University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

We left Chambersburgh in good spirits after a comfortable
night's rest, the sole occupants of the stage too;
and by a rare chance we remained sole occupants during
the remainder of our journey. And “though we say it that
should'nt” never was a more agreeable party in all respects
than ours—the present company, viz., the reader and the
author excepted. Among other excellencies, none of the
party chewed tobacco, smoked tobacco, spit tobacco, drank
alcoholic liquors, or used profane language—evils that may
be separated, but which still are often united. Of course
no one took snuff, all being then greatly too young for
powdered tobacco: that very appropriately belongs to “the
sere and yellow leaf” time.

Not long after sun-rise we were at the ascent of the grand
mountain—a frowning rampart shutting by its rocky wall
from the east that world beyond! From the base to the
apex the road here ascends about four miles; which ascent
the gentlemen resolved to walk up:—a feat usually achieved
at the first mountain, especially if the first one has ever seen.
To be sure people afterwards will walk when politely requested
by a good natured driver, out of pity to the poor
brute horses: but—(shame on his poetry and romance,)
Mr. Carlton having in subsequent years passed and repassed
the mountains twenty-four times, used to remain in
the stage and sleep up the ascents! Yet not infrequently
would he be musing on the past, and recalling with smiles
and tears, that delightful party and that delightful walk on
that sweet morning, and all the glorious visions and castle
buildings of that entrancing day!—gone, gone, “like the
baseless fabric of a dream!”

We soon left the stage behind us, and sometimes out of

sight and hearing. Then, under pretext of concern for the
ladies, but really I fear to have a pretext for resting, we
called a halt, where we could sit on a rock and blow, till
the noise of wheels and the sight of a bonnet peeping from
the stage gave us liberty to proceed; or rather took away the
excuse for sitting still. At the same time the bonnet would
disappear, lest it should be construed as a token of fear—
robbery in those times not only of solitary travellers but of
whole stage companies often happening. However we had
a host in Col. Wilmar, and even thought with a peculiar
thrill of the poetry of an attack from bandits;—although
when in after years we encountered the danger it was not
so poetical as romance writers make it, but simply a very
disagreeable affair better to read about than transact.

The time of the present journey was late in April, the
nights being often very cold, but the days only moderately
cool and sometimes even warm. Snow was yet in spots
near the summit of the mountains, although in places lying
towards the south and east vegetation was in rapid progress:
so that nothing could be more in unison with our feelings
than the renovated world amid the Alleghanies. Hope was
springing so fresh and green from the decayed hope of boyhood!
and nature so budding forth from the deadness of
winter! But alas! if buds and flowers burst forth, they die
again and soon! And renovated hope is renewed only for
blighting.

We stood now on the pinnacle of the great Cove mountain
and were gazing on the mingled grandeur and beauty
of the scene. Few are unmoved by the view from that
top; as for myself I was ravished. Was I not on the dividing
ridge between two worlds—the worn and faded
East, the new and magic West? And yet I now felt and
painfully felt, that we were bidding adieu to home and entering
on the untried: still, hope was superior to fear, and
I was eager to pass those other peaks, some near as if they

might be touched and glorious with the new sunbeams, and
some sinking down away off till the dim outline of the farthest
visible tops melted into blue and hazy distance!
Years after I stood on that pinnacle alone and the two
worlds were seen again—but no hopes swelled then into
visions of glory, at sight of the dim peaks; no consolations
awaited me in my native valleys of the East! Death had
made East and West alike to me a wilderness! Poor
Clarence! did he ever stand again, where I noticed him
standing that morning? How buoyant his heart! and so
melted with tender thoughts, so raptured with imaginings!
Could it be?—after years of separation—is he now hastening
to one dearer to him than the whole world beside!
Will they know one another? Both have changed from
childhood to maturity—but why so speak? Our lovers
ever thought each the other unchanged in size, in look, in
voice; and when they did meet at last, they shed tears, for
while both were in all respects improved, both were altered,
and they were no more to love as boy and girl, but as man
and woman! Clarence saw no dark spectres in the bright
visions of that morning!

Upon Smith, long ago the scenes of that other life
opened; and doubtless they were of an undying glory,
for—

But here comes the stage to hurry us onward; and so
the bustle of life interrupts serious meditations with the
whirl of cares and enterprises.

We were all once more seated in the vehicle, which
instantly darted upon the descent with a velocity alarming,
and yet exhilarating to persons unused to the style of a
mountain driver. The danger is with due care less, indeed,
than the appearance; yet the sight of places where
wagons and stages are said to have tumbled gigantic
somersets over miniature precipices, will force one involuntarily
to say in a supplicatory tone to Jehu,—“Take

care driver, here's where that stage went over, and poor
Mr. Bounce was killed!” To this caution Jehu replies—
“Oh! no danger—besides he want killed—he only smashed
his ribs 'gin that rock there, and got his arm broke;”
and then to quiet our fears, he sends forth his endless
lash to play a curve or two around the ears of the prancing
leaders, and with a pistol-like crack that kindles the
fire of the team to fury; and away they all bound making
the log crowning the rampart of wall tremble and start
from its place as the wheels spin round within eight
inches of the dreaded brink.

Thundering down thus, our stage dashed up the small
stones as if they leaped from a volcano, and awaked the
echoes of the grim rocks and the woody caverns: while
ill-stifled “Oh! my's!” and a tendency of the ladies to
counteract, by opposite motions, the natural bias of the
stage body for the sidewary declivity, were consoled with
the usual asseverations—“O don't be afraid—no danger—
no danger!” But when the horses, on approaching a
sudden turn of the road, seemed, in order to secure a good
offing, to shy off towards the deep valley, and nothing
could be seen over the tips of their erect and quivering
ears, save blue sky and points of tall trees, then the
ladies, spite of rebukes and consolations—(and one at
least of the gentlemen)—would stand tip-toeish, labouring,
indeed, to keep a kind of smile on the lips, but with an
irrepressible “good gracious—me!” look out of the eyes.
And—

—But oh! what a beautiful village below us! How
neat and regular the houses! See! there's one spun and
woven—like a Dutch woman's petticoat!—yes, petticoat
is the word—only the stripes of the petticoat do not run
horizontally, and those of the house do. I declare if
there are not brick houses! and stone ones!—and how
the smoke curls up to us—we can smell breakfast! What

noiseless streets! what green meadows! Did you ever
see any thing so picture like—so like patchwork! It
would be so pleasant to live in that nice, quiet, snug,
picturesque village! Mr. Smith, what place is it? Mr.
Smith smiling, replied—“McConnel'stown.” McConnel'stown!
oh! what a beauty—there it is hid—no—
there—look through there—where?—there—no 'tis gone!

We soon had reached the valley three miles below the
point of descent; and as Jehu said it was done at the rate
of twelve miles to the hour, the reader being skilled in the
modern knowledges, can calculate our time for himself.
“There is the town,” said Mr. Smith. Yes! there it was
sure enough, as it had never budged from its site since we
had first spied it; but—

“Quantum mutatus ab illo!”

“What a fall! was there! my countrymen!”

Is that jumble of curious frame, brick, log, and stone
habitations our picture—town! Ay! truly, there is the petticoat-house,
with a petticoat as a curtain before the door,
and an old hat or so in the glassless sash, and fire light
gleaming between the logs. There! the door opens to
see us pass—just see the children—one, two, three—nine
at least, and one in very deed at the breast!—but how
dirty and uncombed! Did you ever see such a set as the
scamps lounging about that tavern?—and one reeling off
drunk, the morning so fresh yet! See! that duck puddle
and swine wallow full of vile looking mud and water—
certainly it must be sickly here, “Driver, what noise is
that?” “Dogs fighting.” Dreadful!—Mr. Smith what
are you laughing at?” “Oh, nothing—only I should not
like to live here as well as some ladies and gentlemen.”
And yet, reader, while a near view had dispelled the illusion
of a distant prospect, good and excellent, and even
learned and talented people lived there, and yet live in
McConnel'stown.

At all events we shall have a good breakfast at this fine
looking stage-house. But whether we had arrived too
soon, or the folks usually began preparation after counting
the number of mouths, or the wood was green, or we most
vulgarly hungry and sharp set, very long was it, very long
indeed, before we were summoned. And then the
breakfast! Perhaps it was all accidental, but the coffee (?)
was a libel on diluted soot, made by nurses to cure a baby's
colic: the tea (?)—for we had representatives of both beverages—the
tea, was a perfect imitation of a decoction of
clover hay, with which in boyhood we nursed the tender
little calves, prematurely abstracted from the dams, the
silly innocents believing all the while that the finger in
the mouth was a teat! Eggs, too!—it may have been
unlike Chesterfield—but it certainly was not without hazard
to put them in the mouth before putting them to the
nose:—the oval delicacies mostly remained this morning
to feast such as prefer eggs ripe. Ay! but here comes a
monster of a sausage coiled up like a great greasy eel!
Such often in spite of being over-grown or over-stuffed are
yet palatable: this rascal, however, had rebelled against
the cook, and salamander-like, had passed the fiery ordeal
unscorched. Hot rolls came, a novelty then, but much like
biscuits in parts of the Far West, viz., a composition of
oak bark on the outside, and hot putty within—the true
article for invalids and dyspeptics. We had also bread
and butter, and cold cabbage and potatoes, like oysters,
some fried and some in the shell; and green pickles so
bountifully supplied with salt as to have refused vinegar—
and beets—and saltsellars in the shape of glass hats—and
a mustard pot like a salve-box, with a bone spoon glued in
by a potent cement of a red-brown-yellow colour—and a
light-green bottle of vinegar dammed up by a strong twisted
wadding of brown paper.

Reader, what more could we wish?

“Nothing.”

Let us go then to a new chapter.