HURRAH! FOR THE COUNTRY!
Hurrah! Hurrah! We are in the country--the glorious country! Outside
of the thronged streets; away from piled up bricks and mortar; outside
of the clank of machinery; the rumbling of carriages; the roar of the
escape pipe; the scream of the steam whistle; the tramp, tramp of
moving thousands on the stone sidewalks; away from the heated
atmosphere of the city, loaded with the smoke and dust, and gasses of
furnaces, and the ten thousand manufactories of villainous smells. We
are beyond even the meadows and green fields. We are here alone with
nature, surrounded by old primeval things. Tall forest trees, mountain
and valley are on the right hand and on the left. Before us,
stretching away for miles, is a beautiful lake, its waters calm and
placid, giving back the bright heavens, the old woods, the fleecy
clouds that drift across the sky, from away down in its quiet depths.
Beyond still, are mountain ranges, whose castellated peaks stand out
in sharp and bold relief, on whose tops the beams of the descending
sun lie like a mantle of silver and gold. Glad voices are ringing;
sounds of merriment make the evening joyous with the music of the wild
things around us. Hark! how from away off over the water, the voice of
the loon comes clear and musical and shrill, like the sound of a
clarion; and note how it is borne about by the echoes from hill to
hill. Hark! again, to that clanking sound away up in the air; metallic
ringing, like the tones of a bell. It is the call of the cock of the
woods as he flies, rising and falling, glancing upward and downward in
his billowy flight across the lake. Hark! to that dull sound, like
blows upon some soft, hollow, half sonorous substance, slow and
measured at first, but increasing in rapidity, until it rolls like the
beat of a muffled drum, or the low growl of the far-off thunder. It is
the partridge drumming upon his log Hark! still again, to that
quavering note, resembling somewhat the voice of the tree-frog when
the storm is gathering, but not so clear and shrill. It is the call of
the raccoon, as he clambers up some old forest tree, and seats himself
among the lowest of its great limbs. Listen to the almost human
halloo, the "hoo! hohoo, hoo!" that comes out from the clustering
foliage of an ancient hemlock. It is the solemn call of the owl, as he
sits among the limbs, looking out from between the branches with his
great round grey eyes. Listen again and you will hear the voice of the
catbird, the brown thrush, the chervink, the little chickadee, the
wood robin, the blue-jay, the wood sparrow, and a hundred other
nameless birds that live and build their nests and sing among these
old woods.
But go a little nearer the lake, and you will have a concert that will
drown all these voices in its tumultuous roar. Compared to these
feeble strains, it is the crashing of Julien's hundred brazen
instruments to the soft and sweet melody of Ole Bull's violin. Come
with me to this rocky promontory; stand with me on this moss-covered
boulder, which forms the point. On either hand is a little bay, the
head of which is hidden around among the woods. See! over against us,
on the limb of that dead fir tree, which leans out over the water, is
a bald eagle, straightening with his hooked beak the feathers of his
wings, and pausing now and then to look out over the water for some
careless duck of which to make prey. See! he has leaped from his
perch, has spread his broad pinions, and is soaring upward towards the
sky. See! how he circles round and round, mounting higher and higher
at every gyration. He is like a speck in the air. But see! he is above
the mountains now, and how like an arrow he goes, straight forward,
with no visible motion to his wings. He has laid his course for some
lake, deeper in the wilderness, beyond that range of hills, and he is
there, even while we are talking of his flight. A swift bird, the
swiftest of all the birds, is the eagle, when he takes his descending
stoop from his place away up in the sky. He cleaves the air like a
bullet, and so swift is his career that the eye can scarcely trace his
flight. But, hark! all is still now, save the piping notes of the
little peeper along the shore. Wait, however, a moment. There, hear
that venerable podunker off to the right, with his deep bass, like the
sound of a brazen serpent. Listen! another deep voice on the left has
fallen in. There, another right over against us! another and another
still! a dozen! a hundred! a thousand! ten thousand! a million of
them! close by us! far off! on the right hand and on the left! here!
there! everywhere! until above, around us, all through the woods, all
along the shore, all over the lake is a solid roar, impenetrable to
any other sound, surging and swaying, rolling and swelling as if all
the voices in the world were concentrated in one stupendous concert.
But, hark! the roar is dying away; voice after voice drops out; here
and there is one laggard in the song, still dragging out the chorus.
Now all is still again, save the note of the little peeper along the
shore. In two minutes that band will strike up again. The roar will go
bellowing over the lake through the woods, to be thrown from hill to
hill, to die away into silence again; and so it will be through all
the long night, and until the sun looks out from among the tree tops
in the morning. Touch that solemn looking old croaker on yonder broad
leaf of that pond lily, with the end of your fishing rod, while the
music is at the highest, he will send forth a quick discordant and
cracked cry, like that of a greedy dog choked with a bone, as he
plunges for the bottom; and note how suddenly that sound will be
repeated, and how quick the roar of the frogs will be hushed into
silence. That is a cry of alarm, a note of danger, and every frog
within hearing understands its import.
Is it asked _where_ we are? I answer, we are on the Lower Saranac
Lake, just on the south point, at the entrance of the romantic little
bay, at the head of which stands Martin's Lake House, the only human
dwelling in sight of this beautiful sheet of water. On the point where
we now are, long ago, was the log shanty of a hunter and fisherman,
surrounded by an acre or two of cleared land. But its occupant moved
deeper into the wilderness, over on the waters of the Rackett, many
years since; the log shanty has rotted away, and a vigorous growth of
brush and small timber, now covers what once may have been called
a field.
But the night shadows are beginning to gather over the forest,
throwing a sort of spectral gloom among the old woods, giving a
distorted look to the trunks of the trees, the low bushes, the turned
up roots, and the boulders scattered over the ground. See what ogre
shapes these things assume as the darkness deepens. Look at that cedar
bush, with its dense foliage! It is a crouching lion, and as its
branches wave in the gentle breeze, he seems preparing for his leap;
and yonder boulder is a huge elephant! The root that comes out from
the crevice is his trunk, and the moss and lichens which hang down on
either side are his pendant ears; and see, he has a great tower on his
back, wherein is seated a warrior in his ancient armor, grasping
battle-axe and spear. Beyond, through that opening upon the bay, is a
castle looming darkly against the sky, with massive towers and
arched gateway. Such are the forms which fancy gives to these forest
things, in the doubtful twilight of a summer evening. While we have
been looking upon these unsubstantial shadows, the sunlight has left
the mountain peaks, the stars have come out in the sky, and the moon
has started on her course across the heavens.
Let us rest on our oars a moment, here in the bay, to view the scenery
around us, as seen by the mellow moonlight. So calm, so still, so
motionless are both air and water, that we seem suspended between the
sky above, sparkling and glowing with millions of bright stars, and
the moon riding gloriously on her course, and a sky beneath, sparkling
and glowing with like millions of bright stars, and the same moon, or
its counterpart, floating away down in fathomless depths below us.
See, how the same hillside, the same line of forest trees, the same
ranges and mountain peaks are reflected back from the stirless bosom
of the lake. There, above, and just on the upper line of that tall
peak, looming darkly and majestically in the distance, hangs a
brilliant star, sparkling and twinkling, like the sheen of a diamond;
and right beneath, away down just as far below the surface of the
water as mountain peak and star are above it, is another mountain peak
and bright star, twinned by the mirrored waters. See, away down the
lake, that little island with its half dozen spruce trees, clustered
together! How like a great war vessel it looks, with sails all set, as
seen by the uncertain light of the moon. And that other island, off to
the left, with the dead and barkless trees, how like a tall ship with
bare masts riding at anchor it seems. That other island, away to the
right, with its great boulders and bare rocks rising straight up out
of the water, is a fortification, a stronghold surrounded by a wall of
solid masonry, and bristling with cannon. We can almost see the
sentinel, and hear his measured tramp as he travels his lonely rounds,
keeping watch out over the waters. See all along the shore, as you
look up the bay towards the Lake House, how the millions of fireflies
flash their tiny torches, upward and downward, this way and that,
mingling and crossing, and gyrating and whirling--a troubled and
billowy sea of millions upon millions of glowing and sparkling gems.
Reader, were you and I gifted with the spirit of poetry, what
inspiration would we not gather from the glories which surround us, as
we float of a summer evening over these beautiful lakes, sleeping away
out here, in all their virgin loveliness, among these old primeval
things? But you ask, "what inspiration can there be in a moon and
stars, that we see every night, when the sky is cloudless; in a
desolate wilderness; the roar of the frogs; the hooting of owls; these
useless waters; the phosphorescent flash of lightning bugs; these
piled up rocks and barren mountains? Can you grow corn on these hills,
or make pastures of these rocky lowlands? Can you harness these rivers
to great waterwheels, or make reservoirs of these lakes? Can you
convert these old forests into lumber or cordwood? Can you quarry
these rocks, lay them up with mortar into houses, mills, churches,
public edifices? Can you make what you call these 'old primeval
things' utilitarian? Can you make them minister to the progress of
civilization, or coin them into dollars?"
Pshaw! You have spoiled, with your worldliness, your greed for
progress, your thirst for gain, a pleasant fancy, a glorious dream, as
if everything in the heavens, on the earth, or in the waters, were to
be measured by the dollar and cent standard, and unless reducible to a
representative of moneyed value, to be thrown, as utterly worthless,
away. Let us row back to the Lake House.