the wind rose to one hundred and fifty miles. It was now blowing a
hurricane. That carpet (indicating the one in the room where we were)
stood up a foot from the floor, like a sail. The wind, gathering up all
the loose ice on top of the mountain, dashed it against the house in
one continuous volley. I lay wondering how long we should stand this
terrific pounding, when all at once there came a crash. M---- shouted to
me to get up; but I had tumbled out in a hurry on hearing the glass go.
You see I was ready-dressed, to keep myself warm in bed.
"Our united efforts were hardly equal to closing the storm-shutters from
the inside; but we succeeded, finally, though the lights were out, and
we worked in the dark." He rose in order to show me how the shutters,
made of thick oak planks, were secured by a bar, and by strong wooden
buttons screwed in the window-frame.
"We had scarcely done this," resumed Doyle, "and were shivering over the
fire, when a heavy gust of wind again burst open the shutters as easy
as if they had never been fastened at all. We sprang to our feet. After
a hard tussle we again secured the windows by nailing a cleat to the
floor, against which we fixed one end of a board, using the other end as
a lever. You understand?" I nodded. "Well, even then it was all we could
do to force the shutters back into place. But we did it. We _had_ to do
it.
"The rest of the night was passed in momentary expectation that the
building would be blown over into Tuckerman's Ravine, and we with it.
At four in the morning the wind registered one hundred and eighty-six
miles. It had shifted then from east to north-east. From this time it
steadily fell to ten miles at nine o'clock--as calm as a daisy. This was
the heaviest blow ever experienced on the mountain."
"Suppose this house had gone, and the hotel stood fast, could you have
effected an entrance into the hotel?" I asked.
"No, indeed. We could not have faced the wind."
"Not for a hundred feet, and in a matter of life and death?"
"In that gale? We should have been lifted clean off our feet and smashed
upon the rocks like this bottle," flinging one out at the door.
"So then for all those hours you expected from one moment to another to
be swept into eternity?"
[Illustration: THE TORNADO FORCING AN ENTRANCE.]
"We did what we could. Each of us wrapped himself up in blankets and
quilts, tying these tightly around him with ropes, to which were
attached bars of iron, so that if the house went by the board we might
stand a chance--a slim one--of anchoring, somehow, somewhere."
I tried to make him admit that he was afraid; but he would not. Only he
forgot, he said, in the excitement of that terrible night, that he was
ill, until the danger was over.
"We are going to have a blow," observed Doyle, glancing at the
barometer--"barometer falling, wind rising. Besides, that blue haze,
creeping over the valley, is a pretty sure sign of a change of weather."
His prognostic was completely verified in the course of a few hours.
"Now," said Doyle, rising, "I must go and feed my chick."
We retraced our steps to the point of rocks overhanging the southern
slope, where he stopped and began to scatter crumbs, I watching him
curiously meanwhile. Pretty soon he went down on his hands and knees and
peered underneath the rocks. "Ah!" he exclaimed, with vivacity, "there
you are!"
"What is it?" I asked; "what is there?"
"My mouse. He is rather shy, and knows I am not alone," he replied,
chirruping to the animal with affectionate concern.
Brought to the mountain top in some barrel or box, the little stowaway
had become domesticated, and would come at the call of his human
playmate. The incident was trifling enough of itself, yet there was
something touching in this companionship, something that sharply
recalled the sense of loneliness I had myself experienced. In reality,
the disparity between the man and the mouse seemed not greater than that
between the mountain and the man.
While we were standing among the rocks the sun touched the western
horizon. The heavens became obscured. All at once I saw an immense
shadow striding across the valley below us. Slowly and majestically it
ascended the Carter chain until it reached the highest summit. I could
not repress an exclamation of surprise; but what was my astonishment
to see this immense phantom, without pausing in its advance, lift
itself into the upper air to an incredible height, and stand fixed and
motionless high above all the surrounding mountains. It was the shadow
of Mount Washington projected upon the dusky curtain of the sky. All the
other peaks seemed to bow their heads by a sentiment of respect, while
the actual and the spectre mountain exchanged majestic salutations. Then
the vast gray pyramid retreated step by step into the thick shades.
Night fell.
The expected storm which the observer had predicted did not fail to put
in an appearance. By the time we reached the house the wind had risen to
forty miles an hour, driving the clouds in an unbroken flight against
the summit, from which they rebounded with rage equal to that displayed
in their vindictive onset. The Great Gulf was like the crater of some
mighty volcano on the eve of an eruption, vomiting forth volumes of
thickening cloud and mist. It seemed the mustering-place of all the
storm-legions of the Atlantic, steadily pouring forth from its black
jaws, unfurling their ghostly standards as they advanced to storm
the battlements of the mountain. Occasionally a break in the column
disclosed the opposite peaks looming vast and black as midnight. Then
the effect was indescribable. At one moment everything seemed resolving
into its original elements; the next I was reminded of a gigantic
mould, not from mortal hands, in which all these vast forms were slowly
cooling. The moon shed a pale, wan light over this unearthly scene,
in which creation and annihilation seemed confusedly struggling. The
sublime drama of the Fourth Day, when light was striving with darkness
for its allotted place in the universe, seemed enacting under my eyes.
The evening passed in comparative quiet, although the gale was now
moving from east to west at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Rain
rattled on the roof like shot. Now and then the building shuddered
and creaked, like a good ship breasting the fury of the gale. Vivid
flashes of lightning made the well-lighted room momentarily dark,
and checked conversation as suddenly as if we had felt the electric
shock. Under such novel conditions, with strange noises all about him,
one does not feel quite at ease. Nevertheless the kettle sung on the
stove, the telegraph instrument ticked on the table. We had Fabyan's,
Littleton, and White River Junction within call. We had plenty of
books, the station being well furnished from voluntary gifts of the
considerate-benevolent. At nine Doyle went out, but immediately returned
and said he had something to show me. I followed him out to the platform
behind the house. A forest fire had been seen all day in the direction
of Fabyan's, but at night it looked like a burning lake sunk in depths
of infernal blackness. I had never seen anything so nearly realizing my
idea of hell. No other object was visible--only this red glare as of
a sun in partial eclipse shining at the bottom of an immense hole. We
watched it a few minutes and then went in. I attempted to be cheerful,
but how was one to rise above such surroundings? Alternately the storm
roared and whined for admittance. Worn out with the tension, physical
and moral, of this day, I crept into bed and tried to shut the storm
out. The poor exile in the next room murmured to himself, "Ah, this
horrible solitude!"
The next morning, while looking down from this eagle's nest upon the
southern peaks to where the bridle path could be distinctly traced
across the plateau, and still winding on around the peaked crest of
Monroe, I was seized with a longing to explore the route which on a
former occasion proved so difficult, but to-day presenting apparently
nothing more serious than a fatiguing scramble up and down the cone.
Accordingly, taking leave of my companion, I began to feel my way down
that cataract of granite, fallen, it would seem, from the skies.[28]
In proportion as I descended, the mountain ridge below regained, little
by little, its actual character. Except where patches of snow mottled
it with white, it displayed one uniform and universal tinge of faded
orange where the soft sunshine fell full upon it, toned into rusty brown
when overshadowed, gradually deepening to an intense blue-black in the
ravines. But so insignificant did the summits look, when far below,
that I hardly recognized them for the same I had seen from Fabyan's and
had traversed from Crawford's. Monroe, the nearest, has, however, a
most striking resemblance to an enormous petrified wave on the eve of
dashing itself down into the valley. The lower you descend the stronger
this impression becomes; but from the summit of Mount Washington this
peak is so belittled that the mountains seemed saying to each other,
"Good-morning, Mole-hill!" "Good-morning, Big Bully!"
When I reached the stone-corral, the ground, if ground it can be
called, descended less abruptly, over successive stony terraces, to a
comparative level, haired over with a coarse, wiry, and tangled grass,
strewed with bowlders, and inundated along its upper margin by torrents
of stones. Upon closer inspection these stones arranged themselves
in irregular semicircular ridges. In the eyes of the botanist and
entomologist this seemingly arid region is more attractive than the most
beautiful gardens of the valley. Among these grasses and these stones
lie hid the beautiful Alpine flowers of which no species exist in the
lowlands. Only the arbutus, which puts forth its pink-and-white flowers
earliest of all, and is warmed into life by the snows, at all resembles
them in its habits. Over this grassy plain the wind swept continually
and roughly; but on putting the grass aside with the hand, the tiny
blossoms greet you with a smile of bewitching sweetness.
These areas, extending between and sometimes surrounding the high peaks,
or even approaching their summits, are the "lawns" of the botanist, and
his most interesting field of research. Within its scope about fifty
species of strictly Alpine plants vegetate. As we ascend the mountain,
after the dwarf trees come the Lapland rhododendron, Labrador tea, dwarf
birch, and Alpine willows, which, in turn, give place to the Greenland
sandwort, diapensia, cassiope, and other plants, with arctic rushes,
sedges, and lichens, which flourish on the very summit.
To the left, this plain, on which the grass mournfully rustled, sloped
gently for, I should guess, half a mile, and then rolled heavily off,
over a grass-grown rim, into Tuckerman's Ravine. In this direction the
Carter Mountains appeared. Beyond, stretching away out of the plain,
extended the long Boott's Spur, over which the Davis path formerly
ascended from the valley of the Saco, but which is now, from long
disuse, traced with difficulty. Between this headland and Monroe opened
the valley of Mount Washington River, the old Dry River of the carbuncle
hunters, which the eye followed to its junction with the Saco, beyond
which the precipices of Frankenstein glistened in the sun, like a
corselet of steel. Oakes's Gulf cuts deeply into the head of the gorge.
The plain, the ravine, the spur, and the gulf transmit the names of
those indefatigable botanists, Bigelow, Tuckerman, Boott, and Oakes.
On the other side of the ridge--for of course this plain has its
ridge--the ground was more broken in its rapid descent toward the
Ammonoosuc Valley, into which I looked over the right shoulder of Monroe.
But what a sight for the rock-wearied eye was the little Lake of the
Clouds, cuddled close to the hairy breast of this mountain! On the
instant the prevailing gloom was lighted as if by magic by this dainty
nursling of the clouds, which seemed innocently smiling in the face of
the hideous mountain. And the stooping monster seemed to regard the
little waif, lying there in its rocky cradle, with astonishment, and to
forego his first impulse to strangle it where it lay. Lion and lamb were
lying down together.
Casting an eye upward, and finding the houses on the summit were hidden
by the retreating curvature of the cone, I saw, with chagrin, light
mists scudding over my head. It was a notice to hasten my movements idle
to disregard here. Crossing as rapidly as possible Bigelow's Lawn--the
half-mile of grass ground referred to, where I sunk ankle-deep in moss,
or stumbled twenty times in as many rods over concealed stones--I
skirted the head of the chasm for some distance. But from above the
ravine does not make a startling impression. I, however, discovered,
lodged underneath its walls, a bank of snow. All around I heard water
gurgling under my feet in rock-worn channels while making its way
tranquilly to the brow of the ravine. These little underground runlets
are the same that glide over the head-wall, and are the head tributaries
of the Ellis.[29]
Retracing my way to the ridge and to the path, which I followed for some
distance, startling the silence with an occasional halloo, I descended
into the hollow, where the Lake of the Clouds seems to have checked
itself, white and still, on the very edge of the tremendous gully, cut
deep into the western slopes. The lake is the fountain-head of the
Ammonoosuc. Its waters are too cold to nourish any species of fishes;
they are too elevated for any of the feathered tribe to pay it a visit.
[Illustration: LAKE OF THE CLOUDS.]
Strange spectacle! A fairy haunt, rock-rimmed and fringed about with
Alpine shrubs, half-disclosing, half-concealing its bare bosom, coyly
reposed on this wind-swept ridge, like "a good deed in a naughty
world." From its crystal basin a tiny rill trickled through soft moss
to the dizzy verge beyond, where, like some airy sprite, clothed with
the rainbow and tossing its white tresses to the sport of the breeze,
it tripped gayly over the grisly precipice and fell in a silvery
shower from height to height. Where it passed, flowers, ferns, and
rich herbage sprung forth upon the hard face of the granite. Tapering
fir-trees exhaled a dewy freshness; aspens quivered with the delight
of its coming, and aged trees, tottering, decrepit, piteous to see,
stretched their withered limbs toward heaven. On it went, and still on,
leaving its white robe clinging to the mountain side. All the forest
seemed crowding forward to catch it; but, now reverently kissing the
feet of the old trees, now saucily flinging a handful of crystal in the
faces of scowling cliffs, it eluded the embrace of the forest, which
thrilled with its musical laughter from lowest deeps to the summit of
high-rocking pines. When it was no longer visible a sonorous murmur
heralded its triumphal progress. No wonder the bewildered eye roved from
bleak summit to voluptuous vale; from the handful of drops above to the
brimming river below. The miracle of Horeb was being repeated hour by
hour, like an affair of every-day life.
This hand-mirror of Venus has two tiny companion pools close by. The
weary explorer may sip a draught of sweetest savor while admiring
their exceeding beauty--a beauty heightened by its unexpectedness, and
teaching that not all is barren even here. A benison on those little
lakes!
Stone houses of refuge are much needed on the mountains over which
the Crawford trail reaches the summit. They should always be provided
with fagots for a fire, clean straw or boughs for a bed, and printed
directions for the inexperienced traveller to follow. A fireplace,
furnished with a crane and a kettle for heating water, would be absolute
luxuries. Being done, this glorious promenade--the equal of which does
not exist in New England--would be taken with confidence by numbers,
instead of, as now, by the few. It is the appropriate pendant of the
ascent from the Glen by the carriage-road, or from Fabyan's by the
railway. One can hardly pretend to have seen the mountains in their
grandest aspects until he has threaded this wondrous picture-gallery,
this marvellous hall of statues.[30]
While recrossing the plateau, from which Washington has the appearance
of one mountain piled upon another, I suddenly came upon a dead sparrow
in my path. Poor little fellow! he was too adventurous, and sunk on
stiffening pinions beneath the frozen wind. Ten steps farther on a large
brown butterfly flew up and fluttered cheerily along the path. Why,
then, did the bird die and the butterfly live?
This mountain butterfly, which endured cold that the bird could not, has
excited the attention of naturalists, it is said. The mountain is 6293
feet high, and the butterflies never descend below an elevation of about
5600 feet. Here they "disport during the month of July of every year,"
thriving upon the scanty deposits of honey found in the flowers of the
few species of hardy plants that grow in the crevices of the rocks at
this great altitude, and upon other available liquid substances. The
insect measures, from tip to tip of the expanded fore-wings, about
one and eight-tenths inches. It is colored in shades of brown, with
various bands and marblings diversifying the surface of the wings. The
butterfly is known to naturalists as the _OEneis semidea_, and was
first described, in 1828, by Thomas Say. An allied species occurs on
Long's Peak and other elevated heights in Colorado; and another is found
at Hopedale, Labrador; but they are confined to these widely separated
localities. It is surmised that the butterfly, like the Alpine flora,
beautifully illustrates the presence, or rather the advance and retreat,
of the glacier.
I took up the little winged chorister of the vale who was not able to
make spring come to the mountain for all his warbling. Truly, was not
the little bird's fate typical of those ambitious climbers for fame
who, chilled to death by neglect or indifference, die singing on the
heights? So the sparrow's fall gave me food for reflection, during which
I reached the little circular enclosure at the foot of the cone.
Once more I climbed the rambling and rocky stairs leading to the summit;
but long before reaching it clouds were drifting above and below me.
The day was to end like so many others. The crabbed old mountain had
exhausted his store of benevolence. I hurried on down the Glen road.
After descending a mile I heard a rumbling sound, deep and prolonged,
like distant thunder. The thought of being overtaken on the mountain by
a thunder-storm made me quicken my pace almost to a run. On turning the
corner where the snow-bank had lain, like a lion in the path, devoutly
wishing myself well and safely over, I felt something rise in my throat.
The bank was no longer there. Every vestige of it had disappeared, and,
in all probability, its sudden plunge down the mountain was what I had
taken for thunder. Ten minutes sooner and I should have been upon its
treacherous bridge.
I passed the Half-Way House, entered the dusk forest, where the
tree-tops were swaying wildly to and fro, the birds flitting silently,
and the tall pines discordantly humming, as if getting the pitch of the
storm. Suddenly it grew dark. A stream of fire blinded me with its
glare. Then a deafening peal shook the solid earth. Another and another
succeeded: Olympian salvos greeted the arrival of the storm king.
The rain was pattering among the leaves when I emerged into the open
vale, guided by the lights of the Glen House shining through the
darkness. My heavy feet almost refused to carry me farther, and I walked
like the statue in "Don Juan."
THIRD JOURNEY.
PAGE
I. _THE PEMIGEWASSET IN JUNE_ 209
II. _THE FRANCONIA PASS_ 224
III. _THE KING OF FRANCONIA_ 237
IV. _FRANCONIA, AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD_ 248
V. _THE CONNECTICUT OX-BOW_ 256
VI. _THE SACK OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES_ 259
VII. _MOOSEHILLOCK_ 267
VIII._BETHLEHEM_ 276
IX. _JEFFERSON, AND THE VALLEY OF ISRAEL'S RIVER_ 291
X. _THE GREAT NORTHERN PEAKS_ 304
[Illustration: WHITE MOUNTAINS
(WEST SIDE)
1881.]
THIRD JOURNEY.
I.
_THE PEMIGEWASSET IN JUNE._
O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings,
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine,
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf-pine!
WHITTIER.
Plymouth lies at the entrance to the Pemigewasset Valley, like an
encampment pitched to dispute its passage. At present its design is to
facilitate the ingress of tourists.
I am sitting at the window this morning looking down the Pemigewasset
Valley. It is a gray, sad morning. Wet clouds hang and droop heavily
over. In the distance the frayed and tattered edges are rolled up,
half-disclosing the humid outlines of the hills on the other side of
the valley. The trees are budded with rain-drops. Through a lattice
of bordering foliage I look down upon the river, shrunken by drought
to half its usual breadth, and exposing its parched bed of sand and
pebbles. It gives an expiring gurgle in its stony throat. It is one of
those mornings that, in spite of our philosophy, strangely affect the
spirits, and are like a presentiment of evil. The clouds are funereal
draperies; the river chants a dirge.
In this world of ours, where events push each other aside with such
appalling rapidity, perhaps it is scarcely remembered that Hawthorne
breathed his last in this house on the night of May 18th, 1864. He who
was born in sight of these mountains had come among them to die.
In company with his old college mate and loving friend, General Pierce,
he came from Centre Harbor to Plymouth the day previous to the sad
event. Devoted friends--and few men have known more devoted--had for
some time seen that his days were numbered. The fire had all but gone
out from his eye, which seemed interrogating the world of which he was
already more than half an inhabitant. A presentiment of his approaching
end seemed foreshadowed in the changed look and faltering step of
Hawthorne himself: he walked like a man consciously going to his grave.
Still, much was hoped--it could hardly be that much was expected--from
this journey, and from the companionship of two men grown gray with
care, each standing on the pinnacle of his ambition, each disappointed,
but united, one to the other, by the ties of life-long friendship;
turning their backs upon the gay world, and walking hand-in-hand among
the sweet groves and pleasant streams like boys again. It was like a
dream of their lost youth: the reality was no more.
On this journey General Pierce was the watchful, tender, and sympathetic
nurse. Without doubt either of these men would have died for the other.
But these hopes, these cares, alas! proved delusive. The angel of death
came unbidden into the sacred companionship; the shadow of his wings
hovered over them unseen. In the night, without a sigh or a struggle, as
he himself wished it might be, the hand of death was gently and kindly
laid on the fevered brain and fluttering heart. In the morning his
friend entered the chamber to find only the lifeless form of Nathaniel
Hawthorne plunged in the slumber that knows no awakening. Great heart
and mighty brain were stilled forever.
While the weather gives such inhospitable welcome let us employ the
time by turning over a leaf from history. According to Farmer, the
intervales here were formerly resorted to by the Indians for hunting
and fishing. At the mouth of Baker's River, which here joins the
Pemigewasset, they had a settlement. Graves, bones, gun-barrels, besides
many implements of their rude husbandry, have been discovered. Here, it
is said, the Indians were attacked by a party of English from Haverhill,
Massachusetts, led by Captain Baker, who defeated them, killed many, and
destroyed a large quantity of fur. From him Baker's River receives its
name.