fly,--a hopeless business; for he says that only one instance has been
known in the United States of salmon being taken otherwise than with a
net. A few chubs were all the fruit of his piscatory efforts. But while
looking at the rushing and rippling stream, I saw a great fish, some six
feet long and thick in proportion, suddenly emerge at whole length, turn
a somerset, and then vanish again beneath the water. It was of a
glistening, yellowish brown, with its fins all spread, and looking very
strange and startling, darting out so lifelike from the black water,
throwing itself fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight
and to pursuit. I saw also a long, flat-bottomed boat go up the river,
with a brisk wind, and against a strong stream. Its sails were of
curious construction: a long mast, with two sails below, one on each side
of the boat, and a broader one surmounting them. The sails were colored
brown, and appeared like leather or skins, but were really cloth. At a
distance, the vessel looked like, or at least I compared it to, a
monstrous water-insect skimming along the river. If the sails had been
crimson or yellow, the resemblance would have been much closer. There
was a pretty spacious raised cabin in the after part of the boat. It
moved along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These
boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some
have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and
thereabouts,--names, as "Paul Pry," on their sails.
Saturday, July 15th.--Went with B------ yesterday to visit several Irish
shanties, endeavoring to find out who had stolen some rails of a fence.
At the first door at which we knocked (a shanty with an earthen mound
heaped against the wall, two or three feet thick), the inmates were not
up, though it was past eight o'clock. At last a middle-aged woman showed
herself, half dressed, and completing her toilet. Threats were made of
tearing down her house; for she is a lady of very indifferent morals, and
sells rum. Few of these people are connected with the mill-dam,--or, at
least, many are not so, but have intruded themselves into the vacant huts
which were occupied by the mill-dam people last year. In two or three
places hereabouts there is quite a village of these dwellings, with a
clay and board chimney, or oftener an old barrel, smoked and charred with
the fire. Some of their roofs are covered with sods, and appear almost
subterranean. One of the little hamlets stands on both sides of a deep
dell, wooded and bush-grown, with a vista, as it were, into the heart of
a wood in one direction, and to the broad, sunny river in the other:
there was a little rivulet, crossed by a plank, at the bottom of the
dell. At two doors we saw very pretty and modest-looking young women,--
one with a child in her arms. Indeed, they all have innumerable little
children; and they are invariably in good health, though always dirty of
face. They come to the door while their mothers are talking with the
visitors, standing straight up on their bare legs, with their little
plump bodies protruding, in one hand a small tin saucepan, and in the
other an iron spoon, with unwashed mouths, looking as independent as any
child or grown person in the land. They stare unabashed, but make no
answer when spoken to. "I've no call to your fence, Misser B------." It
seems strange that a man should have the right, unarmed with any legal
instrument, of tearing down the dwelling-houses of a score of families,
and driving the inmates forth without a shelter. Yet B------ undoubtedly
has this right; and it is not a little striking to see how quietly these
people contemplate the probability of his exercising it,--resolving,
indeed, to burrow in their holes as long as may be, yet caring about as
little for an ejectment as those who could find a tenement anywhere, and
less. Yet the women, amid all the trials of their situation, appear to
have kept up the distinction between virtue and vice; those who can claim
the former will not associate with the latter. When the women travel
with young children, they carry the baby slung at their backs, and
sleeping quietly. The dresses of the new-comers are old-fashioned,
making them look aged before their time.
Monsieur S------ shaving himself yesterday morning. He was in excellent
spirits, and could not keep his tongue or body still, more than long
enough to make two or three consecutive strokes at his beard. Then he
would turn, flourishing his razor and grimacing joyously, enacting droll
antics, breaking out into scraps and verses of drinking-songs, "A boire!
a boire!"--then laughing heartily, and crying, "Vive la gaite!" then
resuming his task, looking into the glass with grave face, on which,
however, a grin would soon break out anew, and all his pranks would be
repeated with variations. He turned this foolery to philosophy, by
observing that mirth contributed to goodness of heart, and to make us
love our fellow-creatures. Conversing with him in the evening, he
affirmed, with evident belief in the truth of what he said, that he would
have no objection, except that it would be a very foolish thing, to
expose his whole heart, his whole inner man, to the view of the world.
Not that there would not be much evil discovered there; but, as he was
conscious of being in a state of mental and moral improvement, working
out his progress onward, he would not shrink from such a scrutiny. This
talk was introduced by his mentioning the "Minister's Black Veil," which
he said he had seen translated into French, as an exercise, by a Miss
Appleton of Bangor.
Saw by the river-side, late in the afternoon, one of the above-described
boats going into the stream with the water rippling at the prow, from the
strength of the current and of the boat's motion. By and by comes down a
raft, perhaps twenty yards long, guided by two men, one at each end,--the
raft itself of boards sawed at Waterville, and laden with square bundles
of shingles and round bundles of clapboards. "Friend," says one man,
"how is the tide now?"--this being important to the onward progress.
They make fast to a tree, in order to wait for the tide to rise a little
higher. It would be pleasant enough to float down the Kennebec on one of
these rafts, letting the river conduct you onward at its own pace,
leisurely displaying to you all the wild or ordered beauties along its
banks, and perhaps running you aground in some peculiarly picturesque
spot, for your longer enjoyment of it. Another object, perhaps, is a
solitary man paddling himself down the river in a small canoe, the light,
lonely touch of his paddle in the water making the silence seem deeper.
Every few minutes a sturgeon leaps forth, sometimes behind you, so that
you merely hear the splash, and, turning hastily around, see nothing but
the disturbed water. Sometimes he darts straight on end out of a quiet
black spot on which your eyes happen to be fixed, and, when even his tail
is clear of the surface, he falls down on his side and disappears.
On the river-bank, an Irishwoman washing some clothes, surrounded by her
children, whose babbling sounds pleasantly along the edge of the shore;
and she also answers in a sweet, kindly, and cheerful voice, though an
immoral woman, and without the certainty of bread or shelter from day to
day. An Irishman sitting angling on the brink with an alder pole and a
clothes-line. At frequent intervals, the scene is suddenly broken by a
loud report like thunder, rolling along the banks, echoing and
reverberating afar. It is a blast of rocks. Along the margin, sometimes
sticks of timber made fast, either separately or several together; stones
of some size, varying the pebbles and sand; a clayey spot, where a
shallow brook runs into the river, not with a deep outlet, but finding
its way across the bank in two or three single runlets. Looking upward
into the deep glen whence it issues, you see its shady current.
Elsewhere, a high acclivity, with the beach between it and the river, the
ridge broken and caved away, so that the earth looks fresh and yellow,
and is penetrated by the nests of birds. An old, shining tree-trunk,
half in and half out of the water. An island of gravel, long and narrow,
in the centre of the river. Chips, blocks of wood, slabs, and other
scraps of lumber, strewed along the beach; logs drifting down. The high
bank covered with various trees and shrubbery, and, in one place, two or
three Irish shanties.
Thursday, July 20th.--A drive yesterday afternoon to a pond in the
vicinity of Augusta, about nine miles off, to fish for white perch.
Remarkables: the steering of the boat through the crooked, labyrinthine
brook, into the open pond,--the man who acted as pilot,--his talking with
B------ about politics, the bank, the iron money of "a king who came to
reign, in Greece, over a city called Sparta,"--his advice to B------ to
come amongst the laborers on the mill-dam, because it stimulated them "to
see a man grinning amongst them." The man took hearty tugs at a bottle
of good Scotch whiskey, and became pretty merry. The fish caught were
the yellow perch, which are not esteemed for eating; the white perch, a
beautiful, silvery, round-backed fish, which bites eagerly, runs about
with the line while being pulled up, makes good sport for the angler, and
an admirable dish; a great chub; and three horned pouts, which swallow
the hook into their lowest entrails. Several dozen fish were taken in an
hour or two, and then we returned to the shop where we had left our horse
and wagon, the pilot very eccentric behind us. It was a small, dingy
shop, dimly lighted by a single inch of candle, faintly disclosing
various boxes, barrels standing on end, articles hanging from the
ceiling; the proprietor at the counter, whereon appear gin and brandy,
respectively contained in a tin pint-measure and an earthenware jug, with
two or three tumblers beside them, out of which nearly all the party
drank; some coming up to the counter frankly, others lingering in the
background, waiting to be pressed, two paying for their own liquor and
withdrawing. B------ treated them twice round. The pilot, after
drinking his brandy, gave a history of our fishing expedition, and
how many and how large fish we caught. B------ making acquaintances
and renewing them, and gaining great credit for liberality and
free-heartedness,--two or three boys looking on and listening to the
talk,--the shopkeeper smiling behind his counter, with the tarnished tin
scales beside him,--the inch of candle burning down almost to extinction.
So we got into our wagon, with the fish, and drove to Robinson's tavern,
almost five miles off, where we supped and passed the night. In the
bar-room was a fat old countryman on a journey, and a quack doctor of the
vicinity, and an Englishman with a peculiar accent. Seeing B------'s
jointed and brass-mounted fishing-pole, he took it for a theodolite, and
supposed that we had been on a surveying expedition. At supper, which
consisted of bread, butter, cheese, cake, doughnuts, and gooseberry-pie,
we were waited upon by a tall, very tall woman, young and maiden-looking,
yet with a strongly outlined and determined face. Afterwards we found
her to be the wife of mine host. She poured out our tea, came in when we
rang the table-bell to refill our cups, and again retired. While at
supper, the fat old traveller was ushered through the room into a
contiguous bedroom. My own chamber, apparently the best in the house,
had its walls ornamented with a small, gilt-framed, foot-square
looking-glass, with a hairbrush hanging beneath it; a record of the
deaths of the family written on a black tomb, in an engraving, where a
father, mother, and child were represented in a graveyard, weeping over
said tomb; the mourners dressed in black, country-cut clothes; the
engraving executed in Vermont. There was also a wood engraving of the
Declaration of Independence, with fac-similes of the autographs; a
portrait of the Empress Josephine, and another of Spring. In the two
closets of this chamber were mine hostess's cloak, best bonnet, and
go-to-meeting apparel. There was a good bed, in which I slept tolerably
well, and, rising betimes, ate breakfast, consisting of some of our own
fish, and then started for Augusta. The fat old traveller had gone off
with the harness of our wagon, which the hostler had put on to his horse
by mistake. The tavern-keeper gave us his own harness, and started in
pursuit of the old man, who was probably aware of the exchange, and well
satisfied with it.
Our drive to Augusta, six or seven miles, was very pleasant, a heavy rain
having fallen during the night, and laid the oppressive dust of the day
before. The road lay parallel with the Kennebec, of which we
occasionally had near glimpses. The country swells back from the river
in hills and ridges, without any interval of level ground; and there were
frequent woods, filling up the valleys or crowning the summits. The land
is good, the farms look neat, and the houses comfortable. The latter are
generally but of one story, but with large barns; and it was a good sign,
that, while we saw no houses unfinished nor out of repair, one man at
least had found it expedient to make an addition to his dwelling. At the
distance of more than two miles, we had a view of white Augusta, with its
steeples, and the State-House, at the farther end of the town.
Observable matters along the road were the stage,--all the dust of
yesterday brushed off, and no new dust contracted,--full of passengers,
inside and out; among them some gentlemanly people and pretty girls, all
looking fresh and unsullied, rosy, cheerful, and curious as to the face
of the country, the faces of passing travellers, and the incidents of
their journey; not yet damped, in the morning sunshine, by long miles of
jolting over rough and hilly roads,--to compare this with their
appearance at midday, and as they drive into Bangor at dusk;--two women
dashing along in a wagon, and with a child, rattling pretty speedily down
hill;--people looking at us from the open doors and windows;--the
children staring from the wayside;--the mowers stopping, for a moment,
the sway of their scythes;--the matron of a family, indistinctly seen at
some distance within the house, her head and shoulders appearing through
the window, drawing her handkerchief over her bosom, which had been
uncovered to give the baby its breakfast,--the said baby, or its
immediate predecessor, sitting at the door, turning round to creep away
on all fours;--a man building a flat-bottomed boat by the roadside: he
talked with B------ about the Boundary question, and swore fervently in
favor of driving the British "into hell's kitchen" by main force.
Colonel B------, the engineer of the mill-dam, is now here, after about a
fortnight's absence. He is a plain country squire, with a good figure,
but with rather a heavy brow; a rough complexion; a gait stiff, and a
general rigidity of manner, something like that of a schoolmaster. He
originated in a country town, and is a self-educated man. As he walked
down the gravel-path to-day, after dinner, he took up a scythe, which one
of the mowers had left on the sward, and began to mow, with quite a
scientific swing. On the coming of the mower, he laid it down, perhaps a
little ashamed of his amusement. I was interested in this; to see a man,
after twenty-five years of scientific occupation, thus trying whether his
arms retained their strength and skill for the labors of his youth,--
mindful of the day when he wore striped trousers, and toiled in his
shirt-sleeves,--and now tasting again, for pastime, this drudgery beneath
a fervid sun. He stood awhile, looking at the workmen, and then went to
oversee the laborers at the mill-dam.
Monday, July, 24th.--I bathed in the river on Thursday evening, and in
the brook at the old dam on Saturday and Sunday,--the former time at
noon. The aspect of the solitude at noon was peculiarly impressive,
there being a cloudless sunshine, no wind, no rustling of the
forest-leaves, no waving of the boughs, no noise but the brawling and
babbling of the stream, making its way among the stones, and pouring in a
little cataract round one side of the mouldering dam. Looking up the
brook, there was a long vista,--now ripples, now smooth and glassy
spaces, now large rocks, almost blocking up the channel; while the trees
stood upon either side, mostly straight, but here and there a branch
thrusting itself out irregularly, and one tree, a pine, leaning over,--
not bending,--but leaning at an angle over the brook, rough and ragged;
birches, alders; the tallest of all the trees an old, dead, leafless
pine, rising white and lonely, though closely surrounded by others.
Along the brook, now the grass and herbage extended close to the water;
now a small, sandy beach. The wall of rock before described, looking as
if it had been hewn, but with irregular strokes of the workman, doing his
job by rough and ponderous strength,--now chancing to hew it away
smoothly and cleanly, now carelessly smiting, and making gaps, or piling
on the slabs of rock, so as to leave vacant spaces. In the interstices
grow brake and broad-leaved forest-grass. The trees that spring from the
top of this wall have their roots pressing close to the rock, so that
there is no soil between; they cling powerfully, and grasp the crag
tightly with their knotty fingers. The trees on both sides are so thick,
that the sight and the thoughts are almost immediately lost among
confused stems, branches, and clustering green leaves,--a narrow strip of
bright blue sky above, the sunshine falling lustrously down, and making
the pathway of the brook luminous below. Entering among the thickets, I
find the soil strewn with old leaves of preceding seasons, through which
may be seen a black or dark mould; the roots of trees stretch frequently
across the path; often a moss-grown brown log lies athwart, and when you
set your foot down, it sinks into the decaying substance,--into the heart
of oak or pine. The leafy boughs and twigs of the underbrush enlace
themselves before you, so that you must stoop your head to pass under, or
thrust yourself through amain, while they sweep against your face, and
perhaps knock off your hat. There are rocks mossy and slippery;
sometimes you stagger, with a great rustling of branches, against a clump
of bushes, and into the midst of it. From end to end of all this tangled
shade goes a pathway scarcely worn, for the leaves are not trodden
through, yet plain enough to the eye, winding gently to avoid tree-trunks
and rocks and little hillocks. In the more open ground, the aspect of a
tall, fire-blackened stump, standing alone, high up on a swell of land,
that rises gradually from one side of the brook, like a monument.
Yesterday, I passed a group of children in this solitary valley,--two
boys, I think, and two girls. One of the little girls seemed to have
suffered some wrong from her companions, for she was weeping and
complaining violently. Another time, I came suddenly on a small Canadian
boy, who was in a hollow place, among the ruined logs of an old causeway,
picking raspberries,--lonely among bushes and gorges, far up the wild
valley,--and the lonelier seemed the little boy for the bright sunshine,
that showed no one else in a wide space of view except him and me.
Remarkable items: the observation of Mons. S------ when B------ was
saying something against the character of the French people,--"You ought
not to form an unfavorable judgment of a great nation from mean fellows
like me, strolling about in a foreign country." I thought it very noble
thus to protest against anything discreditable in himself personally
being used against the honor of his country. He is a very singular
person, with an originality in all his notions;--not that nobody has ever
had such before, but that he has thought them out for himself. He told
me yesterday that one of his sisters was a waiting-maid in the Rocher de
Cancale. He is about the sincerest man I ever knew, never pretending to
feelings that are not in him,--never flattering. His feelings do not
seem to be warm, though they are kindly. He is so single-minded that he
cannot understand badinage, but takes it all as if meant in earnest,--a
German trait. He values himself greatly on being a Frenchman, though all
his most valuable qualities come from Germany. His temperament is cool
and pure, and he is greatly delighted with any attentions from the
ladies. A short time since, a lady gave him a bouquet of roses and
pinks; he capered and danced and sang, put it in water, and carried it to
his own chamber; but he brought it out for us to see and admire two or
three times a day, bestowing on it all the epithets of admiration in the
French language,--"Superbe! magnifique!" When some of the flowers began
to fade, he made the rest, with others, into a new nosegay, and consulted
us whether it would be fit to give to another lady. Contrast this French
foppery with his solemn moods, when we sit in the twilight, or after
B------ is abed, talking of Christianity and Deism, of ways of life, of
marriage, of benevolence,--in short, of all deep matters of this world
and the next. An evening or two since, he began singing all manner of
English songs,--such as Mrs. Hemans's "Landing of the Pilgrims," "Auld
Lang Syne," and some of Moore's,--the singing pretty fair, but in the
oddest tone and accent. Occasionally he breaks out with scraps from
French tragedies, which he spouts with corresponding action. He
generally gets close to me in these displays of musical and histrionic
talent. Once he offered to magnetize me in the manner of Monsieur
P------.
Wednesday, July 26th.--Dined at Barker's yesterday. Before dinner, sat
with several other persons in the stoop of the tavern. There were
B------, J. A. Chandler, Clerk of the Court, a man of middle age or
beyond, two or three stage people, and, near by, a negro, whom they call
"the Doctor," a crafty-looking fellow, one of whose occupations is
nameless. In presence of this goodly company, a man of a depressed,
neglected air, a soft, simple-looking fellow, with an anxious expression,
in a laborer's dress, approached and inquired for Mr. Barker. Mine host
being gone to Portland, the stranger was directed to the bar-keeper, who
stood at the door. The man asked where he should find one Mary Ann
Russell,--a question which excited general and hardly suppressed mirth;
for the said Mary Ann is one of a knot of women who were routed on Sunday
evening by Barker and a constable. The man was told that the black
fellow would give him all the information he wanted. The black fellow
asked,--
"Do you want to see her?"
Others of the by-standers or by-sitters put various questions as to the
nature of the man's business with Mary Ann. One asked,--
"Is she your daughter?"
"Why, a little nearer than that, I calkilate," said the poor devil.
Here the mirth was increased, it being evident that the woman was his
wife. The man seemed too simple and obtuse to comprehend the ridicule of
his situation, or to be rendered very miserable by it. Nevertheless, he
made some touching points.
"A man generally places some little dependence on his wife," said he,
"whether she's good or not." He meant, probably, that he rests some
affection on her. He told us that she had behaved well, till committed
to jail for striking a child; and I believe he was absent from home at
the time, and had not seen her since. And now he was in search of her,
intending, doubtless, to do his best to get her out of her troubles, and
then to take her back to his home. Some advised him not to look after
her; others recommended him to pay "the Doctor" aforesaid for guiding him
to her; which finally "the Doctor" did, in consideration of a treat; and
the fellow went off, having heard little but gibes and not one word of
sympathy! I would like to have witnessed his meeting with his wife.
There was a moral picturesqueness in the contrasts of the scene,--a man
moved as deeply as his nature would admit, in the midst of hardened,
gibing spectators, heartless towards him. It is worth thinking over and
studying out. He seemed rather hurt and pricked by the jests thrown at
him, yet bore it patiently, and sometimes almost joined in the laugh,
being of an easy, unenergetic temper.