CHAPTER V.

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XV.--MAY, 1865.--NO. XCI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND

FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of

Massachusetts.

WITH THE BIRDS.

Not in the spirit of exact science, but rather with the freedom of love

and old acquaintance, would I celebrate some of the minstrels of the

field and forest,--these accredited and authenticated poets of Nature.

All day, while the rain has pattered and murmured, have I heard the

notes of the Robin and the Wood-Thrush; the Red-Eyed Flycatcher has

pursued his game within a few feet of my window, darting with a low,

complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffled

as if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted and

attitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a moment

between the showers, and indulged in a short, but spirited, rehearsal

under a large leaf in the grape-arbor; the King-Bird advised me of his

proximity, as he went by on his mincing flight; and the Chimney-Swallows

have been crying the child's riddle of "_Chippy, chippy, cherryo_,"

about the house-top.

With these angels and ministers of grace thus to attend me, even in the

seclusion of my closet, I am led more than ever to expressions of love

and admiration. I understand the enthusiasm of Wilson and Audubon, and

see how one might forsake house and home and go and live with them the

free life of the woods.

To the dissecting, classifying scientist a bird may be no more perfect

or lovable than a squirrel or a fish; yet to me it seems that all the

excellences of the animal creation converge and centre in this nymph of

the air; a warbler seems to be the finishing stroke.

First, there is its light, delicate, aerial organization,--consequently,

its vivacity, its high temperature, the depth and rapidity of its

inspirations, and likewise the intense, gushing, lyrical character of

its life. How hot he is! how fast he lives!--as if his air had more

oxygen than ours, or his body less clay. How slight a wound kills him!

how exquisite his sensations! how perfect his nervous system! and hence

how large his brain! Why, look at the cerebral development of this tiny

songster,--almost a third larger, in proportion to the size of its body,

than that of Shakspeare even! Does it mean nothing? You may observe that

a warbler has a much larger brain and a much finer cerebral

organization throughout than a bird of prey, or any of the Picus family

even. Does it signify nothing? I gaze into the eyes of the

Gazelle,--eyes that will admit of no epithet or comparison,--and the old

question of preexistence and transmigration rises afresh in my mind, and

something like a dim recognition of kinship passes. I turn this Thrush

in my hand,--I remember its strange ways, the curious look it gave me,

its ineffable music, its freedom, and its ecstasy,--and I tremble lest I

have slain a being diviner than myself.

And then there is its freedom, its superior powers of locomotion, its

triumph over time and space. The reptile measures its length upon the

ground; the quadruped enjoys a more complete liberation, and is related

to the earth less closely; man more still; and the bird most of all.

Over our heads, where our eyes travel, but our bodies follow not,--in

the free native air,--is his home. The trees are his temples and his

dwellings, and the breezes sing his lullaby. He needs no sheltering; for

the rain does not wet him. He need fear no cold; for the tropics wait

upon his wings. He is the nearest visible representation of a spirit I

know of. He _flies_,--the superlative of locomotion; the poet in his

most audacious dreams dare confer no superior power on flesh and blood.

Sound and odor are no more native to the air than is the Swallow. Look

at this marvellous creature! He can reverse the order of the seasons,

and almost keep the morning or the sunset constantly in his eye, or

outstrip the west-wind cloud. Does he subsist upon air or odor, that he

is forever upon the wing, and never deigns to pick a seed or crumb from

the earth? Is he an embodied thought projected from the brain of some

mad poet in the dim past, and sent to teach us a higher geometry of

curves and spirals? See him with that feather high in air, dropping it

and snapping it up again in the very glee of superabundant vitality, and

in his sudden evolutions and spiral gambollings seeming more a creature

of the imagination than of actual sight!

And, again, their coming and going, how curious and suggestive! We go

out in the morning, and no Thrush or Vireo is to be heard; we go out

again, and every tree and grove is musical; yet again, and all is

silent. Who saw them come? who saw them depart? This pert little

Winter-Wren, for instance, darting in and out the fence, diving under

the rubbish here and coming up yards away,--how does he manage with

those little circular wings to compass degrees and zones, and arrive

always in the nick of time? Last August I saw him in the remotest wilds

of the Adirondack, impatient and inquisitive as usual; a few weeks

later, on the Potomac, I was greeted by the same hardy little busybody.

Does he travel by easy stages from bush to bush and from wood to wood?

or has that compact little body force and courage to brave the night and

the upper air, and so achieve leagues at one pull? And yonder Bluebird,

with the hue of the Bermuda sky upon his back, as Thoreau would say, and

the flush of its dawn upon his breast,--did he come down out of heaven

on that bright March morning when he told us so softly and plaintively,

that, if we pleased, spring had come?

About the middle of September I go out in the woods, and am attracted by

a faint piping and lisping in the tops of the Oaks and Chestnuts. Tiny

figures dart to and fro so rapidly that it pains the eye to follow them,

and I discover that the Black-Poll Warbler is paying me a return visit.

Presently I likewise perceive a troop of Redstarts, or Green-Backed

Warblers, or Golden and Ruby-Crowned Wrens, flashing through the

Chestnut-branches, or hanging like jewels on the Cedar-sprays. A week of

two later, and my darlings are gone, another love is in my heart, and

other voices fill my ears. But so unapparent and mysterious are the

coming and going, that I look upon each as a special Providence, and

value them as visitants from another sphere.

The migration of the Pigeons, Ducks, and Geese is obvious enough; we see

them stream across the heavens, or hear their _clang_ in the night; but

these minstrels of the field and forest add to their other charms a

shade of mystery, and pique the imagination by their invisible and

unknown journeyings. To be sure, we know they follow the opening season

north and the retreating summer south; but who will point to the

parallels that mark the limits of their wandering, or take us to their

most secret haunts?

What greater marvel than this simple gift of music? What beside birds

and the human species sing? It is the crowning gift; through it the

field and forest are justified. Nature said, "These rude forms and

forces must have a spokesman of their own nursing; here are flowers and

odor, let there be music also." I suspect the subtile spirit of the

meadow took form in the Bobolink, that the high pasture-lands begot the

Vesper-Sparrow, and that from the imprisoned sense and harmony of the

forests sprang the Wood-Thrush.

From the life of birds being on a more intense and vehement scale than

that of other animals result their musical gifts and their holiday

expression of joy. How restless and curious they are! Their poise and

attitudes, how various, rapid, and graceful! They are a study for an

artist, especially as exhibited in the Warblers and Flycatchers: their

looks of alarm, of curiosity, of repose, of watchfulness, of joy, so

obvious and expressive, yet as impossible of reproduction as their

music. Even if the naturalist were to succeed in imparting all their

wild extravagances of poise and motion to their inanimate forms, his

birds, to say the least, would have a very theatrical or melodramatic

aspect, and seem unreal in proportion to their fidelity to Nature. I

have seen a Blue Jay alone, saluting and admiring himself in the mirror

of a little pool of water from a low overhanging branch, assume so many

graceful, novel, as well as ridiculous and fantastic attitudes, as would

make a taxidermist run mad to attempt to reproduce; and the rich medley

of notes he poured forth at the same time--chirping, warbling, cooing,

whistling, chattering, revealing rare musical and imitative

powers--would have been an equally severe test to the composer who

should have aspired to report them; and the indignant air of outraged

privacy he assumed, on finding himself discovered, together with his

loud, angry protest, as, with crown depressed and plumage furled, he

rapidly ascended to the topmost branch of a tall Birch, the better to

proclaim my perfidy to the whole world, would have excited the interest

and applause of the coolest observer.

So much in a general sense; but let me discriminate; "for my purpose

holds" to call my favorites by name, and point them out to you, as the

tuneful procession passes.

Every stage of the advancing season gives prominence to certain birds as

to certain flowers. The Dandelion tells me when to look for the Swallow,

and I know the Thrushes will not linger when the Orchis is in bloom. In

my latitude, April is emphatically the month of the Robin. In large

numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the

meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry

leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their

cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream,

chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees

with perilous rapidity.

In that free, fascinating, half-work and half-play

pursuit,--sugar-making,--a pursuit which still lingers in many parts of

New York, as in New England, the Robin is one's boon companion. When the

day is sunny and the ground bare, you meet him at all points and hear

him at all hours. At sunset, on the tops of the tall Maples, with look

heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment, he carols his simple

strain. And sitting thus amid the stark, silent trees, above the wet,

cold earth, with the chill of winter still in the air, there is no

fitter or sweeter songster in the whole round year. It is in keeping

with the scene and the occasion. How round and genuine the notes are,

and how eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utterance, and the

spell of winter is thoroughly broken and the remembrance of it afar off.

Robin is one of the most native and democratic of our birds; he is one

of the family, and seems much nearer to us than those rare, exotic

visitants, as the Orchard-Starling or Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, with their

distant, high-bred ways. Hardy, noisy, frolicsome, neighborly and

domestic in his ways, strong of wing and bold in spirit, he is the

pioneer of the Thrush family, and well worthy of the finer artists whose

coming he heralds and in a measure prepares us for.

I could wish Robin less native and plebeian in one respect,--the

building of his nest. Its coarse material and rough masonry are

creditable neither to his skill as a workman nor to his taste as an

artist. I am the more forcibly reminded of his deficiency in this

respect from observing yonder Humming-Bird's nest, which is a marvel of

fitness and adaptation, a proper setting for this winged gem,--the body

of it composed of a white, felt-like substance, probably the down of

some plant or the wool of some worm, and toned down in keeping with the

branch on which it sits by minute tree-lichens, woven together by

threads as fine and frail as gossamer. From Robin's good looks and

musical turn we might reasonably predict a domicil of equal fitness and

elegance. At least I demand of him as clean and handsome a nest as the

King-Bird's, whose harsh jingle, compared with Robin's evening melody,

is as the clatter of pots and kettles beside the tone of a flute. I love

his note and ways better even than those of the Orchard-Starling or the

Baltimore Oriole; yet his nest, compared with theirs, is a

half-subterranean hut contrasted with a Roman villa. There is something

courtly and poetical in a pensile nest. Next to a castle in the air is a

dwelling suspended to the slender branch of a tall tree, swayed and

rocked forever by the wind. Why need wings be afraid of falling? Why

build only where boys can climb? After all, we must set it down to the

account of Robin's democratic turn; he is no aristocrat, but one of the

people; and therefore we should expect stability in his workmanship,

rather than elegance.

Another April bird, which makes her appearance sometimes earlier and

sometimes later than Robin, and whose memory I fondly cherish, is the

Phoebe-Bird, (_Muscicapa nunciola_,) the pioneer of the Flycatchers.

In the inland farming districts, I used to notice her, on some bright

morning about Easter-day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of

motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you

may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the Bluebird, or the

faint trill of the Song-Sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious

assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by

all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an

ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I

suspect, as an artistic flourish, thrown in to make up in some way for

the deficiency of her musical performance. If plainness of dress

indicates powers of song, as it usually does, then Phoebe ought to be

unrivalled in musical ability, for surely that ashen-gray suit is the

superlative of plainness; and that form, likewise, though it might pass

for the "perfect figure" of a bird, measured by Joe Gargery's standard,

to a fastidious taste would present exceptionable points. The

seasonableness of her coming, however, and her civil, neighborly ways,

shall make up for all deficiencies in song and plumage, and remove any

suspicions we may have had, that, perhaps, from some cause or other, she

was in some slight disfavor with Nature. After a few weeks Phoebe is

seldom seen, except as she darts from her moss-covered nest beneath some

bridge or shelving cliff.

Another April comer, who arrives shortly after Robin-Redbreast, with

whom he associates both at this season and in the autumn, is the

Golden-Winged Woodpecker, _alias_, "High-Hole," _alias_, "Flicker,"

_alias_, "Yarup." He is an old favorite of my boyhood, and his note to

me means very much. He announces his arrival by a long, loud call,

repeated from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence,--a

thoroughly melodious April sound. I think how Solomon finished that

beautiful climax on Spring, "And the voice of the turtle is heard in our

land," and see that a description of Spring in this farming country, to

be equally characteristic, should culminate in like manner,--"And the

call of the High-Hole comes up from the wood."

It is a loud, strong, sonorous call, and does not seem to imply an

answer, but rather to subserve some purpose of love or music. It is

"Yarup's" proclamation of peace and good-will to all. On looking at the

matter closely, I perceive that most birds, not denominated songsters,

have, in the spring, some note or sound or call that hints of a song,

and answers imperfectly the end of beauty and art. As a "brighter iris

comes upon the burnished dove," and the fancy of the young man turns

lightly to thoughts of his pretty cousin, so the same renewing spirit

touches the "silent singers," and they are no longer dumb; faintly they

lisp the first syllables of the marvellous tale. Witness the clear,

sweet whistle of the Gray-Crested Titmouse,--the soft, nasal piping of

the Nuthatch,--the amorous, vivacious warble of the Bluebird,--the long,

rich note of the Meadow-Lark,--the whistle of the Quail,--the drumming

of the Partridge,--the animation and loquacity of the Swallows, and the

like. Even the Hen has a homely, contented carol; and I credit the Owls

with a desire to fill the night with music. All birds are incipient or

would-be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this

even in the crowing of the Cock. The flowering of the Maple is not so

obvious as that of the Magnolia; nevertheless, there is actual

inflorescence. Neither Wilson nor Audubon, I believe, awards any song to

that familiar little Sparrow, the _Socialis_; yet who that has observed

him sitting by the wayside, and repeating, with devout attitude, that

fine sliding chant, does not recognize the neglect? Who has heard the

Snow-Bird sing? Not the ornithologist, it seems; yet he has a lisping

warble very savory to the ear, I have heard him indulge in it even in

February.

Even the Cow-Bunting feels the musical tendency, and aspires to its

expression, with the rest. Perched upon the topmost branch beside his

mate or mates,--for he is quite a polygamist, and usually has two or

three demure little ladies in faded black beside him,--generally in the

early part of the day, he seems literally to vomit up his notes.

Apparently with much labor and effort, they gurgle and blubber up out of

him, falling on the ear with a peculiar subtile ring, as of turning

water from a glass jug, and not without a certain pleasing cadence.

Neither is the common Woodpecker entirely insensible to the wooing of

the spring, and, like the Partridge, testifies his appreciation of

melody after quite a primitive fashion. Passing through the woods, on

some clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and tension

of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken

by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating

a reveille to Spring. In the utter stillness and amid the rigid forms we

listen with pleasure, and as it comes to my ear oftener at this season

than at any other, I freely exonerate the author of it from the

imputation of any gastronomic motives, and credit him with a genuine

musical performance.

It is to be expected, therefore, that "Yellow-Hammer" will respond to

the general tendency, and contribute his part to the spring chorus. His

April call is his finest touch, his most musical expression.

I recall an ancient Maple standing sentry to a large Sugar-Bush, that,

year after year, afforded protection, to a brood of Yellow-Hammers in

its decayed heart. A week or two before the nesting seemed actually to

have begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost any

bright morning, gambolling and courting amid its decayed branches.

Sometimes you would hear only a gentle, persuasive cooing, or a quiet,

confidential chattering,--then that long, loud call, taken up by first

one, then another, as they sat about upon the naked limbs,--anon, a sort

of wild, rollicking laughter, intermingled with various cries, yelps,

and squeals, as if some incident had excited their mirth and ridicule.

Whether this social hilarity and boisterousness is in celebration of the

pairing or mating ceremony, or whether it is only a sort of annual

"house-warming" common among High-Holes on resuming their summer

quarters, is a question upon which I reserve my judgment.

Unlike most of his kinsmen, the Golden-Wing prefers the fields and the

borders of the forest to the deeper seclusion of the woods,--and hence,

contrary to the habit of his tribe, obtains most of his subsistence from

the ground, boring for ants and crickets. He is not quite satisfied with

being a Woodpecker. He courts the society of the Robin and the Finches,

abandons the trees for the meadow, and feeds eagerly upon berries and

grain. What may be the final upshot of this course of living is a

question worthy the attention of Darwin. Will his taking to the ground

and his pedestrian feats result in lengthening his legs, his feeding

upon berries and grains subdue his tints and soften his voice, and his

associating with Robin put a song into his heart?

Indeed, what would be more interesting than the history of our birds for

the last two or three centuries? There can be no doubt that the presence

of man has exerted a very marked and friendly influence upon them, since

they so multiply in his society. The birds of California, it is said,

were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt if the Indians

heard the Wood-Thrush as we hear him. Where did the Bobolink disport

himself before there were meadows in the North and rice-fields in the

South? Was he the same blithe, merry-hearted beau then as now? And the

Sparrow, the Lark, and the Goldfinch, birds that seem so indigenous to

the open fields and so averse to the woods,--we cannot conceive of their

existence in a vast wilderness and without man. Did they grow, like the

flowers, when the conditions favorable to their existence were

established?

But to return. The Bluebird and Song-Sparrow, these universal favorites

and firstlings of the spring, come before April, and their names are

household words.

May is the month of the Swallows and the Orioles. There are many other

distinguished arrivals, indeed nine tenths of the birds are here by the

last week in May, yet the Swallows and Orioles are the most conspicuous.

The bright plumage of the latter seems really like an arrival from the

tropics. I see them flash through the blossoming trees, and all the

forenoon hear their incessant warbling and wooing. The Swallows dive and

chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath the eaves; the

Partridge drums in the fresh unfolding woods; the long, tender note of

the Meadow-Lark comes up from the meadow; and at sunset, from every

marsh and pond come the ten thousand voices of the Hylas. May is the

transition month, and exists to connect April and June, the root with

the flower.

With June the cup is full, our hearts are satisfied, there is no more to

be desired. The perfection of the season, among other things, has

brought the perfection of the song and plumage of the birds. The master

artists are all here; and the expectations excited by the Robin and the

Song-Sparrow are fully justified. The Thrushes have all come; and I sit

down upon the first rock, with hands full of the pink Azalea, to listen.

With me, the Cuckoo does not arrive till June; and often the Goldfinch,

the King-Bird, the Scarlet Tanager delay their coming till then. In the

meadows the Bobolink is in all his glory; in the high pastures the

Field-Sparrow sings his breezy vesper-hymn; and the woods are unfolding

to the music of the Thrushes.

The Cuckoo is one of the most solitary birds of our forests, and is

strangely tame and quiet, appearing equally untouched by joy or grief,

fear or anger. Is he an exile from some other sphere, and are his

loneliness and indifference the result of a hopeless, yet resigned soul?

Or has he passed through some terrible calamity or bereavement, that has

overpowered his sensibilities, rendering him dreamy and semi-conscious?

Something remote seems ever weighing upon his mind. He deposits his eggs

in the nests of other birds, having no heart for work or domestic care.

His note or call is as of one lost or wandering, and the farmer says is

prophetic of rain. Amid the general joy and the sweet assurance of

things, I love to listen to this strange clairvoyant call. Heard a

quarter of a mile away, coming up from the dark bosom of the forest or

out from the sombre recesses of the mountain, like the voice of a

muezzin calling to prayer in the Oriental twilight, it has a peculiar

fascination. He wanders from place to place,

"An invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery."

You will probably hear him a score of times to seeing him once. I rarely

discover him in the woods, except when on a protracted stay; but when in

June he makes his gastronomic tour of the garden and orchard, regaling

himself upon canker-worms, he is quite noticeable. Since food of some

kind is a necessity, he seems resolved to burden himself as little as

possible with the care of obtaining it, and so devours these creeping

horrors with the utmost matter-of-course air. At this time he is one of

the tamest birds in the orchard, and will allow you to approach within a

few yards of him. I have even come within a few feet of one without

seeming to excite his fear or suspicion. He is quite unsophisticated, or

else royally indifferent.

Without any exception, his plumage is the richest brown I am acquainted

with in Nature, and is unsurpassed in the qualities both of firmness and

fineness. Notwithstanding the disparity in size and color, he has

certain peculiarities that remind one of the Passenger-pigeon. His eye,

with its red circle, the shape of his head, and his motions on alighting

and taking flight, quickly suggest the resemblance; though in grace and

speed, when on the wing, he is far inferior. His tail seems

disproportionately long, like that of the Red Thrush, and his flight

among the trees is very still, contrasting strongly with the honest

clatter of the Robin or Pigeon.

Have you heard the song of the Field-Sparrow? If you have lived in a

pastoral country with broad upland pastures, you could hardly have

missed him. Wilson, I believe, calls him the Grass-Finch, and was

evidently unacquainted with his powers of song. The two white lateral

quills in his tail, and his habit of running and skulking a few yards in

advance of you as you walk through the fields, are sufficient to

identify him. Not in meadows or orchards, but in high, breezy

pasture-grounds, will you look for him. His song is most noticeable

after sundown, when other birds are silent; for which reason he has been

aptly called the Vesper-Sparrow. The farmer following his team from the

field at dusk catches his sweetest strain. His song is not so brisk and

varied as that of the Song-Sparrow, being softer and wilder, sweeter and

more plaintive. Add the best parts of the lay of the latter to the

sweet, vibrating chant of the Wood-Sparrow, and you have the evening

hymn of the Vesper-Bird,--the poet of the plain, unadorned pastures. Go

to those broad, smooth, up-lying fields where the cattle and sheep are

grazing, and sit down in the twilight on one of those warm, clean

stones, and listen to this song. On every side, near and remote, from

out the short grass which the herds are cropping, the strain rises. Two

or three long, silver notes of peace and rest, ending in some subdued

trills and quavers, constitute each separate song. Often you will catch

only one or two of the bars, the breeze having blown the minor part

away. Such unambitious, quiet, unconscious melody! It is one of the most

characteristic sounds in Nature. The grass, the stones, the stubble, the

furrow, the quiet herds, and the warm twilight among the hills are all

subtilely expressed in this song; this is what they are at last capable

of.

The female builds a plain nest in the open field, without so much as a

bush or thistle or tuft of grass to protect it or mark its site; you may

step upon it, or the cattle may tread it into the ground. But the danger

from this source, I presume, the bird considers less than that from

another. Skunks and foxes have a very impertinent curiosity, as Finchie

well knows,--and a bank or hedge, or a rank growth of grass or thistles,

that might promise protection and cover to mouse or bird, these cunning

rogues would be apt to explore most thoroughly. The Partridge is

undoubtedly acquainted with the same process of reasoning; for, like the

Vesper-Bird, she, too, nests in open, unprotected places, avoiding all

show of concealment,--coming from the tangled and almost impenetrable

parts of the forest, to the clean, open woods, where she can command all

the approaches and fly with equal ease in any direction.

One of the most marvellous little songsters whose acquaintance I claim

is the White-Eyed Flycatcher. He seems to have been listened to by

unappreciative ears, for I know no one who has made especial mention of

him. His song is not particularly sweet and soft; on the contrary, it is

a little hard and shrill, like that of the Indigo-Bird or Oriole; but

for fluency, volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is

unsurpassed (and in the last-named particular unequalled) by any of our

Northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as

stated, not especially musical: _Chick-a-re'r-chick_, he seems to say,

hiding himself in the low, dense undergrowth, and eluding your most

vigilant search, as if playing some part in a game. But in July or

August, if you are on good terms with the sylvan deities, you may listen

to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your first impression will

be that that cluster of Azalea or that clump of Swamp-Huckleberry

conceals three or four different songsters, each vying with the others

to lead the chorus. Such a medley of notes, snatched from half the

songsters of the field and forest, and uttered with the utmost clearness

and rapidity, I am sure you cannot hear short of the haunts of the

genuine Mocking-Bird. If not fully and accurately repeated, there are at

least suggested the notes of the Robin, Wren, Cat-Bird, High-Hole,

Goldfinch, and Song-Sparrow. The _pip, pip_, of the last is produced so

accurately that I verily believe it would deceive the bird herself,--and

the whole uttered in such rapid succession that it seems as if the

movement that gives the concluding note of one strain must form the

first note of the next. The effect is very rich, and, to my ear,

entirely unique. The performer is very careful not to reveal himself in

the mean time; yet there is a conscious air about the strain that

impresses one with the idea that his presence is understood and his

attention courted. A tone of pride and glee, and, occasionally, of

bantering jocoseness, is discernible. I believe it is only rarely, and

when he is sure of his audience, that he displays his parts in this

manner. You are to look for him, not in tall trees or deep forests, but

in low, dense shrubbery about wet places, where there are plenty of

gnats and mosquitoes.

The Winter-Wren is another marvellous songster, in speaking of whom it

is difficult to avoid superlatives. He is not so conscious of his powers

and so ambitious of effect as the White-Eyed Flycatcher, yet you will

not be less astonished and delighted on hearing him. He possesses the

fluency, volubility, and copiousness for which the Wrens are noted, and

besides these qualities, and what is rarely found conjoined with them, a

wild, sweet, rhythmical cadence that holds you entranced. I shall not

soon forget that perfect June day, when, loitering in a low, ancient

Hemlock, in whose cathedral aisles the coolness and freshness seemed

perennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strain so rapid and

gushing, and touched with such a wild, sylvan plaintiveness, that I

listened in amazement. And so shy and coy was the little minstrel, that

I came twice to the woods before I was sure to whom I was listening. In

summer, he is one of those birds of the deep Northern forests, that,

like the Speckled Canada Warbler and the Hermit-Thrush, only the

privileged ones hear.

The distribution of plants in a given locality is not more marked and

defined than that of the birds. Show a botanist a landscape, and he will

tell you where to look for the Lady's-Slipper, the Columbine, or the

Harebell. On the same principles the ornithologist will direct you where

to look for the Hooded Warbler, the Wood-Sparrow, or the Chewink. In

adjoining counties, in the same latitude, and equally inland, but

possessing a different geological formation and different forest-timber,

you will observe quite a different class of birds. In a country of the

Beech and Maple I do not find the same songsters that I know where

thrive the Oak, Chestnut, and Laurel. In going from a district of the

Old Red Sandstone to where I walk upon the old Plutonic Rock, not fifty

miles distant, I miss in the woods the Veery, the Hermit-Thrush, the

Chestnut-Sided Warbler, the Blue-Backed Warbler, the Green-Backed

Warbler, the Black and Yellow Warbler, and many others,--and find in

their stead the Wood-Thrush, the Chewink, the Redstart, the

Yellow-Throat, the Yellow-Breasted Flycatcher, the White-Eyed

Flycatcher, the Quail, and the Turtle-Dove.

In my neighborhood here in the Highlands the distribution is very

marked. South of the village I invariably find one species of

birds,--north of it, another. In only one locality, full of Azalea and

Swamp-Huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the Hooded Warbler. In a

dense undergrowth of Spice-Bush, Witch-Hazel, and Alder, I meet the

Worm-Eating Warbler. In a remote clearing, covered with Heath and Fern,

with here and there a Chestnut and an Oak, I go to hear in July the

Wood-Sparrow, and returning by a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sure to find

the Water-Thrush.

Only one locality within my range seems to possess attractions for all

comers. Here one may study almost the entire ornithology of the State.

It is a rocky piece of ground, long ago cleared, but now fast relapsing

into the wildness and freedom of Nature, and marked by those

half-cultivated, half-wild features which birds and boys love. It is

bounded on two sides by the village and highway, crossed at various

points by carriage-roads, and threaded in all directions by paths and

by-ways, along which soldiers, laborers, and truant schoolboys are

passing at all hours of the day. It is so far escaping from the axe and

the bushwhack as to have opened communication with the forest and

mountain beyond by straggling lines of Cedar, Laurel, and Blackberry.

The ground is mainly occupied with Cedar and Chestnut, with an

undergrowth, in many places, of Heath and Bramble. The chief feature,

however, is a dense growth in the centre, consisting of Dog-wood,

Water-Beech, Swamp-Ash, Alder, Spice-Bush, Hazel, etc., with a network

of Smilax and Frost-Grape. A little zig-zag stream, the draining of a

swamp beyond, which passes through this tangle-wood, accounts for many

of its features and productions, if not for its entire existence. Birds

that are not attracted by the Heath or the Cedar and Chestnut are sure

to find some excuse for visiting this miscellaneous growth in the

centre. Most of the common birds literally throng this inclosure; and I

have met here many of the rarer species, such as the Great-Crested

Flycatcher, the Solitary Warbler, the Blue-Winged Swamp-Warbler, the

Worm-Eating Warbler, the Fox-Sparrow, etc. The absence of all birds of

prey, and the great number of flies and insects, both the result of

proximity to the village, are considerations which no Hawk-fearing,

peace-loving minstrel passes over lightly: hence the popularity of the

resort.

But the crowning glory of all these Robins, Flycatchers, and Warblers is

the Wood-Thrush. More abundant than all other birds, except the Robin

and Cat-Bird, he greets you from every rock and shrub. Shy and reserved

when he first makes his appearance in May, before the end of June he is

tame and familiar, and sings on the tree over your head, or on the rock

a few paces in advance. A pair even built their nest and reared their

brood within ten or twelve feet of the piazza of a large summer-house in

the vicinity. But when the guests commenced to arrive and the piazza to

be thronged with gay crowds, I noticed something like dread and

foreboding in the manner of the mother-bird; and from her still, quiet

ways, and habit of sitting long and silently within a few feet of the

precious charge, it seemed as if the clear creature had resolved, if

possible, to avoid all observation.

The Hermit-Thrush, the Wood-Thrush, and the Veery (_Turdus Wilsonii_)

are our peers of song. The Mocking-Bird undoubtedly possesses the

greatest range of mere talent, the most varied executive ability, and

never fails to surprise and delight one anew at each hearing; but being

mostly an imitator, he never approaches the serene beauty and sublimity

of the Hermit-Thrush. The word that best expresses my feelings, on

hearing the Mocking-Bird, is admiration, though the first emotion is one

of surprise and incredulity. That so many and such various notes should

proceed from one throat is a marvel, and we regard the performance with

feelings akin to those we experience on witnessing the astounding feats

of the athlete or gymnast,--and this, notwithstanding many of the notes

imitated have all the freshness and sweetness of the original. The

emotions excited by the songs of these Thrushes belong to a higher

order, springing as they do from our deepest sense of the beauty and

harmony of the world.

The Wood-Thrush is worthy of all, and more than all, the praises he has

received; and considering the number of his appreciative listeners, it

is not a little surprising that his relative and superior, the

Hermit-Thrush, should have received so little notice. Both the great

ornithologists, Wilson and Audubon, are lavish in their praises of the

former, but have little or nothing to say of the song of the latter.

Audubon says it is sometimes agreeable, but evidently has never heard

it. Nuttall, I am glad to find, is more discriminating, and does the

bird fuller justice. Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, a

more recent authority, and an excellent observer, tells me he regards it

as preeminently our finest songster.

It is quite a rare bird, of very shy and secluded habits, being found in

the Middle and Eastern States, during the period of song, only in the

deepest and most remote forests, usually in damp and swampy localities.

On this account the people in the Adirondack region call it the "Swamp

Angel." Its being so much of a recluse accounts for the comparative

ignorance that prevails in regard to it.

The cast of its song is so much like that of the Wood-Thrush, that an

enthusiastic admirer of the latter bird, as all admirers are, would be

quite apt to mistake it for the strain of his favorite, observing only

how unusually well he sings. I myself erred in this manner, and not till

I had shot the bird in the midst of his solemn hymn--a hard thing to do,

I assure you--was I aware that my Wood-Thrush had a superior. I believe

so good an observer as Thoreau has confounded the songs of the two

birds, as he speaks of having heard the Wood-Thrush in the forests of

Northern Maine, where the law of geographical distribution would lead

one to look for only the Hermit.

The song of this Thrush is of unparalleled sweetness and sublimity.

There is a calmness and solemnity about it that suggests in Nature

perpetual Sabbath and perennial joy. How vain seem our hurry and

ambition! Clear and serene, strong and melodious, falling softly, yet

flowing far, these notes inspire me with a calm, sacred enthusiasm. I

hear him most in the afternoon, but occasionally at nightfall he "pours

his pure soprano,"

"Deepening the silence with diviner calm."

I have known one to sit for hours in the upper branches of a tall Maple

in an opening in a remote wood, and sing till all other birds seemed as

if pausing to listen. Attempting to approach him at such times, I have

called to my aid numerous devices,--such as keeping the range of a tree,

skulking close to the ground, carrying a large bush in front of me,--but

all to no purpose. Suddenly the strain would cease, and while waiting

for him to commence again, I would see him dart off to a lower tree, or

into a thick undergrowth of Witch-Hazel. When I had withdrawn, he would

resume his perch and again take up his song. At other times I have come

abruptly upon him while singing on a low stump, without his seeming to

notice me at all.

I think his song, in form and manner, is precisely that of the

Wood-Thrush,--differing from it in being more wild and ethereal, as well

as stronger and clearer. It is not the execution of the piece so much as

the tone of the instrument that is superior. In the subdued trills and

quavers that occur between the main bars, you think his tongue must be

more resonant and of finer metal. In uttering the tinkling, bead-like

_de, de, de_, he is more facile and exquisite; in the longer notes he

possesses greater compass and power, and is more prodigal of his finer

tones. How delicately he syllables the minor parts, weaving, as it were,

the finest of silver embroideries to the main texture of his song!

Those who have heard only the Wood-Thrush commit a very pardonable error

in placing him first on the list of our songsters. He is truly a royal

minstrel, and, considering his liberal distribution throughout our

Atlantic seaboard, perhaps contributes more than any other bird to our

sylvan melody. One may object, that he spends a little too much time in

tuning his instrument, yet his careless and uncertain touches reveal its

rare compass and power.

He is the only songster of my acquaintance, excepting the Canary, that

displays different degrees of proficiency in the exercise of his musical

gifts. Not long since, while walking one Sunday in the edge of an

orchard adjoining a wood, I heard one that so obviously and unmistakably

surpassed all his rivals, that my companion, though slow to notice such

things, remarked it wonderingly; and with one accord we threw ourselves

upon the grass and drank in the bounteous melody. It was not different

in quality so much as in quantity. Such a flood of it! Such magnificent

copiousness! Such long, trilling, deferring, accelerating preludes! Such

sudden, ecstatic overtures would have intoxicated the dullest ear. He

was really without a compeer, a master artist. Twice afterward I was

conscious of having heard the same bird.

The Wood-Thrush is the handsomest species of this family. In grace and

elegance of manner he has no equal. Such a gentle, high-bred air, and

such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement! He is a

poet in very word and deed. His carriage is music to the eye. His

performance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle or picking a worm

from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence. Was he a prince

in the olden time, and do the regal grace and mien still adhere to him

in his transformation? What a finely proportioned form! How plain, yet

rich his color,--the bright russet of his back, the clear white of his

breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It may be objected to

Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries away or rises to a

branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings in ill-bred suspicion.

The Mavis, or Red Thrush, sneaks and skulks like a culprit, hiding in

the densest Alders; the Cat-Bird is a coquette and a flirt, as well as a

sort of female Paul Pry; and the Chewink shows his inhospitality by

espying your movements like a Japanese. The Wood-Thrush has none of

these under-bred traits. He regards me unsuspiciously, or avoids me with

a noble reserve,--or, if I am quiet and incurious, graciously hops

toward me, as if to pay his respects, or to make my acquaintance. Pass

near his nest, under the very branch, within a few feet of his mate and

brood, and he opens not his beak; he concedes you the right to pass

there, if it lies in your course; but pause an instant, raise your hand

toward the defenceless household, and his anger and indignation are

beautiful to behold.

What a noble pride he has! Late one October, after his mates and

companions had long since gone South, I noticed one for several

successive days in the dense part of this next-door wood, flitting

noiselessly about, very grave and silent, as if doing penance for some

violation of the code of honor. By many gentle, indirect approaches, I

perceived that part of his tail-feathers were undeveloped. The sylvan

prince could not think of returning to court in this plight,--and so,

amid the falling leaves and cold rains of autumn, was patiently biding

his time.

The soft, mellow flute of the Veery fills a place in the chorus of the

woods that the song of the Vesper-Sparrow fills in the chorus of the

fields. It has the Nightingale's habit of singing in the twilight, and

possesses, I believe, all of the Nightingale's mellowness and serenity.

Walk out toward the forest in the warm twilight of a June day, and when

fifty rods distant you will hear their soft, reverberating notes,

repeated and prolonged with exquisite melodiousness, rising from a dozen

different throats.

It is one of the simplest strains to be heard,--as simple as the curve

in form, and mellower than the tenderest tones of the flute,--delighting

from the pure element of harmony and beauty it contains, and not from

any novel or fantastic modulation of it,--thus contrasting strongly with

such rollicking, hilarious songsters as the Bobolink, in whom we are

chiefly pleased with the tintinnabulation, the verbal and labial

excellence, and the evident conceit and delight of the performer.

I hardly know whether I am more pleased or annoyed with the Cat-Bird.

Perhaps she is a little too common, and her part in the general chorus a

little too conspicuous. If you are listening for the note of another

bird, she is sure to be prompted to the most loud and protracted

singing, drowning all other sounds; if you sit quietly down to observe a

favorite or study a new comer, her curiosity knows no bounds, and you

are scanned and ridiculed from every point of observation. Yet I would

not miss her; I would only subordinate her a little, make her less

conspicuous.

She is the parodist of the woods, and there is ever a mischievous,

bantering, half-ironical undertone in her lay, as if she were conscious

of mimicking and disconcerting some envied songster. Ambitious of song,

practising and rehearsing in private, she yet seems the least sincere

and genuine of the sylvan minstrels, as if she had taken up music only

to be in the fashion, or not to be outdone by the Robins and Thrushes.

In other words, she seems to sing from some outward motive, and not from

inward joyousness. She is a good versifier, but not a great poet.

Vigorous, rapid, copious, not without fine touches, but destitute of any

high, serene melody, her performance, like that of Thoreau's squirrel,

always implies a spectator.

There is a certain air and polish about her strain, however, like that

in the vivacious conversation of a well-bred lady of the world, that

commands respect. Her maternal instinct, also, is very strong, and that

simple structure of dead twigs and dry grass is the centre of much

anxious solicitude. Not long since, while strolling through the woods,

my attention was attracted to a small, densely grown swamp, hedged in

with Eglantine, Brambles, and the everlasting Smilax, from which

proceeded loud cries of distress and alarm, indicating that some

terrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored minstrel. On

effecting an entrance, which, however, was not accomplished till I had

doffed coat and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to the thorns

and brambles, and looking around me from a square yard of terra firma, I

found myself the spectator of a loathsome, yet fascinating scene. Three

or four yards from me was the nest, beneath which, in long festoons,

rested a huge black snake; a bird, two thirds grown, was slowly

disappearing between his expanded jaws. As they seemed unconscious of my

presence, I quietly observed the proceedings. By slow degrees he

compassed the bird about with his elastic mouth; his head flattened, his

neck writhed and swelled, and two or three undulatory movements of his

glistening body finished the work. Then, with marvellous ease, he

cautiously raised himself up, his tongue flaming from his mouth the

while, curved over the nest, and, with wavy, subtle motions, explored

the interior. I can conceive of nothing more overpoweringly terrible to

an unsuspecting family of birds than the sudden appearance above their

domicile of the head and neck of this arch-enemy. It is enough to

petrify the blood in their veins. Not finding the object of his search,

he came streaming down from the nest to a lower limb, and commenced

extending his researches in other directions, sliding stealthily through

the branches, bent on capturing one of the parent birds. That a legless,

wingless creature should move with such ease and rapidity where only

birds and squirrels are considered at home, lifting himself up, letting

himself down, running out on the yielding boughs, and traversing with

marvellous celerity the whole length and breadth of the thicket, was

truly surprising. One thinks of the great myth, of the Tempter and the

"cause of all our woe," and wonders if the Arch One is not now playing

off some of his pranks before him. Whether we call it snake or devil

matters little. I could but admire his terrible beauty, however, his

black, shining folds, his easy, gliding movement, head erect, eyes

glistening, tongue playing like subtile flame, and the invisible means

of his almost winged locomotion.

The parent birds, in the mean while, kept up the most agonizing cry,--at

times fluttering furiously about their pursuer, and actually laying hold

of his tail with their beaks and claws. On being thus attacked, the

snake would suddenly double upon himself and follow his own body back,

thus executing a strategic movement that at first seemed almost to

paralyze his victim and place her within his grasp. Not quite, however.

Before his jaws could close upon the coveted prize the bird would tear

herself away, and, apparently faint and sobbing, retire to a higher

branch. His reputed powers of fascination availed him little, though it

is possible that a more timid and less combative bird might have been

held by the fatal spell. Presently, as he came gliding down the slender

body of a leaning Alder, his attention was attracted by a slight

movement of my arm; eying me an instant, with that crouching, utter,

motionless gaze which I believe only snakes and devils can assume, he

turned quickly,--a feat which necessitated something like crawling over

his own body,--and glided off through the branches, evidently

recognizing in me a representative of the ancient parties he once so

cunningly ruined. A few moments after, as he lay, carelessly disposed in

the top of a rank Alder, trying to look as much like a crooked branch as

his supple, shining form would admit, the old vengeance overtook him. I

exercised my prerogative, and a well-directed missile in the shape of a

stone, brought him looping and writhing to the ground. After I had

completed his downfall, and quiet had been partially restored, a

half-fledged member of the bereaved household came out from his

hiding-place, and, jumping upon a decayed branch, chirped vigorously,

no doubt in celebration of the victory. What the emotions of the parent

birds were, on seeing their destroyer's head so thoroughly bruised, and

a part of their little ones at least spared to them, I can only

conjecture; but I imagined the news spread immediately, and that my

praises as the deliverer were sung in that neighborhood ever after.

Till the middle of July there is a general equilibrium; the tide stands

poised; the holiday-spirit is unabated. But as the harvest ripens

beneath the long, hot days, the melody gradually ceases. The young are

out of the nest and must be cared for, and the moulting season is at

hand. After the Cricket has commenced to drone his monotonous refrain

beneath your window, you will not, till another season, hear the

Wood-Thrush in all his matchless eloquence. The Bobolink has become

careworn and fretful, and blurts out snatches of his song between his

scolding and upbraiding, as you approach the vicinity of his nest,

oscillating between anxiety for his brood and solicitude for his musical

reputation. Some of the Sparrows still sing, and occasionally across the

hot fields, from a tall tree in the edge of the forest, comes the rich

note of the Scarlet Tanager. This tropical-colored bird loves the

hottest weather, and I hear him more in dog-days than at any other time.

The remainder of the summer is the carnival of the Swallows and

Flycatchers. Flies and insects, to any amount, are to be had for the

catching; and the opportunity is well improved. See that sombre,

ashen-colored Pewee on yonder branch. A true sportsman he, who never

takes his game at rest, but always on the wing. You vagrant Fly, you

purblind Moth, beware how you come within his range! Observe his

attitude. You might think him studying the atmosphere or the light, for

he has an air of contemplation and not of watchfulness. But step closer;

observe the curious movement of his head, his "eye in a fine frenzy

rolling, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven." His sight

is microscopic and his aim sure. Quick as thought he has seized his

victim and is back to his perch. There is no strife, no pursuit,--one

fell swoop and the matter is ended. That little Sparrow, as you will

observe, is less skilled. It is the _Socialis_, and he finds his

subsistence properly in various seeds and the larvae of insects, though

he occasionally has higher aspirations, and seeks to emulate the Pewee,

commencing and ending his career as a Flycatcher by an awkward chase

after a Beetle or "Miller." He is hunting around in the grass now, I

suspect, with the desire to indulge this favorite whim. There!--the

opportunity is afforded him. Away goes a little cream-colored

Meadow-Moth in the most tortuous course he is capable of, and away goes

_Socialis_ in pursuit. The contest is quite comical, though I dare say

it is serious enough to the Moth. The chase continues for a few yards,

when there is a sudden rushing to cover in the grass,--then a taking to

wing again, when the search has become too close, and the Moth has

recovered his wind. _Socialis_ chirps angrily, and is determined not to

be beaten. Keeping, with the slightest effort, upon the heels of the

fugitive, he is ever on the point of halting to snap him up, but never

quite does it,--and so, between disappointment and expectation, is soon

disgusted, and returns to pursue his more legitimate means of

subsistence.

In striking contrast to this serio-comic strife of the Sparrow and the

Moth, is the Pigeon-Hawk's pursuit of the Sparrow or the Goldfinch. It

is a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing and

wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of

terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right

and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such

silent determination on the part of the Hawk, pressing the bird so

closely, flashing and turning and timing his movements with those of the

pursued as accurately and as inexorably as if the two constituted one

body, excite feeling of a deep interest. You mount the fence or rush

out of your way to see the issue. The only salvation for the bird is to

adopt the tactics of the Moth, seeking instantly the cover of some tree,

bush, or hedge, where its smaller size enables it to move about more

rapidly. These pirates are aware of this, and therefore prefer to take

their prey by one fell swoop. You may see one of them prowling through

an orchard, with the Yellowbirds hovering about him, crying, _Pi-ty,

pi-ty_, in the most desponding tone; yet he seems not to regard them,

knowing, as do they, that in the close branches they are as safe as if

in a wall of adamant.

August is the month of the high-sailing Hawks. The Hen-Hawk is the most

noticeable. He likes the haze and the calm of these long, warm days. He

is a bird of leisure, and seems always at his ease. How beautiful and

majestic are his movements! So self-poised and easy, such an entire

absence of haste, such a magnificent amplitude of circles and spirals,

such a haughty, imperial grace, and, occasionally, such daring aerial

evolutions!

With slow, leisurely movement, rarely vibrating his pinions, he mounts

and mounts in an ascending spiral till he appears a mere speck against

the summer sky; then, if the mood seizes him, with wings half-closed,

like a bent bow, he will cleave the air almost perpendicularly, as if

intent on dashing himself to pieces against the earth; but on nearing

the ground, he suddenly mounts again on broad, expanded wing, as if

rebounding upon the air, and sails leisurely away. It is the sublimest

feat of the season. One holds his breath till he sees him rise again.

Sometimes a squirrel or bird or an unsuspecting barn-fowl is scathed and

withered beneath this terrible visitation.

If inclined to a more gradual and less precipitous descent, he fixes his

eye on some distant point in the earth beneath him, and thither bends

his course. He is still almost meteoric in his speed and boldness. You

see his path down the heavens, straight as a line; if near, you hear the

rush of his wings; his shadow hurtles across the fields, and in an

instant you see him quietly perched upon some low tree or decayed stub

in a swamp or meadow, with reminiscences of frogs and mice stirring in

his maw.

When the south-wind blows, it is a study to see three or four of these

air-kings at the head of the valley far up toward the mountain,

balancing and oscillating upon the strong current: now quite stationary,

except a slight tremulous motion like the poise of a rope-dancer, then

rising and falling in long undulations, and seeming to resign themselves

passively to the wind; or, again, sailing high and level far above the

mountain's peak,--no bluster and haste, but, as stated, occasionally a

terrible earnestness and speed. Fire at him as he sails overhead, and,

unless wounded badly, he will not change his course or gait.

His flight is a perfect picture of repose in motion. He might sleep

dream in that level, effortless, aimless sail. It strikes the eye as

more surprising than the flight of the Pigeon and Swallow even, in that

the effort put forth is so uniform and delicate as to escape

observation, giving to the movement an air of buoyancy and perpetuity,

the effluence of power rather than the conscious application of it.

The calmness and dignity of this Hawk, when attacked by Crows or the

King-Bird, are well worthy of him. He seldom deigns to notice his noisy

and furious antagonists, but deliberately wheels about in that aerial

spiral, and mounts and mounts till his pursuers grow dizzy and return to

earth again. It is quite original, this mode of getting rid of an

unworthy opponent, rising to heights where the braggart is dazed and

bewildered and loses his reckoning! I am not sure but it is worthy of

imitation.

But summer wanes, and autumn approaches. The songsters of the seed-time

are silent at the reaping of the harvest. Other minstrels take up the

strain. It is the heyday of insect life. The day is canopied with

musical sound. All the songs of the spring and summer appear to be

floating, softened and refined, in the upper air. The birds, in a new,

but less holiday suit, turn their faces southward. The Swallows flock

and go; the Bobolinks flock and go; silently and unobserved, the

Thrushes go. Autumn arrives, bringing Finches, Warblers, Sparrows, and

Kinglets from the North. Silently the procession passes. Yonder Hawk,

sailing peacefully away till he is lost in the horizon, is a symbol of

the closing season and the departing birds.

GOLD EGG.--A DREAM-FANTASY.

HOW A STUDENT IN SEARCH OF THE BEAUTIFUL FELL ASLEEP OVER HERR PROFESSOR

DOCTOR VISCHER'S "WISSENSCHAFT DES SCHOeNEN," AND WHAT CAME THEREOF.

1.

I swam with undulation soft,

Adrift on Vischer's ocean,

And, from my cockboat up aloft,

Sent down my mental plummet oft,

In hope to reach a notion.

2.

But from the metaphysic sea

No bottom was forthcoming,

And all the while (so drowsily!)

In one eternal note of B

My German stove kept humming.

3.

What's Beauty? mused I. Is it told

By synthesis? analysis?

Have you not made us lead of gold?

To feed your crucible, not sold

Our temple's sacred chalices?

4.

Then o'er my senses came a change:

My book seemed all traditions,

Old legends of profoundest range,

Diablerie, and stories strange

Of goblins, elves, magicians.

5.

Truth was, my outward eyes were closed,

Although I did not know it;

Deep into Dreamland I had dozed,

And found me suddenly transposed

From proser into poet.

6.

So what I read took flesh and blood

And turned to living creatures;

The words were but the dingy bud

That bloomed, like Adam from the mud,

To human forms and features.

7.

I saw how Zeus was lodged once more

By Baucis and Philemon;

The text said, "Not alone of yore,

But every day at every door

Knocks still the masking Demon."

8.

DAIMON 't was printed in the book;

And as I read it slowly,

The letters moved and changed and took

Jove's stature, the Olympian look

Of painless melancholy.

9.

He paused upon the threshold worn:--

"With coin I cannot pay you;

Yet would I fain make some return,--

You will not the gift's cheapness spurn,--

Accept this fowl, I pray you.

10.

"Plain feathers wears my Hemera,

And has from ages olden;

She makes her nest in common hay;

And yet, of all the birds that lay,

Her eggs alone are golden."

11.

He turned and could no more be seen.

Old Baucis stared a moment,

Then tossed poor partlet on the green,

And with a tone half jest, half spleen,

Thus made her housewife's comment:

12.

"The stranger had a queerish face,

His smile was most unpleasant;

And though he meant it for a grace,

Yet this old hen of barnyard race

Was but a stingy present.

13.

"She's quite too old for laying eggs,

Nay, even to make a soup of;

It only needs to see her legs,--

You might as well boil down the pegs

I made the brood-hen's coop of!

14.

"More than three hundred such do I

Raise every year, her sisters;

Go, in the woods your fortune try,

All day for one poor earth-worm pry,

And scratch your toes to blisters!"

15.

Philemon found the rede was good;

And turning on the poor hen,

He clapped his hands, he stamped, hallooed,

Hunting the exile toward the wood,

To house with snipe and moor-hen.

16.

A poet saw and cried,--"Hold! hold!

What are you doing, madman?

Spurn you more wealth than can be told,

The fowl that lays the eggs of gold,

Because she's plainly clad, man?"

17.

To him Philemon,--"I'll not balk

Thy will with any shackle;

Wilt add a burden to thy walk?

Then take her without further talk;

You're both but fit to cackle!"

18.

But scarce the poet touched the bird,

It rose to stature regal;

And when her cloud-wide wings she stirred,

A whisper as of doom was heard,--

'T was Jove's bolt-bearing eagle.

19.

As when from far-off cloudbergs springs

A crag, and, hurtling under,

From cliff to cliff the rumor flings,

So she from flight-foreboding wings

Shook out a murmurous thunder.

20.

She gripped the poet to her breast,

And ever upward soaring,

Earth seemed a new-moon in the West,

And then one light among the rest

Where squadrons lie at mooring.

21.

How know I to what o'er-world seat

The eagle bent her courses?

The waves that seem its base to beat,

The gales that round it weave and fleet,

Are life's creative forces.

22.

Here was the bird's primeval nest,

High on a promontory

Star-pharosed, where she takes her rest,

And broods new aeons 'neath her breast,

The future's unfledged glory.

23.

I knew not how, but I was there,

All feeling, hearing, seeing;

It was not wind that stirred my hair,

But living breath, the essence rare

Of unembodied being.

24.

And in the nest an egg of gold

Lay wrapt in its own lustre,

Gazing whereon, what depths untold

Within, what wonders manifold

Seemed silently to muster!

25.

Do visions of such inward grace

Still haunt our life benighted?

It glowed as when St. Peter's face,

Illumed, forgets its stony race,

And seems to throb self-lighted.

26.

One saw therein the life of man,--

Or so the poet found it;

The yolk and white, conceive who can,

Were the glad earth, that, floating, span

In the soft heaven around it.

27.

I knew this as one knows in dream,

Where no effects to causes

Are chained as in our work-day scheme,

And then was wakened by a scream

Sent up by frightened Baucis.

28.

"Bless Zeus!" she cried, "I'm safe below!"

First pale, then red as coral;

And I, still drowsy, pondered slow,

And seemed to find, but hardly know,

Something like this for moral.

29.

Each day the world is born anew

For him who takes it rightly;

Not fresher that which Adam knew,

Not sweeter that whose moonlit dew

Dropped on Arcadia nightly.

30.

Rightly?--that's simply: 't is to see

_Some_ substance casts these shadows

Which we call Life and History,

That aimless seem to chase and flee

Like wind-gleams over meadows.

31.

Simply?--that's nobly: 't is to know

That God may still be met with,

Nor groweth old, nor doth bestow

This sense, this heart, this brain aglow,

To grovel and forget with.

32.

Beauty, Herr Doctor, trust in me,

No chemistry will win you;

Charis still rises from the sea:

If you can't find her, _might_ it be

The trouble was within you?

OUT OF THE SEA.

A raw, gusty afternoon: one of the last dragging breaths of a

nor'easter, which swept, in the beginning of November, from the Atlantic

coast to the base of the Alleghanies. It lasted a week, and brought the

winter,--for autumn had lingered unusually late that year; the fat

bottom-lands of Pennsylvania, yet green, deadened into swamps, as it

passed over them: summery, gay bits of lakes among the hills glazed over

with muddy ice; the forests had been kept warm between the western

mountains, and held thus late even their summer's strength and darker

autumn tints, but the fierce ploughing winds of this storm and its

cutting sleet left them a mass of broken boughs and rotted leaves. In

fact, the sun had loitered so long, with a friendly look back-turned

into these inland States, that people forgot that the summer had gone,

and skies and air and fields were merry-making together, when they lent

their color and vitality to these few bleak days, and then suddenly

found that they had entertained winter unawares.

Down on the lee coast of New Jersey, however, where the sea and wind

spend the year making ready for their winter's work of shipwreck, this

storm, though grayer and colder there than elsewhere, toned into the

days and nights as a something entirely matter-of-course and consonant.

In summer it would have been at home there. Its aspect was different,

also, as I said. But little rain fell here; the wind lashed the ocean

into fury along the coast, and then rolled in long, melancholy howls

into the stretches of barren sand and interminable pine forest; the

horizon contracted, though at all times it is narrower than anywhere

else, the dome of the sky wider,--clouds and atmosphere forming the

scenery, and the land but a round, flat standing-place: but now the sun

went out; the air grew livid, as though death were coming through it;

solid masses of gray, wet mist moved, slower than the wind, from point

to point, like gigantic ghosts gathering to the call of the murderous

sea.

"Yonder go the shades of Ossian's heroes," said Mary Defourchet to her

companion, pointing through the darkening air.

They were driving carefully in an old-fashioned gig, in one of the lulls

of the storm, along the edge of a pine wood, early in the afternoon. The

old Doctor,--for it was MacAulay, (Dennis,) from over in Monmouth

County, she was with,--the old man did not answer, having enough to do

to guide his mare, the sleet drove so in his eyes. Besides, he was

gruffer than usual this afternoon, looking with the trained eyes of an

old water-dog out to the yellow line of the sea to the north. Miss

Defourchet pulled the oil-skin cloth closer about her knees, and held

her tongue; she relished the excitement of this fierce fighting the

wind, though; it suited the nervous tension which her mind had undergone

lately.

It was a queer, lonesome country, the lee coast,--never so solitary as

now, perhaps; older than the rest of the world, she fancied,--so many of

Nature's voices, both of bird and vegetable, had been entirely lost out

of it: no wonder it had grown unfruitful, and older and dumber and sad,

listening for ages to the unremorseful, cruel cries of the sea; these

dead bodies, too, washed up every year on its beaches, must haunt it,

though it was not guilty. She began to say something of this to Doctor

Dennis, tired of being silent.

"Your country seems to me always to shut itself out from the world," she

said; "from the time I enter that desolate region on its border of dwarf

oaks and gloomy fires of the charcoal-burners, I think of the old leper

and his cry of 'Unclean! unclean!'"

MacAulay glances anxiously at her, trying to keep pace with her meaning.

"It's a lonesome place enough," he said, slowly. "There be but the two

or three farm-keepers; and the places go from father to son, father to

son. The linen and carpet-mats in that house you're in now come down

from the times before Washington. Stay-at-home, quiet people,--only the

men that follow the water, in each generation. There be but little to be

made from these flats of white sand. Yes, quiet enough: the beasts of

prey aren't scaret out of these pine forests yet, I heard the cry of a

panther the other night only, coming from Tom's River: close by the road

it was: sharp and sorrowful, like a lost child.--As for ghosts," he

continued, after a thoughtful pause, "I don't know any that would have

reason for walking, without it was Captain Kidd. His treasure's buried

along-shore here."

"Ay?" said Mary, looking up shrewdly into his face.

"Yes," he answered, shaking his head slowly, and measuring his whip with

one eye. "Along here, many's the Spanish half-dollar I've picked up

myself among the kelp. They do say they're from a galleon that went

ashore come next August thirty years ago, but I don't know that."

"And the people in the hamlet?" questioned Mary, nodding to a group of

scattered, low-roofed houses.

"Clam-fishers, the maist o' them. There be quite a many wrackers, but

they live farther on, towards Barnegat. But a wrack draws them, like

buzzards to a carcass."

Miss Defourchet's black eye kindled, as if at the prospect of a good

tragedy.

"Did you ever see a wreck going down?" she asked, eagerly.

"Yes,"--shutting his grim lips tighter.

"That emigrant ship last fall? Seven hundred and thirty souls lost, they

told me."

"I was not here to know, thank God," shortly.

"It would be a sensation for a lifetime,"--cuddling back into her seat,

with no hopes of a story from the old Doctor.

MacAulay sat up stiffer, his stern gray eye scanning the ocean-line

again, as the mare turned into the more open plains of sand sloping down

to the sea. It was up-hill work with him, talking to this young lady. He

was afraid of a woman who had lectured in public, nursed in the

hospitals, whose blood seemed always at fever heat, and whose aesthetic

taste could seek the point of view from which to observe a calamity so

horrible as the emigrant ship going down with her load of lives. "She's

been fed on books too much," he thought. "It's the trouble with young

women nowadays." On the other hand, for himself, he had lost sight of

the current of present knowledges,--he was aware of that, finding how

few topics in common there were between them; but it troubled the

self-reliant old fellow but little. Since he left Yale, where he and

this girl's uncle, Doctor Bowdler, had been chums together, he had lived

in this out-of-the-way corner of the world, and many of the rough ways

of speaking and acting of the people had clung to him, as their red mud

to his shoes. As he grew older, he did not care to brush either off.

Miss Defourchet had been a weight on his mind for a week or more. Her

guardian, Doctor Bowdler, had sent her down to board in one of the

farm-houses. "The sea-air will do her good, physically," he said in a

note to his old chum, with whom he always had kept up a lingering

intercourse; "she's been over-worked lately,--sick soldiers, you know.

Mary went into the war _con amore_, like all women, or other happy

people who are blind of one eye. Besides, she is to be married about

Christmas, and before she begins life in earnest it would do her good to

face something real. Nothing like living by the sea, and with those

homely, thorough-blood Quakers, for bringing people to their simple,

natural selves. By the way, you have heard of Dr. Birkenshead, whom she

marries? though he is a surgeon,--not exactly in your profession. A

surprisingly young man to have gained his reputation. I'm glad Mary

marries a man of so much mark; she has pulled alone so long, she needs a

master." So MacAulay had taken pains to drive the young lady out, as

to-day, and took a general fatherly sort of charge of her, for his old

friend's sake.

Doctor Bowdler had frankly told his niece his reasons for wishing her to

go down to the sea-shore. They nettled her more than she chose to show.

She was over thirty, an eager humanitarian, had taught the freedmen at

Port Royal, gone to Gettysburg and Antietam with sanitary

stores,--surely, she did not need to be told that she had yet to begin

life in earnest! But she was not sorry for the chance to rest and think.

After she married she would be taken from the quiet Quaker society in

Philadelphia, in which she always had moved, to one that would put her

personal and mental powers to a sharp proof; for Birkenshead, by right

of his professional fame, and a curiously attractive personal

eccentricity, had gradually become the nucleus of one of the best and

most brilliant circles in the country, men and women alike distinguished

for their wit and skill in extracting the finest tones from life while

they lived. The quiet Quaker girl was secretly on her mettle,--secretly,

too, a little afraid. The truth was, she knew Doctor Birkenshead only in

the glare of public life; her love for him was, as yet, only a delicate

intellectual appreciation that gave her a keen delight. She was anxious

that in his own world he should not be ashamed of her. She was glad he

was to share this breathing-space with her; they could see each other

unmasked. Doctor Bowdler and he were coming down from New York on Ben

Van Note's lumber-schooner. It was due yesterday, but had not yet

arrived.

"You are sure," MacAulay said to her, as they rode along, "that they

will come with Ben?"

"Quite sure. They preferred it to the cars for the novelty of the thing,

and the storm lulled the day they were to sail. Could the schooner make

this inlet in a sea like that?"

Doctor Dennis, stooping to arrange the harness, pretended not to hear

her.

"Ben, at least," he thought, "knows that to near the bar to-day means

death."

"One would think," he added aloud, "that Dick Bowdler's gray hairs and

thirty years of preaching would have sobered his love of adventure. He

was a foolhardy chap at college."

Miss Defourchet's glance grew troubled, as she looked out at the

gathering gloom and the crisp bits of yellow foam blown up to the

carriage-wheels. Doctor Dennis turned the mare's head, thus hiding the

sea from them; but its cry sounded for miles inland to-day,--an awful,

inarticulate roar. All else was solemn silence. The great salt marshes

rolled away on one side of the road, lush and rank,--one solitary dead

tree rising from them, with a fish-hawk's uncouth nest lumbering its

black trunk; they were still as the grave; even the ill-boding bird was

gone long ago, and kept no more its lonely vigil on the dead limb over

wind and wave. She glanced uneasily from side to side: high up on the

beach lay fragments of old wrecks; burnt spars of vessels drifted ashore

to tell, in their dumb way, of captain and crew washed, in one quick

moment, by this muddy water of the Atlantic, into that sea far off

whence no voyager has come back to bring the tidings. Land and sea

seemed to her to hint at this thing,--this awful sea, cold and dark

beyond. What did the dark mystery in the cry of the surf mean but that?

That was the only sound. The heavy silence without grew intolerable to

her: it foreboded evil. The cold, yellow light of day lingered long.

Overhead, cloud after cloud rose from the far watery horizon, and drove

swiftly and silently inland, bellying dark as it went, carrying the

storm. As the horse's hoofs struck hard on the beach, a bird rose out of

the marsh and trailed through the air, its long legs dragging behind it,

and a blaze of light feathers on its breast catching a dull glow in the

fading evening.

"The blue heron flies low," said the Doctor. "That means a heavier

storm. It scents a wreck as keenly as a Barnegat pirate."

"It is fishing, maybe?" said Mary, trying to rouse herself.

"It's no a canny fisher that," shaking his head. "The fish you'd find in

its nest come from the deep waters, where heron never flew. Well, they

do say," in answer to her look of inquiry, "that on stormy nights it

sits on the beach with a phosphoric light under its wing, and so draws

them to shore."

"How soon will the storm be on us?" after a pause.

"In not less than two hours. Keep your heart up, child. Ben Van Note is

no fool. He'd keep clear of Squan Beach as he would of hell's mouth,

such a night as this is going to be. Your friends are all safe. We'll

drive home as soon as we've been at the store to see if the mail's

brought you a letter."

He tucked in his hairy overcoat about his long legs, and tried to talk

cheerfully as they drove along, seeing how pale she was.

"The store" for these two counties was a large, one-roomed frame

building on the edge of the great pine woods, painted bright pink, with

a wooden blue lady, the old figure-head of some sloop, over the door.

The stoop outside was filled with hogsheads and boxes; inside was the

usual stock of calicoes, chinaware, molasses-barrels, and books; the

post-office, a high desk, on which lay half a dozen letters. By the

dingy little windows, on which the rain was now beating sharply, four or

five dirty sailors and clam-diggers were gathered, lounging on the

counter and kegs, while one read a newspaper aloud slowly. They stopped

to look at Miss Defourchet, when she came in, and waited by the door for

the Doctor. The gloomy air and forlorn-looking shop contrasted and threw

into bright relief her pretty, delicate little figure, and the dainty

carriage-dress she wore. All the daylight that was in the store seemed

at once to cling to and caress the rare beauty of the small face, with

its eager blue eyes and dark brown curls. There was one woman in the

store, sitting on a beer-cask, a small, sharp-set old wife, who drew her

muddy shoes up under her petticoats out of Mary's way, but did not look

at her. Miss Defourchet belonged to a family to whom the ease that money

gives and a certain epicureanism of taste were natural. She stood there

wondering, not unkindly, what these poor creatures did with their lives,

and their dull, cloddish days; what could they know of the keen pains,

the pleasures, the ambitions, or loves, that ennobled wealthier souls?

"This be yer papper, Doctor," said one; "but we've not just yet finished

it."

"All right, boys; Jem Dexter can leave it to-night, as he goes by. Any

mail for me, Joe? But you're waiting, Mother Phebe?"--turning with a

sudden gentleness to the old woman near Mary.

"Yes, I be. But it don't matter. Joseph, serve the Doctor,"--beating a

tattoo on the counter with her restless hands.

The Doctor did not turn to take his letters, however, nor seem to heed

the wind which was rising fitfully each moment without, but leaned

leisurely on the counter.

"Did you expect a letter to-day?"--in the same subdued voice.

She gave a scared look at the men by the window, and then in a

whisper,--

"From my son, Derrick,--yes. The folks here take Derrick for a

joke,--an' me. But I'm expectin'. He said he'd come, thee sees?"

"So he did."

"Well, there's none from Derrick to-day, Mother Phebe," said the burly

storekeeper, taking his stubby pipe out of his mouth.

She caught her breath.

"Thee looked carefully, Joseph?"

He nodded. She began to unbutton a patched cotton umbrella,--her lips

moving as people's do sometimes in the beginning of second childhood.

"I'll go home, then. I'll be back mail-day, Wednesday, Joseph. Four days

that is,--Wednesday."

"Lookee here now, Gran!" positively, laying down the pipe to give effect

to his words; "you're killin' yerself, you are. Keep a-trottin' here all

winter, an' what sort of a report of yerself'll yer make to Derrick by

spring? When that 'ere letter comes, if come it do, I've said I'd put on

my cut an' run up with it. See there!"--pulling out her thin calico

skirt before the Doctor,--"soaked, she is."

"Thee's kind, Joseph, but thee don't know,"--drawing her frock back with

a certain dignity. "When my boy's handwrite comes, I must be here. I

learned writin' on purpose that I might read it first,"--turning to

Mary.

"How long has your boy been gone?" asked Miss Defourchet, heedless of

Joseph's warning "Hush-h!"

"Twenty years, come Febuary," eagerly volunteered one or two voices by

the window. "She's never heerd a word in that time, an' she never misses

a mail-day, but she's expectin'," added one, with a coarse laugh.

"None o' that, Sam Venners," said Joe, sharply. "If so be as Dirk said

he'd come, be it half-a-hunder' years, he'll stan' to 't. I knowed Dirk.

Many's the clam we toed out o' th' inlet yonner. He's not the sort to

hang round, gnawin' out the old folk's meat-pot, as some I cud name.

He"----

"I'll go, if thee'll let me apast," said the old woman, humbly curtsying

to the men, who now jammed up the doorway.

"It's a cussed shame, Venners," said Joe, when she was out. "Why can't

yer humor the old gran a bit? She's the chicken-heartedest woman ever I

knowed," explanatory to Miss Defourchet, "an' these ten years she's been

mad-like, waitin' for that hang-dog son of hers to come back."

Mary followed her out on the stoop, where she stood, her ragged green

umbrella up, her sharp little face turned anxiously to the far sea-line.

"Bad! bad!" she muttered, looking at Mary.

"The storm? Yes. But you ought not to be out in such weather," kindly,

putting her furred hand on the skinny arm.

The woman smiled,--a sweet, good-humored smile it was, in spite of her

meagre, hungry old face.

"Why, look there, young woman,"--pulling up her sleeve, and showing the

knotted tendons and thick muscles of her arm. "I'm pretty tough, thee

sees. There's not a boatman in Ocean County could pull an oar with me

when I was a gell, an' I'm tough yet,"--hooking her sleeve again.

The smile haunted Miss Defourchet; where had she seen it before?

"Was Derrick strongly built?"--idly wishing to recall it.

"Thee's a stranger; maybe thee has met my boy?"--turning on her sharply.

"No, that's silly,"--the sad vagueness coming back into the faded eyes.

After a pause,--"Derrick, thee said? He was short, the lad was,--but

with legs and arms as tender and supple as a wild-cat's. I loss much of

my strength when he was born; it was wonderful, for a woman, before; I

giv it to him. I'm glad of that! I thank God that I giv it to him!"--her

voice sinking, and growing wilder and faster. "Why! why!"

Mary took her hand, half-scared, looking in at the store-door, wishing

Doctor Dennis would come.

The old woman tottered and sat down on the lower rung of a ladder

standing there. Mary could see now how the long sickness of the hope

deferred had touched the poor creature's brain, gentle and loving at

first. She pushed the wet yellow sun-bonnet back from the gray hair; she

thought she had never seen such unutterable pathos or tragedy as in this

little cramped figure, and this old face, turned forever watching to the

sea.

"Thee doesn't know; how should thee?"--gently, but not looking at her.

"Thee never had a son; an' when thee has, it will be born in wedlock.

Thee's rich, an' well taught. I was jess a clam-fisher, an' knowed

nothin' but my baby. His father was a gentleman: come in spring, an'

gone in th' fall, an' that was the last of him. That hurt a bit, but I

had Derrick. _Oh, Derrick! Derrick!_"--whispering, rocking herself to

and fro as if she held a baby, cooing over the uncouth name with an

awful longing and tenderness in the sound.

Miss Defourchet was silent. Something in all this awed her; she did not

understand it.

"I mind," she wandered on, "when the day's work was done, I'd hold him

in my arms,--so,--and his sleepy little face would turn up to mine. I

seemed to begin to loss him after he was a baby,"--with an old, worn

sigh. "He went with other boys. The Weirs and Hallets took him up; they

were town-bred people, an' he soon got other notions from mine, an'

talked of things I'd heerd nothin' of. I was very proud of my Derrick;

but I knowed I'd loss him all the same. I did washin' an' ironin' by

nights to keep him dressed like the others,--an' kep' myself out o'

their way, not to shame him with his mother."

"And was he ashamed of you?" said Mary, her face growing hot.

"Thee did not know my little boy,"--the old woman stood up, drawing

herself to her full height. "His wee body was too full of pluck an' good

love to be shamed by his mother. I mind the day I come on them suddint,

by the bridge, where they were standin', him an' two o' the Hallets. I

was carryin' a basket of herrings. The Hallets they flushed up, an'

looked at him to see what he'd do; for they never named his mother to

him, I heerd. The road was deep with mud; an' as I stood a bit to

balance myself, keepin' my head turned from him, before I knew aught, my

boy had me in his arms, an' carried me t' other side. I'm not a heavy

weight, thee sees, but his face was all aglow with the laugh.

"'There you are, dear,' he says, puttin' me down, the wind blowin' his

brown hair.

"One of the Hallets brought my basket over then, an' touched his hat as

if I'd been a lady. That was the last time my boy had his arms about me:

next week he went away. That night I heerd him in his room in the loft,

here an' there, here an' there, as if he couldn't sleep, an' so for many

nights, comin' down in the mornin' with his eye red an' swollen, but

full of the laugh an' joke as always. The Hallets were with him

constant, those days, Judge Hallet, their father, were goin' across

seas, Derrick said. So one night, I'd got his tea ready, an' were

waitin' for him by the fire, knittin',--when he come in an' stood by the

mantel-shelf, lookin' down at me, steady. He had on his Sunday suit of

blue, Jim Devines giv him.

"'Where be yer other clothes, my son?' I said.

"'They're not clean,' says he. 'I've been haulin' marl for Springer this

week. He paid me to-night; the money's in the kitchen-cupboard.'

"I looked up at that, for it was work I'd never put him to.

"'It'll buy thee new shoes,' said I.

"'I did it for you, mother,' he says, suddint, puttin' his hand over his

eyes. 'I wish things were different with you.'

"'Yes, Derrick.'

"I went on with my knittin'; for I never talked much to him, for the

shame of my bad words, since he'd learned better. But I wondered what he

meant; for wages was high that winter, an' I was doin' well.

"'If ever,' he says, speakin' low an' faster, 'if ever I do anything

that gives you pain, you'll know it was for love of you I did it. Not

for myself, God knows! To make things different for you.'

"'Yes, Derrick,' I says, knittin' on, for I didn't understan' thin.

Afterwards I did. The room was dark, an' it were dead quiet for a bit;

then the lad moved to the door.

"'Where be thee goin', Derrick?' I said.

"He come back an' leaned on my chair.

"'Let me tell you when I come back,' he said. 'You'll wait for me?'

stoopin' down an' kissin' me.

"I noticed that, for he did not like to kiss,--Derrick. An' his lips

were hot an' dry.

"'Yes, I'll wait, my son,' I said. 'Thee'll not be gone long?'

"He did not answer that, but kissed me again, an' went out quickly.

"I sat an' waited long that night, an' searched till mornin'. There's

been a many nights an' days since, but I've never found him. The Hallets

all went that night, an' I heerd Derrick went as waiter-boy, so's to get

across seas. It's twenty years now. But I think he'll come,"--looking up

with a laugh.

Miss Defourchet started; where had she known this woman? The sudden

flicker of a smile, followed by a quick contraction of the eyelids and

mouth, was peculiar and curiously sensitive and sad; somewhere, in a

picture maybe, she had seen the same.

Doctor Dennis, who had waited purposely, came out now on the stoop. Miss

Defourchet looked up. The darkness had gathered while they stood there;

the pine woods, close at the right, began to lower distant and

shapeless; now and then the wind flapped a raw dash of rain in their

faces, and then was suddenly still. Behind them, two or three tallow

candles, just lighted in the store, sputtered dismal circles of dingy

glare in the damp fog; in front, a vague slope of wet night, in which

she knew lay the road and the salt marshes; and far beyond, distinct,

the sea-line next the sky, a great yellow phosphorescent belt,

apparently higher than their heads. Nearer, unseen, the night-tide was

sent in: it came with a regular muffled throb that shook the ground.

Doctor Dennis went down, and groped about his horse, adjusting the

harness.

"The poor beast is soaked to the marrow: it's a dull night: d'ye hear

how full the air is of noises?"

"It be the sea makin' ready," said Joe, in a whisper, as if it were a

sentient thing and could hear. He touched the old woman on the arm and

beckoned her inside to one of the candles.

"There be a scrap of a letter come for you; but keep quiet. Ben Van

Note's scrawl of a handwrite, think."

The letters were large enough,--printed, in fact: she read it but once.

"Your Dirk come Aboord the Chief at New York. I knowed him by a mark on

his wrist--the time jim hallet cut him' you mind. he is aged and

Differentt name. I kep close. we sail to-day and Ill Breng him Ashor

tomorrer nite plese God. be on Handd."

She folded the letter, crease by crease, and put it quietly in her

pocket. Joe watched her curiously.

"D' Ben say when the Chief ud run in?"

"To-night."

"Bah-h! there be n't a vessel within miles of this coast,--without a

gale drives 'm in."

She did not seem to hear him: was feeling her wet petticoats and

sleeves. She would shame Derrick, after all, with this patched, muddy

frock! She had worked so long to buy the black silk, gown and white

neckercher that was folded in the bureau-drawer to wear the day he'd

come back!

"When he come back!"

Then, for the first time, she realized what she was thinking about.

_Coming to-night!_

Presently Miss Defourchet went to her where she was sitting on a box in

the dark and rain.

"Are you sick?" said she, putting her hand out.

"Oh, no, dear!" softly, putting the fingers in her own, close to her

breast, crying and sobbing quietly. "Thee hand be a'most as soft as a

baby's foot," after a while, fancying the little chap was creeping into

her bosom again, thumping with his fat feet and fists as he used to do.

Her very blood used to grow wild and hot when he did that, she loved him

so. And her heart to-night was just as warm and light as then. He was

coming back, her boy: maybe he was poor and sick, a worn-out man; but in

a few hours he would be here, and lay his tired head on her breast, and

be a baby again.

Joe went down to the Doctor with a lantern.

"Van Note meant to run in the Chief to-night,"--in an anxious, inquiring

whisper.

"He's not an idiot!"

"No,--but, bein' near, the wind may drive 'em on the bar. Look yonder."

"See that, too, Joe?" said bow-legged Phil, from Tom's River, who was

up that night.

"That yellow line has never been in the sky since the night the James

Frazier--_Ach-h! it's come!_"

He had stooped to help Doctor Dennis with his harness, but now fell

forward, clapping his hands to his ears. A terrible darkness swept over

them; the whole air was filled with a fierce, risping crackle; then came

a sharp concussion, that seemed to tear the earth asunder. Miss

Defourchet cried aloud: no one answered her. In a few moments the

darkness slowly lifted, leaving the old yellow lights and fogs on sea

and land. The men stood motionless as when the tornado passed, Doctor

Dennis leaning on his old mare, having thrown one arm about her as if to

protect her, his stern face awed.

"There's where it went," said Joe, coolly, drawing his hands from his

pockets, and pointing to a black gap in the pine woods. "The best farms

in this Jersey country lie back o' that. I told you there was death in

the pot, but I didn't think it ud 'a' come this fashion."

"When will the storm be on us?" asked Mary, trembling.

Joe laughed sardonically.

"Haven't ye hed enough of it?"

"There will be no rain after a gust like that," said MacAulay. "I'll try

and get you home now. It has done its worst. It will take years to wipe

out the woe this night has worked."

The wind had fallen into a dead silence, frightened at itself. And now

the sudden, awful thunder of the sea broke on them, shaking the sandy

soil on which they stood.

"Thank God that Van Note is so trusty a sailor as you say!" said Mary,

buttoning her furs closer to her throat. "They're back in a safe harbor,

I doubt not."

Joe and Doctor Dennis exchanged significant glances as they stood by the

mare, and then looked again out to sea.

"Best get her home," said Joe, in a whisper.

Doctor Dennis nodded, and they made haste to bring the gig up to the

horse-block.

Old Phebe Trull had been standing stirless since the gust passed. She

drew a long breath when Mary touched her, telling her to come home with

them.

"That was a sharp blow. I'm an old Barnegat woman, an' I've known no

such cutters as that. But he'll come. I'm expectin' my boy to-night,

young woman. I'm goin' to the beach now to wait for him,--for Derrick."

In spite of the queer old face peering out from the yellow sun-bonnet,

with its flabby wrinkles and nut-cracker jaws, there was a fine,

delicate meaning in the smile with which she waved her hand down to the

stormy beach.

"What's that?" said Doctor Dennis, starting up, and holding his hand

behind his ear. His sandy face grew pale.

"I heard nothing," said Mary.

The next moment she caught a dull thud in the watery distance, as if

some pulse of the night had throbbed feverishly.

Bow-legged Phil started to his feet.

"It's the gun of the Chief! Van Note's goin' down!" he cried, with a

horrible oath, and hobbled off, followed by the other men.

"His little brother Benny be on her," said Joe. "May God have mercy on

their souls!"

He had climbed like a cat to the rafters, and thrown down two or three

cables and anchors, and, putting them over his shoulders, started

soberly for the beach, stopping to look at Miss Defourchet, crouched on

the floor of the store.

"You'd best see after her, Doctor. Ropes is all we can do for 'em. No

boat ud live in that sea, goin' out."

Going down through the clammy fog, his feet sinking in the marsh with

the weight he carried, he could see red lights in the mist, gathering

towards shore.

"It's the wrackers goin' down to be ready for mornin'."

And in a few moments stood beside them a half-dozen brawny men, with

their legs and chests bare. The beach on which they stood glared white

in the yellow light, giving the effect of a landscape in Polar seas. One

or two solitary headlands loomed gloomily up, covered with snow. In

front, the waters at the edge of the sea broke at their feet in long,

solemn, monotonous swells, that reverberated like thunder,--a death-song

for the work going on in the chaos beyond.

"Thar's no use doin' anything out thar," said one of the men, nodding

gloomily to a black speck in the foaming hell. "She be on the bar this

ten minutes, an' she 's a mean-built craft, that Chief."

"Couldn't a boat run out from the inlet?" timidly ventured an eager,

blue-eyed little fellow.

"No, Snap," said Joe, letting his anchor fall, and clearing his throat.

"Well, there be the end of old Ben, hey? Be yer never tired, yer cruel

devil?" turning with a sudden fierceness to the sly foam creeping lazily

about his feet.

There was a long silence.

"Bowlegs tried it, but his scow stud still, an' the breakers came atop

as if it war a clam-shell. He warn't five yards from shore. His Ben's

aboard." Another peal of a gun from the schooner broke through the dark

and storm.

"God! I be sick o' sittin' on shor', an' watchin' men drownin' like rats

on a raft," said Joe, wiping the foam from his thick lips, and trotting

up and down the sand, keeping his back to the vessel.

Some of the men sat down, their hands clasped about their knees, looking

gravely out.

"What cud we do, Joey?" said one. "Thar be Hannah an' the children; we

kin give Hannah a lift. But as for Ben, it 's no use thinkin' about Ben

no more."

The little clam-digger Snap was kindling a fire out of the old

half-burnt wrecks of vessels.

"It's too late to give 'em warnin'," he said; "but it'll let 'em see

we're watchin' 'em at the last. One ud like friends at the last."

The fire lighted up the shore, throwing long bars of hot, greenish flame

up the fog.

"Who be them, Joe?" whispered a wrecker, as two dim figures came down

through the marsh.

"She hev a sweetheart aboord. Don't watch her."

The men got up, and moved away, leaving Miss Defourchet alone with

Doctor Dennis. She stood so quiet, her eyes glued on the dull, shaking

shadow yonder on the bar, that he thought she did not care. Two figures

came round from the inlet to where the water shoaled, pulling a narrow

skiff.

"Hillo!" shouted Doctor Dennis. "Be you mad?"

The stouter of the figures hobbled up. It was Bowlegs. His voice was

deadened in the cold of the fog, but he wiped the hot sweat from his

face.

"In God's name, be thar none of ye ull bear a hand with me? Ud ye sit

here an' see 'em drown? Benny's thar,--my Ben."

Joe shook his head.

"My best friend be there," said the old Doctor. "But what can ye do?

Your boat will be paper in that sea, Phil."

"That's so," droned out one or two of the wreckers, dully nodding.

"Curses on ye for cowards, then!" cried Bowlegs, as he plunged into the

surf, and righted his boat. "Look who's my mate, shame on ye!"

His mate shoved the skiff out with an oar into the seething breakers,

turning to do it, and showed them, by the far-reaching fire-light, old

Phebe Trull, stripped to her red woollen chemise and flannel petticoat,

her yellow, muscular arms and chest bare. Her peaked old face was set,

and her faded blue eye aflame. She did not hear the cry of horror from

the wreckers.

"Ye've a better pull than any white-liver of 'em, from Tom's to

Barnegat," gasped Bowlegs, struggling against the surf.

She was wrestling for life with Death itself; but the quiet, tender

smile did not leave her face.

"My God! ef I cud pull as when I was a gell!" she muttered. "Derrick,

I'm comin'! I'm comin', boy!"

The salt spray wet their little fire of logs, beside which Snap sat

crying,--put it out at last, leaving a heap of black cinders. The night

fell heavier and cold; boat and schooner alike were long lost and gone

in outer darkness. As they wandered up and down, chilled and hopeless,

they could not see each other's faces,--only the patch of white sand at

their feet. When they shouted, no gun or cry answered them again. All

was silence, save the awful beat of the surf upon the shore, going on

forever with its count, count of the hours until the time when the sea

shall at last give up its dead.

* * * * *

Ben Van Note did not run the Chief in near shore purposely; but the fog

was dense, and Ben was a better sailor than pilot. He took the wheel

himself about an hour before they struck,--the two or three other men at

their work on deck, with haggard, anxious faces, and silent: it is not

the manner of these Jersey coast-men to chatter in heavy weather.

Philbrick, Doctor Bowdler's boy, lounged beside Ben, twisting a greasy

lantern: "a town-bred fellow," Ben said; "put him in mind of young, rank

cheese."

"You'd best keep a sharp eye, Van Note," he said; "this is a dirty bit

of water, and you've two great men aboard: one patcher of the body, t'

other of the soul."

"I vally my own neck more than either," growled Ben, and after a while

forced himself to add, "_He_'s no backbone,--the little fellow with your

master, I mean."

"Umph!" superciliously, "I'd like to see the 'little fellow' making neat

bits out of that carcass of yours! His dainty white fingers carve off a

fellow's legs and arms, caring no more than if they were painting

flowers. He is a neat flower-painter, Dr. Birkenshead; moulds in clay,

too."

He stared as Van Note burst into a coarse guffaw.

"Flower-painter, eh? Well, well, young man. You'd best go below. It's

dirtier water than you think."

Doctors Bowdler and Birkenshead were down in the little cabin, reading

by the dull light of a coal-oil lamp. When the vessel began to toss so

furiously, the elder man rose and paced fussily to and fro, rubbing his

fingers through his iron-gray hair. His companion was too much engrossed

by his paper to heed him. He had a small, elegantly shaped figure,--the

famous surgeon,--a dark face, drawn by a few heavy lines; looking at it,

you felt, that, in spite of his womanish delicacies of habit, which lay

open to all, never apologized for, he was a man whom you could not

approach familiarly, though he were your brother born. He stopped

reading presently, slowly folding the newspaper straight, and laying it

down.

"That is a delicious blunder of the Administration," with a little

gurgling laugh of thorough relish. "You remember La Rochefoucauld's

aphorism, 'One is never so easily deceived as when one seeks to deceive

others'?"

Doctor Bowdler looked uncomfortable.

"A selfish French Philister, La Rochefoucauld!" he blurted out. "I feel

as if I had been steeped in meanness and vulgarity all my life, when I

read him."

"He knew men," said the other, coolly, resetting a pocket set of

chessmen on the board where they had been playing,--"Frenchmen,"

shortly.

"Doctor Birkenshead," after a pause, "you appear to have no sympathies

with either side, in this struggle for the nation's life. You neither

attack nor defend our government."

"In plain English, I have no patriotism? Well, to be honest, I don't

comprehend how any earnest seeker for truth can have. If my country has

truth, so far she nourishes me, and I am grateful; if not,--why, the air

is no purer nor the government more worthy of reverence because I

chanced to be born here."

"Why, Sir," said the Doctor, stopping short and growing red, "you could

apply such an argument as that to a man's feeling for his wife or child

or mother!"

"So you could," looking closely at the queen to see the carving.

Doctor Bowdler looked at him searchingly, and then began his angry walk

again in silence. What was the use of answering? No wonder a man who

talked in that way was famed in this country and in Europe for his

coolness and skill in cutting up living bodies. And yet--remorsefully,

looking furtively at him--Birkenshead was not a hard fellow, after all.

There was that pauper-hospital of his; and he had known him turn sick

when operating on children, and damn the people who brought them to him.

Doctor Bowdler was a little in dread of this future husband of his

niece, feeling there was a great gulf between them intellectually, the

surgeon having a rare power in a line of life of which he knew nothing.

Besides, he could not understand him,--not his homely, keen little face

even. The eyes held their own thought, and never answered yours; but on

the mouth there was a forlorn depression sometimes, like that of a man

who, in spite of his fame, felt himself alone and neglected. It rested

there now, as he idly fingered the chessmen.

"Mary will kiss it away in time, maybe,"--doubting, as he said it,

whether Mary did not come nearer the man's head than his heart. He

stopped, looking out of the hole by the ladder that served the purpose

of a window.

"It grows blacker every minute. I shall begin to repent tempting you on

such a harebrained expedition, Doctor."

"No. This Van Note seems a cautious sailor enough," carelessly.

"Yes. He's on his own ground, too. We ought to run into Squan Inlet by

morning. Did you speak?"

Birkenshead shook his head; the Doctor noticed, however, that his hand

had suddenly stopped moving the chessmen; he rested his chin in the

other.

"Some case he has left worries him," he thought. "He's not the man to

relish this wild-goose chase of mine. It's bad enough for Mary to jar

against his quiet tastes with her reforming whims, without my"----

"I would regret bringing you here," he said aloud, "if I did not think

you would find a novelty in this shore and people. This coast is hardly

'canny,' as MacAulay would say. It came, literally, out of the sea.

Sometime, ages ago, it belonged to the bed of the ocean, and it never

has reconciled itself to the life of the land; its Flora is different

from that of the boundaries; if you dig a few feet into its marl, you

find layers of shells belonging to deep soundings, sharks' teeth and

bones, and the like. The people, too, have a 'marvellously fishy and

ancient smell.'"

The little man at the table suddenly rose, pushing the chessmen from

him.

"What is there to wonder at?"--with a hoarse, unnatural laugh. "That's

Nature. You cannot make fat pastures out of sea-sand, any more than a

thorough-blood _gentilhomme_ out of a clam-digger. The shark's teeth

will show, do what you will." He pulled at his whiskers nervously, went

to the window, motioning Doctor Bowdler roughly aside. "Let me see what

the night is doing."

The old gentleman stared in a grave surprise. What had he said to

startle Birkenshead so utterly out of himself? The color had left his

face at the first mention of this beach; his very voice was changed,

coarse and thick, as if some other man had broken out through him. At

that moment, while Doctor Bowdler stood feebly adjusting his

watch-chain, and eying his companion's back, like one who has found a

panther in a domestic cat, and knows not when he will spring, the

tornado struck the ocean a few feet from their side, cleaving a path for

itself into deep watery walls. There was an instant's reeling and

intense darkness, then the old Doctor tried to gather himself up,

bruised and sick, from the companion-way, where he had been thrown.

"Better lie still," said Birkenshead, in the gentle voice with which he

was used to calm a patient.

The old gentleman managed to sit up on the floor. By the dull glare of

the cabin-lantern he could see the surgeon sitting on the lower rung of

the ladder, leaning forward, holding his head in his hands.

"Strike a light, can't you, Birkenshead? What has happened? Bah! this is

horrible! I have swallowed the sea-water! Hear it swash against the

sides of the boat! Is the boat going to pieces?"

"And there met us 'a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,'" said

Birkenshead, looking up with a curious smile.

"Did there?"--rubbing his shoulder. "I've kept clear of the sea so far,

and I think in future--Hark! what's that?" as through the darkness and

the thunderous surge of the water, and the short, fierce calls of the

men on board, came a low shivering crack, distinct as a human whisper.

"What is it, Birkenshead?" impatiently, when the other made no answer.

"The schooner has struck the bar. She is going to pieces."

The words recalled the old servant of Christ from his insane fright to

himself.

"That means death! does it not?"

"Yes."

The two men stood silent,--Doctor Bowdler with his head bent and eyes

closed. He looked up presently.

"Let us go on deck now and see what we can do,"--turning cheerfully.

"No, there are too many there already."

There was an old tin life-preserver hanging on a hook by the door; the

surgeon climbed up to get it, and began buckling it about the old man in

spite of his remonstrances. The timbers groaned and strained, the boat

trembled like some great beast in its death-agony, settled heavily, and

then the beams on one side of them parted. They stood on a shelving

plank floor, snapped off two feet from them, the yellow sky overhead,

and the breakers crunching their footing away.

"O God!" cried Bowdler, when he looked out at the sea. He was not a

brave man; and he could not see it, when he looked; there was but a

horror of great darkness, a thunder of sound, and a chilly creeping of

salt-water up his legs, as if the great monster licked his victim with

his lifeless tongue. Straight in front of them, at the very edge of the

horizon, he thought the little clam-digger's fire opened a tunnel of

greenish light into the night, "dull and melancholy as a scene in

Hades." They saw the men sitting around the blaze with their hands

clasped about their knees, the woman's figure alone, and watching.

"Mary!" cried the old man, in the shrill extremity of his agony.

His companion shivered.

"Take this from me, boy!" cried Doctor Bowdler, trying to tear off the

life-preserver. "It's a chance. I've neither wife nor child to care if I

live or die. You're young; life's beginning for you. I've done with it.

Ugh! this water is deadly cold. Take it, I say."

"No," said the other, quietly restraining him.

"Can you swim?"

"In this sea?"--with a half-smile, and a glance at the tossing breakers.

"You'll swim? Promise me you'll swim! And if I come to shore and see

Mary?"

Birkenshead had regained the reticent tone habitual to him.

"Tell her, I wish I had loved her better. She will understand. I see the

use of love in this last hour."

"Is there any one else?"

"There used to be some one. Twenty years ago I said I would come, and

I'm coming now."

"I don't hear you."

Birkenshead laughed at his own thought, whatever it was. The devil who

had tempted him might have found in the laugh an outcry more bitter than

any agony of common men.

The planks beneath their feet sank inch by inch. They were shut off

from the larboard side of the vessel. For a time they had heard oaths

and cries from the other men, but now all was silent.

"There is no help coming from shore,"--(the old man's voice was

weakening,)--"and this footing is giving way."

"Yes, it's going. Lash your arms to me by your braces, Doctor. I can

help you for a few moments."

So saying, Birkenshead tore off his own coat and waistcoat; but as he

turned, the coming breaker dashed over their heads, he heard a faint

gasp, and when his eyes were clear of the salt, he saw the old man's

gray hair in the midst of a sinking wave.

"I wish I could have saved him," he said,--then made his way as best he

could by feet and hands to a bulk of timber standing out of the water,

and sitting down there, clutched his hands about his knees, very much as

he used to do when he was a clam-digger and watched the other boys

bringing in their hauls.

"Twenty years ago I said I'd come, and I'm coming," he went on

repeating.

Derrick Trull was no coward, as boy or man, but he made no effort to

save himself; the slimy water washed him about like a wet rag. He was

alone now, if never before in those twenty years; his world of

beautiful, cultured, graceful words and sights and deeds was not here,

it was utterly gone out; there was no God here, that he thought of; he

was quite alone: so, in sight of this lee coast, the old love in that

life dead years ago roused, and the mean crime dragged on through every

day since gnawed all the manliness and courage out of him.

She would be asleep now, old Phebe Trull,--in the room off the brick

kitchen, her wan limbs curled up under her check nightgown, her pipe and

noggin of tea on the oven-shelf; he could smell the damp, musty odor of

the slop-sink near by. What if he could reach shore? What if he were to

steal up to her bed and waken her?

"It's Derrick, back, mother," he would say. How the old creature would

skirl and cry over her son Derrick!--Derrick! he hated the name. It

belonged to that time of degradation and stinting and foulness.

Doctor Birkenshead lifted himself up. Pish! the old fish-wife had long

since forgotten her scapegrace son,--thought him dead. _He was dead._ He

wondered--and this while every swash of the salt-water brought death

closer up to his lips--if Miss Defourchet had seen "Mother Phebe."

Doubtless she had, and had made a sketch of her to show him;--but no,

she was not a picturesque pauper,--vulgar, simply. The water came up

closer; the cold of it, and the extremity of peril, or, maybe, this old

gnawing at the heart, more virulent than either, soon drew the strength

out of his body: close study and high living had made the joints less

supple than Derrick Trull's: he lay there limp and unable,--his brain

alert, but fickle. It put the watery death out of sight, and brought his

familiar every-day life about him: the dissecting-room; curious cases

that had puzzled him; drawing-rooms, beautiful women; he sang airs from

the operas, sad, broken little snatches, in a deep, mellow voice, finely

trained,--fragments of a litany to the Virgin. Birkenshead's love of

beauty was a hungry monomania; his brain was filled with memories of the

pictures of the Ideal Mother and her Son. One by one they came to him

now, the holy woman-type which for ages supplied to the world that

tenderness and pity which the Church had stripped from God. Even in his

delirium the man of fastidious instincts knew this was what he craved;

even now he remembered other living mothers he had known, delicate,

nobly born women, looking on their babes with eyes full of all gracious

and pure thoughts. With the sharp contrast of a dream came the old

clam-digger, barefoot in the mud, her basket of soiled clothes on her

shoulder,--her son Derrick, a vulgar lad, aping gentility, behind her.

Closer and closer came the waters; a shark's gray hide glittered a few

feet from him. Death, sure of his prey, nibbled and played with it; in

a little while he lay supine and unconscious.

Reason came back to him like an electric shock; for all the parts of Dr.

Birkenshead's organization were instinctive, nervous, like a woman's.

When it came, the transient delirium had passed; he was his cool,

observant self. He lay on the wet floor of a yawl skiff, his head

resting on a man's leg; the man was rowing with even, powerful strokes,

and he could feel rather than see in the darkness a figure steering. He

was saved. His heart burned with a sudden glorious glow of joy, and

genial, boyish zest of life,--one of the excesses of his nature. He

tried to speak, but his tongue was stiff, his throat dry; he could have

caressed the man's slimy sleeve that touched his cheek, he was so glad

to live. The boatman was in no humor for caresses; he drew his labored

breath sharply, fighting the waves, rasping out a sullen oath when they

baffled him. The little surgeon had tact enough to keep silent; he did

not care to talk, either. Life rose before him a splendid possibility,

as never before. From the silent figure at the helm came neither word

nor motion. Presently a bleak morning wind mingled with the fierce,

incessant nor'easter; the three in the yawl, all sea-bred, knew the

difference.

"Night ull break soon," said Bowlegs.

It did break in an hour or two into a ghastly gray dawn, bitter

cold,--the slanting bars of sharp light from beyond the sea-line falling

on the bare coast, on a headland of which moved some black, uneasy

figures.

"Th' wrackers be thar."

There was no answer.

"Starboard! Hoy, Mother Phebe!"

She swayed her arms round, her head still fallen on her breast. Doctor

Birkenshead, from his half-shut eyes, could see beside him the

half-naked, withered old body, in its dripping flannel clothes, God! it

had come, then, the time to choose! It was she who had saved, him! she

was here,--alive!

"Mother!" he cried, trying to rise.

But the word died in his dry throat; his body, stiff and icy cold,

refused to move.

"What ails ye?" growled the man, looking at her. "Be ye giv' out so near

land? We've had a jolly seinin' together," laughing savagely, "ef we did

miss the fish we went for, an' brought in this herrin'."

"Thee little brother's safe, Bowlegs," said the old woman, in a feeble,

far-off voice. "My boy ull bring him to shore."

The boatman gulped back his breath; it sounded like a cry, but he

laughed it down.

"You think yer Derrick ull make shore, eh? Well, I don't think that ar

way o' Ben. Ben's gone under. It's not often the water gets a

ten-year-older like that. I raised him. It was I sent him with Van Note

this run. That makes it pleasanter now!" The words were grating out

stern and sharp.

"Thee knows Derrick said he'd come," the woman said simply.

She stooped with an effort, after a while, and, thrusting her hand under

Doctor Birkenshead's shirt, felt his chest.

"It's a mere patchin' of a body. He's warm yet. Maybe," looking closely

into the face, "he'd have seen my boy aboord, an' could say which way he

tuk. A drop of raw liquor ull bring him round."

Phil glanced contemptuously at the surgeon's fine linen, and the diamond

_solitaire_ on the small, white hand.

"It's not likely that chap ud know the deck-hands. It's the man Doctor

Dennis was expectin'."

"Ay?" vaguely.

She kept her hand on the feebly beating heart, chafing it. He lay there,

looking her straight in the eyes; in hers--dull with the love and

waiting of a life--there was no instinct of recognition. The kind,

simple, blue eyes, that had watched his baby limbs grow and strengthen

in her arms! How gray the hair was! but its bit of curl was in it yet.

The same dear old face that he used to hurry home at night to see!

Nobody had loved him but this woman,--never; if he could but struggle up

and get his head on her breast! How he used to lie there when he was a

big boy, listening to the same old stories night after night,--the same

old stories! Something homely and warm and true was waking in him

to-night that had been dead for years and years; this was no matter of

aesthetics or taste, it was real, _real_. He wondered if people felt in

this way who had homes, or those simple folk who loved the Lord.

Inch by inch, with hard, slow pulls, they were gaining shore. Mary

Defourchet was there. If he came to her as the clam-digger's bastard

son, owning the lie he had practised half his life,--what then? He had

fought hard for his place in the world, for the ease and culture of his

life,--most of all, for the society of thorough-bred and refined men,

his own kindred. What would they say to Derrick Trull, and the mother he

had kept smothered up so long? All this with his eyes fixed on hers. The

cost was counted. It was to give up wife and place and fame,--all he had

earned. It had not been cheaply earned. All Doctor Birkenshead's habits

and intellect, the million nervous whims of a sensitive man, rebelled

against the sacrifice. Nothing to battle them down but--what?

"Be ye hurt, Mother Phebe? What d'yer hold yer breath for?"

She evaded him with a sickly smile.

"We're gamin', Bowlegs. It's but a few minutes till we make shore. He'll

be there, if--if he be ever to come."

"Yes, Gran," with a look of pity.

The wind stood still; it held its breath, as though with her it waited.

The man strained against the tide till the veins in his brawny neck

stood out purple. On the bald shore, the dim figures gathered in a

cluster, eagerly watching. Old Phebe leaned forward, shading her eyes

with her hand, peering from misty headland to headland with bated

breath. A faint cheer reached them from land.

"Does thee know the voices, Bowlegs?"--in a dry whisper.

"It be the wreckers."

"Oh!--Derrick," after a pause, "would be too weak to cheer; he'd be worn

with the swimmin'. Thee must listen sharp. Did they cry my name out? as

if there was some 'ut for me?"

"No, Mother," gruffly. "But don't ye lose heart after twenty years'

waitin'."

"I'll not."

As he pulled, the boatman looked over at her steadily.

"I never knowed what this was for ye, till now I've loss Ben," he said,

gently. "It's as if you'd been lossin' him every day these twenty

years."

She did not hear him; her eyes, straining, scanned the shore; she seemed

to grow blind as they came nearer; passed her wet sleeve over them again

and again.

"Thee look for me, Bowlegs," she said, weakly.

The yawl grated on the shallow waters of the bar; the crowd rushed down

to the edge of the shore, the black figures coming out distinct now,

half a dozen of the wreckers going into the surf and dragging the boat

up on the beach. She turned her head out to sea, catching his arm with

both hands.

"Be there any strange face to shore? Thee didn't know him. A little

face, full o' th' laugh an' joke, an' brown curls blown by the wind."

"The salt's in my eyes. I can't rightly see, Mother Phebe."

The surgeon saw Doctor Bowdler waiting, pale and haggard, his fat little

arms outstretched: the sea had spared him by some whim, then. When the

men lifted him out, another familiar face looked down on him: it was

Mary. She had run into the surf with them, and held his head in her

arms.

"I love you! I love you!" she sobbed, kissing his hand.

"There be a fire up by the bathing-houses, an' hot coffee," said old

Doctor Dennis, with a kindly, shrewd glance at the famous surgeon. "Miss

Defourchet and Snap made it for you. _She_ knew you, lying in the

yawl."

Birkenshead, keeping her hand, turned to the forlorn figure standing

shivering alone, holding both palms pressed to her temples, her gray

hair and clothes dripping.

"Thee don't tell me that he's here, Bowlegs," she said. "There might be

some things the wrackers hes found up in the bathin'-houses. There

might,--in the bathin'-houses. It's the last day,--it's twenty year"----

Doctor Birkenshead looked down at the beautiful flushed face pressed

close to his side, then pushed it slowly from him. He went over to where

the old woman stood, and kneeled beside her in the sand, drawing her

down to him.

"Mother," he said, "it's Derrick, mother. Don't you know your boy?"

With the words the boy's true spirit seemed to come back to

him,--Derrick Trull again, who went with such a hot, indignant heart to

win money and place for the old mother at home. He buried his head in

her knees, as she crouched over him, silent, passing her hands quickly

and lightly over his face.

"God forgive me!" he cried. "Take my head in your arms, mother, as you

used to do. Nobody has loved me as you did. Mother! mother!"

Phebe Trull did not speak one word. She drew her son's head close into

her trembling old arms, and held it there motionless. It was an old way

she had of caressing him.

Doctor Dennis drew the eager, wondering crowd away from them.

"I don't understand," said Doctor Bowdler, excitedly.

"I do," said his niece, and, sitting down in the sand, looked out

steadfastly to sea.----

Bow-legged Phil drove the anchor into the beach, and pulled it idly out

again.

"I've some 'ut here for you, Phil," said Joe, gravely. "The water washed

it up."

The fellow's teeth chattered as he took it.

"Well, ye know what it is?" fiercely. "Only a bit of a Scotch

cap,"--holding it up on his fist. "I bought it down at Port Monmouth,

Saturday, for him. I was a-goin' to take him home this week up to the

old folks in Connecticut. I kin take _that_ instead, an' tell 'em whar

our Benny is."

"That's so," said Joe, his eye twinkling as he looked over Phil's

shoulder.

A fat little hand slapped the said shoulder, and "Hillo, Bowlegs!" came

in a small shout in his ear. Phil turned, looked at the boy from head to

foot, gulped down one or two heavy breaths.

"Hi! you young vagabond, you!" he said, and went suddenly back to his

anchor, keeping his head down on his breast for a long while.----

He had piled up the sand at her back to make her a seat while they

waited for the wagons. Now he sat on her skirts, holding her hands to

warm them. He had almost forgotten Mary and the Doctor. Nature or

instinct, call it what you will, some subtile whim of blood called love,

brought the old clam-digger nearer to him than all the rest of the

world. He held the bony fingers tight, looked for an old ring she used

to wear, tried to joke to bring out the flicker of a smile on her mouth,

leaned near to catch her breath. He remembered how curiously sweet it

used to be, like new milk.

The dawn opened clear and dark blue; the sun yet waited below the stormy

sea. Though they sat there a long while, she was strangely quiet,--did

not seem so much afraid of him as she used to be when he began to rise

above her,--held his hand, with a bright, contented face, and said

little else than "My boy! my boy!" under her breath. Her eyes followed

every movement of his face with an insatiate hunger; yet the hesitation

and quiet in her motions and voice were unnatural. He asked her once or

twice if she were ill.

"Wait a bit, an' I'll tell thee, Derrick," she said. "Thee must remember

I'm not as young as I was then," with a smile. "Thee must speak fast, my

son. I'd like to hear of thee gran' home, if thee's willin'."

He told her, as he would to please a child, of the place and fame and

wealth he had won; but it had not the effect he expected. Before he had

finished, the look in her eyes grew vague and distant. Some thought in

the poor clam-digger's soul made these things but of little moment. She

interrupted him.

"There be one yonner that loves my boy. I'd like to speak a word to her

before--Call her, Derrick."

He rose and beckoned to Miss Defourchet. When she came near, and saw the

old woman's face, she hurried, and, stooping down quickly, took her head

in her arms.

"Derrick has come back to you," she said. "Will you let him bring me

with him to call you mother?"

"Mary?"

She did not look at him. Old Phebe pushed her back with a searching

look.

"Is it true love you'll give my boy?"

"I'll try." In a lower voice,--"I never loved him so well as when he

came back to you."

The old woman was silent a long time.

"Thee's right. It was good for Derrick to come back to me. I don't know

what that big world be like where thee an' Derrick's been. The sea keeps

talkin' of it, I used to think; it's kep' moanin' with the cries of it.

But the true love at home be worth it all. I knowed that always. I kep'

it for my boy. He went from it, but it brought him back. Out of the sea

it brought him back."

He knew this was not his mother's usual habit of speech. Some great

truth seemed coming closer to the old fish-wife, lifting her forever out

of her baser self. She leaned on the girl beside her, knowing her, in

spite of blood and education, to be no truer woman than herself. The

inscrutable meaning of the eyes deepened. The fine, sad smile came on

the face, and grew fixed there. She was glad he had come,--that was all.

Mary was a woman; her insight was quicker.

"Where are you hurt?" she said, softly.

"Hush! don't fret the boy. It was the pullin' last night, think. I'm not

as strong as when I was a gell."

They sat there, watching the dawn break into morning. Over the sea the

sky opened into deeps of silence and light. The surf rolled in, in long,

low, grand breakers, like riders to a battle-field, tossing back their

gleaming white plumes of spray when they touched the shore. But the wind

lulled as though something more solemn waited on the land than the sea's

rage or the quiet of the clouds.

"Does thee mind, Derrick," said his mother, with a low laugh, "how thee

used to play with this curl ahint my ear? When thee was a bit baby, thee

begun it. I've kep' it ever since. It be right gray now."

"Yes, mother."

He had crept closer to her now. In the last half-hour his eyes had grown

clearer. He dared not look away from her. Joe and Bowlegs had drawn

near, and Doctor Bowdler. They stood silent, with their hats off. Doctor

Bowdler felt her pulse, but her son did not touch it. His own hand was

cold and clammy; his heart sick with a nameless dread. Was he, then,

just too late?

"Yes, I did. I kep' it for thee, Derrick. I always knowed thee'd

come,"--in a lower voice. "There's that dress, too. I'd like thee to've

seen me in that; but"----

"Take her hands in yours," whispered Mary.

"Is it thee, my son?"--with a smile. After a long pause,--"I kep' it,

an' I kep' true love for thee, Derrick. God brought thee back for 't, I

think. It be the best, after all. He'll bring thee to me for 't at th'

last, my boy,--my boy!"

As the faint voice lingered and died upon the words, the morning sun

shone out in clear, calm glory over the still figures on the beach. The

others had crept away, and left the three alone with God and His great

angel, in whose vast presence there is no life save Love, no future save

Love's wide eternity.

MY STUDENT LIFE AT HOFWYL.

There flourished, in the heart of the Swiss Republic, during some twenty

or twenty-five years, commencing about the year 1810, an educational

institution, in the nature of a private college, which, though it

attracted much public attention at the time, being noticed with

commendation, as I remember, in a report made by the Count Capo d'Istria

to the Emperor Alexander of Russia, yet has never, I think, been

appreciated at its full deserts, nor generally recognized for the

admirable institution it was,--unparalleled, in the character of the

spirit which pervaded it, and in many of the practical results obtained,

by any establishment for learning that has ever come under my

observation.

I was educated there, from the age of sixteen or seventeen to twenty.

Passing into its tranquil scenes from the quiet of home and the hands of

a private tutor, with the sunny hopes and high ideal and scanty

experience of youth, much that I found there appeared to me at the time

but natural and in the ordinary course of things, which now, by the

light of a life's teachings, and by comparison with the realities as I

have found them, seems to me, as I look back, rather in the nature of a

dream of fancy, tinged with the glamour of optimism, than like the

things one really meets with in the work-a-day world. I say this, after

making what I think due allowance for the Claude-Lorraine tints in which

youth is wont to invest its early recollections.

It was one of several public institutions for education founded by the

benevolent enterprise of a very remarkable man. EMANUEL VON FELLENBERG

was born of a patrician family of Bern. His father had been a member of

the Swiss Government, and a friend of the celebrated Pestalozzi,--a

friendship which descended to the son. His mother was a descendant of

the stout Van Tromp, the Dutch admiral, who was victor in more than

thirty engagements, and whose spirit and courage she is said to have

inherited. To this noble woman young Fellenberg owed ideas of liberty

and philanthropy beyond the age in which he lived and the aristocratic

class to which he belonged.

Educated at Colmar and Tuebingen, the years immediately succeeding his

college life were spent in travels, which brought him, at the age of

twenty-three, and just after the death of Robespierre, to Paris, where

he had an opportunity of studying men in the subsiding tumult of a

terrible revolution.

The result appears to have been a conviction that the true element of

human progress was to be found less in correction of the adult than in

training of the youth. His mind imbued with the two great ideas of

freedom and education, he returned to his native Bern; but taking part

there against the French, he was banished, remaining in Germany an exile

for several years, and during that period planning emigration, with

several friends, to the United States. This intention he abandoned, on

being recalled to his native country, and there offered important

diplomatic and military service. In the latter capacity he quelled an

insurrection of the peasantry in the Oberland; but, prompted by that

sympathy for the laboring classes which was a strong element in his

character, he granted these people terms so liberal that his Government

refused to ratify them, whereupon he threw up his commission, recurring

to his favorite educational projects, and serving for a time on the

Board of Education in Bern.

But it soon became apparent that the ideas of his colleagues and himself

differed too widely to permit united action. They were thinking of the

commonplace routine of school instruction,--reading, writing,

arithmetic, and the like. He looked to education as the regenerating

agent of the world,--that agent without the aid of which liberty runs

into license, and the rule of the many, as he had witnessed it in

terror-stricken France, may become one of the worst forms of despotism.

He looked beyond mere pedagogical routine or formal learning, to the

living spirit,--to the harmonious development of every human faculty and

affection, intellectual, moral, spiritual.

Resigning his situation on the Bernese Board of Education, Fellenberg

expended a large fortune in the purchase of the estate of HOFWYL, about

two leagues from Bern, and the erection there of the building necessary

to carry into effect his own peculiar views.

It was a favorite idea of his, that society can be most effectually

influenced for good by training its extremes in social position: those,

on the one hand, who are born to wealth and station, whence are usually

chosen lawgivers, statesmen, leaders of public opinion; and those, on

the other hand, born to a heritage of ignorance and neglect, and too

often trained even from tender age to vice and violence. He sought to

bring these extremes of European society into harmonious relation with

each other,--to raise the one from hereditary dependence and

degradation, to imbue the other with healthy ideas of true nobility in

place of the morbid prejudices of artificial rank. In both these efforts

he was eminently successful,--in the latter, more so, in my judgment,

than any educator of his age.

The establishments of Hofwyl proper[A] were, accordingly, two in number,

quite distinct from each other: the _Vehrli-Knaben_, (Vehrli's boys,) as

they were called, from the name of their admirable young teacher,

Vehrli, essentially an agricultural school, on the manual-labor

principle; and the college, of which it is my chief object to sketch the

plan and its results. To this latter institution, in consequence of the

numerous and expensive branches taught and the great number of

professors employed, (about one to each four students,) those only, with

few exceptions, could obtain admission whose parents possessed ample

means,--the exceptions being the sons of a few of Fellenberg's Swiss

friends, in moderate circumstances, whom, when they showed great

promise, he admitted with little or no charge. It was by associating

these with his own children in their studies that the nucleus of this

college was originally formed.

From their very inception, these projects met with discouragement and

opposition, especially from the patrician class, to which Fellenberg

belonged. Even in republican Switzerland, these men held that their rank

exonerated them from any occupation that savored much of utility; and it

was with a feeling almost of dishonor to their order that they saw one

of their number stoop (it was thus they phrased it) to the ignoble task

of preceptor. It need hardly be said that Fellenberg held on his way,

undisturbed by the idle noise of prejudice like this.

Into the Vehrli school were received destitute orphans, foundlings, and

those whose parents were too indigent to provide for their education.

Their time was divided nearly equally between the labors of the field

and the lessons of the school. They were trained as farmers and

teachers. Besides the ordinary branches, they were well grounded in

botany and drawing, and made great proficiency in vocal music. Vehrli

devoted himself, heart and soul, to the instruction of these children.

He worked with them, studied with them, wore the same homely dress,

partook of the same plain fare, slept in the same dormitory,--in short,

spent his life wholly among them. After a time his pupils were in great

request throughout Europe, both as teachers and as agricultural

superintendents. I found one of them, when many years since I visited

Holland, intrusted with the care of a public seminary supported by the

Dutch Government, and his employers highly appreciated his character and

abilities. The children remained till they were of age, repaying by

their labor in the latter years a portion of the expenses of their early

education. Ultimately this school became nearly self-supporting.

Between Vehrli's children, as we used to call them, and ourselves there

was not much communication. We met occasionally only; but when we did

meet, there existed the most friendly relations between us. I saw but

little of the internal arrangements of that establishment, and am

unable, at this distance of time, to furnish detailed information

regarding it. I proceed to give some account of the college, of which,

for three years, I was a student.

Of that little republic it can truly be said, that its tranquillity was

never disturbed by one dividing prejudice of rank, of country, or of

religion. We had among our number (usually amounting to one hundred

students) dukes and princes, some of them related to crowned heads; and

we had the recipients, already alluded to, of Fellenberg's bounty; but

not in word or bearing was there aught to mark difference of artificial

rank. We had Swiss, Germans, Russians, Prussians, Dutch, French,

Italians, English, and I know not what other nationalities; but not one

unkindly sentiment or illiberal prejudice arose among us on account of

birthplace. We had Protestants, Catholics, members of the Greek Church,

and members of no church at all; but never, in language or feeling, did

I perceive any shade of coldness or aversion that had its rise in

theological differences. Fellenberg had succeeded in instilling into our

little community his own noble principles of republican dignity,

cosmopolitan amity, and religious toleration.

No one was addressed by his title; and to the tuft-hunters of English

universities it will appear scarcely credible that I lived several weeks

as a student at Hofwyl before I accidentally learned who were the

princes and other nobles, and who the objects of M. de Fellenberg's

charity. It was, I think, some six weeks or two months after my arrival

that I was conversing with a good-natured fellow-student, with whom I

had become well acquainted under his familiar nickname of _Stoesser_. I

remarked to him that before I reached Hofwyl I had heard that there were

several noblemen there, and I asked what had become of them.

"Why," said he, smiling, "they are here still."

"Indeed!" said I; "which are they?"

He requested me to guess. I named several of the students who had

appeared to me to have the greatest consideration among their fellows.

He shook his head, and laughed. "These are all merchants and commoners.

Try again." I did so, but with no better success; and at last he named,

to my surprise, several young men who had seemed to me to have but an

indifferent share of influence or respect,--among the rest, one who was

slightingly treated, and avoided rather than sought, by his companions.

He was the nephew of the King of Wuertemberg.

A day or two afterwards I chanced to learn that the young man whom I had

thus questioned was himself a Russian prince, grandson of the noted

Suwaroff,--Catharine's Suwaroff. He had charge of our flock of goats, of

which I shall by-and-by have occasion to speak; and he took to the

office very kindly.

In like manner, it might have puzzled me, after a three-years'

residence, to call to mind whether those with whom I was as intimate as

with my own brother were Protestants or Catholics or neither; and at

this distance of time I have forgotten. The reason is simple: we never

debated on theological subjects at all. M. de Fellenberg read to us

occasional lectures on religion; but they were practical, not

doctrinal,--embracing those essentials which belong to all Christian

sects, thus suiting Protestant and Catholic alike. The Catholics, it is

true, had from time to time a priest to confess them, who doubtless

enjoined the regular weekly fast; yet we of the Protestant persuasion

used, I believe, to eat as much fish and as many frogs on Fridays as

they.

A striking feature in our system of instruction was the absence of all

punishment, except such as was self-inflicted, under a code of laws of

our own, hereafter to be noticed. Twice, or perhaps three times, during

the term of my residence, one of the pupils, on account of repeated

inattention, or for similar venial cause, was requested by the

professor, during the course of the recitation, to leave the room. But

this was quite an event, to be talked of for a week, so contrary was it

to the regular, quiet, uncoercing routine of the institution. No

expulsion ever occurred. I do not myself remember to have received,

either from M. de Fellenberg or from any of his professors, one harsh

word during the three happy years I spent at Hofwyl.

The mildness with which the students were treated by their instructors

reacted upon them in their intercourse with each other. Duels, so common

among the students of German universities, were an unheard-of absurdity,

though we had a fencing-master, and took regular lessons in the use of

the small sword, skill in the management of which was considered an

indispensable item in the education of a gentleman. Quarrels such as

elsewhere terminate in blows were scarcely known among us. I recall but

two, both of which were immediately arrested by the spectators, who felt

their college dishonored by such an exhibition of evil passion and

violence. One of these was commenced by a youth coming only two weeks

before from an English school. The other occurred, one evening when a

small party of us had assembled in a private room, between a fiery young

Prussian count and a sturdy, unbending Swiss. The dispute grew warm, and

was about to proceed to extremities, when we who were by-standers made

no scruple to terminate it in our own way. We pounced upon the

disputants without warning, carried them off, each to his own room, on

our shoulders, and there, with a hearty laugh at their folly, set them

down to cool. All this was done so suddenly and so good-naturedly that

they themselves could not refrain from joining in the merriment which so

whimsical a conclusion to their quarrel had elicited.

I have heard and read much of the pluck and manliness that are supposed

to grow out of the English habit of settling school quarrels by boxing,

after the fashion of prize-fighters in the ring. But I do not think it

would have been a very safe experiment for one of these pugilistic young

gentlemen to offer an insult to a Hofwyl student, even though the

manhood of this latter had never been tested by pounding another's face

with his fist. Brutality and cowardice are often close allies; and his

anger, when roused, is most to be dreaded, who so bears himself as to

give no one just cause of offence. Boxing-matches and duels are

becoming, as they ought to be, like the ordeal by combat, antiquated

modes of testing the courage or settling the disputes whether of boys or

men, among the civilized portion of mankind.

But though little prone to quarrel, our indignation, I must confess, was

sometimes readily enough roused, when occasion called it forth. I

remember an instance in which, perhaps, the conservative portion of my

readers may think we carried matters somewhat to an extreme.

It happened that three officers of distinction from the Court of

Wuertemberg arrived, one day, on a visit to M. de Fellenberg. They

desired to see their sovereign's nephew, the same Prince Alexander of

Wuertemberg to whom I have already alluded as being no favorite among us.

He was accordingly sent for; and the interview took place in an open

space in front of M. de Fellenberg's _Schloss_, where four or five

students, of whom I was one, happened to be at the time, not more than

eight or ten steps distant. The officers, as they approached the Prince,

uncovered, and stood, during the conversation which ensued, with their

plumed hats in their hands. The young man, on the contrary, whose silly

airs had been a chief cause of his unpopularity among us, did not remove

the little student-cap he wore, but remained covered, without any

intimation to his visitors to resume their hats.

This was too much for us. "Do look!" said one of our group,--"if there

isn't that fellow Alexander standing with his cap on, and letting these

officers talk to him bareheaded!" And then, raising his voice so as to

be heard by the parties concerned, he said,--"Alexander, take off your

cap!"

But the cap did not stir. We took a step or two nearer, and another of

our party said,--

"Alexander, if you don't take that cap off, yourself, I'll come and take

it off for you."

This time the admonition had effect. The cap was slowly removed, and we

remained to make sure that it was not resumed, until the officers,

bowing low, took their leave,--carrying, I fear, to their royal master

no very favorable report touching the courtly manners of Hofwyl.

It was small marvel that an institution of practice so democratically

heterodox should awaken the jealousy of European legitimacy. And it was

probably with feelings more of sorrow than surprise, that Fellenberg,

about the year 1822, received from the Austrian authorities a formal

intimation that no Austrian subject would thereafter be allowed to enter

the college, and an order that those who were then studying there should

instantly return home. Than this tyrannical edict of the Austrian

autocrat,[B] the same who did not blush to declare "that he desired to

have loyal subjects, not learned men, in his dominions," no greater

compliment could have been paid to Fellenberg or his institutions.

The course of instruction pursued at Hofwyl included the study of the

Greek, Latin, French, and German languages, the last of which was the

language of our college,--history, geography, chemistry,

mechanics,--mathematics, in a thorough course, embracing the highest

branches,--drawing, and music, vocal and instrumental,--and, finally,

riding, fencing, and gymnastics. The recitations (_Stunden_, that is,

_hours_, we called them, for each lasted a single hour only) were

essentially conversational. The lessons in drawing, however, extended to

two consecutive hours, and included copying from the antique. There was

a riding-school and a considerable stud attached to the college; and the

highest class were in the habit of riding out once a week with M. de

Fellenberg, many of whose practical life-lessons, given as I rode by his

side during these pleasant excursions, I well remember yet.

The number of professors was large, compared to that of the taught,

being from twenty-five to thirty, though the college seldom contained

more than one hundred students. The number in each class was small,

usually from ten to fifteen.

Latin and Greek, though thoroughly taught, did not engross the same

proportion of time which in many other colleges is devoted to them. Not

more time was given to each than to ancient and modern history, and less

than to mathematics. This last was a special object of study. It was

taught, as was history, by extempore lectures, while the students took

notes in short-hand; and we seldom employed any printed work to aid us,

in the evening, in making out from recollection, aided by these notes, a

written statement of the propositions and their solution, to be handed,

next day, to the professor. This plan impressed on our minds, not indeed

the exact form of words or the particular set of phrases of the books,

but the essential principles of the science,--so that, when, in after

years, amid the business of life, details and demonstrations had faded

from my memory, I have never found difficulty in working these out

afresh, and recalling and rearranging them, without aid from books.

One little incident connected with my mathematical studies still comes

back to me with a pleasant impression. My chief college friend was young

De Saussure, grandson of the naturalist of that name, who, the first

with a single exception, reached the summit of Mont Blanc. The subject

of our lecture was some puzzling proposition in the differential

calculus, and De Saussure propounded to the professor a knotty

difficulty in connection with it. The professor replied

unsatisfactorily. My friend still pressed his point, and the professor

rejoined very learnedly and ingeniously, but without really meeting the

case; whereupon De Saussure silently assented, as if quite satisfied.

"You were _not_ satisfied with that explanation," said I to De Saussure,

as we walked to our rooms.

"Of course not," was his reply; "but would you have had me before the

class shame the good man who takes so much pains with us and is usually

so clear-headed? We must work it out ourselves to-night."

This trifle may afford a glimpse of the relation between professor and

student at Hofwyl. There was no antagonism between them. The former was

regarded, not as a pedagogue, from whom to stand aloof,--not, because of

his position of authority, as a natural enemy, to be resisted, so far as

resistance was safe,--but as an elder friend, whom it was a privilege

(and it was one often enjoyed) to converse with, out of college hours,

in a familiar way. During the hours of recreation, the professors

frequently joined in our games. Nor did I observe that this at all

diminished the respect we entertained for them or the progress we made

under their care.

Emulation was limited among us to that which naturally arises among

young men prosecuting the same studies. It was not artificially excited.

There were no prizes; there was no taking rank in classes; there was not

even the excitement of public examinations. Many may think this a

hazardous experiment. I am not sure whether classical proficiency did

not, to a certain extent, suffer from it. I am not sure whether some

sluggards did not, because of it, lag behind. Yet the general

proficiency in learning was satisfactory; and the student, when he

entered the world, missed no college excitants, but bore with him a love

and a habit of study needing no spur, and which insured the continuance

of education far beyond the term of his college years. For he had

learned to seek knowledge for itself, for the pleasing occupation it

brings, for the power it gives, for the satisfaction it leaves behind;

and he required no more highly seasoned inducements to continue the

search through life.

Yet it was not the peculiar mode of imparting instruction, nor yet the

variety, the extent, and the utility of the knowledge acquired, that

chiefly characterized the institution of the Swiss patriot. It was the

noble spirit of freedom, the purity of motive, the independence of

purpose, the honesty of conduct, the kindness of intercourse, the union

and forbearance and high-spirited republicanism, pervading alike our

hours of study, of amusement, and of social converse. These it was that

distinguished Hofwyl; and these it is that still cause its former pupils

to look back on the years spent within its peaceful precincts as the

best and the happiest of their lives.

To such results there mainly contributed a remarkable feature in the

economy of the institution I have been describing,--a feature, so far as

I know, not adopted in any similar institution, at least to the extent

to which it was carried by us.

I have said that reward and punishment by the college authorities, or by

M. de Fellenberg, their head, were virtually excluded from this system.

Considering the heterogeneous materials that were collected together

from half the nations of the world, some having been nursed and petted

in the lap of aristocracy, and others, probably, sent thither because

their parents could not manage them at home,--considering, too, the

comparatively late age at which students enter such a college, many of

them just from schools where severity was the rule and artificial reward

the stimulant,--considering all this, I doubt whether the mild,

uncoercing, paternal government of Hofwyl would have been a success, but

for the peculiarity here referred to coming in aid of our teachers, and

supplying motives and restraints to ourselves. It was in this wise.

Hofwyl was not only an institution for education, it was also an

independent, self-governing community. It had its code of laws, its

council of legislation, its court of judges, its civil and military

officers, its public treasury. It had its annual elections, by ballot,

at which each student had a vote,--its privileges, equally accessible to

all,--its labors and duties, in which all took a share. It proposed and

debated and enacted its own laws, from time to time modifying them, but

not often nor radically. It acted independently of the professors, and

of Fellenberg himself, except that our foster-father (_Pflegevater_, as

we used to call him) retained a veto, which, however, like Queen

Victoria, he never exercised. Never, I think, were laws framed with a

more single eye to the public good, or more strictly obeyed by those who

framed them.

Nor was this an unwilling obedience, an eye-service constrained by fear

or force. It was given cheerfully, honestly. We had ourselves assisted

in framing, and given our votes in enacting, our code of laws. We felt

them to be our own, and as such it became a point of honor with us to

conform to them in spirit as in letter.

I know not whether the idea of this juvenile self-regulating republic

(_Verein_, we called it) originated with Fellenberg or with some of the

students; but, whatever its origin, I believe it to have been the chief

lever that raised the moral and social character of our college to the

height it ultimately attained. It gave birth to public spirit, and to

social and civic virtues. It nurtured a conscious independence, that

submitted with pleasure to what it knew to be the will of the whole, and

felt itself bound to submit to nothing else. It created young

republicans, and awakened in them that devotion to the public welfare

and that zeal for the public good, which we seek too often, alas, in

vain, in older, but not wiser, communities.

When I said that we had no rewards at Hofwyl, I ought to have admitted

that the annual election to the offices of our _Verein_ acted indirectly

as a powerful stimulus to industry and good conduct. At these elections

was to be read, as on a moral thermometer, the graduated scale of public

opinion. The result of each election informed us with certainty who had

risen and who had fallen in the estimate of his fellows.

For it was felt that public opinion among us, enlightened and incorrupt,

operated with strict justice. In that young commonwealth, to deserve

well of the republic was to win its confidence and obtain testimonial of

its approbation. There not one sinister motive swayed our

votes,--neither favoritism, nor envy, nor any selfish inducement. There

was not even canvassing for favorite candidates. There was quiet,

dispassionate discussion of respective merits; but the one question

which the elector asked himself or his neighbor was, "Who can fill most

efficiently such or such an office?"--the answer to that question

furnishing the motive for decision. I cannot call to mind a single

instance, during the three years I passed at Hofwyl, in which even a

suspicion of an electioneering cabal or other factious proceeding

attached to an election among us. It can scarcely be said that there

were candidates for any office. Preferment was, indeed, highly valued,

as a testimonial of public confidence; but it was not sought, directly

or indirectly, and was accepted rather as imposing duty than conferring

privilege. The Lacedemonian, who, when he lost his election as one of

the Three Hundred, went away rejoicing that there were found in Sparta

three hundred better men than he, is extolled as a model, of ideal

virtue. Yet such virtue was matter of common occurrence and of little

remark at Hofwyl. There were not only one or two, but many among us, who

would have sincerely rejoiced to find others, more capable than

themselves, preferred to office in their stead.

All this sounds, I dare say, Utopian and extravagant. As I write, it

seems to myself so widely at variance with a five-and-twenty years'

experience of public life, that I should scruple at this distance of

time to record it, had I not, thirty years ago, when my recollections

were fresh, noted them down minutely and conscientiously. It avails

nothing to tell me that such things cannot be,--for at Hofwyl they were.

I describe a state of society which I witnessed, of which I was myself a

part.

As partial explanation, I may state, that to office, among us, was

attached no patronage and no salary.

The proceeds of our public treasury, (_Armenkasse_, we called it,) to

which each contributed according to his means and inclination, went

exclusively for the relief of the poor. We had a superintendent of the

poor, and a committee whose duty it was to visit the indigent families

in our neighborhood, ascertain their wants and their character, and

afford them relief, especially in winter. This relief was given in the

form sometimes of money, sometimes of food, clothing, or furniture; to

some we furnished goats, selected when in milk from a flock we had, and

which were left with them for a longer or shorter period. Our fund was

ample, and I think judiciously dispensed.

The laws and regulations of our _Verein_ extended to the police and the

moral government of our little community. The students were divided into

six circles, (_Kreise_,) and for the government of each of these we

elected a guardian or councillor (_Kreisrath_). These were our most

important officers,--their province embracing the social life and moral

deportment of each member of the _Kreis_. This, one might imagine, would

degenerate into an inquisitorial or intermeddling surveillance; but in

practice it never did. Each _Kreis_ was a band of friends, and its chief

was the friend most valued and esteemed among them. It had its weekly

meetings; and I remember, in all my life, no pleasanter gatherings than

these. Myself a _Kreisrath_ towards the close of my student life, I bore

home with me no more valued memorial than a brief letter of farewell,

expressive of affection and gratitude, signed by each member of the

_Kreis_.

Our judiciary consisted of a bench of three judges, whose sessions were

held in our principal hall with all due formality,--two sentinels, with

swords drawn, guarding the doors. The punishments within its power to

inflict were a vote of censure, fines, deprivation of the right of

suffrage, declaration of ineligibility to office, and degradation from

office. This last punishment was not inflicted on any student during my

residence at Hofwyl. Trials were very rare; and I do not remember one,

except for some venial offence. The offender usually pleaded his own

cause; but, if he preferred it, he might procure a friend to act as his

advocate.

The dread of public censure, thus declared by sentence after formal

trial, was great and influential among us. Its power may be judged from

the following example.

Two German princes, sons of a wealthy nobleman, the Prince of Tour and

Taxis, having been furnished by their father with a larger allowance of

pocket-money than they could legitimately spend at Hofwyl, conceived a

somewhat irregular mode of disposing of part of it. They were in the

habit of occasionally getting up late at night, after all their comrades

had retired to rest, and proceeding to the neighboring village of

Buchsee, there to spend an hour or two in a tavern, smoking and drinking

_lager-bier_.

Now we had no strict college bounds, and no prohibition against entering

a tavern, though we knew that M. de Fellenberg objected to our

contracting the latter habit. Our practice on Sundays may illustrate

this. That day was strictly kept and devoted to religious exercises

until midday, when we dined. After dinner it was given up to recreation,

and our favorite Sunday recreation was, to form into parties of two or

three and sally forth, _Ziegenhainer_ in hand, on excursions many miles

into the beautiful and richly cultivated rolling country that surrounded

us, usually ascending some eminence whence we could command a full view

of the magnificent Bernese Alps, their summits covered with eternal

snow. It sometimes happened that on these excursions we were overtaken

by a storm, or perhaps, having wandered farther than we intended, were

tired and hungry. In either case, we did not scruple to enter some

country tavern and procure refreshments there. But whenever we did so,

it was a custom--not a written law, but a custom sanctioned by all our

college traditions--to visit, on our return, the professor who had

charge of the domestic department of our institution,--a short, stout,

middle-aged man, the picture of good-humor, but not deficient in

decision and energy when occasion demanded,--it was our uniform custom

to call upon this gentleman, Herr Lippe, and inform him that we _had_

visited such or such a tavern, and the occasion of our doing so. A

benignant smile, and his usual "It is very well, my sons," closed such

interviews.

But the use of tobacco--passing strange, that, in a German college!--was

forbidden by our rules; so also was a departure, after the usual hour of

rest, from the college buildings, except for good reason shown. Thus Max

and Fritz Taxis (so the youths were called) had become offenders,

amenable to justice.

The irregularity of which they had been guilty, the only one of the kind

I recollect, became known accidentally to one of our number. There

existed among us not even the name of informer; it was considered a duty

to give notice to the proper authorities of any breach of our laws. This

was accordingly done in the present instance; and the brothers were

officially notified that on the following day their case would be

brought up, and they would be heard in their own defence. The elder of

the two, Max, held some minor office; and the sentence would probably

have been a vote of censure or a fine for both, and a forfeiture of the

office in the case of the elder brother. But this was more than they

could make up their minds to bear. Accordingly, the night previous to

their trial, they decamped secretly, hired a carriage at a neighboring

village, and, being well provided with money, returned to their parents.

We afterwards ascertained that M. de Fellenberg did not send after them,

in pursuit or otherwise,--did not even write to their parents, but

suffered the fugitives to tell their own story in their own way.

The result was, that in a few weeks the father came, bringing with him

the runaways, and asking, as a favor, that M. de Fellenberg would once

more make trial of them,--which he very willingly did. They were

received by us with kindness, and no allusion was ever made to the cause

of their absence. They remained several years, quiet and law-abiding

members of our _Verein_, but neither attained to any office of trust

again.

Our recreations consisted of public games, athletic exercises,

gymnastics, and--what was prized above all--an annual excursion on foot,

of about six weeks' duration.

One of our most favorite amusements in the way of athletic exercise was

throwing the lance (_Lanzenwerfen_.) The weapons used were stout ashen

spears, from six to seven feet long, heavily shod with iron, and

sharp-pointed; the target, a squared log of hard wood firmly set in the

ground, about six feet high,--the upper portion, or head, which it was

the chief object to hit, a separate block, attached to the trunk by

stout hinges. This exercise required great strength as well as skill. A

dozen or more engaged in it at a time, divided into two sides of

supposed equal force; and the points gained by each stroke were

reckoned according to its power and accuracy,--double, if the head was

struck, and one point added whenever the spear remained fixed in the

wood without touching the ground. We attained great skill in this

exercise.

We had fencing-lessons twice a week; and there were many swordsmen in

the elder classes who need not have feared any ordinary antagonist. Of

this a fencing-master from a neighboring Canton, on occasion of a visit

to our teacher, had one day tangible and somewhat mortifying proof.

Much has been said, sometimes in ridicule, sometimes in condemnation, of

gymnastic exercises. We spent an hour a day, just before dinner, in the

gymnasium. And my three-years' experience induces me to regard these

exercises, judiciously conducted, not only as beneficial, but

indispensable to a complete system of education. They are to the body

what intellectual labors are to the mind. They produce a vigor, an

agility, an address, a hardihood, a presence of mind in danger, which I

have never seen attained to the same extent under any other

circumstances. They fortify the health and strengthen the nerves. Their

mental and moral influence, also, is great. My observation convinces me

that they equalize the spirits, invigorate the intellect, and calm the

temper. I am witness to the fact that no one among the Hofwyl students

was injured by them in any way, and that very many acquired a strength

and an address that astonished themselves. I myself had been in feeble

health for several years before my arrival; yet I left Hofwyl, not only

perfectly well, but athletic; and I have not had a serious illness

since. I cannot believe, that, under a well-regulated system, gymnastics

cause injury or expose to danger.

Our annual excursions, which were undertaken in the charming autumn of

that bright and beautiful climate, by those among our students who, like

myself, were too far from home to return thither during the holidays,

were looked forward to, for weeks, with brilliant anticipations of

pleasure, which, strange to say, were realized. Our favorite professor,

Herr Lippe, accompanied us on these expeditions. Our number was commonly

from thirty to thirty-five.

It was usually about the first of August, that, equipped in the plain

student-costume of the college, with knapsack on shoulder, and long,

iron-shod mountain-staff in hand, we went forth, an exultant party, on

"the journey," as we called it. Previously to our departure, Herr Lippe,

at a public meeting of the intended excursionists, had chalked out for

us the proposed route; and when we found, as on two occasions land to

the lakes of Northern Italy, our enthusiasm broke forth in bursts of

applause.

Our usual day's journey was eighteen or twenty miles, sometimes

twenty-five or even more. We breakfasted very early, walked till about

midday, when we sought some shady nook where we could enjoy a lunch of

bread and wine, with grapes, or goat's-milk cheese, when these luxuries

could be procured. Then we despatched, in advance, some of our best

pedestrians, as commissariat of the party, to order supper preparatory

to our arrival. How joyfully we sat down to that evening meal! How we

talked over the events of the day, the magnificent scenes we had passed

through, the little adventures we had met with! The small country

taverns seldom furnished more than six or eight beds; so that more than

three fourths of our number usually slept in some barn well furnished

with hay or straw. How soundly we slept, and how merry the awaking!

There were among us, as among German students there always are,

excellent musicians, well-trained to sing their stirring national airs,

or gems from the best operas, or the like,--duets, trios, quartets.

After our frugal noonday meal in the shade, or perhaps when we had

surmounted some mountain-pass, and came suddenly, as we reached the

verge of the descent, upon some magnificent expanse of valley or

champaign scenery stretching out far beneath us, it was our habit to

call a halt for music. The fresh grass, dotted, perhaps, with Alpine

roses, furnished seats; and our vocalists drawing from their knapsacks

the slender _cahier_ containing melodies expressly selected for the

occasion and arranged in parts, we had, under the most charming

circumstances, an impromptu concert. I have heard much better music

since, but never any that I enjoyed more.

On one of these excursions we passed by Napoleon's wonderful road, the

Simplon, into one of the most beautiful regions of Italy. The first

night at Baveno was delicious. The soft Italian air,--the moonlight on

the placid lake, on the softly rounded olive-clad hills, on the

trellised vines, so picturesque, compared to the formal vineyards of

France,--all in such contrast to the giant mountain-peaks of granite,

snow-covered, cutting through the clouds, the vast glacier, bristling

with ice-blocks, sliding-down, an encroacher on the valley's

verdure,--in such marvellous contrast to all that region of rock and ice

and mountain-torrent and rugged path, and grand, rude, wild majesty of

aspect, it seemed like passing in a single day into another and a

gentler world.

Then came the quiet excursions on the lakes,--Lugano, Maggiore, Como:

such a rest to our blistered feet! Those blisters _were_ a drawback; but

what episode in human life has none? We strayed through the lime-groves

of the Isola Bella, where I exchanged the few words of Italian of which

I was master with a fair and courteous madonna who crossed our

path,--ascended, by clambering up within one of the folds of the Saint's

short mantle, the gigantic bronze statue of the holy Borromeo, sat down

inside the head, and looked out through the eyebrows on the lake under

whose waters lies buried the wide-brimmed shovel-hat which once covered

the shaven crown, but was swept off by the storm-wind one winter night.

Throughout the term of these charming excursions the strictest order was

observed. And herein was evinced the power of that honorable

party-spirit prevalent among us, which imposed on every one of us a

certain charge as to the good conduct of the whole,--making each, as it

were, alive to the faults and responsible for the misconduct of our

little community. Rude noise, unseemly confusion, the least approach to

dissipation at a tavern, or any other violation of propriety on the

road, would have been considered as an insult to the college. And thus

it happened that we established throughout Switzerland a character for

decorum such as no other institution ever obtained.

Nor did influences thus salutary cease with the term of our college

life. So far as I know anything of the after fortunes of my college

mates, they did honor to their alma mater,--if older and more learned

foundations will not grudge our institution that name. As a body, they

were distinguished for probity and excellent conduct; some attained

eminence. Even that Alexander of Wuertemberg, whom we so lightly

esteemed, I afterwards heard spoken of as one of the most estimable

young princes of the court he graced. Seven years ago I met at Naples

(the first time since I left Hofwyl) our quondam Master of the Goats,

now an officer of the Emperor of Russia's household, and governor of one

of the Germano-Russian provinces. We embraced after the hearty German

fashion,--still addressed each other, as of old, with the familiar _du_

and _dich_,--sat down, forgetting the present, and were soon deep in

college reminiscences, none the less interesting that they were more

than thirty years old.

Over these old reminiscences I find myself lingering. Yet they have

stretched already, perhaps, as far as may interest others. With me they

have left a blessing,--a belief which existing abuses cannot shake nor

worldly skepticisms destroy: an abiding faith in human virtue and in

social progress.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] There was, besides, a primary school for boys up to the age of

twelve of thirteen at Diemerswyl, some miles from Hofwyl; and there had

been originally a normal school, which, though popular among the

teachers of Switzerland, gave umbrage to the Government, and was merged

in the Vehrli institution.

[B] Francis II., Metternich-led. His words were: "Je ne veux pas des

savants dans mes Etats; je veux des bons sujets."

THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE.

Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles

Dimple round its hundred isles,

And the mountain's granite ledge

Cleaves the water like a wedge,

Ringed about with smooth, gray stones,

Rest the giant's mighty bones.

Close beside, in shade and gleam,

Laughs and ripples Melvin stream;

Melvin water, mountain-born,

All fair flowers its banks adorn;

All the woodland's voices meet,

Mingling with its murmurs sweet.

Over lowlands forest-grown,

Over waters island-strown,

Over silver-sanded beach,

Leaf-locked bay and misty reach,

Melvin stream and burial-heap,

Watch and ward the mountains keep.

Who that Titan cromlech fills?

Forest-kaiser, lord o' the hills?

Knight who on the birchen tree

Carved his savage heraldry?

Priest o' the pine-wood temples dim,

Prophet, sage, or wizard grim?

Rugged type of primal man,

Grim utilitarian,

Loving woods for hunt and prowl,

Lake and hill for fish and fowl,

As the brown bear blind and dull

To the grand and beautiful:

Not for him the lesson drawn

From the mountains smit with dawn.

Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May,

Sunset's purple bloom of day,--

Took his life no hue from thence,

Poor amid such affluence?

Haply unto hill and tree

All too near akin was he:

Unto him who stands afar

Nature's marvels greatest are;

Who the mountain purple seeks

Must not climb the higher peaks.

Yet who knows in winter tramp,

Or the midnight of the camp,

What revealings faint and far,

Stealing down from moon and star,

Kindled in that human clod

Thought of destiny and God?

Stateliest forest patriarch,

Grand in robes of skin and bark,

What sepulchral mysteries,

What weird funeral-rites, were his?

What sharp wail, what drear lament,

Back scared wolf and eagle sent?

Now, whate'er he may have been,

Low he lies as other men;

On his mound the partridge drums,

There the noisy blue-jay comes;

Rank nor name nor pomp has he

In the grave's democracy.

Part thy blue lips, Northern lake!

Moss-grown rocks, your silence break!

Tell the tale, thou ancient tree!

Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee!

Speak, and tell us how and when

Lived and died this king of men!

Wordless moans the ancient pine;

Lake and mountain give no sign;

Vain to trace this ring of stones;

Vain the search of crumbling bones:

Deepest of all mysteries,

And the saddest, silence is.

Nameless, noteless, clay with clay

Mingles slowly day by day;

But somewhere, for good or ill,

That dark soul is living still;

Somewhere yet that atom's force

Moves the light-poised universe.

Strange that on his burial-sod

Harebells bloom, and golden-rod,

While the soul's dark horoscope

Holds no starry sign of hope!

Is the Unseen with sight at odds?

Nature's pity more than God's?

Thus I mused by Melvin side,

While the summer eventide

Made the woods and inland sea

And the mountains mystery;

And the hush of earth and air

Seemed the pause before a prayer,--

Prayer for him, for all who rest,

Mother Earth, upon thy breast,--

Lapped on Christian turf, or hid

In rock-cave or pyramid:

All who sleep, as all who live,

Well may need the prayer, "Forgive!"

Desert-smothered caravan,

Knee-deep dust that once was man,

Battle-trenches ghastly piled,

Ocean-floors with white bones tiled,

Crowded tomb and mounded sod,

Dumbly crave that prayer to God.

Oh, the generations old

Over whom no church-bells tolled,

Christless, lifting up blind eyes

To the silence of the skies!

For the innumerable dead

Is my soul disquieted.

Where be now these silent hosts?

Where the camping-ground of ghosts?

Where the spectral conscripts led

To the white tents of the dead?

What strange shore or chartless sea

Holds the awful mystery?

Then the warm sky stooped to make

Double sunset in the lake;

While above I saw with it,

Range on range, the mountains lit;

And the calm and splendor stole

Like an answer to my soul.

Hear'st thou, O of little faith,

What to thee the mountain saith,

What is whispered by the trees?--

"Cast on God thy care for these;

Trust Him, if thy sight be dim:

Doubt for them is doubt of Him.

"Blind must be their close-shut eyes

Where like night the sunshine lies,

Fiery-linked the self-forged chain

Binding ever sin to pain,

Strong their prison-house of will,

But without He waiteth still.

"Not with hatred's undertow

Doth the Love Eternal flow;

Every chain that spirits wear

Crumbles in the breath of prayer;

And the penitent's desire

Opens every gate of fire.

"Still Thy love, O Christ arisen,

Yearns to reach these souls in prison!

Through all depths of sin and loss

Drops the plummet of Thy cross!

Never yet abyss was found

Deeper than that cross could sound!"

Therefore well may Nature keep

Equal faith with all who sleep,

Set her watch of hills around

Christian grave and heathen mound,

And to cairn and kirkyard send

Summer's flowery dividend.

Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream,

Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam!

On the Indian's grassy tomb

Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom!

Deep below, as high above,

Sweeps the circle of God's love.

ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.

CHAPTER V.

TERRA INCOGNITA.

Labrador, geologists tell us, is the oldest portion of the American

Continent. It was also, and aside from the visits of the Scandinavians,

the first to be discovered by Europeans,--the Cabots having come to land

here more than a year before Columbus found the tropic mainland on his

third voyage. And to-day it is that part of the continent which has been

least explored. No one, to my knowledge, has ever crossed it: perhaps no

one could do so. I am not aware that any European has penetrated it

deeply. Hinds pushed up some hundred and fifty miles from the Gulf

coast, and thought this feat one which deserved two octavos of

commemoration. The coast, for some four hundred miles in extent, is

visited annually by hosts of fishermen; but twenty miles from tide-water

it is as little known to them as to the Bedouins.

We are now, however, able to affirm that the interior is all one immense

elevated plateau. Information which I obtained from an elderly

missionary at Hopedale, together with numerous indications that an

intelligent naturalist would know how to construe, enabled P---- to

determine this fact with confidence. It is a table-land "varying from

five to twenty-five hundred feet in height." Here not a tree grows, not

a blade of grass, only lichens and moss, What a vast and terrible waste

it must be! Where else upon the earth are all the elements of desolation

so combined? The missionary in question had penetrated to the borders of

this _cold_ desert and looked out over it. "No up _und_ down," he said.

"No dree. Notting grow. All level."

Within some one hundred and fifty miles of the coast this terrible

table-land breaks up into wild hills, separated by valleys that plunge

down suddenly, in rocky steeps, from the heights, more gorges than

valleys. These hills are all fearfully scarred. One sees in them

abundant record of the Titanic old-time warfare between rock and ice. A

prodigious contest it was. Sometimes the top of a hill--clean, live

rock--was sliced off, as with a knife. "Like the tops of our conical

cheeses, when they came to the table," said P----

The valleys are wooded with fir, spruce, larch, and, more to the south,

with birch. At a distance from the sea and in favorable situations these

trees grow to good forest size, even beyond the middle latitudes of

Labrador. In latitude 53 deg. a resident told me that trees were found

eighteen inches in diameter. This statement was derided when I told it

on board, and the witty Judge kept the table in a roar for half an hour

with pleasantries about it. But at Hopedale, two and a half degrees

farther north, we learned that sticks of timber fifty feet in length

were often brought to the station; while one had found its way there

which was fifty-six feet long and ten inches in diameter at the smaller

end.

Toward the sea these forests dwindle, till on the immediate coast they

wholly disappear. At Caribou Island, which, the reader will remember, is

_south_ of the Strait of Belle Isle, I found in a ravine some sadly

stunted spruces, firs, and larches, not more than three feet

high,--melancholy, wind-draggled, frightened-looking shrubs, which had

wondrously the air of lifelong ill-usage. The tangled tops were mostly

flattened and pressed over to one side, and altogether they seemed so

piteous, that one wished to say, "Nobody shall do so to you any more,

poor things!" Excepting these, the immediate coast, for five or six

hundred miles that we skirted it, was absolutely treeless.

Up in the bays, however, trees were found, and, curiously enough, they

were larger and more plentiful in high latitudes than farther south.

This puzzled me much at first. Evidently, however, it was due in part to

the nature of the rock. At Sleupe Harbor, latitude 51 deg., this was

granite;[C] farther on it was sienite; then the sienite showed a strong

predominance of feldspar; then it became an impure Labradorite; then

passed into gneiss; the gneiss became soft, stratified, and frequently

intersected by trap;--and with every softer quality of rock there was an

improvement in vegetation. This was particularly observable at L'Anse du

Loup, where there is a red sandstone formation extending some miles

along the sea and a mile or two inland. Here we seemed suddenly

transported to a Southern climate, so soft was the scenery, so green the

surface. The effect was enhanced by the aspect of the sandstone cliff,

which, in alternating horizontal shades of red, fronts the sea, with a

vertical height of three hundred feet for the whole extent of this

formation,--so ruddy and glowing under the sunshine, as we sailed past,

that one felt warmed by the sight, But a little farther back rose the

same old hard-hearted hills, cold, broken, and bare as ever.

But the difference in soil does not wholly explain the difference in

vegetation. In the mission-garden at Caribou Island next to nothing will

grow; in the garden at Hopedale, four degrees farther north, though the

rock here is very hard, I found half an acre of potatoes in blossom, the

tops about six inches high, together with beets, carrots, cabbages,

onions, nice currant-bushes, and rhubarb growing luxuriantly. These are

all started under cover, and are not set out in the garden until toward

the end of June, and a great deal of Esquimaux labor must go to their

production; yet it is doubtful whether the same pains would bring about

the same result at the Caribou station.

It is the sea that dooms Labrador, and the relation of the coast to this

does much to determine its fertility, or rather its barrenness. Half way

across the ocean, in latitude 54 deg., Captain Linklater found the

temperature of the water 54 deg., Fahrenheit; near the Labrador coast, in

the same latitude, the temperature was but 34 deg., two degrees only above

the freezing point! It is in facts like this that one gets a key to the

climate not only of Labrador, but of Eastern North America. Out of the

eternal ice of the North the current presses down along the coast,

chilling land and air wherever it touches. Where the coast retreats

somewhat, and is well barricaded with islands, the rigor of the climate

is mitigated; where it lies fully exposed to the Arctic current, even

though much farther south, the life is utterly chilled out of it. Now

Hopedale lies behind a rampart of islands twenty miles deep; while the

portion of the Arctic current which splits off at the head of

Newfoundland, and pushes down through the strait, presses close past

Caribou Island. This explains the sterility of the latter.

The Arctic current varies much in different years, not only in the

amount of ice it brings, but also in its direction. Unexpected effects

depend upon this variation. It will be remembered that in 1863 several

ships were wrecked on Cape Race, owing to some "unaccountable"

disturbance of the currents. The Gulf Stream, it was found at length,

ran thirty miles farther north than usual. _Was_ this unaccountable?

When Captain Handy, our whaling Mentor, was penetrating Hudson's Strait

in June, 1863, he found vast headlands of floe ice resting against the

land, and pushing far out to sea.

"Mr. Bailey," said he to his mate, "there will be many wrecks on Cape

Race this year."

The prediction was fulfilled. Do you see why it should be?

The floe ice rose ten feet above the water; it therefore extended near

one hundred feet beneath. At this depth it acted upon the current

precisely as if it were land, pushing the former far to the east. The

current, therefore, did not meet and repel the Gulf Stream at the usual

point; and the latter was thus at liberty to press on beyond its custom

to the north. Captain Handy not only saw the facts before him, but

reasoned upon them. Even when these immense bodies of ice do not rest

upon the land, they produce the same effect. At the depth of a hundred

feet they go below the current into the still water or counter current

beneath, and thus still resist the surface flow.

The coast of Labrador has no fellow for sternness and abruptness on the

earth. Huge headlands, stubborn cliffs, precipitous hills rise suddenly

from the sea, bold, harsh, immitigable, yet softened by their aspect of

gray endurance. Hacked and scored, tossed, fissured, and torn,

weather-beaten and bleached, their bluntness becomes grave, their

hardness pathetic. About their caverned bases the billow thunders in

perpetual assault, proclaiming the purpose of the sea to reclaim what it

has lost. Above, the frost inserts its potent lever, and flings down

from time to time some bellowing fragment to its ally below. The shores,

as if to escape from this warfare, hurry down, and plunge to quiet

depths of ocean, where the surge never heaves, nor frost, even by the

deep ploughshare of its icebergs, can reach. It is, indeed, a terrible

coast, and remains to represent that period in Nature when her powers

were all Titanic, untamed,--playing their wild game, with hills for

toss-coppers and seas for soap-bubbles, or warring with the elements

themselves for weapons.

The harbors are very deep. In some twenty that we visited there was but

a single exception. In fact, it is commonly only in little coves boxed

up by high walls of rock, where one side threatens the ship's bowsprit

and the other her stern, that an ordinary cable will reach bottom. You

anchor in a granite tub, where one hardly dares lean over the rail for

fear of bumping his head against the cliffs, and see half your chain

spin out before ground is touched. Jack sometimes wonders, as the cable

continues to rush through the hawse-hole, whether he has not dropped

anchor into a hole through the earth, and speculates upon the

probability of fishing up a South-Sea island when he shall again heave

at the windlass.

A Labrador summer has commonly a brief season during which the heat

seems to Englishmen "intense," and even to an American noticeable.

Captain French, the old pilot, told me that he had been at Indian Harbor

(far to the north) when for three weeks an awning over the deck was

absolutely necessary, and when a fish left in the sun an hour would be

spoiled. Last summer, however, was the coldest and rainiest known for

many years. Once the thermometer rose to 73 deg., Fahrenheit, once again to

70 deg., but five days in six it did not at nine in the morning vary more

than two or three degrees from 42 deg., and half the time the mercury would

be found precisely at this mark. The lowest temperature observed was

34 deg. This was on the 28th and 29th of July, when we had a furious

snow-storm, which lasted twenty-four hours, with twelve hours of wild

rain, sleet, and hail interposed. In consequence of this rain and of the

constant melting, there remained on the steep hillsides only three

inches' depth of snow when the storm ceased, though in the hollows it

was found a foot deep. In the deeper ravines the snow of winter lasts

through the year, and was found by us in the middle of August.

We were, however, treated to a few days which left no room for a wish:

for the best day of a Labrador summer is the best day of all summers

whatsoever. Herodotus says that Ionia was allowed to possess the finest

climate of all the world; and in Smyrna I believed him, for there were

May days when each breath seemed worth one's being born to enjoy. But

all days yield to those of Labrador when the better genius of its

climate prevails. Then one feels the serenity of power, then all his

blood is exalted and pure, and the globules sail through his veins like

rich argosies before trade-winds. Then an irritable haste and a weak

lassitude are alike impossible; one's nerves are made of a metal finer

than steel, and he becomes truly a lord in Nature.

It was on such a day that we ran some fifty miles through a passage,

resembling a river, between islands and the main. The wind blew warm and

vigorous from the land,--sometimes, when it came to us without passing

over considerable spaces of water, seeming positively hot, as if it came

from an oven; yet in such an atmosphere one felt that he could live

forever, either in an oven or in the case of an iceberg, and wish only

to live there forever! A great fleet of schooners was pushing swiftly

along this passage, on its way to fishing-grounds in the North; and as

we flew past one and another, while the astonished crews gathered at the

side to stare at our speed, our schooner seemed the very genius of

Victory, and our wishes to be supreme powers. I have never elsewhere

experienced so _cool_ and perfect an exhilaration,--physical

exhilaration, that is.

In the early afternoon a dense haze filled the sky. The sun, seen

through this, became a globe of glowing ruby, and its glade on the sea

looked as if the water had been strown, almost enough to conceal it,

with a crystalline ruby dust, or with fine mineral _spiculae_ of

vermilion bordering upon crimson. The peculiarity of this ruddy dust was

that it seemed to possess _body_, and, while it glowed, did not in the

smallest degree dazzle,--as if the brilliancy of each ruby particle came

from the heart of it rather than from the surface. The effect was in

truth indescribable, and I try to suggest it with more sense of

helplessness than I have felt hitherto in preparing these papers. It was

beautiful _beyond_ expression,--any expression, at least, which is at

my command.

Such a spectacle, I suppose, one might chance to see anywhere, though

the chance certainly never occurred to me before. It could scarcely have

escaped me through want of attention, for I could well believe myself a

child of the sun, so deep an appeal to my feeling is made by effects of

light and color: light before all.

But the atmosphere of Labrador has its own secret of beauty, and charms

the eye with aspects which one may be pardoned for believing

incomparable in their way. The blue of distant hills and mountains, when

observed in clear sunshine, is subtile and luminous to a degree that

surpasses admiration. I have seen the Camden Heights across the waters

of Penobscot Bay when their blue was equally profound; for these hills,

beheld over twenty miles or more of sea, do a wonderful thing in the way

of color, lifting themselves up there through all the long summer days,

a very marvel of solemn and glorious beauty. The AEgean Sea has a charm

of atmosphere which is wanting to Penobscot Bay, but the hue of its

heights cannot compare with that of the Camden Hills. Those of Labrador,

however, maintain their supremacy above even these,--above all. They

look like frozen sky. Or one might fancy that a vast heart or core of

amethyst was deeply overlaid with colorless crystal, and shone through

with a softened, lucent ray. Such transparency, such _intense_ delicacy,

such refinement of hue! Sometimes, too, there is seen in the deep

hollows, between the lofty billows of blue, a purple that were fit to

clothe the royalty of immortal kings, while the blue itself is flecked

as it were with a spray of white light, which one might guess to be a

precipitate of sunshine.

This was wonderful; but more wonderful and most wonderful was to come.

It was given me once and once again to look on a vision, an enchantment,

a miracle of all but impossible beauty, incredible until seen, and even

when seen scarcely to be credited, save by an act of faith. We had

sailed up a deep bay, and cast anchor in a fine large harbor of the

exactest horseshoe shape. It was bordered immediately by a gentle ridge

some three hundred feet high, which was densely wooded with spruce, fir,

and larch. Beyond this ridge, to the west, rose mountainous hills, while

to the south, where was the head of the harbor, it was overlooked

immediately by a broad, noble mountain. It had been one of those

white-skied days, when the heavens are covered by a uniform filmy

fleece, and the light comes as if it had been filtered through milk. But

just before sunset this fleece was rent, and a river of sunshine

streamed across the ridge at the head of the harbor, leaving the

mountain beyond, and the harbor itself, with its wooded sides, still in

shadow. And where that shine fell, the foliage changed from green to a

glowing, luminous red-brown, expressed with astonishing force,--not a

trace, not a hint of green remaining! Beyond it, the mountain preserved

its whited gray; nearer, on either side, the woods stood out in clear

green; and separated from these by the sharpest line, rose this ridge of

enchanted forest. You will incline to think that one might have seen

through this illusion by trying hard enough. But never were the colors

in a paint-pot more definite and determined.

This was but the beginning. I had turned away, and was debating with

myself whether some such color, seen on the Scotch and English hills,

had not given the hint for those uniform browns which Turner in his

youth copied from his earlier masters. When I looked back, the sunshine

had flooded the mountain, and was bathing it all in the purest rose-red.

Bathing it? No, the mountain was solidly converted, transformed to that

hue! The power, the simplicity, the translucent, shining depth of the

color were all that you can imagine, if you make no abatements, and task

your imagination to the utmost. This roseate hue no rose in the garden

of Orient or Occident ever surpassed. Small spaces were seen where the

color became a pure ruby, which could not have been more lustrous and

intense, had it proceeded from a polished ruby gem ten rods in

dimension. Color could go no farther. Yet if the eye lost these for a

moment, it was compelled somewhat to search for them,--so powerful, so

brilliant was the rose setting in which they were embosomed.

One must remember how near at hand all this was,--not more than a mile

or two away. Rock, cavern, cliff, all the details of rounded swell,

rising peak, and long descending slope, could be seen with entire

distinctness. The mountain rose close upon us, broad, massive,

real,--but all in this glorious, this truly ineffable transformation. It

was not distance that lent enchantment here. It was not _lent_; it was

real as rock, as Nature; it confronted, outfaced, overwhelmed you; for,

enchantment so immediate and on such a scale of grandeur and

gorgeousness,--who could stand up before it?

In sailing out of the bay, next day, we saw this and the neighbor

mountain under noon sunshine. (Lat. 55 deg. 20'.) They were the handsomest

we saw, apparently composed in part of some fine mineral, perhaps pure

Labradorite. In the full light of day these spaces shone like polished

silver. My first impression was that they must be patches of snow, but a

glance at real spots of snow corrected me. These last, though more

distinctly white, had not the high, soft, silver shine of the mineral.

Doubtless it was these mountain-gems which, under the magic touch of

sunset light, had the evening before appeared like vast rubies, blazing

amidst the rose which surrounded them.

And this evening the spectacle of the preceding one was repeated, though

more distantly and on a larger scale. Ph---- thought it the finer of the

two. Far away the mountain height towered, a marvel of aerial blue,

while broad spurs reaching out on either side were clothed, the one in

shiny rose-red, the other in ethereal roseate tints super-imposed upon

azure; and farther away, to the southeast, a mountain range lay all in

solid carmine along the horizon, as if the earth blushed at the touch of

heaven.

"I invite and announce the mountains which possess pure brightness,

which have much brightness, created by Mazda, pure, lords of purity." So

sang the Zarathustrian priest, chanting the Vispereds of the

Avesta,--deep-hearted child of the world, himself now shining on the

far-away horizon of human history.

All the wildness and waste, all the sternest desolations of the whole

earth, brought together to wed and enhance each other, and then relieved

by splendor without equal, perhaps, in the world,--that is Labrador.

I have dreamed that it was created on this wise. Ahriman, having long

been defeated in his evil purposes by Ormuzd, fled away secretly to a

distant part of the world, and there in silence made a land which should

be utterly his own. He brought together every element of dread and

terror,--barrenness, brokenness, dreariness, fearful cold, blinding fog,

crushing ice, sudden savage change. And when it was completed, he

rejoiced in his heart and said, "This is perfect in badness, it cannot

be redeemed, it is wholly and forever mine, it is mine!" Then Ormuzd,

lord of light, heard the voice of that accursed joy, and, looking,

beheld the evil work. And he saw that it could not be redeemed, that it

was fixed forever in its evil state. Then he came to it, and, seeking to

change nothing, uplifted over it a token of immortal, unutterable

beauty, that even this land might bear witness to his celestial

sovereignty.

But these waste lands have use as well as beauty. At Sleupe Harbor dwelt

one Michael Cante, the patriarch of the neighborhood, if neighborhood it

were to be called, where were only three houses within a space of as

many miles. His years were now threescore and ten, but he was hale as a

pine forest and sweet as maple sap. A French Canadian, he spoke English,

not only like a native, but like a well-bred native,--was not ignorant

of thoughts and books,--and altogether seemed a man superior to most in

nature, intelligence, and manners. His birthplace was Quebec, and he had

formerly possessed a very considerable fortune; but losing this through

fraud, and finding himself deserted by "summer friends," he had

conceived a disgust at polite society, and escaped to these solitudes.

Here his wounds had healed, and his nature recovered its tone. His

labors prospered; a healthy and handsome family grew up to enrich his

household; and no regrets drew him back to the big world he had left

behind. Nature preserves to herself the right of asylum, no matter how

the Louis Napoleon of civilization may demand its surrender,--preserves

a place of rest and refuge for the weary hearts which are self-sent into

spiritual exile.

It is also to be considered whether this terrible region does not play a

most serviceable part in the physical geography of the continent. I have

not science enough to speak here with entire confidence; and yet I am

rationally convinced. Without the ice-fields in the North, and the

frigid current which these send down to meet the tepid waters of the

Gulf Stream, would not this low and level America, with its dry

atmosphere, suffer fearfully for want of rain? would it not, indeed, be

one great desert? Could we dispense with the collisions and sudden

interchanges of cold and hot currents of air which are due to these

causes? Do we not obtain thus the same effects which in South America

are produced by the snowy summits of the Andes? The cold current meets

the warm, chills its vapor, precipitates this in fruitful rain. Our

northeast winds are the chief bringers of rain. Take these away, and

what about wheat and corn? Take away Labrador and the Arctic current,

and what about northeast winds? They would still blow; would they still

force the warm air to yield its vapor for the benefit of our fields? The

extreme changeableness of our climate is, I am fully persuaded,

connected very closely and indispensably with the fertility of the

continent. Thank God, therefore, for Labrador!