 | CHAPTER X. Forest life |  |
10. CHAPTER X.
Once more earth's breezy sounds, her foliage fanned,
And turned to seek the wilds.
Mrs. Hemans.
“Give”—every body—“his due.” After all
that has been said and thought about ague,—and
it must be confessed, that while the fit is on, or its
recollection fresh in the memory, this includes almost
all kinds of hard thoughts and evil speaking,
—there are good things connected with it. The
sympathy of one's friends is not of this number
certainly: “It is nothing but the ague!” is very
commonly all the consolation one gets. One is
sometimes (in the fever) almost desperate enough
to wish to die just once to make people a little less
unfeeling. The same amount of pain and suffering
under any other name would excite abundant commiseration.
There is however no disease that leaves more
strikingly melancholy traces on the countenance;
and pallid lips and languid eyes and feeble steps
are a fair enough warrant for some little self-indulgence,
when that is practicable. If a good, high
rolling salt surf were an importable article, I am
sure the inhabitants of Ague-land could enter into
no more profitable speculation, than to club their
or Nahant. The sum would draw enormous
returns in the best of all possible shapes—accumulated
strength and energy. But as this is hardly to
be compassed even in this age of wonders, we, who
are recovering from protracted agues, claim as our
right the next best thing—travelling. Which
brings me back to the proposition with which I set
out—that there may be some pleasant results even
from ague.
Our travels are, to be sure, very limited. There
are no Himmalehs to be scaled—no Nile to be
traced—no Aztalan or Palenque to be explored.
But the source of Nile gave Bruce but a moment's
rapture in payment of his toils and dangers, and we
console ourselves for our lack of romantic adventure
by considering that we gain at least as much
in proportion. It costs but little trouble to get
sight of
Homer, Venus, and Nebuchadnezzar—
All standing in the open air—
to be able, in the course of a few days' travel, to
see not only Homer, and Milton, and Byron, and
Napoleon, and Romeo, but Scio and Athens as
well as Marengo and Lodi, and a host of other celebrated
spots?
Runs the great circuit and is still at home.
Barring these advantages, a journey through the
wilds, if performed by steam or by post chaise, is
just like a journey any where else, except a lack of
some of the more refined accommodations for travelling.
To find a spice of novelty,—to reap an
advantage from position which shall in some degree
counterbalance the deficiency necessarily observable
in public conveyance so far from the great
thoroughfares, we have devised a new mode of
travel, or rather, we have adopted one which is new
to us, although highly popular in these tramontane
regions.
This resembles in no small degree that of the tinker
in the story-book, whose equipage was a gigantic
tea-kettle, the spout of which served for a chimney
and the tout ensemble both for professional sign and
family domicile; while its owner jogged along cosily,
hammering as he went, chatting with the good wife
within, and occasionally encouraging by a cherup
the praiseworthy donkey that drew the entire establishment.
A pedler of genius—a Yankee of course—has
added yet one improvement to this ingenious plan.
His cow serves a double purpose as a beast of
draught, for she goes well in the harness, and he
has only to stop and milk her when he is thirsty.
The nearest approach we have yet made to this
compression of comforts took place last summer,
when after a most justifying course of agues we set
out in the great wagon for a rambling tour of discovery,
want—including a large basket of provisions—
embraced within its ample verge. Umbrellas good
store—books and blankets—trunks and sacs de
nuit,—besides some oats for the dear old ponies,
and a pail wherefrom to give them drink, in case
they should be athirst where water is more plenty
than buckets,—all these made some ingenuity
requisite in bestowing ourselves and our conveniences
within the compass of even a regular back-woods
wagon—the most capacious of vehicles;—
and it took from early breakfast time until fully ten
o'clock to “load up.”
It may be that my dear reader being as I well
surmise a dweller in cities, shall suppose this same
farm wagon, which is so often referred to as a
regular family vehicle, to be a sort of exaggerated
britska—an able-bodied barouche, capable of containing,
on crowded occasions, six ladies in bishop's
sleeves: and that when we take a fantaisie for a
week's ramble, it is only to send to John to drive
round at the appointed hour. Illusions all! The
wagon consists of an oblong box of rough boards,
mounted on the clumsiest of all possible wheels,
and for springs we have two long slender tamarack
poles placed within on iron hooks appended to the
sides. On these springs are board seats, with
cushions or not, as the case may be, but always
with buffalo skins by way of drapery. In the
harness, all that is not leather is iron chain, except
be frequently fortified with twine or, alas! with
the strings from your husband's vest if you forget
to carry twine. Then your John, if you are so
lucky as to have one, requires goodly notice of your
errant intentions. Shoes are to be reset—harness
to go to the shoemaker's for repairs—white paint
to be bottled for Quicksilver's shoulder, galled in
ploughing. To secure a happy issue for your
expedition requires only less deliberate preparation
than Napoleon ought to have made for the jaunt to
Moscow. It is awkward to discover important
omissions when you are miles from efficient aid.
But every body is waiting while I discuss these
particulars. It was a cloudy day in July; a cloudy
day after heavy showers,—showers which we felt
confident had exhausted the watery reservoirs for
the present, so that we congratulated ourselves upon
the tempering clouds, and thought of leaving the
umbrellas at home. However, it was not long
before the sun shone out in such force as to call
forth the parapluies as parasols, and we were almost
fainting under that peculiarly oppressive heat which
belongs to such dropping weather in the midst of
our summers. After we reached the boundaries of
“the clearing” and plunged into the “timbered
land,” this heat was exchanged for a grotto-like
coolness, and the horses trod leisurely as if to enjoy
the damp, mossy soil and the grateful shade.
It was not long after noon when we began to
seek for a pleasant spot of green turf whereon to
spread our couches of buffalo-skins and blankets.
In the midst of a circle thus formed was the tablecloth
with its accompaniments; and there, in a `café
à mille colonnes' which required no multiplying aid
of mirrors, we took our first rustic repast,—all
highly delighted with the novelty, but especially
the young fry, who were allowed to go as often as
they liked to a clear spring that welled from the
hill-side, and dabble in the water which widened
into a small, glassy pond below. They fed Prince
with bread, which he took from their fingers with
a care and delicacy worthy of his gentle blood,
while poor Quicksilver showed his awkward rusticity
by hanging his head or turning it sedulously
aside when the same civility was offered him. But
what they found most delightful of all was to see
Leo's enthusiastic plunges in pursuit of the crackers
which they sent skimming along the water as far as
they could, trying his patience occasionally by the
substitution of a flat stone by which he obligingly
allowed himself to be deceived as often as they
thought proper.
This said Leo is a particular friend of the family,
not on account of his beauty, for he is an enormous
creature with a ferocious bull-dog aspect—nor on
the score of his services, for a more useless and
chicken-hearted monster never ate goslings,—but
of Leo's popularity, and it is sufficient to secure
his impunity in spite of many a misdemeanor, as
well as to make him an inamissable member of the
party whenever we go from home en famille. And
indeed I have seen people admitted into society on
slighter pretensions.
Speaking of Leo calls up tender reminiscences.
My poor D'Orsay! introduced to the world in the
earlier sketch of our village annals—like many of
the delicate and beautiful things of this ever-shifting
panorama, was but short-lived. He was not
made for rough usage, and one sharp night in May,
when his master with unconscious cruelty locked
him out in the chill dew, he took a cold from
which he never recovered. He died of a regular
consumption, resembling in all its stages the same
disease in the human sufferer, and a more patient
creature never coughed away his poor life. They
said it was “the distemper.” D'Orsay with the
distemper, indeed!
When his last days came, the weather was oppressively
warm, and he could lie nowhere but in
the open air. There a kind hand formed a thick
roof of boughs to exclude the sun, and D'Orsay's
last bed was visited with unceasing interest as long
as he continued to breathe. I could not but think
he looked at his mistress as if he had something to
say, but I could only guess at what might perhaps
greyhound dying thus untimely. My thoughts
took naturally the form of an epitaph:
I here resign, unsoiled, the illustrious name.
In all things happy else, one grief is mine—
I quit the scene ere thou hast ceased to shine.
Poor fellow! I hope he had forgotten the leg
of mutton which lay too near his nose on the
kitchen table! but we must not judge him hardly,
especially as the pitiless cook bestowed upon him
blows enough of that odious ladle to have sowed
the seeds of that melancholy which shadowed o'er
the latter part of his life. Ah, D'Orsay! let none
be too severe upon thy one fault, but rather remember,
as I do, thy exceeding beauty! uncorsetted,—without
false curls,—bishop sleeves,—
tight shoes,—tourneurs; unindebted, in short, to
any of those adjuncts which do so much towards
the enchantingness of beauty,—how faultless was
thy slender waist! how classical the contour of
thy head and neck! how silky the pendent ears,
asking no aid from tassels of pearl to enhance their
graceful undulations! How light and active thy
limbs, and how fleeter than the fleetest thy softly
patting feet! Alas! I might expatiate upon thy
better qualities,—thy gentleness, thy forgiving
temper, thy docility, thy faithful attachment—but
my readers never knew thee, and I forbear.
| CHAPTER X. Forest life | |