University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER V.

WINSTON AND ITS CASTELLAN—MR. EDWARD TOWERS.

The sun by this time is riding nearly midway in
the skies, and we hasten on to the summit of the
mountain, seven miles up from its base. We have
climbed "the mighty Helvelyn;" and, what is more,
we have said our say in doing it, to the honor and
glory of the land, and the confounding of its enemies,
their aiders and abettors. Here you gaze over
the plateau of the wide Allegany ranges—some
twenty miles across by the road; and far in the distance
you behold the Backbone—the Taurus of the
belt—down whose rugged sides the waters flow
east and west into the far seas.

Some four or five miles on our way, more or less
descending, on the side of a long hill that slopes
down to Stony river, we stopped for the middle of
the day at a large stone inn, kept open to the world
by William Poole—Bill Poole seems to be his better-established
designation hereabouts—from which
familiar and easy manner of indicating him and his,
we take it he is a good fellow, a bon camerado, in
his neighborhood. Mr. Poole was not at home, but

he had left a big viceroy over his dominions, under
whose lazy sway some broiling and frying was accomplished,
that stayed a little that sacred rage
about which we spoke in the beginning of this
chronicle. The hostler also was absent; and finding
no representative of that very important official,
we turned in and groomed our own horses; and it
was well done—which says something as to the
value of being able to take care of yourself in this
wide world. We took our coats off, rolled up our
sleeves, and "pitched in" to the work, according
to the formula prescribed in the stables of Colonel
Johnson, of Chesterfield—now dead and gone—
whose word was once law in all matters of hippology—horse-talk
the unlearned do call it.

"That hardihood," observed Mr. Butcut, as he
twisted a fresh wisp of straw, "which scales mountains,
penetrates the wilderness, or subjugates the
beasts of the chase, while at the same time it refuses
to exert itself upon the needful well-being of
your horse, is but little to be commended."

"Right, Doctor Johnson!"

"The great Cyrus," said Doctor Blandy, "did not
think it beneath him to exercise his care over the
elephants he took with him on his expeditions."

"In Egypt, Napoleon always took special care
of the asses when he went into battle," said Triptolemus.

"King Richard II., Shakspeare tells us, fed roan

Barbary with his own hands," put in the Prior, taking
a long breath.

"If I am not mistaken," said the artist, "I have
read it in the Iliad that Andromache herself fed
Hector's horses—"

"To be sure she did!" said Trip, "and with grain
which she steeped in wine."

"What is more directly to the point?" observed
Blandy. "Let me remind you, gentlemen, of the
personal care bestowed by Dugald Dalgetty upon
Gustavus."

"Enough," said Mr. Butcut. "That man is little
to be envied who does not feel himself all in a glow
at having accomplished the generous labor of rubbing
down his own horse. To my mind, it is an
evidence of a princely disposition. Nothing, indeed,
can be more honorable—when you can get nobody
else to do it for you—but if I rub my `Gustavus'
again, if he never gets a rubbing, I hope I may
never reach Winston!"—And Peter threw down
his wisp, and washed himself in the horse-bucket,
after the manner of a hostler.

With such like stable-talk—of which the above
is but a small sample—we finished the rites, and
left our Gustavuses to the enjoyment of their oats.

In due course of time we once more encountered
the road; and after a drive of some twelve miles,
over the undulating tops of this wide belt of mountains,
down their gorges, through the passes, by farms

lately cleared and green with wild timothy, bluegrass,
and white clover—the natural growth of these
fine grazing regions—we at length crossed the Potomac,
and, winding up a long, fair sweep of hill,
slackened rein before the gates of Winston.

It was somewhere about five o'clock when we
won the stone, having driven some forty-three miles
since we left the pleasant town of Romney in the
early morning: forty-three miles of such delightful
travel as can hardly be found elsewhere within our
borders.

We hailed our resting-place with divers and manifold
exclamations of surprise and delight, which
brought the alert Towers to the hostel-gates, in a
very broad-brimmed straw hat, stuck all over with
fishing hooks and lines. The castle of Winston
stands, like the castle of Richmond, "fair on the
hill;" and although it did not greet our eyes with
the feudal grandeur of Norham—with warders on
the turrets, donjon-keep, loophole grates where captives
weep, and the banner of St. George flapping
idly in the breeze, as that famous hold met the gaze
of Marmion and his train as they came "pricking
o'er the hill," yet it looked cheerful and pleasant
enough—had an air of something even like elegance
as the western sun shed its splendor upon it. The
porches with which it was arrayed imparted a look
as of something "bedecked, ornate, and gay," like
Delilah, Samson's wife, "this way sailing." Above

all, it filled the mind perforce with comfortable
thoughts of the mountain-breeze, as it spread itself
out on the brow of a commanding hill—a grand
hill, that stretches down for half a mile in bold,
lawn-like sweeps, to the Potomac: the river here
flowing along in all wild beauty, some twelve or
fifteen miles below where it emerges, a wimpling
rill, from the slopes of the Backbone.

The castellan or governor of Winston, Edward
Towers, Esq., met us at the portals, with evident
gladness in his heart. Right away, he called for his
right-hand man Andrew, and proclaimed loud and
quick his edicts in regard to horses, carriages, luggage,
everything; every here and there something
escaping his tongue, imprecatory of his or Andrew's
eyes, or other parts of their bodies, such as their
lights or livers, and even their diviner parts: his
movements all the while in just keeping with his
utterance, being wiry and terrier-like, up and down
instead of longwise—energetic, sudden—just such
action as hooks a trout without fail, and accounts
for the governor of Winston's great reputation in
these parts as a fisherman.

"Walk in, gentlemen," said Mr. Towers; "walk
in, walk in. Aha! well, indeed, you are here at
last! Looked for you all day yesterday. Devil
take me! Where did you come from to-day, gentlemen?"

"From Romney."

"By this time! Where did you dine—not at
Reese's? Perhaps you had something with you?"

"We stopped back here some twelve miles, at a
large stone house on the side of a hill."

"At Poole's—Bill Poole's. He went up above
here to-day, fishing, d—n his eyes!"

"How are the trout, Towers?"

"There's nothing else in the water! I just took
Andrew yesterday evening, and went up to the falls
of the Potomac—slept out all night on the hemlock—and
by breakfast-time this morning got home
with over two hundred! How many, Andrew?"

"You're right."

"Yes, two or three hundred. Devil take me, if I
couldn't have caught a three-bushel bag full as easy
as not!"

This information was somewhat exciting, and gave
rise to a desire, on the part of the more impressible
members of the invasion, to commence demonstrations
against the enemy forthwith. With this view,
Doctor Blandy inquired of Towers the distance to
the falls.

"About eight miles," answered the castellan quietly.

"And how is the road?"

"The road—road, did you say! The middle of
the river is the best road I know."

"You can't ride to them, then?"

"There is a sort of a way over the hills, if you

could find it. But that stops at the laurel, just before
you come to Laurel run."

"What's the laurel?" asked Triptolemus, opening
his eyes.

"You'll learn enough about it, Mr. Todd, before
you leave here—more than you'll care about knowing,
I reckon," observed Mr. Towers, with a smile
of superiority at Murad's ignorance of the laurel.
"The laurel, Mr. Todd, is the big laurel of these regions,
that borders all the streams; and it's about
as much as a man can do to get through it, let alone
a horse."

"Ugh—uh!" replied Trip—which was a queer
sort of laughing chuckle that characterized that gentleman
upon all occasions.

It was clear that the falls of the Potomac were
out of the question that evening; and notwithstanding
all manner of trout were leaping up and down
them in our mind's eye, we desisted for the present
from any further investigations as to the way by
which they were to be reached.

"But, Towers," said Mr. Botecote, authoritatively,
"there must certainly be some place near here where
we could have some pretty fair sport for an hour
or so. I would like to add a few fish to your supper."

At this announcement, Mr. Towers looked a little
astonished, and replied, confusedly—for Peter's
manner was something lofty and imposing—

"Oh yes, certainly, Mr.—I really didn't hear
your name—"

"Botecote," said Peter.

"Certainly, Mr. Botecote—I didn't think of that;
I really thought now a couple of hundred might do
you!"

"You started with two hundred, raised immediately
to three hundred—may have four hundred
by this time—and with all, Mr. Towers, I may possibly
go to bed only tantalized with them."

"If there is one in the house this minute, there's
four hundred, big and little! May the—"

"Be it so, then, Mr. Towers, and don't swear.
I'll lay me down here on this settle, and methinks
I'll take a nap."

"To-morrow, then, we'll begin the attack."

"Bright and early."

"When the hunter's horn is first heard on the
golden hills."

"And I'll go with you," said Mr. Towers, "and
show you the ground. We'll make a day of it—
fish up to the falls and back. Those that don't want
to go so far, can stay below here at some pools in
the river. There's one pool that I call Ashmun's
pool, after Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts. May be
some of you know him. Devil take my lights now,
if he didn't pull out of that pool a basketful! One
of them weighed a pound and a half; if it didn't,
you may drown me!"

"Ugh—uh!" exclaimed Triptolemus.

"No doubt about it," resumed Towers. You see
he fished with the fly, which is a sort of curiosity
to our fish, and rather takes 'em in for a little while.
But give me the worm, after all."

"You fish with the worm, then, Mr. Towers?"

"Yes—anything I can lay my hands on."

"Did you ever try the bug?"

"The bug? what's the bug?"

"The Prior there has one. You ought to see it!
I venture to say that every large trout in the stream
will make at it."

"What's it like?" asked Towers.

"Here's a likeness of it," replied the artist, taking
out his pencil, and drawing a rather exaggerated
caricature of it.

"Devil take me," exclaimed Mr. Towers, "if it
won't scare the biggest trout that ever swam the
Potomac! That thing! Why, what sort of a bug
do you call it?"

"It's called the trout hum-bug," said Peter.

"Well, gentlemen, I had thought that may be I
might some time or other try the fly, and see what
I could do with it; but if ever you get me to attempt
that thing, may the — But there's no use
talking about it. Come along, Andrew, and get
out some oats for the horses. The best oats you
ever saw, gentlemen. Hustle, Andrew!—hustle
along!"

And so away hurried the castellan, with Andrew
after him—Towers going off with a vehement, perpendicular
movement, like one of the old grasshopper
engines on the railroad, when under a great
press of steam.

"I think the Prior's bug was too much for our
host," observed the artist.

"He's a worm-fisher!" said Doctor Blandy disdainfully.
"If I were you, Prior, when I got my
bug out to-morrow, I wouldn't let him come on the
same side of the river with me."

"What a remarkably high mover he is!" said
Trip.

"If the governor of Winston's performance comes
anywhere near the promise of his speech and movement,
we shall fare well, both man and horse." And
this fair promise was not broken to the sense—it
was fairly kept. The oats were as fine as ever grew
—heavy, polished, hard, plump, and golden; and
Andrew was only too liberal in dispensing them to
each whynnying and pawing horse. As for ourselves,
Gil Blas and Scipio ate no such supper in
their retreat at Lirias. Fifty fine trout, all beautifully
embrowned, and like Até, hot from—the flames
below, came and went, and came and went again;
and so lightly did they sit upon our bosom's lord,
that it seemed all illusion—the insubstantial and
pageant supper of a dream—to divest the mind of
which fallacy, nothing but the appropriate disposition

of a series of venison-steaks could suffice. After
some protracted effort, however, in this way, the
illusion was finally driven out from the mind, and we
were happy in the content of the succeeding hours
—hours spent in dreamy silence, or in easy conversation
upon subjects appertaining to the gentle philosophy
of Epicurus. And so, without a disturbing
thought, indolently reclining around, we whiled the
time away.

Thus passing the first hours of the night, at length
we went to bed; and while yet conscious of bliss,
sleep mingled itself stealthily in with the visions of
the mountains and the rivers that were passing in
ever-changing procession over the brain: each vision
growing more indistinct as the long procession
swept on—until at length, with the splash of some
leaping trout in your ear, and his bright colors
gleaming in your eye, sound and sight were gone.
Such is the sleep of those who travel high mountain-regions,
or sail the salt seas in temperate climes.
Such was at first the sleep of this expedition, light
as the early mist on the river. But, by-and-by, its
folds descended more heavily upon us—heavy as a
cloud; and then it became musical—ravishing the
ear of night with a varied harmony, a concord in
discord of flutes, and soft recorders, and horns—
the loud bassoon, with every now and then a turn
of the hurdy-gurdy, and sometimes the drone of the
bagpipe. Rossini is said to have caught the idea

of the song of the barber, in his great opera, from
the braying of an ass. Had he heard this sleep, a
far more wonderful strain would have streamed
forth beneath the fingers of the immortal composer!
No Lilliputian slumber shall this chronicle record
it, if I can help it—but rather that such as swelled
grandly forth upon the night air, nightly, throughout
the Brobdignag realms!