There is instead a rather childish, but amusing, game of salt-water
grab-bag. You let down a heavy lump of lead and two big hooks baited
with clams into thirty, forty, or sixty feet of water. Then you wait
until something nudges the line. Then you give the line a quick jerk,
and pull in, hand over hand, and see what you have drawn from the
grab-bag. It may be a silly, but nutritious cod, gaping in surprise at
this curious termination of his involuntary rise in the world; or a
silvery haddock, staring at you with round, reproachful eyes; or a
pollock, handsome but worthless; or a shiny, writhing dog-fish, whose
villainy is written in every line of his degenerate, chinless face. It
may be that spiny gargoyle of the sea, a sculpin; or a soft and stupid
bake from the mud-flats. It may be any one of the grotesque products of
Neptune's vegetable garden, a sea-cucumber, a sea-carrot, or a
sea-cabbage. Or it may be nothing at all. When you have made your grab,
and deposited the result, if it be edible, in the barrel which stands
in the middle of the boat, you try another grab, and that's the whole
story.
It is astonishing how much amusement apparently sane men can get out of
such a simple game as this. The interest lies, first, in the united
effort to fill the barrel, and second, in the rivalry among the
fishermen as to which of them shall take in the largest cod or the
greatest number of haddock, these being regarded as prize packages. The
sculpin and the sea vegetables may be compared to comic valentines,
which expose the recipient to ridicule. The dog-fish are like tax
notices and assessments; the man who gets one of them gets less than
nothing, for they count against the catcher. It is quite as much a game
of chance as politics or poker. You do not know on which side of the
boat the good fish are hidden. You cannot tell the difference between
the nibble of a cod and the bite of a dog-fish. You have no idea what
is coming to you, until you have hauled in almost all of your line and
caught sight of your allotment wriggling and whirling in the blue
water. Sometimes you get twins.
The barrel is nearly full. Let us stop fishing and drifting. Hoist the
jib, and trim in the main-sheet. The boat ceases to rock lazily on the
tide. The life of the wind enters into her, and she begins to step over
the waves and to cut through them, sending bright showers of spray from
her bow, and leaving a swirling, bubbling, foaming wake astern. Were
there ever waters so blue, or woods so green, or rocky shores so boldly
and variously cut, or mountains so clear in outline and so jewel-like
in shifting colors, as these of Mount Desert? Was there ever an air
which held a stronger, sweeter cordial, fragrant with blended odours of
the forest and the sea, soothing, exhilarating, and life-renewing?
Here is the place to see it all, and to drain the full cup of delight;
not a standpoint, but a sailing-line just beyond Baker's Island: a
voyager's field of vision, shifting, changing, unfolding, as new bays
and islands come into view, and new peaks arise, and new valleys open
in the line of emerald and amethyst and carnelian and tourmaline hills.
You can count all the summits: Newport, and Green, and Pemetic, and
Sargent, and Brown, and Dog, and Western. The lesser hills, the
Bubbles, Bald Mountain, Flying Mountain, and the rest, detach
themselves one after another and stand out from their background of
green and gray. How rosy the cliffs of Otter and Seal Harbor glow in
the sunlight! How magically the great white flower of foam expands and
closes on the sapphire water as the long waves, one by one, pass over
the top of the big rock between us and Islesford! This is a bird's-eye
view: not a high-flying bird, circling away up in the sky, or perched
upon some lofty crag, as Tennyson describes the eagle:--
"Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world he stands;
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,
He watches from his mountain-walls;"
but a to-and-fro-travelling bird, keeping close to sea and shore. It is
a gull's-eye view--just as the flocks of herring gulls see it every
day, passing back and forth from their seaward nesting-place to their
favourite feeding-ground at Bar Harbor. There they go now, flapping
southward with the breeze. We will go with them to their island home,
and eat our dinner while they are digesting theirs.
Great and Little Duck Islands lie about ten miles off shore from Seal
Harbor. Their name suggests that they were once the haunt of various
kinds of sea-fowl. But the ducks have been almost, if not quite,
exterminated; and the herring gulls would probably have gone the same
way, but for the exertions of the Audubon Society, which have resulted
in the reservation of the islands as a breeding-ground under
governmental protection. It has taken a long time to awaken the
American people to the fact that the wild and beautiful creatures of
earth and air and sea are a precious part of the common inheritance,
and that their needless and heedless destruction, by pot-hunters or
plume-hunters or silly shooters who are not happy unless they are
destroying something, is a crime against the commonwealth which must be
punished or prevented. The people are not yet wide awake, but they are
beginning to get their eyes open; and the State of Maine, which was
once the Butchers' Happy Hunting Ground, is now a leader in the
enactment and enforcement of good game laws.
There is only one place on the shore of Great Duck where you can land
comfortably when the wind has any northing in it, and that is a little
cove among the rocks, below a fisherman's shanty, on the lower end of
the island. Here there are a few cleared acres; some low stone walls
dividing abandoned fields; the cellar of a vanished house, and a ruined
fireplace and chimney; a little enclosure, overgrown with bushes and
weeds, marking a lonely, forgotten burial-ground.
There are few gulls to be seen at this end of the island; it is a
tranquil, forsaken place where we can sit beside our fire of driftwood
and eat our broiled fish and bread, and smoke an after-dinner pipe of
peace. A grassy foot-path leads down the fields, and across a
salt-meadow, and along a high sea-wall of rocks and pebbles cast up by
the storms, and so by a rude wood-road through a forest of spruce-trees
to the higher part of the island. It rises perhaps a hundred feet or
more above the sea, with a steep shore built of huge sloping ledges of
flat rock. On the seaward point is the light-house, with the three
dwelling-houses of the keepers, all precisely alike, immaculately neat
and trim, surrounded by a long picket fence, and presenting a front of
indomitable human order and discipline to the tumultuous and unruly
ocean, which heaves away untamed and unbroken to the shores of Spain
and Brittany.
The chief keeper of the light, Captain Stanley, who has been with it
since it was first kindled twenty years ago, is also the warden of the
sea-gulls. All around us, in the air, on the green slopes of the
island, on the broad gray granite ledges, on the dancing blue waves,
his feathered flocks are scattered, and their innumerable laughter and
shrill screaming confuse the ear. The spruce-trees on the top of the
island and the eastward slopes are almost all dead; their fallen trunks
and branches and up-turned roots cover the little hillocks and hollows
in all directions. The gulls' nests are hidden away among this gray
_débris_, or in crevices among the rocks, sheltered as much as possible
from the wind and the rain.
They are not very wonderful from an architectural point of view, being
nothing more than rough little circles of dried twigs and grass matted
together, with perhaps a bit of seaweed or moss for padding in the case
of a parent with luxurious tastes. Three eggs in a nest is the rule,
and all that the average mother-gulls wants is a place where she can
hold them together and keep them warm until they are hatched. The young
birds are præcocial; they emerge from the shell with a full suit of
downy feathers, and are able to walk after a fashion, and to swim
pretty well, almost from the day of their second and completed birth.
The young of altricial birds, like orioles, and bluebirds, and
thrushes, being born naked and helpless, have a reason for loving their
nest-homes, so carefully and delicately built to shelter their nude
infancy. But the young gull cares not for "a local habitation and a
name." All that he wants of home is a father and mother, nimble and
assiduous in bringing food to him while he flops around, practising his
legs and his wings.
It is August now, and the eggs are gone, shells and all. Almost all of
the young gulls are accomplished swimmers and fair fliers by this time,
and I suppose the majority of the brood can go with their parents to
the nearer harbours and along the island shores to forage for
themselves. But there are a few backward or lazy children--perhaps a
hundred--still hanging around the places where they chipped the egg,
hiding among the roots of the trees or crouching beside the rocks. What
quaint, ungainly creatures they are! Big-headed, awkward, dusky, like
gnomes or goblins, they hop and scuffle away as you come near them,
stumbling over the tangled dead branches and the tussocks of grass,
with outspread wings and clumsy motions. Follow one a little while and
he will take refuge in a hole under a fallen tree, or between two big
stones, squatting there without much apparent fright while you pat his
back or gently scratch his head. But you must be careful not to follow
the youngsters who are near the edge of the sea when there is a surf
running, for if you alarm them they will plunge into the water and be
bruised and wounded, perhaps killed, by the breakers throwing them
against the rocks.
Wild animals, like polecats and minks, who would be likely to prey upon
the young birds, are not allowed to reside on the island; and it is too
far to swim from the mainland. But I wonder why large hawks and other
birds of prey do not resort to this place as a marine restaurant.
Perhaps a young gull is too big, or too tough, or too high-flavoured a
dish for them. Possibly the old gulls know how to fight for their
offspring. I suppose that enough of the adult birds are always on hand
for defence, although during a good part of the day the majority of the
flock are away at the feeding-grounds.
I opened the gate of the light-house enclosure and went in. Three
little children who were playing in the garden came shyly up to me,
each silently offering a flower. The keeper of the light, who is a most
intelligent man and an ardent Audubonite, asked me into his
sitting-room and told me a lot about his gulls.
In the spring, the first of them come back in March, sometimes arriving
in a snowstorm. They keep to the shore most of the time, but fuss
around a little, pulling old nests to pieces or making new ones. About
the first of May, they move up to the centre of the island. There are
three or four thousand of them, and not quite half as many nests. By
the middle of May the first egg may be expected, and in the second week
of June the first gray chick puts out his big head. A week later the
brood is all hatched and the parental troubles begin.
"The old birds," says Mr. Stanley, "do not fail to provide food for
their young, although as the birds get large the old ones have to go
sometimes many miles to do it, but, as a general thing, there is plenty
for them. I have watched them coming back at night, appearing very
tired, flying very low, one behind the other. They would light near
where the young should be and call, and the chicks would rush up to the
old bird and pick its bill; after the proper time the old bird will
stretch out its neck, and up will come a mess of almost everything,
from bread to sea-cucumbers, livers, fish (all the small kind). If
there is anything left after the feast the old bird will swallow it
again. Woe betide the young bird that belongs to a neighbour, who tries
to fill up at the wrong place! I have seen a young bird killed by one
blow from the old bird's bill, his head torn in two. As the young birds
grow, the old birds bring them larger fish to swallow. We have a few
old birds who know the time we feed the hens, and when that time draws
near they are on hand to dine with the hens."
By the latter part of August, having done their duties, the old birds,
the white ones, begin to leave the island. The dingy youngsters are
slower to forsake their Eden of innocence, lingering on beside the
unsullied waters and beneath the crystalline skies until the frosts of
late September warn them that winter is at hand. Then the last of the
colony take flight, winging their way southward leisurely and
comfortably, putting in at many a port where fish are cleaned and
scraps are thrown overboard, until they arrive at their chosen harbour
by some populous and smoke-clouded city, and learn to dodge the
steamboats and swim in troubled waters.
So the Gull Paradise is deserted by all but its guardians. The school
district of Duck Island--the smallest in the United States--resumes its
activities; the school-house is open, the teacher raps on the desk, and
the fourteen children of the keepers apply themselves to the knowledge
that is dried in books.
III
IN THE GULLS' BATH-TUB
Over our cottage we saw them flying inland every morning about ten or
eleven o'clock; in groups of three or four; in companies of twelve or
twenty; sometimes a solitary bird, hurrying a little as if he were
belated. Over our cottage we saw them flying seaward every afternoon,
one or two at a time, and then, at last, a larger company all together.
The trail through the woods, up along the lovely mountain-brook, led us
in the same direction as the gulls' path through the air. A couple of
miles of walking underneath green boughs brought us to the shores of
Jordan Pond, lying in a deep gorge between the mountains of rock with
the rounded, forest-clad Bubbles at its head, and the birches, and
maples, and poplars, and hemlocks fringing its clean, stony shores.
Then we understood what brought the gulls up from the sea every day.
They came for a fresh-water bath and a little fun in the woods.
Look at them, gathered like a flotilla, in the centre of the pond. They
are not feeding; they are not attending to any business of importance;
they are not even worrying about their young; they are not doing
anything at all but "bath-ing" themselves, as my little lad used to
say, in this clear, cool, unsalted water, and having the best time in
the world. See how they swim lazily this way or that way, as the fancy
strikes them. See how they duck their heads, and stretch their long
wings in the air, and splash the water over one another; how they preen
their feathers and rise on the surface, shaking themselves. Here comes
a trio of late starters, flying up from the sea. They hover overhead a
moment, crying out to the crowd below, which answers them with a
general shout and a flutter of excitement. Didn't you hear what they
said?
"Hello, fellows! How's the water?'
"Bully! Just right--come in quick's you can!" So the new arrivals swoop
down, spreading out their tails like fans, and dangling their feet
under them, and settling in the centre of the crowd amid general
hilarity.
How long the gulls stay at their bath I do not know. Probably some of
the busy and conscientious ones just hurry in for a dip and hurry back
again. Others, of a more pleasure-loving temperament, make the trip
more than once, like a boy I knew, whose proud boast it was that he had
gone in swimming seven times in one afternoon. The very idle and
self-indulgent ones, I reckon, spend nearly the whole day in their
spacious and well-fitted bath-tub.
The mountain lake has been turned into a reservoir for the neighbouring
village of Seal Harbor. But the gulls do not know that, I am sure; nor
would anyone else who judged by outward appearances suspect that such a
transformation had taken place. For the dam at the outlet is made of
rough stones, very low, almost unnoticeable; and the water has not been
raised enough to kill any of the trees or spoil the shore. Jordan Pond,
which was named for a commonplace lumberman who used to cut timber on
its banks, and which has, so far as I know, no tradition or legend of
any kind connected with it, is still as wild, as lovely, as perfect in
its lonely charm as if it were consecrated and set apart to the memory
of a score of old romances.
At the lower end, in an open space of slightly rising ground, there is
an ancient farmhouse which has been extended and piazzaed and made into
a rustic place of entertainment. Here the fashionable summer-folk of
the various harbours come to drink afternoon tea and to eat famous
dinners of broiled chicken, baked potatoes, and pop-overs. The
proprietor has learned from the modern author and advertiser the secret
of success; avoid versatility and stick to the line in which the public
know you. Having won a reputation on pop-overs and chickens, he
continues to turn them out with diligence and fidelity, like
short-stories of a standard pattern.
I asked him if there was any fishing in the lake. He said that there
was plenty of fishing; but he said it in a tone which made me doubtful
about his meaning. "What kind of fish were there?" "Trout by nature,
and landlocked salmon by artificial planting." "Could we fish for
them?" "Sure; but as for catching anything big enough to keep--well, he
did not want to encourage us. It was two or three years since any good
fish had been caught in the lake, though there had been plenty of
fishing. But in old times men used to come over from Hull's Cove,
fishing through the ice, and they caught"--then followed the usual
piscatorial legends of antiquity.
But the Gypsy girl and I were not to be disheartened by historical
comparisons. We insisted on putting our living luck to the proof, and
finding out for ourselves what kind of fish were left in Jordan Pond.
We had a couple of four-ounce rods, one of which I fitted up with a
troll, while she took the oars in a round-bottomed, snub-nosed white
boat, and rowed me slowly around the shore. The water was very clear;
at a depth of twenty feet we could see every stone and stick on the
bottom--and no fish! We tried a little farther out, where the water was
deeper. My guide was a merry rower and the voyage was delightful, but
we caught nothing.
[Illustration: She took the oars and rowed me slowly around the shore.]
Let us set up the other rod, while we are trolling, and try a few casts
with the fly as we move along. I will put the trolling-rod behind me,
leaning over the back-board; if a fish should strike, he would hook
himself and I could pick up the rod and land him. Now we will straighten
out a leader and choose some flies--a silver doctor and a queen of the
water--how would those do? Or perhaps a royal coachman would be--Chrrr-p!
goes the reel. I turn hastily around, just in time to see the
trolling-rod vanish over the stern of the boat. Stop, stop! Back
water--hard as you can! Too late! There goes my best-beloved little
rod, with a reel and fifty yards of line, settling down in the deep
water, almost out of sight, and slowly following the flight of that
invisible fish, who has hooked himself and my property at the same
time.
This is a piece of bad luck. Shall we let the day end with this?
"Never," says the Gypsy. "Adventures ought to be continued till they
end with good luck. We will put a long line on the other rod, and try
that beautiful little phantom minnow, the silver silk one that came
from Scotland. There must be some good fish in the pond, since they are
big enough to run away with your tackle."
Round and round the shore she rows, past the points of broken rocks,
underneath the rugged bluffs, skirting all the shelving bays. Faintly
falls the evening breeze, and behind the western ridge of Jordan
Mountain suddenly the sun drops down. Look, the gulls have all gone
home. Creeping up the rosy side of Pemetic, see old Jordan's silhouette
sketched in shadow by the sun. Hark, was that a coaching horn, sounding
up from Wildwood Road? There's the whistle of the boat coming round the
point at Seal. How it sinks into the silence, fading gradually away.
Twilight settles slowly down, all around the wooded shore, and across
the opal lake--
Chr-r-r-r! sings the reel. The line tightens. The little rod, firmly
gripped in my hand, bends into a bow of beauty, and a hundred feet
behind us a splendid silver salmon leaps into the air. "What is it?"
cries the Gypsy, "a fish?" It is a fish, indeed, a noble ouananiche,
and well hooked. Now if the gulls were here, who grab little fish
suddenly and never give them a chance, or if the mealy-mouthed
sentimentalists were here, who like their fish slowly strangled to
death in nets, they should see a fairer method of angling.
The weight of the fish is twenty times that of the rod against which he
matches himself. The tiny hook is caught painlessly in the gristle of
his jaw. The line is long and light. He has the whole lake to play in,
and he uses almost all of it, running, leaping, sounding the deep
water, turning suddenly to get a slack line. The Gypsy, tremendously
excited, manages the boat with perfect skill, rowing this way and that
way, advancing or backing water to meet the tactics of the fish, and
doing the most important part of the work.
After half an hour the ouananiche begins to grow tired and can be
reeled in near to the boat. We can see him distinctly as he gleams in
the dark water. It is time to think of landing him. Then we remember,
with a flash of despair, that we have no landing-net! To lift him from
the water by the line would break it in an instant. There is not a foot
of the rocky shore smooth enough to beach him on. Our caps are far too
small to use as a net for such a fish. What to do? We must row around
with him gently and quietly for another ten minutes until he is quite
weary and tame. Now let me draw him softly in toward the boat, slip my
fingers under his gills to get a firm hold, and lift him quickly over
the gunwale before he can gasp or kick. A tap on the head with the
empty rod-case--there he is--the prettiest landlocked salmon that I
ever saw, plump, round, perfectly shaped and coloured, and just six and
a half pounds in weight, the record fish of Jordan Pond!
Do you think that the Gypsy and I wept over our lost rod, or were
ashamed of our flannel shirts and tweeds, as we sat down to our broiled
chickens and pop-overs that evening, on the piazza of the tea-house,
among the white frocks and Tuxedo jackets of the diners-out? No, for
there was our prize lying in state on the floor beside our table. "And
we caught him," said she, "in the gulls' bath-tub!"
LEVIATHAN
The village of Samaria in the central part of the State of Connecticut
resembled the royal city of Israel, after which it was named, in one
point only. It was perched upon the top of a hill, encircled by gentle
valleys which divided it from an outer ring of hills still more
elevated, almost mountainous. But, except this position in the centre
of the stage, you would find nothing theatrical or striking about the
little New England hill-town: no ivory palaces to draw down the
denunciations of a minor prophet, no street of colonnades to girdle the
green eminence with its shining pillars, not even a dirty
picturesqueness such as now distinguishes the forlorn remnant of the
once haughty city of Omri and of Herod.