
“Oh, I don't mind. I never take anything of that sort.”
“But don't you see that it isn't safe for the Lamonts and Mrs. Farquhar to go there?”
“I suppose not; I never thought of that. You have dragged me all over the continent, and I didn't suppose there was any way of escaping the rapids. But what is the row now? Has Irene telegraphed you that she has got over her chill?”
“Read that letter.”
Forbes took the sheet and read:
“NEW YORK, September 2, 1885.
“MY DEAR STANHOPE,—We came back to town yesterday, and I find a considerable arrears of business demanding my attention. A suit has been brought against the Lavalle Iron Company, of which I have been the attorney for some years, for the possession of an important part of its territory, and I must send somebody to Georgia before the end of this month to look up witnesses and get ready for the defense. If you are through your junketing by that time, it will be an admirable opportunity for you to learn the practical details of the business.... Perhaps it may quicken your ardor in the matter if I communicate to you another fact. Penelope wrote me from Richfield, in a sort of panic, that she feared you had compromised your whole future by a rash engagement with a young lady from Cyrusville, Ohio—a Miss Benson-and she asked me to use my influence with you. I replied to her that I thought that, in the language of the street, you had compromised your future, if that were true, for about a hundred cents on the dollar. I have had business relations with Mr. Benson for twenty years. He is the principal owner in the Lavalle Iron Mine, and he is one of the most sensible, sound, and upright men of my acquaintance. He comes of a good old New England stock, and if his daughter has the qualities of her father and I hear that she has been exceedingly well educated besides she is not a bad match even for a Knickerbocker.
“Hoping that you will be able to report at the office before the end of the month,
“I am affectionately yours,
“SCHUYLER BREVOORT.”
“Well, that's all right,” said the artist, after a pause. “I suppose the world might go on if you spend another night in this hotel. But if you must go, I'll bring on the women and the baggage when navigation opens in the morning.”
The White Mountains are as high as ever, as fine in sharp outline against the sky, as savage, as tawny; no other mountains in the world of their height so well keep, on acquaintance, the respect of mankind. There is a quality of refinement in their granite robustness; their desolate, bare heights and sky-scraping ridges are rosy in the dawn and violet at sunset, and their profound green gulfs are still mysterious. Powerful as man is, and pushing, he cannot wholly vulgarize them. He can reduce the valleys and the show “freaks” of nature to his own moral level, but the vast bulks and the summits remain for the most part haughty and pure.
Yet undeniably something of the romance of adventure in a visit to the White Hills is wanting, now that the railways penetrate every valley, and all the physical obstacles of the journey are removed. One can never again feel the thrill that he experienced when, after a weary all-day jolting in the stage-coach, or plodding hour after hour on foot, he suddenly came in view of a majestic granite peak. Never again by the new rail can he have the sensation that he enjoyed in the ascent of Mount Washington by the old bridlepath from Crawford's, when, climbing out of the woods and advancing upon that marvelous backbone of rock, the whole world opened upon his awed vision, and the pyramid of the summit stood up in majesty against the sky. Nothing, indeed, is valuable that is easily obtained. This modern experiment of putting us through the world—the world of literature, experience, and travel—at excursion rates is of doubtful expediency.
{0352}
I cannot but think that the White Mountains are cheapened a little by the facilities of travel and the multiplication of excellent places of entertainment. If scenery were a sentient thing, it might feel indignant at being vulgarly stared at, overrun and trampled on, by a horde of tourists who chiefly value luxurious hotels and easy conveyance. It would be mortified to hear the talk of the excursionists, which is more about the quality of the tables and the beds, and the rapidity with which the “whole thing can be done,” than about the beauty and the sublimity of nature. The mountain, however, was made for man, and not man for the mountain; and if the majority of travelers only get out of these hills what they are capable of receiving, it may be some satisfaction to the hills that they still reserve their glories for the eyes that can appreciate them. Perhaps nature is not sensitive about being run after for its freaks and eccentricities. If it were, we could account for the catastrophe, a few years ago, in the Franconia Notch flume. Everybody went there to see a bowlder which hung suspended over the stream in the narrow canon. This curiosity attracted annually thousands of people, who apparently cared more for this toy than for anything else in the region. And one day, as if tired of this misdirected adoration, nature organized a dam on the side of Mount Lafayette, filled it with water, and then suddenly let loose a flood which tore open the canon, carried the bowlder away, and spread ruin far and wide. It said as plainly as possible, you must look at me, and not at my trivial accidents. But man is an ingenious creature, and nature is no match for him. He now goes, in increasing number, to see where the bowlder once hung, and spends his time in hunting for it in the acres of wreck and debris. And in order to satisfy reasonable human curiosity, the proprietors of the flume have been obliged to select a bowlder and label it as the one that was formerly the shrine of pilgrimage.
In his college days King had more than once tramped all over this region, knapsack on back, lodging at chance farmhouses and second-class hotels, living on viands that would kill any but a robust climber, and enjoying the life with a keen zest only felt by those who are abroad at all hours, and enabled to surprise Nature in all her varied moods. It is the chance encounters that are most satisfactory; Nature is apt to be whimsical to him who approaches her of set purpose at fixed hours. He remembered also the jolting stage-coaches, the scramble for places, the exhilaration of the drive, the excitement of the arrival at the hotels, the sociability engendered by this juxtaposition and jostle of travel. It was therefore with a sense of personal injury that, when he reached Bethlehem junction, he found a railway to the Profile House, and another to Bethlehem. In the interval of waiting for his train he visited Bethlehem Street, with its mile of caravansaries, big boarding-houses, shops, and city veneer, and although he was delighted, as an American, with the “improvements” and with the air of refinement, he felt that if he wanted retirement and rural life, he might as well be with the hordes in the depths of the Adirondack wilderness. But in his impatience to reach his destination he was not sorry to avail himself of the railway to the Profile House. And he admired the ingenuity which had carried this road through nine miles of shabby firs and balsams, in a way absolutely devoid of interest, in order to heighten the effect of the surprise at the end in the sudden arrival at the Franconia Notch. From whichever way this vast white hotel establishment is approached, it is always a surprise. Midway between Echo Lake and Profile Lake, standing in the very jaws of the Notch, overhung on the one side by Cannon Mountain and on the other by a bold spur of Lafayette, it makes a contrast between the elegance and order of civilization and the untouched ruggedness and sublimity of nature scarcely anywhere else to be seen.
The hotel was still full, and when King entered the great lobby and office in the evening a very animated scene met his eye. A big fire of logs was blazing in the ample chimney-place; groups were seated about at ease, chatting, reading, smoking; couples promenaded up and down; and from the distant parlor, through the long passage, came the sound of the band. It was easy to see at a glance that the place had a distinct character, freedom from conventionality, and an air of reposeful enjoyment. A large proportion of the assembly being residents for the summer, there was so much of the family content that the transient tourists could little disturb it by the introduction of their element of worry and haste.
King found here many acquaintances, for fashion follows a certain routine, and there is a hidden law by which the White Mountains break the transition from the sea-coast to Lenox. He was therefore not surprised to be greeted by Mrs. Cortlandt, who had arrived the day before with her usual train.
“At the end of the season,” she said, “and alone?”
“I expect to meet friends here.”
“So did I; but they have gone, or some of them have.”
“But mine are coming tomorrow. Who has gone?”
“Mrs. Pendragon and the Bensons. But I didn't suppose I could tell you any news about the Bensons.”
“I have been out of the way of the newspapers lately. Did you happen to hear where they have gone?”
“Somewhere around the mountains. You need not look so indifferent; they are coming back here again. They are doing what I must do; and I wish you would tell me what to see. I have studied the guide-books till my mind is a blank. Where shall I go?”
“That depends. If you simply want to enjoy yourselves, stay at this hotel—there is no better place—sit on the piazza, look at the mountains, and watch the world as it comes round. If you want the best panoramic view of the mountains, the Washington and Lafayette ranges together, go up to the Waumbec House. If you are after the best single limited view in the mountains, drive up to the top of Mount Willard, near the Crawford House—a delightful place to stay in a region full of associations, Willey House, avalanche, and all that. If you would like to take a walk you will remember forever, go by the carriage road from the top of Mount Washington to the Glen House, and look into the great gulfs, and study the tawny sides of the mountains. I don't know anything more impressive hereabouts than that. Close to, those granite ranges have the color of the hide of the rhinoceros; when you look up to them from the Glen House, shouldering up into the sky, and rising to the cloud-clapped summit of Washington, it is like a purple highway into the infinite heaven. No, you must not miss either Crawford's or the Glen House; and as to Mount Washington, that is a duty.”
“You might personally conduct us and expound by the way.”
King said he would like nothing better. Inquiry failed to give him any more information of the whereabouts of the Bensons; but the clerk said they were certain to return to the Profile House. The next day the party which had been left behind at Alexandria Bay appeared, in high spirits, and ready for any adventure. Mrs. Farquhar declared at once that she had no scruples about going up Washington, commonplace as the trip was, for her sympathies were now all with the common people. Of course Mount Washington was of no special importance, now that the Black Mountains were in the Union, but she hadn't a bit of prejudice.
King praised her courage and her patriotism. But perhaps she did not know how much she risked. He had been talking with some habitue's of the Profile, who had been coming here for years, and had just now for the first time been up Mount Washington, and they said that while the trip was pleasant enough, it did not pay for the exertion. Perhaps Mrs. Farquhar did not know that mountain-climbing was disapproved of here as sea-bathing was at Newport. It was hardly the thing one would like to do, except, of course, as a mere lark, and, don't you know, with a party.
Mrs. Farquhar said that was just the reason she wanted to go. She was willing to make any sacrifice; she considered herself just a missionary of provincialism up North, where people had become so cosmopolitan that they dared not enjoy anything. She was an enemy of the Boston philosophy. What is the Boston philosophy? Why, it is not to care about anything you do care about.
The party that was arranged for this trip included Mrs. Cortlandt and her bevy of beauty and audacity, Miss Lamont and her uncle, Mrs. Farquhar, the artist, and the desperate pilgrim of love. Mrs. Farquhar vowed to Forbes that she had dragged King along at the request of the proprietor of the hotel, who did not like to send a guest away, but he couldn't have all the trees at Profile Lake disfigured with his cutting and carving. People were running to him all the while to know what it meant with “I. B.,” “I. B.,” “I. B.,” everywhere, like a grove of Baal.
From the junction to Fabyan's they rode in an observation car, all open, and furnished with movable chairs, where they sat as in a balcony. It was a picturesque load of passengers. There were the young ladies in trim traveling-suits, in what is called compact fighting trim; ladies in mourning; ladies in winter wraps; ladies in Scotch wraps; young men with shawl-straps and opera-glasses, standing, legs astride, consulting maps and imparting information; the usual sweet pale girl with a bundle of cat-tails and a decorative intention; and the nonchalant young man in a striped English boating cap, who nevertheless spoke American when he said anything.