No sooner in than out, however. I was determined not to die before my
time, as I was sure to do on the back-seat of an overloaded stage, with
nine passengers, besides numerous, because gratuitously earned,
children. "For who," as it was sometimes pertinently asked, "would
charge anything for a poor little innocent child?" The younger, the more
innocent, of course, and the more numerous.
"If you'll set up here 'long o' me, Miss Prince, there's a plenty o'
room,--and for you, too, Parson," said the good-natured driver.
Extricating ourselves from the Black Hole, we delightedly clambered to
the heights above, regardless of risk, and catching at wheel and step
like Alpine hunters. How comfortable the seat was, with the fresh, early
morning air blowing freely in our faces! How small the horses looked in
the dim light of three o'clock! How oddly the wheel-horses looked, all
backs and no legs!--and how mysteriously many were the reins that were
tied round and round the iron lantern-rod!
"Just let me put the mail-bag under your feet, Miss Prince. Here we are,
now, all right, and nothin' to do but go along!"
"Now, then!"
"Come up! come! come!"
But in vain were caresses; in vain were chirrups, duckings, and kisses,
wafted to the nigh leader. Like the rebellious South of to-day, he had
taken his attitude, and stood now on four legs, now on two, pawing only
the dark air, and regardless of the general welfare behind him.
"Now what will you do, driver?" said cowardly I, who, always mortally
afraid of horse-flesh, felt on this occasion a strange confidence:
partly in the staid, heavy mass of determination beside me, who looked
so calm and good-natured; and partly in the queer, elfin look of the
beast, who seemed so far off as to have no necessary connection with our
safety or ultimate progress. It seemed quite possible for us to get on
with the other three pulling, while our demoniacal friend ornamented the
occasion by plunges, rearings, and kickings.
Still gathering the reins lightly in his large hand, the stable and sure
intelligence beside me calmly chirruped, and then as calmly switched his
long whip at the distant rebel brute. How the switching and snapping
galled his proud neck! How his black back curved, and his small head
tossed! Still, he would not pull an ounce, but just pawed like a fairy
horse, or as if he were born to tread on clouds alone, or to herald in
the morning.
"He'll start by-'m-by,--he's a devil of a spirit in him, when he doos
start," remarked our Phoebus, composedly, giving, through the darkness,
the unerring switch every half minute.
What acted on the capricious thing at last,--whether the Inevitability
behind him, or the folly exhausting itself, nobody knows; but the
"beautiful disdain" left his black back and tossing mane in a moment,
and he buckled down to his work with an energy worthy of the cause, and
with a good-will that was an example to the other three.
"There! you see he can do well enough, 'f he's jest a mind to! nothin'
wantin' but the will! There's a pair on 'em," said the driver, "but I
won't never drive 'em together. Staples drove the pair last summer. He
says they'd run till they dropped down dead. I guess they would. He's a
putty critter enough, and well made, but dreadful ugly. Now, I like that
'ere wheeler!"--he pointed his whip towards the horse below my foot.
"She's kind,--that mare is; and she's fast enough, and handsome. Broad
back,--short legs,--goes like a duck!"
In such pleasant chat (and why not? for wasn't the driver a cousin of my
own?--a man of means,--owning his team,--and with more knowledge of his
district than most members of Congress have? Indeed, I believe he's in
Congress this minute!) we pulled up hill and tore down dale. Nobody
knows a hill by experience but New-Hampshire travellers. The Green
Mountains are full of comparatively gentle slopes, and verdure crowns
their highest and tallest tops; but the hills of New Hampshire are
Alpine in their steepness and barrenness, and the roads of old time made
by the Puritans took the Devil by the horns. There was no circuitous,
soothing, easy passage. The road ran straight over mountains and pitched
deep down ravines, the surveyors having evidently kept only in view the
shortest air-line between places.
Sometimes we chained the wheels, but not often. Oftenest we ran down a
steep place, and the impetus carried us up the opposite hill. At the
foot of a long hill, of a two-mile stretch, the driver generally
stopped, to indicate the propriety of the male passengers, at least,
ascending the hill on foot. And often the whole stage-load gladly
availed itself of the permission. It was handy for the owners of
bandboxes, to pick them up from the rocky road, as they tumbled off now
and then; and the four beasts, like those in Revelation, said "Amen" to
the kindly impulse of humanity that lightened their load, and left them
to scramble comfortably from one side to the other of the still
ascending path. When they did get to the top of some of those Walpole
hills, would they could have taken in the living glory and beauty of the
far-reaching and most magnificent landscape!