University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

By the side of one of those romantic trout-streams that are embosomed
in the glens of New-England, was to be seen, just before sunset of an afternoon
in September, 1841, a group composed of three figures. The place
in which they were was deeply secluded. Around them rose the huge columnar
trunks of a forest which had been ancient when the first Pilgrim
Father set his foot upon the western shores. Through the forest, which
covered upland and intervale, flowed the dark wild waters of the brook, upon
the banks of which they were assembled. The forest was solemn and
grand, and its long vistas seemed like the huge gothic aisles of an old-world
cathedral. The brook gambolled through this fine old wood in many a
wanton circle, now sweeping swiftly around a smooth-faced rock, and now
dividing to embrace huge oaks, whose heavy wide-spread branches dipped
into the flood. In the darkest part of the wood it fell tumbling over ragged
rocks in snow-white cataracts that glittered and flashed like silver contrasting
the deep green and blackness of the shadows around.

At the spot where the group was seen, it flowed still and deep, its
waters being black and motionless as a pool, and reflecting in their
mirror-like bosom every mammoth branch, limb, tendril and leaf that
grew above it; also, a small strip of the pure bright blue sky that opened
between the trees was seen far, far down in its depths. As the stream passed
away on its course it went gurgling over a shallow bed and struggled amid
a wilderness of confusedly heaped rocks, moss-grown and half clad in foliage,
before it emptied into a broader and more quiet stream. At its junction
the trees opened and permitted a sunny view of a distant meadow, with
the spire of a village church beyond it, and upon the side of a hill were visible
amid the grove in which it stood the chimnies and portico and imposing
out-buildings of a gentleman's country-residence. Nearer the water,
shaded by a noble elm of great antiquity, stood a very humble farm-house,
over-run with wood-bine, and forming a picturesque object in the pleasant
scene which the opening in the forest rendered visible. The group consisted,
we have said, of three figures, not of three persons, for the third
member of the group was a fine large brown dog, half Newfoundland, half
mastiff. The two persons were young men, nearly about the same age,
neither of them being above three and twenty; but here all resemblance
terminated. One of them was a remarkably good-looking and well-dressed
young gentleman, with that air and appearance, which at a glance showed

that he belonged to what is termed `good society.' Though his attire was
fashionable it was far from being buckish; but on the contrary in good taste,
and worn with that easy, graceful negligence which distinguishes the truly
bred young man from his imitators. In a word, Edward Austin would never
have been mistaken for a journeyman tailor on a holiday. He was engaged
in angling; and the better to enjoy his ease he was reclined at his
length upon the thick, soft grass with his hand pillowed upon the moss-covered
root of the vast oak which grew above him and cast its shade far over
the water. His vest was open, his cravat loosely knotted in front, and instead
of a broad-cloth dress-coat he was habited in a very becoming and
well-cut blowse. By his side on the ground lay a huge brimmed straw hat,
that looked as if it had seen service, and by it stood an ivory box with several
compartments containing flies, hooks, sennet, cork, hair-line, and the
other appurtenances of a practised amateur angler. On the other side stood
a basket, from which, from time to time, a speckled trout would fling himself
a foot or two into the air, revolve in a circling and graceful summerset, and
then fall to lay quiet among his fellows. This basket was guarded by the
two fore-paws of Bruce, the fine animal having placed them on each side of
it as if to see that none of its restless tenants escaped. It was plain that
he did not much like the frequent demonstrations towards freedom made by
the trout in their saltations in the air, and his large hazel eye would expand
and dilate as he gazed after some one of them ready to spring upon it if
should not happen to descend to its place in the basket. His assiduous anxiety
touching their security was betrayed in every lineament of his intelligent
and dignified visage, and was the source of not a little amusement to
the third figure of our group. This was a young man whose chief physical
characteristic was fat. He was a juvenile Falstaff in shape and feature.—
Though at least twenty three years of age, he had cheeks like a well-fed infant,
fair and rosy. His face was the very picture of mirth and content.—
His mouth wore a pleasant smile and his blue eyes sparkled with two merry
stars in their centres that a tear never had dimmed. He had short curly
hair, that made even his forehead look smiling and bright. He had a double
chin and very fat hands, and his arms fitted his jacket sleeves, and his legs
and trowsers like a tight glove well drawn on. He was not so tall as his
companion by a head, for Edward Austin was nearly six feet in beight and
finely proportioned. But Roundy Beebe made up in weight what he came
short of in height, and compounded in flesh for want of length in bone.

He was not lying on his back like Austin, but in a posture that suited his
lazy habits better and at the same time insured his getting upon his feet
again without assistance, viz: upon his belly. His face protruded over the
water a little, and in his fat hand he held a fishing rod with a grass-hopper
at the other end. He amused himself attentively in watching Bruce's anxiety
whenever a trout would leap out of the basket, and in suspending the
grass-hopper, which was alive, just so far above the water as to make it hop
upon the surface. Edward Austin had, at the extremity of his delicate line
a blue and scarlet fly, which he was skilfully playing in a black nook beneath
a gnarled root, near that upon which he was reclining, and as he lay with
his face a little turned to one side to overlook the spot, he was thus enabled
to repose his person and pursue his pastime at the same time. Roundy's
free and easy position was in humble imitation of his young master's more
luxurious attitude.

Thus they were grouped there, with the evening shadows darkening the
old wood, the setting sun sending level arrows of golden light through the
crevices in the glades on the western side, the dark water flowing by, the
distant white cataract tumbling over and over itself in foam, and looking,
through the dim trees and indistinct light like a huge white monster
playing and curvetting, and madly roaring as if to break from some invisible
bonds and dash through the echoing forest.

`Well, Master Nedward!' ejaculated Roundy, after having succeeded in
drowning his grass-hopper in vainly trying to make him skip over the surface.

`Well, Roundy,' responded the young man in a familiar tone and with a
pleasant half-smile; at the same time he threw his fly with a negligent air
farther into the little pool in which he knew there was a fine trout lying covert.

`I'se made up my mind!'

`Well, let us hear what you've made of it!'

`It's my pinion,, 'tant no use tryin to make hoppergrasses dance on
the water if they an't got got no partners. They'll die dead and drown jist
coss they feels so lonesome. You see how this one did I'm takin off my
hook. Look at him! His legs is all skewered up under him, and his whiskers
hangs down as meek and flimsy-flamsy as ever was!'

`I didn't know before, Roundy, that grass-hoppers had whiskers!' observed
Austin with a smile; he raised himself a little on his elbow as
he spoke, and fixed his gaze with sudden earnestness upon his fly. As he
did so a large trout whose shining sides and speckled back could be distinctly
seen beneath the surface, darted for the bait, and in his eagerness
sprung with it twice his length out of the water.

`You're fixed now, Beersheba,' said Roundy, in a quiet tone of exultation
as he eyed the captive in his struggles to escape. `If I had you there you
might have some chance o' seeing your parents again, but when Master
Nedward is t'other end o' the line then you may jest as well make your will
and take it coolly!'

The young gentleman `played' his fiery and rapidly darting prisoner with
consummate skill and in a few moments drew him to the bank exhausted.

`I told you so, my child,' said Roundy, as he raised himself from his belly
to his knees, and began to disengage the trout from the hook; `I know'd
you'd have to guv in and say die! Get out, Bruce! Your eyes sparkled as
if you enjoyed the sport too! I wonder if Bruce couldn't angre, Master
Ned, if so be as I could larn him to hold a rod slantendiklar. He's been a
troutin' with us so much I'll bet a sojer agen an Injun chief he'd fish like a
gentleman!'

`You have my consent to teach him,' said Edward as he began to fold up
and arrange his tackle; `but not to-night.'

`He's knowing, brother Bruce is! but then I think sometimes he han't
got common sense.'

`Indeed?'

`Darn me if I think there an't some humbug about him arter all, 'telligent
as he'd make me b'lieve he was. Now did you see him watching them
trout? Why he looked as tarnal skeered whenever one on 'em would jump
as if 'twas a nest o' live hawks he was a guardin' and he expected they was
a goin' to fly away. He'd watch 'em out o' his eyes when they'd hop a foot
high jist as if he expected they was goin' right up through the trees into the
sky and say `I'm off!' Now if he's a dog so sensible as he pretends he is,
he'd know a fish couldn't fly, and that his watchin' that are basket was all
glum jist like—jist like varnishin' sassengers. Now I dare say he thinks
them fish has wings or legs, and if they git on the ground they'll streak it
like a rabbit. Now for a dog what's reasonable and common-sense like on
other things to be such a idiot about trout when he's been a fishin' as much
as he has and knows their natur, dumsquizzles me.'

`Dum what?'

`Dumsquizzles me!' repeated Roundy with greater emphasis.

`Yes I understand.'

`To be sure you do. Dumsquizzles me it does, Master Ned?'

`Don't believe thus of old Bruce, Roundy. He only amuses himself with
a gambols of the fish. You mistook the expression of his eye.'

`No I didn't. I can tell his feelins jist as well as I can yours, Master Nedward.
His face is all over talk and readin' jist like a book. Why, I've laid
on my belly on the grass, and Bruce layin' opposite me with his nose on his
paws, and I've talked and gossipped with him by the hour, and I could understand
him jist as if he had a spoke human words. There, he's listenin'
and understands every thing I say jist as well as you do. Now that's what
spifflicates me.'

`Does what?' asked Austin, with a sly, mischievous smile; for he delighted
to banter Roundy upon his peculiar and favorite modes of expression.

`Spifflicate is a dictionary word, Master Ned,' answered the fat young
man a little touched.

`Is it? Oh, aye!

`To be sure it is. I never uses a word I doesn't know what it means,
Master Ned!'

At this moment as Austin was about getting upon his feet to return homeward,
they heard a rustling in the path behind them, and looking up beheld
a young man approaching with a fowling piece in his hand, and a game bag
and pouch slung beneath his arm. He had a handsome and prepossessing
countenanee, but it bore the marks, not to be mistaken, of incipient dissipation.

`Ah, Ned, my fine fellow, so you are just pulling up your traps and starting
home!' he exclaimed in a lively tone. `What luck? Ah, I needn't ask.
A basket full of fine fish! I think I shall have to turn trout-killer, for I
can't find game. I have shot only two birds, one a plover and the other a
meadow-lark. I saw a rabbit and two grey-squirrels, but I couldn't get a
shot at them. I should like trouting but for the water. It don't agree with
me standing over the water. It always gives me the ague.'

`Perhaps, Master Ralph,' said Roundy with a sly twinkle in his blue eyes,'
perhaps you'd like fishing in the Brandywine creek.'

`Oh, you are there are you, you fat rogue!' exclaimed Ralph Waldron,
lifting his gun in a playful manner, yet slightly coloring. `But that reminds
me,' he said, taking a flask from his pocket. `I'm tired and knocked up
browsing about all the afternoon, and now I've met you I mean to take a
pull at my flask here, Austin. Come join me, and you, Roundy, shall have
a mouthful though you don't deserve it, you are such a fat reprobate. Here
Austin, here's a little silver cup I had made expressly to drink out of it. It
holds just a wine-glass full. Come, `he added, filling the cup from his flask
with pure brandy, `try a little. You have been fishing here I dare say this
three hours, and it's dry work as gunning, if it is in the water.' And he
presented the sparkling silver goblet to his friend.

`Thank you, no!' quietly answered Austin, `I never drink.'

`No, I know you don't, Ned,' replied Waldron with a smile of ready acknowledgment;
`but then a little won't hurt you. I always take a thimblefull
when I've been out exerting myself and I never feel fatigue. There is
a sort of supernatural strength in a little brandy. Let me be ever so fagged
out, two swallows makes me a man again! Come, Ned,' and the young
man, whose strength lay in brandy, placed the cup upon the thumb and
finger of his friend, as if he would press it insinuatingly within his grasp.

`Excuse me, Ralph,' answered Austin firmly and looking a little annoyed,
while a slight expression of mingled pity and contempt passed over his fine
features, as he looked in the face of his friend and saw there the lines of intemperance
faint, indeed, yet as decided and endurable as if cut in marble.

The young gunner looked hurt, and slowly withdrawing his hand he fixed
his eyes on Roundy, who was very busily occupied in winding up the last
line. `Well, I won't force you, Austin. If you choose to refuse a friend
you are at liberty to do so. But it's dull work drinking alone. A fellow
looks foolish pouring a glass down his own throat, while others stand around

lookin' on. Come, Roundy, you must drink with me. I dare say you never
refused a good offer. I'll empty the cup and fill for you!' Thus speaking
he placed the brilliantly colored `fire-blood' to his lips and was about to
empty the cup when Roundy answered with a very serious air, copying in
his reply the precise words of his master, `excuse me, Mister Ralph, I never
drink!'

`Why man your cheeks are as rosy as two goblets of port. You mean
you never drink water!' And Waldron laughed, but in a way that showed
he did not believe what he said.

`No, Mister Ralph. I never drinked a bit o' liquor in my life, I nor
Master Ned never did. When he takes to drinkin' then I will, not afore.—
Drunk or sober I'm Master Nedward's shadow, and hope I al'ays shall be.
But its drunk you never'll see this here shadow, I know that, Mister Ralph.
So I'm werry especially 'bliged to you, and thanks you jist as much as tho'
I was layin' down there in that bog puddle tipsy as a toper. When Master
Ned crooks his elbow then I'll begin to shoot the stars with a tumbler turned
bottom-up! Like master, like man!'

`You talk, Roundy, as if there was great harm in taking a drop now and
then. Now it does one good. It makes a tired man feel like a new man.
Well, if I must drink alone I must. I'm not ashamed of it for I don't think
there is the least harm in it! So Austin here's your health, and Roundy, my
fatty, may your shadow never be less!

`I don't mean it shall,' answered the young farmer very drily; for the position
his master had taken he resolved to imitate to the utmost; he being in
all things, as he truly termed himself, his master's shadow and admiring
imitator. `If I looked at the stars often in the day time, Mister Ralph, I
should no longer rejoice in fat and folly!'

`Well, I will drink your healths and mine too, for I'm fairly used up. I've
walked full three miles. In five minutes I shall feel as if I never knew fatigue.
You don't know what you lose!'

`Stay, Ralph,' said Austin, placing his hand upon his wrist as he was
about to drink. `You say it gives you strength. Let us see if this is true.
A year ago, before you had ever touched spirit, you and I leaped the stream
just above there from rock to rock. We were both equal in strength and
vigor and activity. `Come now,' added Edward, with a frank, kindly smile,
taking his arm,' come, and before you drink that let us try and see if we can
both leap it now. If drinking brandy has strengthened you, as you say, you
ought to be able to out-do me now.'

Waldron colored with sudden embarrassment, and then said in a hesitating
manner, and with looks that were somewhat abashed, `I, I meant after
I had taken a little! I will drink this, and in five minutes I will make the
trial with you,' he answered confidently.

`No. Try it now. If brandy has done you good you can now prove its
benefits. By all odds, as I have drank none you ought to be my superior.
Come Ralph, let us try!'

`But I have walked so far.'

`Three miles. I have walked no less than seven since dinner. I have
been to the head of the stream and back.'

`Yes, as I can bear witness to; for I sweat away at least five pounds of
good meat on the way,' answered Roundy.

`Now if you had taken a flask with you, Roundy, you would not have
sweat so. But I must drink before I try.'

`Then you acknowledge that you cannot leap so well now as a year ago.
Your brandy has done you an injury, Ralph, by your own admission.'

`Not a bit! I will try; but on condition that if I fail you will give me another
trial after I nave taken a pull.'

`Agreed!' cheerfully answered his friend. They approached the spot.—

The space was fifteen feet wide. Austin took the leap boldly and cleared
the stream with full two feet to spare beyond the verge. Ralph eyed the
chasm and the swift water with a timid, doubtful aspect. He made three
several demonstrations, and then turned away, saying with a look of mortification,

`I don't feel quite well—head-ache. My sight swims a little. I give it up
on this score, Austin. But let me try my brandy now, and I will prove to
you the difference. I will show you that drinking does no harm, especially
what little I take; for I never drink except I'm gunning.'

`Which is every blessed day,' said Roundy in an under tone.

He took off the brandy, and immediately half-filling the cup again with a
quick furtive action, with his back half turned towards them, he drank this
off also, looking like a man who had no confidence in his natural powers.

`Now I am ready,' he said in a loud confident tone. `Come, my boy, let
me have that little matter tried over again. I feel well. My head-ache has
gone to the winds. Come, I'll show you, that though I felt a little bad just
now, I am as good as I ever was.' This was spoken with that feeling of
bravado which tries to outbrave shame.

He stepped back, started, and run the three yards which was allowed to
both, and then stopped short on the brink.

`I don't feel the brandy working yet. I'll wait a minute or so, Ned!' he
said with a laugh by which he would conceal his consciousness of physical
inferiority; for he felt in his heart that brandy had been the foe to his strength
and manhood. He paced the green a few times, and more than once involuntarily
placed his eye upon the flask which lay with his gun and game
bag upon the ground, with a longing desire to deepen his draughts; but a
sense of shame or pride, whatever be the name of the sentiment, deterred
him. After a few moments he again took his post, and with that bold and
confident air which wine gives, he started for the leap. He threw all his
strength and skill into the act, and his feet left the bank with a free spring.
But the impetus was insufficient to carry him across, and coming short of
the opposite bank he plunged into the deep and rapid flood. He would have
been carried down but for the arm of Austin, who reaching out from the
shore seized him and brought him to land.

`Now, my friend,' said Edward kindly, `I trust you will confess the impotency
of brandy to give a man strength. Believe me, it is his weakness!
This I trust you are now convinced of, and will, like a man, dash the treacherous
thing forever from your lips!'

`It is because I was such a fool as to take too little,' answered Waldron
doggedly. `If I had not cared for you and taken what I wanted too, I would
have beaten you in the leap, instead of jumping into the stream as I have
done. I owe it all to you.'

`Why to me?' asked Austin with surprise.

`Because you—you—that is, I hate to drink even as much as would fill a
percussion-cap before such fellows as you, who look on as if it was damnation
I was drinking. I don't like to drink before folks with such confounded
ideas! There's no harm in it in the world. I never was drunk in my
life, and never intend to be! No man despises a sot more heartily than I
do. Never fear me, Austin. I shall drink a glass of wine or brandy when
I want it, and I shall be never the worse for it! I must take something now
or I shall catch my death of cold”

Thus speaking he crossed the stream by a fallen tree a few yards above
and hurrying, he applied his flask to his mouth with a gusto that caused his
temperate friend to sigh heavily, and in imitation of which a grotesque groan
came audibly from the chest of Roundy Beebe.