A DAY ON THE LAKE.—PART II.
Peter’s horrid pipes knocked all the romance out of me. It took all the
talk of dear old Minister (whose conversation was often like poetry
without rhyme), till I was of age, to instil it into me. If it hadn’t
been for him I should have been a mere practical man, exactly like our
Connecticut folks, who have as much sentiment in them in a general way
as an onion has of otter of roses. It’s lucky when it don’t predominate
though, for when it does, it spoils the relish for the real business of
life.
Mother, when I was a boy, used to coax me up so everlastingly with
loaf-cake, I declare I got such a sweet tooth, I could hardly eat plain
bread made of flour and corn meal, although it was the wholesomest of
the two. When I used to tell Minister this sometimes, as he was flying
off the handle, like when we travelled through New York State to
Niagara, at the scenery of the Hudson; or Lake George, or that
everlastin’ water-fall, he’d say—
“Sam, you are as correct as a problem in Euclid, but as cold and dry.
Business and romance are like oil and water that I use for a
night-lamp, with a little cork dipsey. They oughtn’t to be mixed, but
each to be separate, or they spoil each other. The tumbler should be
nearly full of water, then pour a little oil on the top, and put in
your tiny wick and floater, and ignite it. The water goes to the
bottom—that’s business you see, solid and heavy. The oil and its burner
lies on the top—and that’s romance. It’s a living flame, not enough to
illuminate the room, but to cheer you through the night, and if you
want more, it will light stronger ones for you. People have a wrong
idea of romance, Sam. Properly understood, it’s a right keen, lively
appreciation of the works of nature, and its beauty, wonders, and
sublimity. From thence we learn to fear, to serve, and to adore Him
that made them and us. Now, Sam, you understand all the wheels, and
pullies, and balances of your wooden clocks; but you don’t think
anything more of them, than it’s a grand speculation for you, because
they cost you a mere nothing, seeing they are made out of that which is
as cheap as dirt here, and because you make a great profit out of them
among the benighted colonists, who know little themselves, and are
governed by English officials who know still less. Well, that’s
nateral, for it is a business view of things.1 Now sposen you lived in
the Far West woods, away from great cities, and never saw a watch or a
wooden clock before, and fust sot your eyes on one of them that was as
true as the sun, wouldn’t you break out into enthusiasm about it, and
then extol to the skies the skill and knowledge of the Yankee man that
invented and made it? To be sure you would. Wouldn’t it carry you off
into contemplatin’ of the planet whose daily course and speed it
measures so exact? Wouldn’t you go on from that point, and ask yourself
what must be the wisdom and power of Him who made innumerable worlds,
and caused them to form part of a great, grand, magnificent, and
harmonious system, and fly off the handle, as you call it, in
admiration and awe? To be sure you would. And if anybody said you was
full of romance who heard you, wouldn’t you have pitied his ignorance,
and said there are other enjoyments we are capable of besides corporeal
ones? Wouldn’t you be a wiser and a better man? Don’t you go now for to
run down romance, Sam; if you do, I shall think you don’t know there is
a divinity within you,” and so he would preach on for an hour, till I
thought it was time for him to say Amen and give the dismissal
benediction.
1 It is manifest Mr Hopewell must have had Paley’s illustration in his
mind.
Well, that’s the way I came by it, I was inoculated for it, but I was
always a hard subject to inoculate. Vaccination was tried on me over
and over again by the doctor before I took it, but at last it came and
got into the system. So it was with him and his romance, it was only
the continual dropping that wore the stone at last, for I didn’t listen
as I had ought to have done. If he had a showed me where I could have
made a dollar, he would have found me wide awake, I know, for I set out
in life with a determination to go ahead, and I have; and now I am well
to do, but still I wish I had a minded more what he did say, for, poor
old soul, he is dead now. _An opportunity lost, is like missing a
passage, another chance may never offer to make the voyage worth while.
The first wind may carry you to the end. A good start often wins the
race. To miss your chance of a shot, is to lose the bird._
How true these “saws” of his are; but I don’t recollect half of them, I
am ashamed to say. Yes, it took me a long time to get romance in my
sails, and Peter shook it out of them by one shiver in the wind. So we
went to work. The moose was left on the shore, for the doctor said he
had another destination for him than the water-fall. Betty, Jackson,
and Peter, were embarked with their baskets and utensils in the boats,
and directed to prepare our dinner.
As soon as they were fairly off, we strolled leisurely back to the
house, which I had hardly time to examine before. It was an irregular
building made of hewn logs, and appeared to have been enlarged, from
time to time, as more accommodation had been required. There was
neither uniformity nor design in it, and it might rather be called a
small cluster of little tenements than a house. Two of these structures
alone seemed to correspond in appearance and size. They protruded in
front, from each end of the main building, forming with it three sides
of a square. One of these was appropriated to the purposes of a museum,
and the other used as a workshop. The former contained an exceedingly
interesting collection.
“This room,” he said, “I cannot intrust to Jackson, who would soon
throw everything into confusion by grouping instead of classifying
things. This country is full of most valuable minerals, and the people
know as much about them as a pudding does of the plums contained in it.
Observe this shelf, Sir, there are specimens of seven different kinds
of copper on it; and on this one, fragments of four kinds of lead. In
the argentiferous galena is a very considerable proportion of silver.
Here is a piece of a mineral called molybdena of singular beauty, I
found it at Gaberous Bay, in Cape Breton. The iron ores you see are of
great variety. The coal-fields of this colony are immense in extent,
and incalculable in value. All this case is filled with their several
varieties. These precious stones are from the Bay of Fundy. Among them
are amethyst, and other varieties of crystal, of quartz, henlandite,
stibite, analcine, chabasie, albite, nesotype, silicious sinter, and so
on. Pray do me the favour to accept this amethyst. I have several
others of equal size and beauty, and it is of no use to me.”
He also presented Cutler with a splendid piece of nesotype or needle
stone, which he begged him to keep as a memento of the “Bachelor
Beaver’s-dam.”
“Three things, Mr Slick,” he continued, “are necessary to the
development of the mineral wealth of this province—skill, capital, and
population; and depend upon it the day is not far distant, when this
magnificent colony will support the largest population, for its area,
in America.”
I am not a mineralogist myself, Squire, and much of what he said was
heathen Greek to me, but some general things I could understand, and
remember such as that there are (to say nothing of smaller ones) four
immense independent coal-fields in the eastern section of Nova Scotia;
namely, at Picton, Pomquet, Cumberland, and Londonderry; the first of
which covers an area of one hundred square miles: and that there are
also at Cape Breton two other enormous fields of the same mineral, one
covering one hundred and twenty square miles, and presenting at Lingan
a vein eleven feet thick. Such facts I could comprehend, and I was
sorry when I heard the bugle announcing that the boat had returned for
us.
“Jessie,” said the doctor, “here is a little case containing a
curiously fashioned and exquisitely worked ring, and a large gold cross
and chain, that I found while searching among the ruins of the nunnery
at Louisburg. I have no doubt they belonged to the superior of the
convent. These baubles answered her purpose by withdrawing the eyes of
the profane from her care-worn and cold features; they will serve mine
also, by showing how little you require the aid of art to adorn a
person nature has made so lovely.”
“Hallo!” sais I to myself, “well done, Doctor, if that don’t beat
cock-fighting, then there ain’t no snakes in Varginny, I vow. Oh! you
ain’t so soft as you look to be after all; you may be a child of
nature, but that has its own secrets, and if you hain’t found out its
mysteries, it’s a pity.”
“They have neither suffered,” he continued, “from the corrosion of time
nor the asceticism of a devotee, who vainly thought she was serving God
by voluntarily withdrawing from a world into which he himself had sent
her, and by foregoing duties which he had expressly ordained she should
fulfil. Don’t start at the sight of the cross; it is the emblem of
Christianity, and not of a sect, who claim it exclusively, as if He who
suffered on it died for them only. This one has hitherto been used in
the negation of all human affections, may it shed a blessing on the
exercise of yours.”
I could hardly believe my ears; I didn’t expect this of him. I knew he
was romantic, and all that; but I did not think there was such a depth
and strength of feeling in him.
“I wish,” I said, “Jehu Judd could a heard you, Doctor, he would have
seen the difference between the clear grit of the genuine thing and a
counterfeit, that might have made him open his eyes and wink.”
“Oh! Slick,” said he, “come now, that’s a good fellow, don’t make me
laugh, or I shall upset these glass cases;” and before Jessie could
either accept or decline this act of gallantry, he managed to lead the
way to the lake. The girls and I embarked in the canoe, and the rest of
the party in the boat, but before I stepped into the bark, I hid the
pipes of Peter behind the body of the moose, very much to the amusement
of Jessie and the doctor, who both seemed to agree with me in giving a
preference to the bugle.
I never saw so lovely a spot in this country as the one we had chosen
for our repast, but it was not my intention to land until the
preparations for our meal were all fully completed; so as soon as Jane
leaped ashore, I took her place and asked Jessie to take another look
at the lake with me. Desiring Jackson to recall us with his bugle when
required, we coasted up the west side of the lake for about half a
mile, to a place where I had observed two enormous birches bend over
the water, into which they were ultimately doomed to fall, as the
current had washed away the land where they stood, so as to leave them
only a temporary resting-place. Into this arched and quiet retreat we
impelled our canoe, and paused for awhile to enjoy its cool and
refreshing shade.
“Jessie,” said I, “this time to-morrow I shall be on the sea again.”
“So soon?” she replied.
“Yes, dear; business calls us away, and life is not all like a day on
the lake.”
“No, no,” she said, “not to me; it is the only really happy one I have
spent since I left my country. You have all been so kind to me; you,
the captain, and the doctor, all of you, you have made no difference,
you have treated me as if I was one of you, as if I was born a lady.”
“Hasn’t the doctor always been kind to you?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” she replied, “always very kind, but there is nobody here
like him.”
“He loves you very much.”
“Yes,” she said, in the most unembarrassed and natural manner possible,
“he told me so himself.”
“And can’t you return his love?”
“I do love him as I do my father, brother, or sister.”
“Couldn’t you add the word husband?”
“Never, never,” she said, “Mr Slick. He thinks he loves me now, but he
may not think so always. He don’t see the red blood now, he don’t think
of my Indian mother; when he comes nearer perhaps he will see plainer.
No, no, half-cast and outcast, I belong to no race. Shall I go back to
my tribe and give up my father and his people? they will not receive
me, and I must fall asleep with my mother. Shall I stay here and cling
to him and his race, that race that scorns the half-savage? never!
never! when he dies I shall die too. I shall have no home then but the
home of the spirits of the dead.”
“Don’t talk that way, Jessie,” I said, “you make yourself wretched,
because you don’t see things as they are. It’s your own fault if you
are not happy. You say you have enjoyed this day.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “no day like this; it never came before, it don’t
return again. It dies to-night, but will never be forgotten.”
“Why not live where you are? Why not have your home here by this lake,
and this mountain? His tastes are like yours, and yours like his; you
can live two lives here,—the forest of the red man around you—the roof
of the white one above you. To unite both is true enjoyment; there is
no eye to stare here, no pride to exclude, no tongue to offend. You
need not seek the society of others, let them solicit yours, and the
doctor will make them respect it.”
It was a subject on which her mind appeared to have been made up. She
seemed like a woman that has lost a child, who hears your advice, and
feels there is some truth in it, but the consolation reaches not her
heart.
“It can’t be,” she said, with a melancholy smile, as if she was
resigning something that was dear to her, “God or nature forbids it. If
there is one God for both Indian and white man, he forbids it. If there
are two great spirits, one for each, as my mother told me, then both
forbid it. The great spirit of the pale faces,” she continued, “is a
wicked one, and the white man is wicked. Wherever he goes, he brings
death and destruction. The woods recede before him—the wild fowl leave
the shores—the fish desert their streams—the red man disappears. He
calls his deer and his beaver, and his game (for they are all his, and
were given to him for food and for clothing), and travels far, far
away, and leaves the graves and the bones of his people behind him. But
the white man pursues him, day and night, with his gun, and his axe,
and fire-water; and what he spares with the rifle, rum, despair, and
starvation destroy. See,” she said, and she plucked a withered red cone
from a shumack that wept over the water, “see _that_ is dyed with the
blood of the red man.”
“That is prejudice,” I said.
“No, it is the truth,” she replied. “I know it. My people have removed
twice, if not three times, and the next move will be to the sea or the
grave.”
“It is the effect of civilization, and arts, and the power of sciences
and learning, over untutored nature,” I said.
“If learning makes men wicked, it is a bad thing,” she observed; “for
the devil instructs men how to destroy. But rum ain’t learning, it is
poison; nor is sin civilization, nor are diseases blessings, nor
madness reason.”
“That don’t alter things,” I said, “if it is all true that you say, and
there is too much reality in it, I fear; but the pale faces are not all
bad, nor the red all good. It don’t apply to your case.”
“No,” she said, “nature forbids the two races to mingle. That that is
wild, continues wild; and the tame remains tame. The dog watches his
sleeping master; and the wolf devours him. The wild-duck scorns
confinement; and the partridge dies if compelled to dwell with domestic
fowls. Look at those birds,” she said, as she threw a chip among a
flock of geese that were floating down the lake, “if the beautiful
Indian wild bird consorts with one of them, the progeny die out. They
are mongrels, they have not the grace, the shape, or the courage of
either. Their doom is fixed. They soon disappear from the face of the
earth and the waters. They are despised by both breeds;” and she shook
her head, as if she scorned and loathed herself, and burst into a
passionate flood of tears.
“Jessie,” said I, and I paused a moment, for I wanted to give her a
homoeopathic dose of common sense—and those little wee doses work like
charms, that’s a fact. “Jessie,” says I, and I smiled, for I wanted her
to shake off those voluntary trammels. “Jessie, the doctor ain’t quite
quite tame, and you ain’t quite wild. You are both six of one, and
half-a-dozen of the other, and just about as like as two peas.”
Well it’s astonishing what that little sentence did. _An ounce of
essence is worth a gallon of fluid. A wise saw is more valuable than a
whole book, and a plain truth is better than an argument._ She had no
answer for that. She had been reasoning, without knowing it, as if in
fact she had been in reality an Indian. She had imbibed in childhood
the feelings of her mother, who had taken the first step and repented
it—of one who had deserted, but had not been adopted—who became an
exile and remained an alien—who had bartered her birthright for
degradation and death. It is natural that regret for the past and
despair for the future should have been the burden of the mournful
ditties of such a woman; that she who had mated without love, and lived
without affection, the slave, the drudge, but not the wife or companion
of her master, should die with imprecations on her lips for a race who
were the natural foes of her people, and who had reduced her to be an
object of scorn and contempt to both. It is no wonder therefore poor
Jessie had a repugnance to the union, when she remembered her mother,
and the sad lesson her unhappy life and fearful death contained. It was
a feeling difficult to overcome.
“Jessie,” sais I, “nature, instead of forbiddin’ it, approves of it;
for like takes to like. I don’t say it to please you, but you are as
good as he is, or any white man in the world. Your forefathers on your
mother’s side are a brave, manly, intelligent race; they are free men,
and have never been subdued or enslaved by any one: and if they have
degenerated at all, it is because they have contracted, as you say,
vices from the white man. You have reason to be proud of being
descended from a race of warriors. On the other hand, your father is a
Highlander, and they too have always been free, because they were
brave; they are the noblest fellows in Europe. As for the English,
there are none now, except in Wales, and they are called Taffies—which
means _lunatics,_ for they are awful proud, and their mountains are so
high, every fellow says his ancestors were descended from the man in
the _moon._ But the present race are a mixture of Taffies, French,
Danes, Saxons, Scotch, and the Lord knows who all, and to my mind are
all the better of it.”
“But the colour,” said she.
“As to colour!” said I, “nations differ in every shade, from black up
to chalk white. The Portuguese, Italians, and Turks are darker than the
Indian if anything; Spaniards and Greeks about the same.”
“And do they intermarry?”
“I guess they do,” said I; “the difference of language only stops
them,—for it’s hard to make love when you can’t understand each
other,—but colour never.”
“Is that now really true?” she said; “for I am ignorant of the world.”
“True as preachin’,” said I, “and as plain as poverty.”
She paused awhile, and said slowly:
“Well, I suppose if all the world says and does differently, I must be
wrong, for I am unacquainted with everything but my own feelings; and
my mother taught me this, and bade me never to trust a white man. I am
glad I was wrong, for if I feel I am right, I am sure I shall be
happy.”
“Well,” sais I, “I am sure you will be so, and this is just the place,
above all others in the world, that will suit you, and make you so.
Now,” sais I, “Jessie, I will tell you a story;” and I told her the
whole tale of Pocahontas; how she saved Captain Smith’s life in the
early settlement of Virginia, and afterwards married Mr Rolfe, and
visited the court of England, where all the nobles sought her society.
And then I gave her all the particulars of her life, illness, and
death, and informed her that her son, who stood in the same
relationship to the whites as she did, became a wealthy planter in
Virginia, and that one of his descendants, lately deceased, was one of
the most eloquent as well as one of the most distinguished men in the
United States. It interested her uncommonly, and I have no doubt
greatly contributed to confirm her in the decision she had come to. I
will not trouble you, Squire, with the story, for it is so romantic, I
believe everybody has heard of it. I promised to give her a book
containing all the details.
The bugle now sounded our recall, and in a few minutes we were seated
on the grass, and enjoying our meal with an appetite that exercise,
excitement, and forest air never fail to give. Songs, trout-fishing,
and stories agreeably occupied the afternoon; and when the sun began to
cast long shadows from the mountain, we reëmbarked with our traps, and
landed at the cove near the clump of trees where we started in the
morning. While preparations were making for tea in the house, I lit my
cigar to take a stroll with Cutler, and talk over our arrangements for
an early start in the morrow, and proceeding immediately to sea. In the
mean time, I briefly stated to the doctor that he would now find no
further obstacle to his wishes, and counselled him to lose no time,
while the impression was favourable, to bring his long-pending
negotiation to a conclusion.
“Slick,” said he, laughing, “your government ought to have prevailed
upon you to remain in the diplomatic service. You are such a capital
negotiator.”
“Well,” said I, “I believe I would have succeeded in that line; but do
you know how?”
“By a plentiful use of soft sawder,” said he.
“No, Doctor, I knew you would say that; and it ain’t to be despised
neither, I can tell you. No, it’s because you go coolly to work, for
you are negotiatin’ for another. If you don’t succeed, it’s the fault
of the mission, of course, and defeat won’t break your heart; if you do
carry your point, why, in the natur of things, it is all your own
skill. I have done famously for you; but I made a bungling piece of
business for myself, I assure you. What my brother, the lawyer, used to
say is very true: ‘A man who pleads his own cause has a fool for his
client.’ You can’t praise yourself unless it’s a bit of brag, and that
I can do as well as any one, I do suppose; but you can’t lay the
whitewash on handily no more than you can brush the back of your own
coat when it is on. Cutler and I will take a stroll, and do you invite
Jessie out, to see the moon on the lake.”
In about an hour, Peter, who had found his pipes to his infinite
delight, intimated supper was ready; and the dispersed groups returned,
and sat down to a meal which, in addition to the tea and coffee and its
usual accompaniments at country-houses, had some substantial viands for
those, like myself, who had done more talking than eating at dinner. In
a short time, the girls retired for the night, and we arranged for a
peep of day return.
“Mr Slick,” said the doctor, “I have ordered the boy to take the moose
down to the village as my share of the sea-stores. Will you give me
leave to go a part of the cruise with you?”
“With great pleasure,” said I; “it’s just what I was going to ask the
favour of you to do. It’s the very identical thing.”
“Come, Peter,” said he, “I will show you where to turn in;” and
returning, in a few minutes, with Jackson, desired him to attend the
captain.
When we were alone, he said:
“Come this way, Mr Slick. Put your hat on—I want you to take a turn
with me.”
And leading me down to the verge of the woods, where I saw a light, we
entered a large bark wigwam, where he said he often slept during the
hot weather.
It was not made in the usual conical form, but resembled a square tent,
which among Indians generally indicates there is a large family, and
that they propose to occupy the same spot for some time. In fact, it
was half wigwam, half summer-house, resembling the former in
appearance, construction, and material; but was floored on account of
the damp ground, and contained a small table, two chairs, and a couple
of rustic seats large enough to sleep upon, which, on the present
occasion, had hunters’ beds on them. The tent, or more properly camp,
as it is generally called here, was so contrived as to admit of the
door being shifted according to the wind. On the present occasion, the
opening was towards the lake, on which the moon was casting its silver
light.
Here we sat till a late hour, discoursing, over our cigars, on a
variety of subjects, the first and last of which topic was Jessie, who
had, it appeared, at last accepted the Bachelor Beaver. Altogether, it
was a charming visit; and left a most agreeable recollection of the
enjoyment that is to be found in “_a day and a night in the woods_.”