“All by the shady greenwood-tree
The merry, merry archers roam;
Jovial and bold and ever free,
They tread their woodland home.”
“And where,” asks Aunt Markham, resignedly, “are we going next?”
“We are going,” answers Eric, “to Transylvania, which I consider, take
it all in all, the loveliest county in the mountains.”
“Then it must be a remarkable county,” says Mrs. Cardigan, looking up
from a map which she is studying with Mr. Lanier—this has become one of
our chief amusements since we obtained a bird’s-eye view of the country
from the summit of the Black.
“It is a remarkable country for deer,” says Charley. “I am glad to
hear that we are going there.—But why not venture a little farther,
Eric?—why not carry this party of intrepid explorers into the Balsam
Mountains?”
“Because it is too wild a region,” answers Eric. “We are not prepared
for anything so remote from civilization.”
“For Heaven’s sake,” says Aunt Markham, with energy, “don’t let us go
into any wilder region than we have been in already! It is very well
for young people to profess to enjoy hardships, but at my age one
prefers the comforts of life—at least to the extent of a bed to sleep
on and a roof over one’s head.”
“My dear aunt,” says Sylvia, “that idea springs entirely from a
misconception. If you would only try once the delight of sleeping in
the open air on balsam boughs, you would never rest until you had tried
it again.”
“Very likely, indeed!” says Aunt Markham, with profound skepticism. “I
hope Eric will believe that I have no desire to try such a thing once.”
“I believe it thoroughly,” says Eric, “and will take care that you are
not forced to do so.—Never mind, Sylvia; next summer we will start out
on horseback, take a tent, and thoroughly explore the Balsam and the
Nantahala Mountains.”
“Thanks,” says Sylvia, “but next summer is so very far away! I have
never outgrown the childish feeling of wanting a pleasure at once if I
am to have it at all. How do I know what may happen before next summer?”
“Life is very uncertain,” says Mrs. Cardigan, laughing. “When
summer comes, you may be married and gone to Switzerland for your
wedding-tour.”
Instead of blushing, Sylvia looks haughty.
“I was not alluding to anything of that kind,” she says. Then she
turns to Charley—poor Charley, who is not likely to be able to afford a
wedding-tour to Switzerland.—“You have been to the Balsam Mountains,”
she says. “Tell me all about them. Is the country _very_ wild?”
“It is exceedingly wild,” he replies. “Eric is right; we are not fitted
out for going there this summer. In a tour of that description one must
prepare for _roughing_ of every description.”
Failing the Balsam Mountains—against which a majority of the party
strongly vote—it is decided that we turn our faces toward Transylvania.
As I predicted, Mrs. Cardigan makes one of our party. “As far as
Cæsar’s Head,” she says. “There I expect to meet some friends.”
“I don’t believe that she expects to meet anybody at all,” says Aunt
Markham, confidentially. “I believe that she has simply determined to
make Eric fall in love with her, and—O Alice, do you think he will?”
I laugh.
“It is impossible to say,” I answer, “but I don’t think he will. If
Eric ever marries— which is doubtful—he will not be likely to choose a
beguiling widow for his wife.”
Notwithstanding this opinion, I am forced to admit that the beguiling
widow in question makes herself so agreeable that even Eric is partial
to her society, and when we start she is on the front seat of the
phaeton by his side.
After a day or two of rest, how glad we are to be in motion once more,
and how we pity the people who are forced to remain stationary at
tiresome springs and in village hotels! Even when there is nothing
in especial to be seen, it is a delight to be in the open air, with
the picturesque country spread around one, to bowl over good roads,
to cross flashing streams, to feel the pleasant breeze in one’s face,
to watch the shadows on the hills, or the bosky depths of green
woods. How many trivial yet delightful things occur in the course of
such journeyings! There are wayside lunches on mossy rocks; there
are fruit-trees to be rifled, and hills to be climbed; there are
inhabitants of the country to be cross-questioned with regard to
distances, concerning which no two give the same account; there are
roads to be lost and found—above all, there are many jests and much gay
laughter, and the infinite freshness and sweetness of Nature in all the
wide and varying scene, the bending sky, and streaming sunshine.
“Why does not everybody spend the summer in this manner?” says Mrs.
Cardigan, enthusiastically. “It is true that women, poor creatures!
have not much more choice with regard to their holidays than with
regard to anything else; but men are different. How _they_ can prefer
lounging about a watering-place to traveling in this manner is
something I cannot understand.”
“The best class of men—those with most manliness about them—do not
prefer it,” says Eric. “You rarely find them among the dancers in hotel
ballrooms or the loungers on hotel piazzas. But you may meet them by
the hundreds with fishing-rods and rifles all through these mountains.
Yonder is a party of the kind now.”
He points as he speaks to a wagon which we are in the act of passing.
It contains a tent and other provisions for camping out. Half a dozen
young men in hunting-shirts— several of them carrying guns on their
shoulders—tramp alongside. They lift their hats as we pass, showing
sunburned faces beneath—the faces of gentlemen unmistakably. Eric
returns their salutation, and then inquires—
“Where bound?”
“To the Balsam Mountains, for fishing and hunting,” answers one of the
number.
“Hope you’ll have good luck.”
“Much obliged.”
We all bow and smile—then glance back as we wind round a curve of the
road, in time to see the equestrian members of our party halt and
speak to them. Charley apparently finds an acquaintance, for a general
hand-shaking takes place.
“Now Sylvia is in her element,” says Eric. “How she will question those
fellows, and indirectly flatter them, and set them at their ease by her
cordial frankness! In ten minutes she will draw out of them all their
information—and anything else they may possess.”
“I never knew any one with a greater gift of winning the popular heart
than she possesses,” says Mrs. Cardigan. “What an invaluable wife she
would make for a politician!”
“Such a gift loses its value and much of its charm when it is turned to
a purpose of that kind,” I remark.
We drive on, and some time elapses before anything more is seen of the
riders. Then Sylvia, attended by Mr. Lanier, comes up at a canter, and
the first thing we perceive is a brace of pheasants hanging over the
horn of her saddle.
“Did you see those delightful young men?” she asks. “Charley’s friend
Grimes— you’ve heard him talk of Grimes, haven’t you?—is one of them.
I was very glad, for I wanted to question them all about where they
were going. They have been to the Roan, and now they are going on a
hunting-trip to the Balsam. Oh, I wish I could go! Charley says he
thinks _he_ will.”
“Did Grimes give you those?” asks Eric, pointing to the birds.
“No, another one—very handsome, with a dark mustache—gave them to
me. I did not want to take them, but he insisted—and won’t they be
delicious?”
“Very,” answers Eric. “Now if we can only meet another party with a
slaughtered deer, and you will be good enough to cajole that out of
them, we shall fare royally.”
“Cajole!” repeats Sylvia, indignantly. “Didn’t they _press_ me to take
these?” she asks, turning to Mr. Lanier.
“Certainly they did,” assents that gentleman, promptly.
Presently Charley appears within conversational distance, and Eric
accosts him.
“What is this I hear?” he inquires. “Are you thinking of turning
deserter?”
“I was strongly tempted,” the other answers, “but on the whole I have
decided to stand by you all. No doubt we’ll get some good hunting at
Buck Forest.”
We are at this time traveling once more along the banks of the French
Broad, though we can scarcely fancy that this tranquil river, with its
glassy current and smiling valley, is one with the impetuous stream
which a little later tears its headlong way through the heart of the
mountains. No river could be more placid and well-behaved than it is
here. We do not follow its course very long, but bear away across a
comparatively level though very elevated country. Evidences of thrift
and prosperity abound. One farm succeeds another in rapid succession,
while the houses, as a rule, are large and comfortable. We pass the
lovely valleys of the Mills and Davidson Rivers, with breadths of
fertile lowlands in the foreground and purple-crested hills beyond,
miles of rustling corn and broad meadows sowed in grass. All the rugged
features of mountain landscape have disappeared; a pastoral softness
fills the outlines of every picture, while a freshness of which words
can convey but a faint idea rests over the land, and the atmosphere
seems with every mile to grow purer and more stimulating.
We take our dinner by the road-side, on the shady banks of the
Davidson. This river is short in its course, being a tributary of the
French Broad, but no stream carries a more limpid current through
fairer scenes.
“One might spend a week in exploring it,” says Eric. “The scenery is
romantic in the extreme.”
“And its head-waters abound in trout,” says Charley.
“If we stopped to explore everything, we should never have done,” says
Aunt Markham, who feels that it is very necessary to restrain the
wandering inclinations of the party.
“Really now,” says Mr. Lanier, “are you in earnest about the trout?
Since I haven’t seen one yet, my skepticism may be excused.”
“You haven’t been at any place where you _could_ see one—except
on the Black, and nobody had time for trout-fishing there,” says
Charley. “The speckled trout are only found in the purest and coldest
streams—generally on the north sides of mountains. If you joined those
fellows whom we passed going to the Balsam, you would soon be able to
catch more than you’d know what to do with.”
“I am not sufficiently anxious to catch them to be willing to endure
all the discomforts which those fellows are going to encounter,” says
Mr. Lanier. “Our mode of traveling is quite adventurous enough, I
think.”
“Quite,” says Aunt Markham.
Nobody else endorses this opinion, but those who utter it are too
well convinced of its soundness to need any endorsement. The rest of
us merely laugh. One does not feel inclined to argue with crystal
water swirling gently by, and boughs interlacing overhead, through the
greenness of which one catches glimpses of a sky blue as the heart of a
turquoise.
“‘Not Ariel lived more merrily
Under the blossoming bough than we,’”
says Sylvia. “Who wants to play a game of whist? This is one of those
periods in a journey when one does not care in the least about moving
on.”
Since John and Harrison are engaged in taking their dinner, and the
horses are still munching the oats which have been purchased at a
neighboring farm-house for them, this proposal is very well received;
and the cards are produced. Mrs. Cardigan and Eric play against Sylvia
and Mr. Lanier—the table being a convenient rock. Charley and I look
on and offer unasked advice to the players. Aunt Markham leans back
between the spreading roots of a large oak and takes a refreshing nap
against its trunk. There is a ford in the river not far from us, and a
countryman who drives his ox-cart into the water, and pauses for the
poor patient beasts to drink, looks amused at the scene before him.
We linger so long that Eric shakes his head when we finally start again.
“I don’t know where we shall spend the night,” he says. “This delay has
altogether upset my calculations.”
[Illustration: Aunt Markham’s Nap.]
“Serves you right for making such things!” says Charley. “It is a
mistake in a journey like ours. We should loiter as we like during the
day, and trust to luck for the night’s shelter.”
“I had rather trust to something more definite,” says Aunt Markham.
“Eric, where did you expect to spend the night?”
“I expected to spend it at Buck Forest,” answers Eric, “but we can’t
possibly reach there now.”
“It does not matter,” says Sylvia, cheerfully. “There are plenty of
houses along the road where we can stop and improve our knowledge of
the manners and customs of Arcadia.”
“That might be an agreeable prospect,” says Mrs. Cardigan, “if it was
not so entirely an Arcadian custom to fry a chicken in a pound of lard,
and to provide one with a feather-bed to sleep on.”
The serene brightness of afternoon is spread over the land, as we
travel on at a rapid pace—for the roads are smooth turnpikes along
which the horses trot gayly. Far and wide the varied prospect extends,
bathed in golden sunlight, flecked by deep shadows. It is nearly sunset
when we cross the French Broad once more—a much narrower stream now,
flowing swiftly under the bridge over which we pass. Then we have our
first glimpse of the magic beauty which will some day make Transylvania
famous! The valley of the river lies before us like a garden—a level
expanse of cultivated greenness, curving away to the right—where,
framing its broad fields and gently swelling hills, there stretches
along the entire western horizon a range of the most beautiful
mountains which we have seen—the most beautiful, I think, which can
be seen anywhere. Nothing can surpass the grace of their undulating
outlines, the marvelous purity of their tints. They stand, like the
very heights of heaven, against the evening sky—softly and ineffably
fair—with the pastoral landscape spread at their feet.
We cross the lovely valley with this view before our eyes. From the
great hills long shadows stretch; all manner of sweet, fresh odors are
on the dewy air; no sapphire is half so blue as the peaks behind which
the sun is setting with such majesty that a wonderful glow lights up
the entire sky; in the east, over the dark, wooded hills that bound the
prospect, some fleecy clouds are floating, which catch the splendor and
turn to tenderest rose upon the deep-blue ether.
“This _is_ Arcadia!” says Sylvia. “We have reached it at last! By many
ways, through many scenes have we come—but never before have we found
such a scene as this!”
“It is the fairest valley in the mountains!” says Eric, regarding it
with pride and admiration.
Even Aunt Markham is so much absorbed that she has forgotten to ask
where we are to spend the night, but the deepening shades of twilight
recall this question to her mind. She looks round apprehensively.
“I hope you don’t mean to travel after night, Eric,” she says. “In the
mountains it is _very_ dangerous, and the moon does not rise until
late.”
“I shall not travel after night if I can help it,” answers Eric,
touching up the horses. “I think I know a place about two miles from
here where we can stop. I don’t promise you excellent accommodation,
however.”
“Oh, never mind about that,” says Mrs. Cardigan. “We have learned not
to be fastidious.”
“But we should like, if possible, to be comfortable,” says Aunt
Markham, with an expression of anxiety.
So, on through the deepening dusk we drive—leaving the French Broad
Valley behind, but keeping in sight the graceful range of mountains
with the sunset pomp dying away beyond. O wild and beautiful country,
elevated so far above the rest of the world, and encircled by granite
barriers, if it were possible to write down all that makes your charm,
how soon fame would come to you!—but, then, perhaps fault-finding
tourists and inane pleasure-seekers might come too, so that your virgin
freshness would be brushed away, and the nymphs and dryads which now
seem to haunt the depths of your valleys and the far retreats of your
hills would vanish altogether.
Presently—when twilight has purpled and softened all the scene, when
the rosy clouds have become gray, filmy vapors, and only a golden
glow is left of the sunset pageant—we bowl down to another stretch of
lowland.
“Transylvania seems to be rich in rivers,” I remark. “Pray, what stream
is this?”
“Little River,” answers Eric, whose foot is now indeed on his native
heath, since he has fished in these waters and hunted over these hills
until both are thoroughly familiar to him. “And yonder is the house
where I hope we can stay all night.”
He points with his whip as he speaks, and we follow the gesture
with our glance. After some of our experiences in the matter of
wayside lodging, this which we behold appears very encouraging. It
is a comfortable farm-house, placed near the road, with rich fields
stretching back, and wooded heights rising near at hand.
“Leaving here,” remarks Eric, “the road turns abruptly around those
hills, and enters a gorge, hemmed by mountains on one side and the
river on the other.—If these people won’t take us in, you must decide,
mother, whether you had rather dare the dangers of the pass, or—camp
out.”
“I’ll wait to decide until they refuse to take us in,” says Aunt
Markham, philosophically.
They do not refuse. Hospitality—that great virtue which is always more
or less associated with a pastoral life—now, as ever, pleads in our
behalf. The woman of the house at first demurs:
“We are not prepared to accommodate travelers,” she says; “we are not
accustomed to takin’ them in.”
But, when Eric represents that if we are _not_ taken in our strait will
be desperate, she yields at once:
“You may come in, then,” she says, “and I’ll do my best to oblige you.”
After this, we cannot be ungrateful enough to find fault—even if fault
there was to find. When they have opened their doors, these mountain
people seem to open their hearts as well, and no one can travel
through the country without receiving much kindness and invariable
civility—unless his experience be widely different from ours.
The carriages are relieved of their multifarious luggage, the trunks
are taken into the house, we make a brief survey of the apartments
assigned to us, and then gather on the piazza in the cool, clear dusk,
while our hostess betakes herself to the kitchen, whence an ominous
fizzling sound soon proceeds.
“Oh, that frying-pan!” says Sylvia, with a groan. “I wish I could make
a bonfire of every one in existence!”
“You don’t know what cruel desolation you would inflict on a large
proportion of your fellow-creatures,” says Charley.
“I should enjoy inflicting it,” she says, vindictively. “Yonder are two
men coming in! I wonder if they are belated travelers? Why, Charley,
it’s—it’s Grimes and another one!”
At this lucid statement we all turn. “Grimes” and the “other one” have
entered the gate and are now approaching the piazza.
“If you come for lodging, you are too late,” Charley says, with a
laugh. “We have engaged all the apartments of this hotel.”
“By Jove, it’s Kenyon,” says one of the young men. Then they doff their
hats to the party. “We thought you were ever so far ahead of us,” the
speaker goes on. “How do you come to be here?”
“We idled so long at mid-day that we fell short of our place of
destination,” Eric answers. “I am sorry for the fact if you have come
for lodging.”
“For lodging!” they repeat. “We have come for some milk. Our tent is
pitched a little distance from here.”
“I’ll pilot you to the kitchen,” says Charley. “We haven’t engaged all
the milk.”
They return presently, laughing and talking—their tin bucket full of
the desired fluid—linger to exchange a few remarks, give us a cordial
invitation to visit their camp, and then take their departure.
“What delightful times they must have!” says Sylvia, watching them
enviously; “_what_ a thing it is to be a man!”
“Sometimes it is very much of a thing to be a woman,” observes Mr.
Lanier.
When supper is over, Sylvia, Charley, and Rupert announce their
intention of going to the camp, and Mrs. Cardigan, Mr. Lanier, Eric,
and I decide to accompany them. The walk is very pleasant. Starlight
is beautiful in all places—a vague, shadowy light which gives infinite
play to the imagination—but it is specially beautiful and marvelously
bright in this land of the sky. We stroll along the road, hearing the
soft rush of water in the semi-darkness, conscious of many different
floating odors, and with a dim outline of spreading valley and dark
hills around. Above, the magnificent arch of heaven is ablaze with
myriads of stars—jewel-like worlds throbbing in their strange, silent
glory through all the wide realm of space.
Before we reach our destination, we catch the ruddy gleam of a fire and
hear a sound of familiar music.
“By George, they’ve got a fiddle!” cries Rupert, enthusiastically.
He darts forward eagerly. We turn a sharp bend of the path, and the
camp is before us. What is more picturesque than such a scene? The
bright glow of the fire extends over a radius of several yards,
lighting up fantastically the tangled depths of foliage on a
neighboring hillside and the vine-draped face of a great rock. The tent
is pitched near—behind which an unseen stream murmurs over its stones.
The wagon stands at some distance. Over the foreground the party are
scattered in various attitudes, smoking like so many volcanoes. On a
large stone immediately in front of the fire sits the fiddler—a negro,
whose foot keeps time, and whose body sways with the music.
“I didn’t know that you carried a musician along with you, Grimes,”
says Charley, when we have been welcomed and introduced to the circle.
“Oh, that fellow does double duty,” answers Grimes. “He drives the
wagon all day and plays the fiddle all night—at least as much of the
night as we’ll allow him to play. He doesn’t make bad music, either, as
fiddlers go.”
[Illustration: The Fiddler.]
“He makes uncommonly good music,” says Sylvia, who evidently finds
difficulty in keeping her feet still. “What excellent time!” she goes
on, addressing Mrs. Cardigan. “Wouldn’t you like to dance?”
Before that lady can answer, two or three of the young men speak
eagerly.
“Why shouldn’t you dance if you would like it?” they inquire. “It’s
what _we_ have been pining for to such an extent that we have several
times danced with each other.”
“But where can we dance?” asks Mrs. Cardigan, glancing round.
“On the ground, like fairies,” says Eric.
“In the house we left a few minutes ago,” says Charley. “There’s quite
a large room there. We’ll take the fiddler and go back.”
So, accompanied by the fiddler and the majority of the party, we
return to the house. One or two of the gentlemen demur slightly on
the score of their appearance, but, having been assured by Sylvia
that their flannel hunting-shirts are very picturesque and altogether
appropriate to the occasion, they consent to enter the saloon, which is
magnificently lighted by two tallow candles placed on a mantelpiece so
high that a person of moderate stature would require a ladder to mount
to it.
[Illustration: The Reel.]
This is a trifle, however. On waxed floors and under blazing
chandeliers I have yet to see a tenth part of the merriment, the
absolute enjoyment, which makes this evening delightful. How gayly the
laughter rings, how bright the eyes, how light the steps!
“Oh, if in after-life we could but gather
The very refuse of our youthful hours!”
We dance several quadrilles, try a waltz or two, and close with an
old-fashioned reel. During this last the mirth grows fairly uproarious,
and, as Sylvia leads down the middle with Grimes, she turns her
flushed, sparkling face over her shoulder to say to Mrs. Cardigan:
“Isn’t this ever so much better than the Springs?”
“It is a most brilliant ball, especially in the matter of costumes,”
the widow laughs back.
The brilliant ball closes about midnight. Compassion for Tip the
fiddler, who assures us, however, that he is not tired, and for Aunt
Markham, whose sleeping-apartment adjoins the ballroom, together with a
recollection of our travel during the past day and early rising on the
morrow, join to make us dismiss our new acquaintances to their camp.
The moon has risen and is shining brightly when we go to the piazza to
see them off with many jests, farewell words, and good wishes.
This is not the last of them, however. An hour later we are roused from
sleep by voices under our window suddenly bursting into song.
“Those scamps!” says Sylvia. “They threatened me with a serenade, and I
said to them, ‘Don’t,’ but you see they have come.”
“One or two of them have good voices,” says Mrs. Cardigan. “Listen!
Really this is worth being waked for.”
We agree that it is. The silver moonlight streams, the dark foliage
sways gently, the merry voices rise in chorus. Song follows
song—serenades, woodland ballads, hunting-glees. Several of the voices
are excellent. It is a melodious tenor which presently sings that
exquisite serenade:
“I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me, who knows how,
To thy chamber-window, sweet.”
“If it is half as pleasant for them to sing as for us to listen, how
they must be enjoying themselves!” says Mrs. Cardigan. “What is that?
‘Good-by, Sweetheart, Good-by!’ They mean to close now.”
“I must throw them a flower when they finish,” says Sylvia, stealing to
the window.
The flower is thrown, “Good-nights” are uttered, then steps and voices
recede; the last we hear, some one is singing, as they tramp down the
road:
“’Tis but a little faded flower,
But, oh, how dear to me!
It brings me back one joyous hour—”
The words grow inaudible, the laughter dies away, our pleasant friends
of a day are gone!