The plans of the camper, like those of other men, "gang aft agley." The
morrow, which he proposed to devote to some long-desired hunting or
fishing trip, is no more apt to dawn propitiously on him than on the
husbandman, the mariner, or any other mortal who looks to the weather
for special favor. On the contrary, instead of the glowing horizon and
the glory of the sunburst that should usher in the morning, the slow
dawn is quite apt to have the unwelcome accompaniment of rain.
The hearing, first alert of the drowsy senses, catches the sullen patter
of the drops on tent or shanty, their spiteful, hissing fall on the
smouldering embers of the camp-fire, and with a waft of damp earth and
herbage stealing into his nostrils, the disappointed awakener turns
fretfully under his blanket, then crawls forth to have his lingering
hope smothered in the veil of rain that blurs the landscape almost to
annihilation.
He mutters anathemas against the weather, then takes the day as it has
come to him, for better or for worse. First, to make the best of it, he
piles high the camp-fire, and dispels with its glow and warmth some
cubic feet of gloom and dampness. Then he sets about breakfast-making,
scurrying forth from shelter to fire, in rapid culinary forays, battling
with the smoke, for glimpses of the contents of kettle and pan. His
repast is as pungent with smoke as the strong waters of Glenlivat, but
if that is valued for its flavor of peat-reek, why should he scorn food
for the like quality?
Then if he delights in petty warfare with the elements, to bide the
pelting of the rain, to storm the abatis of wet thickets and suffer the
sapping and mining of insidious moisture, he girds up his loins and goes
forth with rod or gun, as his desire of conquest may incline him.
But if he has come to his outing with the intention of pursuing sport
with bodily comfort, he is at once assured that this is unattainable
under the present conditions of the weather. Shall he beguile the
tediousness of a wet day in camp with books and papers?
Nay, if they were not left behind in the busy, plodding world that he
came here to escape from, they should have been. He wants nothing here
that reminds him of traffic or politics; nothing of history, for now he
has only to do with the present; nothing of travel, for his concern now
is only with the exploration of this wild domain. He does not wish to be
bothered with fiction, idealized reality is what he desires. Neither
does he care for what other men have written of nature. Her book is
before him and he may read it from first hands.
Looking forth from his snug shelter on the circumscribed landscape, he
marvels at the brightness of a distant yellow tree that shines like a
living flame through the veil of mist. The blaze of his sputtering
camp-fire is not brighter. He notices, as perhaps he never did before,
how distinctly the dark ramage of the branches is traced among the
brilliant leaves, as if with their autumnal hues they were given
transparency. Some unfelt waft of the upper air casts aside for a moment
the curtain of mist and briefly discloses a mountain peak, radiant with
all the hues of autumn, and it is as if one were given, as in a dream, a
glimpse of the undiscovered country. He realizes a dreamy pleasure in
watching the waves coming in out of the obscurity and dashing on the
shore, or pulsing away in fading leaden lines into the mystery of the
wrack.
In the borders of the mist the ducks revel in the upper and nether
wetness, and with uncanny laughter the loon rejoices between his long
explorations of the aquatic depth. A mink, as heedless of rain as the
waterfowl, comes stealing along the shore, thridding the intricacies of
driftwood and web of wave-washed tree roots, often peering out in
inquisitive examination of the quiet camp. Less cautious visitors draw
nearer--the friendly chickadee, hanging from the nearest twig; the
nuthatch, sounding his penny trumpet, accompanied by the tap of the
woodpecker, as one creeps down, the other up a tree trunk; the scolding
jays, making as noisy protest over human intrusion as if they had just
discovered it; a saucy squirrel, scoffing and jeering, till tired of his
raillery he settles down to quiet nut-rasping under shelter of his tail.
There are unseen visitors, too: wood-mice, astir under cover of the
fallen leaves, and, just discernible among the patter of the falling
rain and of the squirrels' filings, footfalls unidentified, till a
ruffed grouse starts new showers from the wet branches in the thunder of
his flight.
Narrowed to the width of tent or shanty front, the background but a
pallid shroud of mist, the landscape yet holds much for pleasant study.
But if the weather-bound camper exhausts this or tires of it, he may
turn to gun-cleaning or tackle-mending. If a guide be with him, he can
listen to his stories of hunting, fishing, and adventure, or learn
woodcraft of him and the curious ways of birds and beasts. He may
fashion birch-bark camp-ware, dippers, cups, and boxes, or whittle a
paddle from a smooth-rifted maple. If he is of artistic turn, he can
pleasantly devote an hour to etching pictures on the white under surface
of the fungus that grows on decaying trees, and so provide himself with
reminders of this rainy day in camp.
So, with one and another pastime, he whiles away the sunless day, which,
almost before he has thought of it, merges into the early nightfall, and
he is lulled to sleep by the same sound that wakened him, the drip and
patter of the rain. And when he looks back to these days of outing he
may count this, which dawned so unpropitiously, not the least pleasant
and profitable among them, and mark with a white stone the rainy day in
camp.