4. CHAPTER IV.
What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it
From action and adventure?
—Cymbeline.
Morning came, and the Leslies departed. Morton
watched the lumbering carriage till it disappeared down the
rugged gorge of the Notch, then drew a deep breath, and
ruefully betook himself to his day's sport. He explored, rod
in hand, the black pools and plunging cascades of the Saco;
but for once that he thought of the trout, he thought ten
times of Edith Leslie.
Towards night, however, he returned with a basket reasonably
well filled; and, as he drew near the inn, he saw a
young man, of his own age, or thereabouts, sitting under the
porch. He had a cast of features which, in a feudal country,
would have been taken as the sign of noble birth; and
though he wore a slouched felt hat and a rough tweed frock,
though his attitude was careless, though he held between his
teeth a common clay pipe, at which he puffed with much relish,
and though he was conversing on easy terms with two
attenuated old Vermont farmers, with faces like a pair of
baked apples, — yet none but the most unpractised eye would
have taken him for other than a gentleman.
As soon as Morton saw him, he shouted a joyful greeting,
to which Mr. Edward Meredith, rising and going to meet his
friend, replied with no less emphasis.
“I thought,” said Morton, “that you meant to do the dutiful
this time, and stay with your father and family at the
sea shore.”
“Couldn't stand the sea shore,” said Meredith, seating
himself again; “so I came up to the mountains to see what
you were doing.”
“You couldn't have done better; but come this way, out
of earshot.”
“Colonel,” said Meredith, in a tone of melancholy remonstrance,
“this seat is a good seat, an easy seat, a pleasant
seat. Why do you want to root me up?”
“Come on, man,” replied Morton.
“Show the way, then, Jack-a-lantern. But where do you
want to lead me? I won't sit on the rail fence, and I won't
sit on the grass.”
“There's a bench here for you.”
“Has it a back?”
“Yes, it has a back. There it is.”
Meredith carefully removed a few twigs and shavings which
lay upon the bench, seated himself, rested his arm along the
back, and began puffing at his pipe again. But scarcely had
he thus composed himself when the tea bell rang from the
house.
“Do you hear that, now? Another move to make!
Didn't I tell you so?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Please to explain, colonel, what you expect to gain by
always bobbing about as you do, like a drop of quicksilver.”
“To hear you, one would take you for the laziest fellow in
the universe.”
“There's reason in all things. I keep my vital energies
against the time of need, instead of wasting them in unnecessary
gyrations. Ladies at the table! New Yorkers in
full feather, or I'll be shot! Now, what the deuse have lace
and ribbons to do in a place like this?”
During the meal, the presence of the strangers was a check
upon their conversation.
“Crawford,” said Meredith, when it was over, “have you
had that sofa taken into my room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the arm chair?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the candles?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Now, then, colonel, allons.”
The name of colonel was Morton's college sobriquet.
Meredith led the way into a room which adjoined his bed
chamber, and which, under his direction, had assumed an air
of great comfort. Morton took possession of the sofa; his
friend of the arm chair.
“What's the word with you?” began the latter; “are
you bound for the Adirondacks, the Margalloway, or the
Penobscot?”
“To the Margalloway, I think. You mean to go with me,
I hope.”
“To the Margalloway, or the antipodes, or any place this
side of the North Pole.”
“Then, if you say so, we'll set off to-morrow.”
“Gently, colonel. One day's fishing here. We have six
weeks before us. What sort of thing is that that you are
smoking?”
“Try, and judge for yourself,” said Morton, handing his
cigar case. Meredith took a sample of its contents between
his fingers, and examined it with attention.
“I always thought you were a kind of heathen, and now
I know it. Where did you pick up that cigar?”
“Do you find it so very bad?”
“It would not poison a man, and perhaps might pass for a
little better than none at all. But nobody except a pagan
would touch it when any thing better could be had.”
“I forgot to bring any from town, and had to supply myself
on the way.”
“That goes to redeem your character. Fling those away,
or give them to the landlord; I have plenty of better ones.
But a pipe is the best thing at a place like this, and especially
at camp, in the woods.”
“So I have often heard you say.”
“Mine, though, made a sensation, not long ago.”
“How was that?”
“The whole brood of the Stubbs, bag and baggage, passed
here this afternoon.”
“Thank Heaven they did not stop.”
“They came in their private carriage. I nodded to Ben,
and touched my hat to Mrs. S. You should have seen their
faces. They thought there must be something out of joint
in the mechanism of the universe, when a person of their
acquaintance could be seen smoking a pipe at a tavern door,
like a bog-trotting Irishman.”
“You should have asked Ben to go with us.”
“It would be the worst martyrdom the poor devil ever
had to pass through. Ben seemed displeased with the scenery.
He says that the White Mountains are nothing to any
one who, like himself, has seen the Alps.”
“Pray when did Stubb see the Alps?”
“O, the whole family have seen the Alps, — the Alps,
Italy, the Rhine, the nobility and gentry, and every thing else
that Europe affords. They all swear by Europe, and hold
the soil of America dirt cheap. You can see with half an
eye what they are — an uncommonly bad imitation of an indifferent
model.”
“Let them pass for what they are worth. Have you come
armed and equipped — rifle, blanket, hatchet, and so forth?”
“Yes, and I have brought an oil cloth tent.”
“So much the better; it is more convenient than a birch
bark shanty.”
“I give you notice that I mean to take my ease in that
tent.”
“I hope you will.”
“One can be comfortable in the woods, as well as elsewhere.
Remember, colonel, that we are out for amusement,
and not after scalps. Last summer, you drove ahead, rain
or shine, through thickets, and swamps, and ponds, as if you
were on some errand of life and death. For this once, have
mercy on frail humanity, and moderate your ardor.”
Morton gave the pledge required. They passed the evening
in arranging the details of their journey, set forth and
spent three or four weeks in the forest between the settled
districts of Canada and Maine, poling their canoe up lonely
streams, meeting no human face, but smoking their pipes in
great contentment by their evening camp fire. They chased
a bear, and lost him in a
windfall; killed two moose, six
deer, and trout without number; and underwent, with exemplary
patience, a martyrdom of midges, black flies, and mosquitoes.
And when, at last, they turned their faces homeward,
they wiled the way with plans of longer journeyings,
— more bear, more moose, more deer, more trout, more
midges, black flies, and mosquitoes.
