excursions, either of which may be made in a day, although they could
profitably occupy a week. One is to follow the course of the Saco,
through the great Notch, to Fabyans, where you are on the westward
side of the great range, and where you take the rail to the summit
of Mount Washington. The other excursion is to diverge from the Saco
Valley three or four miles from North Conway, ascending the valley of
Ellis River--one of the lame affluents of the Saco--through the Pinkham
Notch to the Glen House, where you are exactly under the eastern foot
of Mount Washington, and may ascend it, by the carriage-road, in a
coach-and-four. We had already chosen the first route, and as soon as
the roads were a little settled we began our march.
The storm was over. The keen north wind drove the mists in utter rout
before it. Peak after peak started out of the clouds, glowered on us a
moment, and then muffled his enormous head in fleecy vapor. The clouds
seemed thronged with monstrous apparitions, struggling fiercely with
the gale, which in pure wantonness tore aside the magic drapery that
rendered them invisible, scattering its tattered rags far and wide over
the valley.
Now the sun entered upon the work begun by the wind. Quicker than
thought, a ray of liquid flame transfixed the vapors, flashed upon the
vale, and, flying from summit to summit, kindled them with newborn
splendor. One would have said a flaming javelin, hurled from high
heaven, had just cleft its dazzling way to earth. The mists slunk away
and hid themselves. The valley was inundated with golden light. Even the
dark faces of the cliffs brightened and beamed upon the vale, where the
bronzed foliage fluttered, and the river leaped for joy. In a little
time nothing was left but scattered clouds winging their way toward the
lowlands.
[Illustration: BARTLETT BOWLDER.]
Near Glen Station is one of those curiosities--a transported
boulder--which was undoubtedly left while on its travels through the
mountains, poised upon four smaller ones, in the position seen in the
engraving.
Three miles below the village of Bartlett we stopped before a
farm-house, with the gable-end toward the road, to inquire the distance
to the next tavern, where we meant to pass the night. A gruff voice from
the inside growled something by way of reply; but as its owner, whoever
he might be, did not take the trouble to open his door, the answer was
unintelligible.
"The churl!" muttered the colonel. "I have a great mind to teach him to
open when a gentleman knocks."
"And I advise you not to try it," said the voice from the inside.
The one thing a Kentuckian never shrinks from is a challenge. He only
said, "Wait a minute," while putting his broad shoulder against the
door; but now George and I interfered. Neither of us had any desire to
signalize our entry into the village by a brawl, and after some trouble
we succeeded in pacifying our fire-eater with the promise to stop at
this house on our way back.
"I shall know it again," said the colonel, looking back, and nibbling
his long mustache with suppressed wrath; "something has been spilled on
the threshold--something like blood."
We laughed heartily. The blood, we concluded, was in the colonel's eyes.
Some time after nightfall we arrived in the village, having put thirteen
miles of road behind us without fatigue. Our host received us with a
blazing fire--what fires they do have in the mountains, to be sure!--a
pitcher of cider, and the remark, "Don't be afraid of it, gentlemen."
All three hastened to reassure him on this point. The colonel began with
a loud smack, and George finished the jug with a deep sigh.
"Don't be afraid of it," repeated the landlord, returning presently with
a fresh pitcher. "There are five barrels more like it in the cellar."
"Landlord," quoth George, "let one of your boys take a mattress, two
blankets, and a pillow to the cellar. I intend to pass the night there."
"I only wish your well was full of it," said the colonel, taking a
second pull at the jug, and making a second explosion with his lips.
"Gentlemen," said I, "we have surely entered a land of milk and honey."
"You shall have as much of both as you desire," said our host, very
affably. "Supper is ready, gentlemen."
After supper a man came in for whom I felt, upon the instant, one of
those secret antipathies which are natural to me. The man was an utter
stranger. No matter: the repugnance seized me all the same.
After a tour of the tap-room, and some words with our landlord in an
undertone, the stranger went out with the look of a man who had asked
for something and had been refused.
"Where have I heard that man's voice?" said the colonel, thoughtfully.
Our landlord is one of the most genial to be found among the mountains.
While sitting over the fire during the evening, the conversation turned
upon the primitive simplicity of manners remarked among mountaineers in
general; and our host illustrated it with this incident:
"You noticed, perhaps, a man who left here a few moments ago?" he began.
We replied affirmatively. It was my antipathy.
"Well, that man killed a traveller a few years back."
We instinctively recoiled. The air seemed tainted with the murderer's
presence.
"Yes; dead as a mutton," continued the landlord, punching the logs
reflectively, and filling the chimney with sparks. "The man came to
his house one dark and stormy night, and asked to be admitted. The man
of the house flatly refused. The stranger pleaded hard, but the fellow
ordered him away with threats. Finding entreaties useless, the traveller
began to grow angry, and attempted to push open the door, which was
only fastened by a button, as the custom is. The man of the house said
nothing, but took his gun from a corner, and when the intruder crossed
the threshold he put three slugs through him. The wounded man expired on
the threshold, covering it with his blood."
"Murdered him, and for that? Come, come, you are joking!" ejaculated
George, with a half smile of incredulity.
"Blowed him right through, just as I tell you," reiterated the narrator,
without heeding the doubt George's question implied.
"That sounds a little like Old Kentuck," observed the colonel, coolly.
"Yes; but listen to the sequel, gentlemen," resumed the landlord. "The
murderer took the dead body in his arms, finding, to his horror, that
it was an acquaintance with whom he had been drinking the day before;
he took up the body, as I was saying, laid it out upon a table, and
then went quietly to bed. In the morning he very honestly exhibited the
corpse to all who passed his door, and told his story as I tell it to
you. I had it from his own lips."
"That beats Kentucky," asseverated the colonel. For my own part, I
believed the landlord was amusing himself at our expense.
"I don't know about Kentucky," observed the landlord; "I was never there
in my life; but I do know that, when the dead man was buried, the man
who killed him went to the funeral like any curious or indifferent
spectator."
This was too much. George rose from his chair, and began to be
interested in a placard on the wall. "And you say this happened near
here?" he slowly inquired; "perhaps, now, you could show us the very
house?" he finished, dryly.
"Nothing easier. It's only three miles back on the road you came. The
blood-stain is plain, or was, on the threshold."
We exchanged glances. This was the house where we halted to inquire our
way. The colonel's eyes dilated, but he said nothing.
"But was there no trial?" I asked.
"Trial? oh yes. After several days had run by, somebody thought of
that; so one morning the slayer saddled his horse and rode over to the
county-seat to inquire about it. He was tried at the next sessions, and
acquitted. The judge charged justifiable homicide; that a man's house is
his fort; the jury did not leave their benches. By-the-bye, gentlemen,
that is some of the man's cider you are drinking."
I felt decided symptoms of revolt in my stomach; George made a grimace,
and the colonel threw his unfinished glass in the fire. During the
remainder of the evening he rallied us a good deal on the subject of New
England hospitality, but said no more about going back to chastise the
man of the red house.[5]
The sun rose clear over the right shoulder of Kearsarge. After breakfast
the landlord took us out and introduced us to his neighbors, the
mountains. While he was making the presentation in due form, I jotted
down the following, which has, at least, the merit of conciseness:
_Upper Bartlett_: an ellipse of fertile land; three Lombardy poplars; a
river murmuring unseen; a wall of mountains, with Kearsarge looking up,
and Carrigain looking down the intervale. _Item_: the cider is excellent.
We had before us the range extending between Swift River and the Saco,
over which I looked from the summit of Chocorua straight to Mount
Washington. To the east this range is joined with the out-works of
Moat. Then come Table, Bear, Silver Spring (Bartlett Haystack), and
Tremont, in the order named. Then comes the valley of Sawyer's River,
with Carrigain rising between its walls; then, crossing to the north
side of the Saco, the most conspicuous object is the bold Hart's Ledge,
between which and Sawyer's Rock, on the opposite bank, the river is
crowded into a narrow channel. The mountain behind the hotel is Mount
Langdon, with Crawford more distant. Observe closely the curious
configuration of this peak. Whether we go up or down, it nods familiarly
to us from every point of approach.
But Kearsarge and Carrigain are the grand features here. One gives
his adieu, the other his welcome. One is the perfection of symmetry,
of grace; the other simply demands our homage. His snowy crown,
dazzling white against the pure blue, was the badge of an incontestable
superiority. These two mountains are the presiding genii of this
charming intervale. You look first at the massive lineaments of one,
then at the flowing lines of the other, as at celebrated men, whose
features you would strongly impress upon the memory.
From the village street we saw the sun go down behind Mount Carrigain,
and touch with his glittering sceptre the crest of Hancock. We looked up
the valley dominated by the giant of the Pemigewasset wilderness with
feelings of high respect for this illustrious hermit, who only deigns to
show himself from this single point, and whose peak long yielded only to
the most persevering and determined climbers.
Two days were formerly required for the ascent of this mountain, but
a long day will now suffice, thanks to the path constructed under the
direction of the Appalachian Club. The mountain is four thousand six
hundred and twenty-five feet above the sea, and is wooded to its summit.
The valley of Sawyer's River drains the deep basin between Carrigain and
Hancock, entering the Saco near the railroad station called Livermore.
The lumbermen have now penetrated this valley to the foot of the
mountain, with their rude logging roads, offering a way soon, it is
hoped, to be made plainer for future climbers than it was our lot to
find it.
Thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the mountains, we now regarded
distances with disdain, and fatigue with indifference. We had learned
to make our toilets in the stream, and our beds in the fragrant groves.
Truly, the bronzed faces that peered at us as we bent over some solemn,
pine-shaded pool were not those we had been accustomed to seeing at
home; but having solved the problem of man's true existence, we only
laughed at each other's tawny countenances while shouldering our packs
and tightening our belts for the day's march.
Leaving Bartlett at an early hour, we turned aside from the highway
a little beyond the bridge which spans Sawyer's River, and were soon
following a rough and stony cart-way ascending the banks of this
stream, which thundered along its rocky bed, making the woods echo with
its roar. The road grew rapidly worse, the river wilder, the forest
gloomier, until, at the end of two miles, coming suddenly out into the
sun, we entered a rude street of unpainted cabins, terminating at some
saw-mills. This hamlet, which to the artistic eye so disadvantageously
replaces the original forest, is the only settlement in the large
township of Livermore. Its mission is to ravage and lay waste the
adjacent mountains. Notwithstanding the occupation is legitimate, one
instinctively rebels at the waste around him, where the splendid natural
forest, literally hewed and hacked in pieces, exposes rudely all the
deformities of the mountains. But this lost hamlet is the first in which
a genuine emotion of any kind awaits the traveller. Ten to one it is
like nothing he ever dreamed of; his surprise is, therefore, extreme.
The men were rough, hardy-looking fellows; the women appeared contented,
but as if hard work had destroyed their good looks prematurely. Both
announced, by their looks and their manner, that the life they led was
no child's play; the men spoke only when addressed; the women stole
furtive glances at us; the half-dressed children stopped their play
to stare at the strangers. Here was neither spire nor bell. One cow
furnished all the milk for the commonalty. The mills being shut, there
was no sound except the river plashing over the rocks far down in the
gorge below; and had I encountered such a place on the sea-coast or the
frontier, I should at once have said I had stumbled upon the secret
hold of outlaws and smugglers, into which signs, grips, and passwords
were necessary to procure admission. To me, therefore, the hamlet of
Livermore was a wholly new experience.
From this hamlet to the foot of the mountain is a long and uninteresting
tramp of five miles through the woods. We found the walking good, and
strode rapidly on, coming first to a wood-cutter's camp pitched on the
banks of Carrigain Brook, and next to the clearing they had made at the
mountain's foot. Here the actual work of the ascent began in earnest.
Carrigain is solid, compact, massive. It is covered from head to foot
with forest. No incident of the way diverts the attention for a single
moment from the severe exertion required to overcome its steeply
inclined side; no breathing levels, no restful outlooks, no gorges, no
precipices, no cascades break the monotony of the escalade. We conquer,
as Napoleon's grenadiers did, by our legs. It is the most inexorable of
mountains, and the most exasperating. From base to summit you cannot
obtain a cup of water to slake your thirst.
Two hours of this brought us out upon the bare summit of the great
northern spur, beyond which the true peak rose a few hundred feet
higher. Carrigain, at once the desire and the bugbear of climbers, was
beneath our feet.
We have already examined, from the rocks of Chocorua, the situation
of this peak. We then entitled it the Hub of the White Mountains.
It reveals all the magnitude, unfolds the topography of the woody
wilderness stretching between the Saco and the Pemigewasset valleys. As
nearly as possible, it exhibits the same amazing profusion of unbroken
forest, here and there darkly streaked by hidden watercourses, as when
the daring foot of the first climber pressed the unviolated crest of the
august peak of Washington. In all its length and breadth there is not
one object that suggests, even remotely, the presence of man. We saw not
even the smoke of a hunter's camp. All was just as created; an absolute,
savage, unkempt wilderness.
Heavens, what a bristling array of dark and shaggy mountains! Now and
then, where water gleamed out of their hideous depths, a great brilliant
eye seemed watching us from afar. We knew that we had only to look up to
see a dazzling circlet of lofty peaks drawn around the horizon, chains
set with glittering stones, clusters sparkling with antique crests;
still we could not withdraw our eyes from the profound abysses sunk deep
in the bowels of the land, typical of the uncovered bed of the primeval
ocean, sad and terrible, from which that ocean seemed only to have just
receded.
But who shall describe all this solitary, this oppressive grandeur?
and what language portray the awfulness of these untrodden mountains?
Now and then, high up their bleak summits, a patch of forest had been
plucked up by the roots, or shaken from its hold in the throes of the
mountain, laid bare a long and glittering scar, red as a half-closed
wound. Such is the appearance of Mount Lowell, on the other side of the
gap dividing Carrigain from the Notch mountains. We saw where the dark
slope of Mount Willey gives birth to the infant Merrimack. We saw the
confluent waters of this stream, so light of foot, speeding through the
gloomy defiles, as if fear had given them wings. We saw the huge mass of
Mount Hancock force itself slowly upward out of the press. Unutterable
lawlessness stamped the whole region as its own.
That I have thus dwelt upon its most extraordinary feature, instead of
examining the landscape in detail, must suffice for the intelligent
reader. I have not the temerity to coolly put the dissecting-knife into
its heart. To science the things which belong to science. Besides, to
the man of feeling all this is but secondary. We are not here to make a
chart.
After a visit to the high summit, where some work was done in the
interest of future climbers, we set out at four in the afternoon, on
our return down the mountain. A second time we halted on the spur to
glance upward at the heap of summits over which Mount Washington lifts a
regular dome. The long line of peaks, ascending from Crawford's, seems
approaching it by a succession of huge steps. It was after dark when we
saw the lights of the village before us, and were again warmly welcomed
by the rousing fire and smoking viands of mine host.
VII.
_VALLEY OF THE SACO._
With our faint heart the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the Druid wood
Waits with its benedicte.
_Sir Launfal._
At eight o'clock in the morning we resumed our march, with the intention
of reaching Crawford's the same evening. The day was cold, raw, and
windy, so we walked briskly--sharp air and cutting wind acting like whip
and spur.
I retain a vivid recollection of this morning. Autumn had passed her
cool hand over the fevered earth. Soft as three-piled velvet, the green
turf left no trace of our tread. The sky was of a dazzling blue, and
frescoed with light clouds, transparent as gauze, pure as the snow
glistening on the high summits. On both sides of us audacious mountains
braced their feet in the valley; while others mounted over their brawny
shoulders, as if to scale the heavens.
But what shall I say of the grand harlequinade of nature which the
valley presented to our view? I cannot employ Victor Hugo's odd simile
of a peacock's tail; that is more of a witticism than a description.
The death of the year seemed to prefigure the glorious and surprising
changes of color in a dying dolphin--putting on unparalleled beauty at
the moment of dissolution, and so going out in a blaze of glory.
From the meagre summits enfiladed by the north wind, and where a
solitary pine or cedar intensified the desolation, to the upper forests,
the mountains bristled with a scanty growth of dead or dying trees.
Those scattered birches, high up the mountain side, looked like quills
on a porcupine's back; that group, glistening in the morning sun,
like the pipes of an immense organ. From this line of death, which
vegetation crossed at its peril, the eye dropped down over a limitless
forest of dark evergreen spotted with bright yellow. The effect of the
sunlight on this foliage was magical. Myriad flambeaux illuminated the
deep gloom, doubling the intensity of the sun, emitting rays, glowing,
resplendent. This splendid light, which the heavy masses of orange
seemed to absorb, gave a velvety softness to the lower ridges and spurs,
covering their hard, angular lines with a magnificent drapery. The lower
forests, the valley, were one vast sea of color. Here the bewildering
melange of green and gold, orange and crimson, purple and russet,
produced the effect of an immense Turkish rug--the colors being soft
and rich, rather than vivid or brilliant. This quality, the blending
of a thousand tints, the dreamy grace, the sumptuous profusion, the
inexpressible tenderness, intoxicated the senses. Earth seemed no longer
earth. We had entered a garden of the gods.
From time to time a scarlet maple flamed up in the midst of the forest,
and its red foliage, scattered at our feet by the wind, glowed like
flakes of fire beaten from an anvil. A tangled maze of color changed the
road into an avenue bordered with rare and variegated plants. Autumn's
bright sceptre, the golden-rod, pointed the way. Blue and white daisies
strewed the greensward.
After passing Sawyer's River, the road turned abruptly to the north,
skirting the base of the Nancy range. We were at the door of the second
chamber in this remarkable gallery of nature.
Before crossing the threshold it is expedient to allude to the incident
which has given a name not only to the mountain, but to the torrent we
see tearing its impetuous way down from the upper forests. The story of
Nancy's Brook is as follows:
In the latter part of the last century, a maiden, whose Christian name
of Nancy is all that comes down to us, was living in the little hamlet
of Jefferson. She loved, and was betrothed to a young man of the farm.
The wedding-day was fixed, and the young couple were on the eve of
setting out for Portsmouth, where their happiness was to be consummated
at the altar. In the trustfulness of love, the young girl confided the
small sum which constituted all her marriage-portion to her lover. This
man repaid her simple faith with the basest treachery. Seizing his
opportunity, he left the hamlet without a word of explanation or of
adieu. The deserted maiden was one of those natures which cannot quietly
sit down under calamity. Urged on by the intensity of her feelings, she
resolved to pursue her recreant lover. He could not resist her prayers,
her entreaties, her tears! She was young, vigorous, intrepid. With her
to decide and to act were the same thing. In vain the family attempted
to dissuade her from her purpose. At nightfall she set out.
A hundred years ago the route taken by this brave girl was not, as
to-day, a thoroughfare which one may follow with his eyes shut. It was
only an obscure path, little travelled by day, deserted by night. For
thirty miles, from Colonel Whipple's, in Jefferson, to Bartlett, there
was not a human habitation. The forests were filled with wild beasts.
The rigor of the season--it was December--added its own perils. But
nothing could daunt the heroic spirit of Nancy; she had found man more
cruel than all besides.
[Illustration: NANCY IN THE SNOW.]
The girl's hope was to overtake her lover before dawn at the place where
she expected he would have camped for the night. She found the camp
deserted, and the embers extinguished. Spurred on by hope or despair,
she pushed on down the tremendous defile of the Notch, fording the
turbulent and frozen Saco, and toiling through deep snows and over rocks
and fallen trees, until, feeling her strength fail, she sunk exhausted
on the margin of the brook which seems perpetually bemoaning her sad
fate. Here, cold and rigid as marble, under a canopy of evergreen which
the snow tenderly drooped above, they found her. She was wrapped in her
cloak, and in the same attitude of repose as when she fell asleep on her
nuptial couch of snow-crusted moss.
The story goes that the faithless lover became a hopeless maniac on
learning the fate of his victim, dying in horrible paroxysms not long
after. Tradition adds that for many years, on every anniversary of her
death, the mountains resounded with ravings, shrieks, and agonized
cries, which the superstitious attributed to the unhappy ghost of the
maniac lover.[6]
It was not quite noon when we entered the beautiful and romantic glen
under the shadow of Mount Crawford. Upon our left, a little in advance,
a solidly-built English country-house, with gables, stood on a terrace
well above the valley. At our right, and below, was the old Mount
Crawford tavern, one of the most ancient of mountain hostelries. Upon
the opposite side of the vale rose the enormous mass of Mount Crawford;
and near where we stood, a humble mound, overgrown with bushes, enclosed
the mortal remains of the hardy pioneer whose monument is the mountain.