mountains, around the eastern slope or to the summit of the mountain
rising at the back of the hotel. The bare but grassy crest of this
mountain, one of my favorite haunts, enabled me to reconnoitre my route
in advance up the valley, and to look over into the yet unvisited
region of Jefferson, or back again, at the environs of Franconia. The
glory that pours down upon these hills, the vales they infold, the wild
streams, the craggy mountain spurs, the soft, velvety clearings that
turn their dimpled cheeks to be kissed by the sunshine, may all be seen
and fully enjoyed from this spot.
The heights behind us are well-wooded on the summits, but below this
belt of woodland extends a broad band of sunny clearings checkered with
fields of waving grain. These fields are among the highest cultivated
lands in New England. Long tillage was necessary to reduce this
refractory soil to subjection. Farther down, toward the railway-station,
the pastures are so encumbered with stones that a sheep would turn from
them in dismay. To mow among these stones a man would have to go down on
his knees.
There is a beautiful orchard of sugar-maples down the road to the
Hollow; but it always makes me sad to see these trees standing with
their naked sides pierced and bleeding from gaping wounds.
At the corner of this road my attention was arrested by a sign-board
planted in front of an unpainted cottage, behind which rose a clump
of magnificent birches. I walked over to see what it could mean. The
sign-board bore the name "Sir Isaac Newton Gay," in large black letters.
Here was a spur to curiosity! A knight, or at least a baronet, living
in humble seclusion, yet parading his quality thus in the face of the
world! Going to the gate, my perplexity increased upon seeing the
grass-plot in front of the dwelling literally covered with broken glass,
lamp-chimneys, bits of colored china, bottles of every imaginable shape
and size stuck upright upon sticks, interspersed with lumps of white
quartz. Some cabalistic meaning, doubtless, attached to the display.
This brilliant rubbish sparkled in the sun, filling the enclosure with
the cheap glitter of a pawnbroker's shop-window. The thing so far
announced a little eccentricity, at least, so I made bold to push my
investigation still farther, and was rewarded by finding, piled against
the trunk of a tree, at the back of the house, a heap of skulls of
animals as high as my head. The recluse's intent was now plain. Here
was a lesson that he who ran might read. The rubbish in the front yard
illustrated the pomp, glitter, and emptiness of life; the monument of
skulls its true estate, divested of all false show or pretence. Without
doubt this was a philosopher worthy of his name.
I was admitted by a singular-looking being, with dry, straight, lank
hair, weak features, watery eyes, and a shuffling gait. Some accident
having partially closed one eye, gave him a look of preternatural
wisdom. He was ready to give an opinion on any subject under the sun,
no matter how difficult or abstruse, as soon as broached, and stroked
his scanty beard while doing so with evident self-complacency. I had a
moment to see that the walls were papered with old handbills of county
fairs, travelling shows, and the like, the floor covered with patches of
carpet as various as Joseph's coat, when my man began a formula similar
to what the Bearded Lady drawls out or the Tattooed Man recites through
his nose to gaping rustics at a country muster, at ten cents a head.
He told where he was born, how old he was, and how long he had lived
in Bethlehem. At the proper moment I put my hand in my pocket and took
out a dime, which he thankfully accepted, and dropped inside a broken
coffee-pot.
"Sir," I observed, "seeing you are American-born, I infer your title
must have been conferred by some foreign potentate?"
"No; that is my name."
"But," I pursued, "has it not an unrepublican sound in a country where
titles are regarded with distrust, not to say aversion?"
"I tell you it is my name," with some heat; "I was named for the great
_Sir_ Isaac Newton."
"Your pardon, Sir Isaac. May I ask if you inherit the genius of your
distinguished namesake?"
"Well, yes, to some extent I do; I philoserphize a good deal. I read a
good many books folks leaves here, besides what newspapers I can pick
up; but you see it costs a lifetime to get knowledge."
Jaques, the misanthrope, wandering in the Forest of Arden, was not more
astonished at Touchstone's philosophy than I at this answer. "Very
true," I assented. "What is your philosophy of life?"
He tapped his forehead with his forefinger, but it was only too evident
the apartment was untenanted. He remained a moment or two as if in deep
thought, and then began,
"Well, I'm eighty-six years of age, come next July."
My flesh began to creep: he was beginning, for the third time, his
eternal formula. The hermit, fumbling a red handkerchief, resumed,
"I can say I've never wanted for necessaries, and don't propose to give
myself any trouble about it." And then he expatiated on the folly of
fretfulness.
The Hermit of Bethlehem, as he is called, but who opens his door wide
for the world to enter, is a very ordinary sort of hermit indeed.
Still, his very feebleness of intellect, his vanity even, should be a
shield instead of a target for those who, like myself, are lured by the
unmeaning trumpery at his door, which has no other significance in the
world than a childish passion for objects that glitter in the sun.
The constituents of hotel life do not belong to any locality: they
are universal. It is curious to see here people who have spent half
their lives in India, or China, or Australia moving about among the
untravelled with the well-bred ease and adaptation to circumstances that
newly-fledged tourists can neither understand nor imitate. It is very
droll, too, that people who have lived ten years in the same street, at
home, without knowing each other, meet here for the first time.
I beg to introduce another acquaintance picked up by the roadside while
walking from the Twin Mountain House to Bethlehem. Had I been driving,
the incident would still have waited for a narrator.
Climbing the hill-side at a snail's pace was a peddler's cart, drawn by
a scrubby little white horse, and bearing a new broom for an ensign,
which seemed to symbolize that this petty trader meant to sweep the road
clean of its loose cash. The sides of the cart were gayly decorated
with pans, basins, dippers by the dozen, and bristled with knickknacks
for barter or ready money, from a gridiron to a door-mat. The movement
of the vehicle over the stony road kept up a lively clatter, which
announced its coming from afar. There being for the moment, no house in
sight, the proprietor was engaged in picking raspberries by the roadside.
The peddler--well, he was little, and stubby too, like his horse,
for whom he had dismounted to lighten the pull up-hill. The animal
seemed to know his business, for he stopped short as often as he came
to a water-bar, blew a cloud from his nostrils, champed his bit, and
distended his sides so alarmingly with a long, deep respiration, that
the patched-up harness seemed in danger of bursting. He then glanced
over his shoulder toward his master, shook his head deprecatingly, and,
with a deep sigh, moved on.
The little merchant of small wares and great had on a rusty felt hat,
rakishly set on one side of his bullet head, and a faded olive-green
coat, rather short in the skirts, to conceal two patches in his
trousers. The latter were tucked into a pair of dusty boots very much
turned up at the toes. His face was a good deal sunburnt, and his
hair, eyebrows, and mustache were the color of the road--sandy. Except
a pair of scissors, the points of which protruded from his left-hand
vest-pocket, I perceived no weapon offensive or defensive about him. He
was a very innocent-looking peddler indeed.
As I was passing him he held out a handful of ripe fruit. The hand was
disfigured with an ugly cicatrice: it was rather dirty. He accompanied
the offer with an invitation to "hop on" his cart and ride. This double
civility emanated from a gentleman and a peddler.
The walk from Crawford's to Bethlehem _is_ rather fatiguing; but I said,
as in duty bound, "No" (I said it because the thought of riding through
Bethlehem Street on the top of a peddler's cart appeared ridiculous in
my eyes--with shame I confess it), "thank you; your horse already has
all he can pull, and I have only a mile or two farther to go."
The peddler then fell into step with me, taking a long, even stride that
brought back old recollections. I said,
"You have been a soldier."
"How know you dat?"
"By your gait--you do not walk, you march: by that sabre-cut on your
right hand."
"Ha! you goot eyes haf; but it a payonet vas."
Believing I saw a veteran of our great civil war, I asked, with
undisguised interest,
"Where did you serve? Where were you wounded?"
"Von year und half in war mit Danemark, von year und half mit Oustria,
und two mit Vrance."
I looked at him again. What! That undersized, insignificant appearing
little chap, whom I could easily have pitched into the ditch, he a
soldier of Sadowa, of Metz, of Paris. Bah!
"So, the wars over, you emigrated to America?"
"Right avay. Ven I get home from Baris I tell Linda, my vife, 'Look
here, Linda: I been soldier six year. Now I plenty fighting got. Dere's
two hunder thaler in the knapsack. Shut your mouth tight, open your eye
close, and we get out of dis double-quig.' She say 'Where I go?' und I
tell her the _U_-nited States, by hell, befor anoder var come. She begin
to cry, I begin to schwear, und we settle it right avay."
I asked if he minded telling how he came by the wound in his hand. This
is what he told me in his broken English:
When Marshal Bazaine made his last desperate effort to shake off the
deadly gripe the Prussians had fastened upon Metz, a battalion of
_tirailleurs_ suddenly surrounded an advanced post established by
the Germans in the suburbs. The morning was foggy, and the surprise
complete. The picket had hardly the time to run to their arms before
they were driven back pell-mell on the reserve, amid a shower of balls.
The reserve took refuge in a stone building surrounded by a thick hedge,
maintaining an irregular fire from the windows. One of the last to cross
the court-yard, with the French at his heels, was our German. Before
he could gain the friendly shelter of the house he stumbled and fell
headlong, his gun flying through the air as he came to the ground, so
that he was not only prostrate but disarmed.
Half-stunned, he scrambled to his knees just as his nearest pursuer
made a savage lunge with his sabre-bayonet. The Prussian instinctively
grasped it. While trying thus to parry the deadly thrust, the keen
weapon pierced his hand, and he was a second time borne to the earth,
or, rather, pinned to it by his adversary's bayonet.
"_Rendez-vous Allemand, cochon!_" screamed the Frenchman, bestriding the
little Prussian with a look of mortal hatred.
"_Je ne fous combrends,_" replied the wounded man, drawing a revolver
with his free hand and shooting his enemy dead. "I couldn't helb it,
I vas so mad," finished the ex-soldier, running to serve two of his
customers, who stood waiting for him at a gate by the roadside. I left
him exhibiting ribbons, edgings, confectionery--heaven knows what!--with
all the volubility of an experienced shopman.
IX.
_JEFFERSON, AND THE VALLEY OF ISRAEL'S RIVER._
Through the valley runs a river, bright and rocky, cool and swift,
Where the wave with many a quiver plays around the pine-tree's drift.
_Good Words._
It remains to introduce the reader into the valley watered by Israel's
River, and for this purpose we take the rail from Bethlehem to
Whitefield, and from Whitefield to Jefferson.
Like Bethlehem, Jefferson lies reposing in mid-ascent of a mountain.
Here the resemblance ends. The mountain above it is higher, the valley
beneath more open, permitting an unimpeded view up and down. The
hill-side upon which the clump of hotels is situated makes no steep
plunge into the valley, but inclines gently down to the banks of the
river. Instead of crowding upon and jostling each other, the mountains
forming opposite sides of this valley remain tranquilly in the alignment
they were commanded not to overstep. The confusion there is reduced to
admirable order here; the smooth slopes, the clean lines, the ample
views, the roominess, so to speak, of the landscape, indicate that
everything has been done without haste, with precision, and without
deviation from the original plan, which contemplated a paradise upon
earth.
Issuing from the wasted sides of Mount Jefferson and Mount Adams,
Israel's River runs a short north-westerly course of fifteen miles into
the Connecticut at Lancaster. This beautiful stream received its name
from Israel Glines, a hunter, who frequented these regions long before
the settlement of the country. The road from Lancaster to Gorham follows
the northern highlands of its valley to its head, then crossing the
dividing ridge which separates its waters from those of Moose River,
descends this stream to the Androscoggin at Gorham.
On the north side Starr King Mountain rises 2400 feet above the valley
and 3800 feet above the sea. On the south side Cherry Mountain lifts
itself 3670 feet higher than the tide-level. These two mountains form
the broad basin through which Israel's River flows for more than half
its course. The village of Jefferson Hill lies on the southern slope
of Starr King, and, of course, on the north side of the valley. Cherry
Mountain, the most prominent object in the foreground, is itself a
fine mountain study. It looks down through the great Notch, greeting
Chocorua. It is conspicuous from any elevated point north of the
Franconia group--from Fabyan's, Bethlehem, Whitefield, Lancaster, etc.
Owl's Head is a conspicuous protuberance of this mountain. Over the
right shoulder of Cherry Mountain stand the great Franconia Peaks, and
to the right of these, its buildings visible, is Bethlehem. Now look up
the valley.
[Illustration: THE NORTHERN PEAKS FROM JEFFERSON.]
We see that we have taken one step nearer the northern wing of the
great central edifice whose snowy dome dominates New England. We are
advancing as if to turn this magnificent battle-line of Titans, on
whose right Madison stands in an attitude to repel assault. Adams next
erects his sharp lance, Jefferson his shining crescent, Washington his
broad buckler, and Monroe his twin crags against the sky. Jefferson,
as the nearest, stands boldly forward, showing its tremendous ravines,
and long, supporting ridges, with great distinctness. Washington loses
something of its grandeur here; at least it is not the most striking
object; that must be sought for among the sable-sided giants standing at
his right hand. The southern peaks, being foreshortened, show only an
irregular and flattened outline which we do not look at a second time.
From Madison to Lafayette, our two rallying points, the distance can
hardly be less than forty miles as the eye travels: the entire circuit
it is able to trace cannot fall short of seventy or eighty miles. As
at Bethlehem, the view out of the valley is chiefly remarkable for its
contrast with every other feature.
I took a peculiar satisfaction in these views, they were so ample,
so extensive, so impressive. Here you really feel as if the whole
noble company of mountains were marshalled solely for your delighted
inspection. At no other point is there such unmeasured gratification
in seeing, because the eye roves without hinderance over the grandest
summits, placed like the Capitol at the head of its magnificent avenue.
It alights first on one pinnacle, then flits to another. It interrogates
these immortal structures with a calm scrutiny. It dives into the cool
ravines; it seeks to penetrate, like the birds, the profound silence
of the forests. It toils slowly up the broken crags, or loiters by
the cascades, hanging like athletes from dizzy brinks. It shrinks, it
admires, it questions; it is grave, gay, or thoughtful by turns. I do
not believe the man lives who, looking up to those mountains as in the
face of the Deity, can deliberately utter a falsehood: the lie would
choke him.
Furthermore, you get the best idea of height here, because the long
amphitheatre of mountains is seen steadily growing in stature toward
the great central group; and comparison is, by all odds, the best of
teachers for the eye.
If for no other reason than the respect due to age, Jefferson deserves a
moment to itself. It was granted, October 3d, 1765, to John Goffe, under
the name of Dartmouth. The road diverging here, and crossing Cherry
Mountain to Fabyan's, is the oldest, as it long was the only highway
through the White Mountains. In those early times the travelled way
was by the Connecticut River and Lancaster through this valley to the
White Mountain Notch. The divergent road is the old turnpike between
Vermont and Portland. Gradually, as settlements were pushed farther and
farther up the Ammonoosuc, a way was made by Bath, Lisbon, Littleton,
and Dalton, to Lancaster; but to pass beyond it was still necessary to
follow the old route; nor was it until after the settlement of Bethlehem
cleared the way that an execrable horse-path was made over the present
great highway up the Ammonoosuc. In 1803 President Dwight passed over
this new road on his second excursion to the great Notch. Few travellers
would now be willing to undergo what he did to see the mountains.
There were then only three or four houses in the sixteen miles between
Bethlehem and the Notch.
One of the first settlers of Jefferson was Colonel Joseph Whipple,
mentioned in the narrative of Nancy, the ill-starred mountain-maid, who
died while following her faithless lover in his flight from Jefferson
out of the mountains. Colonel Whipple lived on the road to Cherry
Mountain, near the mill. In 1797 his was the only house on the road.
During the Revolution a party of Indians, led by a white man, surrounded
the house, and made Whipple their prisoner. Inventing some pretext, the
colonel obtained leave to go into another room, from which he made his
escape by a window and fled to the woods, where he successfully eluded
pursuit.
Finding myself already well advanced toward the summit of Starr King,
I finished the ascent of this mountain during an afternoon's stroll.
Nothing worthy of remark, except the exquisite view from the summit,
presented itself. Here I met again a throng of old acquaintances, and
encountered a crowd of new ones. Here I saw something like a shadow
darken the side of Mount Washington, and watched it creep steadily up
and up to the summit. The shadow was the smoke of the locomotive making
its last ascent for the day, under the eyes of thousands of spectators,
who look at it to turn away with a smile, a shrug, or a shake of the
head.
The name of Starr King has become a household word with all travellers
in the White Mountains. It was most fitting that he who interpreted
Nature so well and so truly should receive his monument at her hands. To
him the mountains were emblematic of her highest perfection. He loved
them. His tone when speaking of them is always tender and caressing.
They appealed to his rare and exquisite perception of the beautiful,
to his fine and sensitive nature, capable of detecting intuitively
what was hid from common eyes. He felt their presence to be ennobling
and uplifting. He opened for us the charmed portal. We accompanied him
through an earthly paradise then first revealed to us by the fervor
and wealth of his description. He led us to the shadiest retreats, the
coolest groves, the most secluded glens. He guided our footsteps up the
steep mountain-side to the bleak summit. Thrice fitting was it that a
mountain should perpetuate the name of Thomas Starr King. As was said at
the grave of Gautier, he too dated "from the creation of the beautiful."
* * * * *
I have now rested four days at Ethan Crawford's, who lives on the side
of Boy Mountain, five miles east of Jefferson Hill, on the road to
Gorham. This Ethan is a son of the celebrated guide and host so well
known to former travellers by the _sobriquet_ of Keeper of the Mountains.
I go to the window, and facing toward the setting sun look down the
broadening valley of Israel's River, over the glistening house-tops
of Whitefield, into and beyond the Connecticut Valley. I have Mitten
Mountain and Cherry Mountain, both heavily wooded, just over the way,
although the view of these elevations is in part intercepted by a nearer
mountain, also covered with a vigorous forest. At this moment I hear the
rush of the stream far down in the Hollow; and, following the serpentine
line its dark course makes among the press of hills, am confronted by
the massive slopes of Madison and Adams, the sombre ravine and castled
crags of Jefferson, and the hoary crest of Washington. I am really in
the heart of the mountains.
Swiftly from these mountains descend, with exquisite grace, enormous
billows of deep sea-green, which do not subside but lift themselves
proudly at the foot of those great overhanging walls of olive and
malachite. Here rolling together, their foliage, bright or dark, repeats
the effect of flaws sweeping over a sunny sea. Their deep hollows,
arching sides, and limpid crests perfect the resemblance to the moment
when, having exerted its utmost energy, the panting ocean stands
exhausted and motionless in the grasp of the north wind.
These lower mountains, interposing a barrier between the two valleys
of the Ammonoosuc and of Israel's River, seem, you think, pushed up
from the yielding earth simply by the enormous weight of the higher
and neighboring mountains whose keen summit-lines cut New England in
halves. At this hour these lines are edged with dull gold. All along
the wavering heights I can detect with the naked eye isolated black
crags, and can plainly see the deep dents in the broken cornices and
capitals of the grand old mountains--those vestiges of their primordial
architecture. Here the inclined ridge of the plateau, connecting the
pinnacle of Washington with the peaks of Monroe, is traced along its
whole extent. At this distance its craggy outline breaks in light
ripples, announcing nothing of that wilderness of stones assailing the
climber. All the asperities are softened into capricious harmonies.
Below yawn the ravines.
The tracks of old slides and torrents in the side of Monroe remind
you of the branches of a gigantic fossil tree, exposed by a fracture
dividing the mountain in two. Such is, in fact, the impression received
by looking at this mountain; but the object which most excites my
attention is the broad and deep rent in the side of Jefferson, over
which hang on one side the crumbling counterfeits of towers and
battlements, while on the other cataracts, like necklaces, are suspended
over its unfathomed abysses. Cloud-shadows drift noiselessly along the
warm steeps. Cataracts glisten brightly in the sun. The grave peaks look
down unmoved on the play of the one and the sport of the other.
The picture of life in East Jefferson would not be complete without the
old hound dozing in the sun, the turkey-cocks strutting consequentially
up and down, the barn-swallows darting swiftly in and out, the ring of
young Ethan's anvil, and the bleating of sheep far up the mountain-side.
I see them nibbling the fresh herbage, and watch the gambols of the
lambs like a child--only the child laughs aloud, and I do not laugh.
Voices come down the hillside, and I see the slow movement of a hammock
and the flutter of a dress in the maple-grove. Poetry and perfume mingle
with the scent of wild-flowers and songs of golden-mouthed birds.
Evening does not drive us within doors, the nights are so enchanting.
Day fades imperceptibly out. Even the stars seem disconcerted. One by
one they peep, and then flit from view. We watch the slow mustering of
the celestial host in silence. A meteor leaps from heaven to earth.
The fire-flies resemble a shower of sparks, or, as darkness deepens,
a phosphorescent sea. Dorbeetles hurtle the still air, and frogs sing
barcarolles in the misty fens. Now the mountains put on their sable
armor that is to render them invisible. Here the poet must assist us:
"It is the hush of night; and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen--
Save darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear
Precipitously steep."