MISS CLARA VANDERLYN AND HER PET BEARS--A MISADVENTURE AND A
FRIENDLY HAND IN TIME--THE QUESTION OF COURAGE--HALSTEAD
ROWAN AND MRS. BROOKS CUNNINGHAME ON GEOGRAPHY--THE DEAD
WASHINGTON, THE FLUME AND THE POOL--WITH THE PERSONAL
RELATIONS WEAVING AT THAT JUNCTURE.
Breakfast was over at the Profile, on the next morning; the stages had
rolled away for Littleton, the Crawford and Plymouth; and preparations were
in progress for a ride of two or three wagon-loads down the glen to the
Flume,--when "H. T.," cigar in mouth, passed out from the bar-room to the
piazza and thence across the plateau in front, towards the billiard-room
and ten-pin-alley, standing a hundred yards away to the right, and at the
very bottom of the slope of the mountain. He had seen, in the dusk and
afterwards in the moonlight of the night before, that a couple of the rough
pets of the mountain region were sojourning at the Notch, in the shape of
half-grown black bears, chained to stakes some twenty feet apart, with a
dog-kennel for their joint retreat, perhaps a hundred feet from the house
and immediately in front of it, where their antics could be discerned and
enjoyed from the piazza and the front windows. He had seen, too, going out
earlier that morning, that they did not appear yet old enough to be
dangerously vicious, and that they seemed very playful for that description
of beast. Everybody was feeding them, from early morning to dusk, with
nuts, raisins and crackers surreptitiously taken from the table for that
purpose; and the youngsters no doubt consumed in feeding the young Bruins,
quite as much food as they themselves managed to devour.
Just then not less than a dozen persons were surrounding the household
favorites, feeding them, putting them through their clumsy evolutions which
principally consisted in sitting erect or climbing a short post to get a
nut placed on the top,--or developing the usual human propensity for
teazing. Most of them were ladies, and among the others, as he went by at a
short distance, he recognized Miss Clara Vanderlyn, his fellow-passenger of
the day before,--her face rosy with the excitement of a just-accomplished
morning walk, her bonnet on arm, and her whole countenance radiant with
amusement as she plied the dusky pets with her pocket full of nuts and
raisins. She seemed to have acquired a wonderful ascendancy over the beasts
in a very brief acquaintance; for while all the others shrank from coming
absolutely within reach, she not only fed them without fear but rubbed
their black coats and patted their gristly noses as if they had been pet
kittens. Two or three men were lounging near, evidently admiring the new
lady accession to Profile society, but none claiming an acquaintance.
"H. T.," who either had a propensity for ten-pins that morning,
overbalancing the admiration of Miss Vanderlyn which he had shown the day
before, or a still stronger attraction for company whom he knew to be at
the alley--"H. T." was just passing on when Margaret Hayley, accompanied by
the inevitable Captain Hector Coles, came out of the door of the
billiard-room and advanced towards the bear-stakes. It must remain a
mystery whether this appearance from the door did or did not make a change
in his own necessity for exercise: suffice it to say that he stopped,
turned partially around and joined the group who were making levee to the
Bruins.
At that moment, when Clara Vanderlyn had succeeded in luring one of the
bears to the top of his "stool of repentance" (the short post), and was
bending close above him, feeding and fondling what few other female hands
dared touch,--a new actor came upon the scene, in the shape of Master
Brooks Brooks Cunninghame, accompanying his "Mommy." He had _not_ died the
night before as might have been expected from his surfeit, but the freckled
appearance of his face was materially improved by a ground hue of greenish
white which his short sickness had imparted. His careful mamma had dressed
him for that gala-day in a complete plaid suit of blue and white, with a
cap of the same material and a black feather; and he looked scarcely less
ornamental than useful. Evidently, sick as he had really been, he was all
alive and awake that morning and might be safely calculated upon for adding
to the general comfort by prowess of mouth and fingers. And the company
were not obliged to wait very long for proof that the scion of the house of
Cunninghame was aware of the duties of his position and quite equal to
them. He left the maternal hand, spite of the clutching of the latter, at
the moment of arriving at the bear-stakes, and spying what he rightly
judged to be a good opportunity, stepped rapidly round behind the bear,
caught him by the stumpy tail, and gave him a sharp twitch which nearly
threw him from the top of the post.
In an instant the playful nature of the bear was gone, and with one sudden
growl he raised his heavy paw with its sharp claws and struck full at the
face of Miss Vanderlyn, not two feet from him. Every one present saw the
blow, but no one seemed to have enough presence of mind or courage to
shield her from a stroke which, falling full in her unprotected face, must
certainly have disfigured her for life.
No one--it has been said: no one of those known to be present, most of whom
were women or children; and neither "H. T." nor Captain Hector Coles had
yet come near enough to be of any possible service. Yet the blow did not
reach Clara Vanderlyn. A hand and arm were suddenly dashed between the paw
and the threatened face, with such force that while the sharp claws tore
the skin and flesh in ribbons from the back of the hand and split the
coat-sleeve as if it had been paper,--the bear was knocked backward off his
perch and rolled over in a ball on the ground at the side of the kennel.
When any of the company sufficiently recovered from their astonishment to
glance at the face of the lucky yet unlucky preserver, they saw that it was
that of the bluff arrival of the evening before, Halstead Rowan.
With the exception of three persons, all present rushed up at once, under
the impression that Rowan's hand must be seriously injured. One of these
exceptions was "H. T.," who made a movement to dart forward, even from his
distance, when he saw the blow impending, but who the instant that it had
fallen turned and walked back towards the ten-pin alley. The second was
Margaret Hayley, who had recognized the personality of both the
conversationists of the previous evening, and who naturally stopped in
blank surprise to see one of two persons whom she supposed to be intimate
friends, turn away the moment that the other was wounded. The third was
Captain Hector Coles, who really had no power to do otherwise than obey the
check laid upon him by the lady's hand.
All who saw knew that the injury must be severe, but it might have been the
scratch of a pin for any effect which it seemed to produce on the
Illinoisan. The blood was streaming profusely from the wound, but almost
before any one saw it the other hand was inserted in a side-pocket, and a
white handkerchief drawn thence and wrapped around the injured member.
"Are you much hurt, sir?"
"What a narrow escape, miss!"
"Indeed, I thought his paw would injure your face terribly!"
"Somebody ought to kill that boy!"
These and a score of similar expressions burst from the dozen or two of
spectators. Miss Vanderlyn had caught the young man by the sleeve of the
coat, with perceptible nervousness in her grip, and said, with all that
sweet smile faded from her face, and her voice trembling with anxiety:
"Indeed--indeed, sir, I am very grateful to you. I should have been badly
hurt, I fear, but for your kind aid. Pray let us do something to prevent
your suffering so much from your generosity. I am afraid that you are very
much injured!"
"Oh, not in the least, madame--miss, perhaps I should say. Nothing but a
scratch; and if the company at the Profile do not object to a big glove,
none of us will be aware of the accident in a few minutes."
"Trust me, sir!" said the young lady, in the same anxious tone, "_I_ shall
be aware of your kindness so long as I live."
"Pray do not mention it again!" said Rowan. "Indeed I am only too happy
that the little affair occurred." He was telling the truth, beyond a
question, however far he might have been from telling what they equally
require in the courts of law--the _whole_ truth; and again for one instant
there might have been seen sweeping over his face the same changing
expression that had played hide-and-seek there on his first arrival the
evening before:--admiration--regard--reverence--hope--joy; and then the
dull shadow of recollection and hopelessness.
Clara Vanderlyn, too, whether she had or had not remarked him on that
occasion--Clara Vanderlyn saw and read his face now! Her eyes fixed for one
moment full upon his, then drooped, and the rich blood crept up to brow,
neck, and bosom, from which it had been expelled by the temporary fright.
For an instant she was silent, and seemed to be studying; then she drew
from the little reticule which hung upon her arm a card-case, took out a
card, and handed it to Rowan, with a still more conscious blush, her old
smile, and the words:
"I am aware, sir, that this is a singular introduction, and on my part a
painful one, as it has been the means of causing you an injury; but my
mother and my brother will be glad to know you and to thank you better than
I can do."
"Miss Vanderlyn," said Rowan, taking the card and glancing at the name just
as earnestly as if he had never paid any attention whatever to the register
at the office, "you do me too much honor. I have no card in my pocket.
Would you be kind enough to give me another of yours?"
She at once handed him another card and a pencil, and he dashed down, in a
bold, rapid, and mercantile hand, though he used the sinister member for
the operation, the name and address which the little black trunk had before
revealed to those who chose to read.
"Thank you, Mr. Rowan. Good-morning! Pray take care of your hand, or I
shall never forgive myself!" she said, nodding to her new acquaintance, and
turning towards the house. Rowan bowed low, said good-morning, and strolled
away towards the ten-pin alley, apparently not more concerned by the hurt
than if he had merely pricked his finger. He was one of those booked for
the ride to the Flume, but he seemed to need severer exercise, and the
moment after he might have been seen with his hand still wrapped in the
bloody white handkerchief, bowling away at the pins with the other, and
humming the Grand March in "Norma" as if he thought that a favorable strain
of music to accompany the levelling of obstacles or enemies.
Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, hearing the threat directed at her promising boy,
had mustered common-sense enough to hurry him away from the scene of
action. Captain Coles and Miss Hayley had meanwhile come up, and "H. T.,"
turning once more before he reached the alley, reached the spot at the same
moment. For the first time, in broad daylight, Margaret Hayley met the
strange man face to face, and her cheek whitened--why, even she perhaps
could not tell--at that expression or resemblance which she traced there.
If there was any answering expression of agitation or surprise on the face
of the man with the initials, she failed to read it, and her eyes in a
moment sank from a survey which seemed so profitless. They were at that
time very near each other, and Captain Coles and "H. T." not more than six
feet apart. Their eyes met, and that indefinable something passed between
them before another word was spoken, which includes antagonism, if not
deadly hostility. There was no reason to believe that they had ever met
before the preceding evening; there was no reason to believe that they
could ever have an interest in conflict; and yet those two men were foes,
and would remain so until one or the other should be thoroughly conquered.
"A go-ahead fellow, I should not be afraid to stake my life!" said one of
the gentlemen who had just come up, alluding to the hero of the hour and
seeming to address any one who might choose to answer.
"Ya-a-as!" slowly and doubtingly said Captain Hector Coles, caressing his
beard and throwing almost insufferable arrogance into a manner which
naturally had quite enough of it. "Ya-a-as, go-ahead enough, apparently,
but not a bit of a gentleman. Rough as the bear he just knocked over, and
looks as if he might have come from among something of the same breed!"
"No, not a gentleman, probably!" said "H. T.," with a sneer in his tone
quite as little disguised as the other's arrogance. "But he is something a
good deal better, in my opinion, and something a good deal rarer--a _man_,
every inch of him!"
"At any rate," said another, who had not yet spoken, "I would give a
hundred dollars to have blundered into an introduction to that splendid
girl as he has done, even if it cost me a hand worse scratched than his."
"He has _had_ worse scratches! Did you notice the scar on his cheek, coming
away down here to the neck?" said one of the ladies who had witnessed the
whole affair, addressing Margaret Hayley.
"No--has he a scar?"
"A terrible one. I think he must have been a soldier, at some time or
other."
"I believe that he has the noblest gift ever conferred by God upon
man,--that of courage!" answered Margaret. "If he was a slave or a savage I
could love and respect him for that, as I should despise him if he was a
king without it!"
From the depth of what a terrible wound in her own heart was the young girl
speaking, and what a concentrated force of bitter earnest rankled in such
words falling from her beautiful lips! Captain Hector Coles heard, but made
no answer, as why should he, for was he not one of the country's defenders
and a brave man by profession? "H. T." heard her, and his upper lip, under
the shadow of his dark moustache, set down tightly upon the lower, while
over his handsome dusky face passed an expression which might have been
pain and might have been the crushing out of some last scruple of
conscience that stood between him and a half-intended line of action.
"Passengers for the Flume" had been the call some minutes before; and by
the conclusion of this scene, at nine o'clock or thereabout, the wagons for
that daily ride of inveterate Franconians were drawn up at the door. They
were two in number, the list of riders for that fine morning being
unusually heavy. Not coaches, that necessarily shut away a part of the
view, but long low wagons on jacks, each with four or five cross seats, a
heavy brake and four mettled horses--for fine weather and through the
shaded glen roads, the safest and pleasantest of all the mountain
conveyances. Five minutes sufficed to fill both those conveyances, with
some thirty persons, among the number all those in whom this narration
awakes any interest. How they were divided off or how seated is a matter of
no consequence, except in a certain particular. Halstead Rowan managed to
secure a seat in the same wagon with Clara Vanderlyn, though at the other
end of the vehicle,--and in so doing found himself by the side of Mrs.
Brooks Cunninghame and only one remove from that hopeful, Master Brooks
Brooks. Not enjoying quite the same facilities as some of the others for
studying that lady the night before, he had still been attracted to her at
breakfast and found time to "cypher up" her calibre and social position to
a most amusing nicety. Whether wildness was the normal condition of his
character, as seemed possible, or whether his slight rencontre with the
young bear, and the flattering conversation with a pretty girl which
followed, had dizzied his brain a little, as was both possible and
natural,--he was in high spirits and the very demon of mischief had taken
possession of him. He had apparently determined to devote himself somewhat
to the comfort of that Arch-priestess of Shoddy during the morning ride,
and a pleasant time that elevated personage was likely to have of it!
Just after leaving the breakfast table, Rowan had chanced to overhear a few
words of conversation between Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame and one of the lady
habitues of the house on whom she was aiming to make a tremendous
impression; and those few words had fully revealed one of the leading
points of the parvenu's tactics. Some one had told her, apparently, or she
had read the statement in so-called "polite publications"--that no one
could be fashionable, now-a-days, without having been "abroad"--_i. e._,
without having made at least one tour in Europe. Now that Mrs. Brooks
Cunninghame _had_ been abroad, at least so far as beyond the Atlantic, at
that very early period before she left the paternal cabin, pig and
potatoes,--seemed the most probable of allegations; but in the matter of
actual travel, or of those substitutes for travel which may be found in a
thorough acquaintance with geography and a close study of guide-books and
the best travellers, the poor woman had been as guiltless, a few weeks
before, as the most stay-at-home and illiterate of her early acquaintances.
But she could read, which was something, and had no conscience worth
speaking of, which was something more. Perhaps some one had told her the
traditional story of Tom Sheridan and his father, and the wonder which the
latter expressed that the former "could not say that he had been down into
a coal-pit without really going there." The worthy lady, as Rowan soon
discovered by a few desultory words, had no corresponding objection,
provided she could _seem_ to have been anywhere; and there was little doubt
that she had procured a guide-book or two and "read up," as Honorable
Members very often do before making speeches on subjects of which they know
nothing whatever,--and as snobs sometimes do in books on "Perfect
Gentility" and the "Whole Art of Dining Out," before going into society
which seems a little too weighty for their previous training. How well she
had succeeded, may best be illustrated by a little of her conversation with
the Illinoisan, who took care to introduce the subject of her "travels"
(with what he had overheard, as a hint) very soon after the wagons rolled
away from the Profile, and without waiting for any formal introduction.
He broke the ice with the remark, equally tempting and flattering to his
next neighbor:
"You must enjoy this fine scenery very much, madam, as you have chances of
comparison that some of us lack. You have travelled in Europe, I believe?"
"Yes--yes, sir," answered the lady, a little doubtful which of the two was
the proper answer to so profound a sentence. If she was at all nervous
about plunging into such untried waters with a total stranger, his
disclamatory hint of his own experiences reassured her; and besides, one of
the ladies was on the seat immediately behind, to whom she had been
boasting that very morning, and it would never do to abandon the ground
once taken.
"Ah, how proud you must feel, madam, of having seen so many of the wonders
of nature!" the wretch went on. "I have never yet been able to cross the
ocean, myself, and the conversation of foreign travellers is naturally both
pleasant and instructive to me."
"Much obliged to you, I am sure," the lady returned. Some of the
passengers in the wagon, who had previously observed the hero of the
morning, and thought him any thing else rather than a fool, looked twice at
him, at this juncture, to discover what he could mean by addressing
complimentary conversation to that compound of ignorance and vulgarity. It
must be owned that Clara Vanderlyn, who sat on one of the back seats while
the interlocutors were in front, believing the man in earnest, felt for the
moment a sensation of disgust towards him and wished her card back in her
reticule. But if she and some of the others were temporarily deceived, the
deception was not of long continuance.
The statement by Rowan that he had never been across the Atlantic, was the
one thing necessary to reassure Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame; and that point
settled, she felt sure of her ground.
"How long since you were abroad, madam, may I ask?" he continued.
"Five years," answered the lady, who no doubt felt that both her duration
of standing in society and the accuracy of her memory would appear the
better for a little lapse of time.
"Five years, indeed? so long?" asked the scamp, with every appearance of
interest. "And did you have your dear little boy with you all the time?"
"No, my physician did not think it prudent for me to take him along of me,
and I left him to home with the nurse," was the reply. The fact was,
really, that at the early period named her "physician" had been a drunken
Indian-herb doctor, the only description of medical man likely to visit the
shanty which she yet occupied,--and that she had been (perhaps better and
more honorably occupied than at any time after!) doing her own work without
the hope or thought of ever employing a servant.
"Dear little fellow!" said the Illinoisan, caressing the scrubbing-brush
head of the repulsive youngster. "What a pity that he could not have gone
with you! By the way, madam, you went by steamer, of course. Did you take
steamer for Paris, or--or--St. Petersburgh?"
By this time most of the passengers began to perceive what was coming, and
there were symptoms of a titter in the back seats, but nothing that warned
or disturbed the victim.
"Oh, Paris, of course!" was the answer. "Dear, delightful Paris, where the
shops was so handsome and the women wore such elegant bunnits!" (See
guide-books.)
"You landed at Paris direct from the steamer, I suppose?" asked the
tormentor, at which question the titter really began, but still too quietly
to put the lady on her guard.
"Oh, yes, of course!" was the answer. "The tide was high, and we went right
up." The poor woman had probably been aground, some time, on the Hudson
Overslaugh or the Shrewsbury Flats, and supposed that nothing but low tide
could prevent going up to Paris by steamship.
"Let me see--what is the name of that river that takes you up to Paris?"
the scamp went on, with his face contorted into a wonderful appearance of
earnest thought. "The--the--the--which is it, now, the Danube or the
Amazon?"
"I am not very sure," answered the lady at hap-hazard, "I almost forget,
but I think it is the Amazon--yes, I know it must be the Amazon."
At about that period there was a laugh in the back part of the long wagon,
and Clara Vanderlyn was as red in the face as if she had been committing
some serious fault. She would unquestionably have liked to pinch that
naughty fellow's ears, if not to box them. But the laugh did not disturb
Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, for the young people were frolicking all the while
and a hundred laughs might break out without one of them being directed at
_her_. Halstead Rowan had kept his own face perfectly serene so far, but he
evidently began to feel twitchings around the mouth which might give him
trouble directly, and, for fear of the worst, he fired his concluding shots
with great rapidity.
"You were in London, of course?" he asked.
"Yes, a good while; we took a house there, and seen the Queen, and the
Crystal Palace--"
"Let me see--the Queen lives in the Crystal Palace, doesn't she?"
"Of course she does!" answered the traveller, who remembered just so much
as that queens and palaces belonged together, and no more.
More laughing at the back of the wagon, a little choking, and some stuffing
of cambric handkerchiefs into mouths pretty or the reverse. No irreparable
explosion as yet, though that catastrophe could not possibly be long
deferred.
"Yes--you were in London: did you go up the Pyramids?"
"No, we went to 'em, but not up 'em."
"But you went up the Alps, of course?--everybody goes up the Alps."
"Of course we did!" and the lady really bridled. "Think we would go so far
as that and spend so much money, and not go up that there?"
The explosion was impending--there was already a rumbling in the distance,
which should have been heeded.
"How did you go up--in _what_ kind of a vessel did you say, madam?"
It is to be presumed that by this time the lady was considerably confused
even in the smattering of information from the guide-book, with which she
had commenced; and she could not have had any moral doubt remaining that
the Alps was a river; for she answered, without one symptom of
consciousness in her countenance:
"We went up in a steamboat, and a nasty little thing it was!"
The threatened explosion had arrived. That wagon-load of people laughed,
shrieked and roared, bent double and chuckled themselves red in the face,
to a degree which was very discreditable to their sense of propriety and
very bewildering to the mountain echoes. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame looked
around to see what was the matter, and at that moment it seemed that a dim
perception must have crept through her head that she had something to do
with the merriment, for she reddened, bridled and grew strangely silent.
Halstead Rowan, as she looked around,--not by any means joining in the
laugh, had suddenly discovered that his legs were cramped from riding,
sprung over the side of the wagon and disappeared behind a bend of the
road, to make the rest of the short distance to the Flume House on foot.
A mile further, after this novel lesson in geography had been taken, and
the wagons drew up at the door of the Flume House, once a great
caravanserai that rivalled any other in the mountains, then a mere
unoccupied pendant of the all-absorbing Profile which has literally
swallowed it. It stands at the lower end of the Franconia Notch proper, and
the mountains fall away below it southward, so much that the feeling of
oppressive isolation at the Profile is here lost entirely. But there is one
charm connected with the Flume House, that can never be forgotten by those
who have once stood there and looked eastward; and the merry occupants of
the before-deserted piazza, that day, were not likely to be allowed to ride
away without having that charm called to their attention, to be remembered
ever after as one of those marvels with which Nature confounds Art and
defies calculation.
Full before them, as they looked, loomed up the peak of Mount Liberty, so
called, as is supposed, because the curve of the crown northward has some
indefinite resemblance to the Phrygian liberty-cap of the French
revolution. But a sadder and more solemn resemblance was there, needing to
be pointed out at first, but asserting itself as a strange reality
thenceforward, in presence or in absence. It was with a thrill of awe that
the riders, as so many had done before them and as some of them had done
long before, recognized the form of the Dead Washington, stretched out on
the summit of the eternal mountains that seemed almost mighty and enduring
enough for their awful burthen. There seemed a little obscurity in the
mouth and lips, as if the shrouding pall partially covered them; but the
contour of the massive nose was perfect, as the rugged peak stood relieved
against the eastern sky, and above it the godlike forehead swept up
southward and fell away again in the very curve of the hair drawn backward
as it would be when lying in the calm repose of death. Northward the long
round of Mount Liberty marked the full breast, sinking at the recumbent hip
and rising again at the bend of the massive knee; while still farther away
and in the exact line of symmetry, one of the peaks of the Haystack group
shot up and fell suddenly on the other side, as the drapery would do over
the stiffened feet. Then the resemblance was complete, unmistakable, almost
fearful; and those who looked with reverent eyes realized that the Eternal
Hand, thousands of years ago and in a mood that would write prophecy on the
very face of the earth instead of recording it on tables of stone, had
throned on the tops of the northern mountains an enduring likeness of that
man yet unborn, whose glory was to gild every peak and fill every valley
with the brightest and purest light of heroism.
Long, and with reverent silence only broken by an occasional exclamation of
wonder, the company gazed upon that strange spectacle, more sadly
suggestive than any other of the wonders of the American continent. The
voice of merriment, which had been ringing so loudly but a few moments
before, was hushed, and tears lay nearer to the surface than laughter. It
could not be otherwise than that the spectacle, impressive always, should
blend itself with the sorrow of a thousand hearts and the peril of a land,
and that something of almost superstitious omen should seem to lie in the
recognition. There were no words to syllable the great thoughts of that
hour. How could there be? What tongue could have spoken what the heart so
sadly reverberated to an inner sense that was subtler and better than
hearing? "H. T.," whose tongue, as Margaret Hayley and her companions heard
it, had so solemnly apostrophized the iron face of the Old Man of the
Mountain in the moonlight of the night before, stood silent and with folded
arms on the end of the piazza, his strange, dark face full of a feeling
that seemed sad enough for death and yet determined enough for a life of
almost terrible daring. He was alone. He seemed to have made, even
distantly, but one acquaintance since alighting at the Profile; and that
one acquaintance, Halstead Rowan, had not yet paid all the penalty of his
mischief in a walk to the Flume. He had no motive to speak: perhaps under
no circumstances could he have done so before that company and with the
knowledge that the eyes of Margaret Hayley might be bent upon him from the
other end of that group of gazers. But the man who had read the patriotic
secret of the Mountain Sphynx felt the weight of that hour--who could doubt
it? And if his lips had spoken, would not the words they uttered have been
something like these, that have bubbled to other lips and yet been denied
utterance, on the same spot and since the overcasting of our national sky
by that dark cloud of war and that darker cloud of divided feeling, only to
be rolled away in God's good time:
"Yes, look upon the Dead Washington, all of you, and prepare to bear the
image away and keep it sacred in your heart of hearts. Dead and shrouded he
lies, whose words might perchance have had power, at this fearful day in
our history, to still the turbulent waves of passion and make us brothers
once more. Dead and shrouded, when the day of doom may be near, and when
his sword, flashing at the head of the armies of the republic, might have
blinded treason and struck terror to the heart of the rebellion. Dead and
shrouded, to wake not at the trump of war or the call of national peril.
Yet look down upon us from the granite mountains that bore thine image a
thousand years ago and will bear it until the very form and feature of
nature decay--look down upon us from the heavens that are higher and more
enduring even than the eternal hills, and bless us with some ray of that
courage which dared the iron rain of Princeton--of that patient endurance
which braved the wintry snow of Valley Forge--of that honesty which bent a
world in awe and admiration--of that self-sacrificing humility which
thought it but duty to refuse a crown! Not in irreverence we speak, shadow
of the great dead! Thou didst live, and we sprang into existence as a
nation. Thou art gone, and we wander in the night and darkness of hatred,
of strife, of murder--perhaps even totter to a fall from which there is no
arising. If thou hast power in the eternal world, Washington who livest, so
faintly shadowed by the Washington that is dead--save us whom the might of
no other nation can cast down--save us from ourselves!"
Hush! the fancy so reverently assumed cannot be cast off in a moment.
Hush!--was not that low rumbling in the north which men call thunder, the
voice of the Giant of Mount Liberty turning suddenly in his grave-clothes
to answer the appeal? God!--if it might be so!--"Oh, for an hour of Hickory
Jackson!" cried the agonized nation when the first paralysis fell upon our
men in power: oh, for one moment of George Washington now!
The Celt looks for the awakening of Brian Boroihme from his long sleep in
the Wicklow mountains, falsely called his death, after the red field of
Clontarf, and for the deliverance of Ireland from the Saxon oppressor,
which is to follow; the German is still waiting for the sounding of that
horn which is to start Frederick the Redbeard from his repose in the
Kypphauser, where the faithless laid him to rest, believing that he was
dead, after his charmed bath in the Cilician Cydnus; even the old soldiers
who guard the mighty dust of Napoleon beneath the dome of the Invalides,
speak of the "Midnight Review" in other words than those of Friederich
Freiligrath and hold a dim impression that the life of Austerlitz and the
Pyramids must linger even after St. Helena: why may not the patriot heart
of America believe that the man who of all others best represented the full
glory of a nation, is immortal in body as in spirit, and that the Father of
his Country will some day dash out from the sarcophagus that holds him
prisoner at Mount Vernon,--to shame recreancy, to hurl incapacity from
power, and to save, in its dark hour, the fabric that his great soul loved
and his great hand builded?
No!--that awful presence lies unmoved on its bier on the peaks of the
mountains, the blue sky the canopy of its catafalque, the waving trees the
plumes of the warriors who guard it, and the hoarse storm wind its requiem.
And while it so sleeps, the future of the republic, which seems to us in
darkness, lies really in a Hand that knows no death and never changes in
its unfaltering purpose!
But the saddest as well as the sweetest things in life have an end, and the
halt of the company at the Flume House, that morning, supplied no exception
to the rule. Just as the wagons were once more loaded, Halstead Rowan came
striding up, his cigar smoked out, and his face the most unconscious
imaginable, and took the seat which he had not long before vacated. Mrs.
Brooks Cunninghame was very busy, at that period, looking after some of the
details of arrangement of Master Brooks Brooks' dress, which had become
slightly disarranged; and perhaps she did not see him. Let us suppose so,
for she certainly did not notice her late student in geography. She was a
little red in the face, which let us also suppose to have been the effect
of the weather and not of mortification. And so all once more in place,
away dashed the wagons to that marvellous gap in the mountains which gives
name to the house. The road seemed very rough and broken, the rises and
descents grew sharper, and the forest scenery wilder. Galloping his four
horses up a steep ascent to the left, each driver vigorously applied the
brake as the wagons literally slid down the very sharpest bit of road
descent to be found at the Franconia (except perhaps on some portions of
the Bald Mountain)--a descent so sudden, and overhanging a ravine so
frightful, that some of the handsome eyes looked larger than ever for the
moment, all the riders involuntarily threw themselves back in the laboring
and creaking wagons, and pretty little screams that had no affectation in
them emancipated themselves from rosy lips and took excursions out into the
summer air. Then thundering over a rickety wooden bridge, almost at the
bottom of the ravine, and up another slight ascent, the wagons stopped
under a clump of wide-spreading trees at a rough platform, and disembarked
their passengers, leaving all to follow their will in examining that wonder
of nature in one of her frolic moods.
And what was the Flume like, to those who that day saw it for the first
time? An irregular crack or fissure in the side of the mountain, half a
mile long, and from ten to fifty feet in depth, such as the wedge of some
enraged Titan might have made when he had determined to split the earth
asunder, and used the thunder as a beetle. Whether he was frightened by the
big oval boulder which fell into the fissure half way up, and has ever
since hung suspended there, touching only at the points, and apparently
ready to fall at any moment--who shall say? At all events, if he intended
to disrupt the earth he desisted for the time; and let us be duly thankful!
Walking laboriously over the broad flat stone platform at the mouth of the
gorge, with the thin sheet of bright water straggling over it, then
ascending the rough stairs of board that lay irregularly on either side,
and anon climbing carefully over the mossed and slippery rocks that offered
such precarious foot-hold, the party ascended the Flume and stood at last
between walls of less than six feet separation, the rock rising fifty or
sixty feet on either side, and almost as square as if cut by the chisel of
an artificer, impassable slimy boulders piled in confusion far ahead, the
rough little stream tumbling away through the wilderness of stones beneath,
and a chill dampness like that of the grave striking in to the very
life-blood of those who had been imprudent enough to tempt the mountains
without the protection of thick garments and warm flannels. Once, a little
white Blossom of the company, just unfolding to the June luxuriance of
womanhood, and whose name has no interest in this narration, was tempted
by a mischievous relative and protector to try walking a rounded and
slippery log that bridged the chasm, a few feet above the rough rocks and
water below; but her nerves failed and her head grew dizzy when she was
half way across, her lip quivered and then fluttered out a little cry of
alarm, and her mischievous tempter retraced his own steps just in time to
catch her and keep her from an ice-cold bath and limbs bruised on the rough
stones lying in the stream underneath.
There was another log spanning the Flume, a little higher up the chasm, and
at a very different altitude from terra firma--hanging, in fact, like a
stout black fence-rail, not less than eighty or an hundred feet in the air.
Encircled by the eternal dampness rising out of the Flume, it could not be
otherwise than slimy and slippery; and only a moment before the nameless
Blossom tempted the log below, some of the company had looked up and
remarked with a shudder that a firm foot and cool head would be necessary
for the man who should tread over that frail bridge with its crumbling
bark. As if the two had some mysterious connection, the moment _after_
Blossom's misadventure, some one heard voices in that direction and looked
up again. Two figures stood upon the brink, and not so far away but that at
least _some_ of the group below recognized them as "H. T." and Halstead
Rowan, who had left the rest as they abandoned the wagons and commenced
ascending the gorge.
Among those who looked up was Margaret Hayley, and her eyes were among
those that recognized the two figures. What those people were to her, or
why she said "Look!" in a quick and even agitated voice, probably the young
girl could have told quite as little as either writer or reader; but such
was the fact, and the motion of her eyes at the moment, accompanied by the
word, drew the regards of both Captain Hector Coles and Mrs. Burton Hayley,
who stood beside her at the bottom of the Flume. They, too, with the
others, heard the words and saw the action that immediately followed.
Halstead Rowan had one foot thrust forward on the log, his other on the
firm ground behind. "H. T." stood on the rock beside him, making no motion
to cross. There was evidently a banter between them, and though they were
probably not aware of the fact, their words were readily distinguishable
beneath.
"None of _my_ business, I suppose; but it is folly!" they heard spoken by
the voice of "H. T."
"I suppose that every thing is folly which goes out of the hum-drum track
of every-day life!" they heard Rowan reply. "But I like folly, and so here
goes! Will you follow me?"
"Without wanting to go over?--no!" was the answer.
The words had scarcely left his lips when Rowan sprang forward on the log,
stepping lightly, but balancing himself with some care, towards the other
side. Insensibly all who saw him held their breath. If he should be correct
enough in his balance, who could say that the log might not be a rotten
shell, ready to fall under the heavy weight of the stout athlete? In fact,
he had scarcely reached the middle when the tottering fabric seemed to give
way and come toppling down into the chasm below. Not in reality; for had it
done so, the career of the Illinoisan, with whom we have by no means
finished, would have been ended for all time. The startling appearance was
created by the dislodging of a large shell of the rotten bark by his foot,
more than half costing him his balance, and bringing out from the group
beneath a chorus of cries that might well have disturbed what remained of
equilibrium. One cry sounded sharper and higher than all the rest: there
were those present who knew from whose lips it came: enough for us to say
that it did not come from those of Margaret Hayley, whose eyes were still
turned upward with a feeling in them very different from fear. Before the
cry had fairly died away, the peril, whatever it might have been, was past,
and Halstead Rowan stood on the other side of the chasm, bowing to the
group who had been observing him, as he learned from the cries, at the
bottom. They saw "H. T." turn and walk away at the same moment; and then,
drawing a long breath, Margaret Hayley said, much more to herself than to
her immediate companions:
"What a thing beyond all admiration is that courage!"
"Which our other friend does not seem to be troubled with in any great
degree!" said Captain Hector Coles, finishing out the sentence with a tone
perceptibly sneering. Margaret looked round at him with a look which might
have been one of inquiry, then turned away her face again and said:
"No, I suppose not! Not more than half the world can be demigods: the
others must be common people, or worse!"
Whether Captain Hector Coles liked the tone of the reply, or not, is
uncertain. At all events he scowled a little and said nothing more, while
Mrs. Burton Hayley stole a look into the face of her daughter which had no
hypocrisy in it and was full of wonder and trouble.
Five minutes afterwards the company were all again at the mouth of the
Flume, and there Halstead Rowan, a second time the hero of the day, joined
them. "H. T." did not make his appearance: he had struck across, the
Illinoisan said, without waiting for him, over the almost impassable fallen
timber and through the spruce thickets, by the cross-path to the Pool. A
few minutes more sufficed to re-seat the group in their wagons and to
deposit them once more at the door of the Flume House, whence they took
their way on foot, straggling in every picturesque variety of locomotion
towards that equally-curious pendant of the Flume which is often missed by
those who visit the better-known wonder.
The Pool lay all alone, until this somewhat numerous company came to
disturb its solitude. A singular object indeed--an exaggeration of all the
other mountain amphitheatre fountains, nearly round, a score or more of
yards in diameter, with the toe of the horse-shoe scooped out of a solid
rock thirty or forty feet in height, smoothed and rounded as if cut by
human hands, a bright, clear stream dashing down at that point, the rocks
further away from the toe rising broken and jagged to the height of perhaps
an hundred feet, and the mode of approach of the passengers a jagged line
of ricketty steps, terribly perpendicular, sloping down from that highest
point and presenting no temptations to the decrepit or the nervous. At the
bottom of this singular basin the water, bright and clear in the few places
where it ran shallow over the bleached stones, but under the shadow of the
ledge so deep as to seem black as midnight.
"Nobody here!--it doesn't seem like old times!" said an elderly gentleman
who had visited the Pool many times in other days,--as the ladies were with
some difficulty assisted down the steps. "No boatman, and not even a boat!
Where is Charon, I wonder?"
"Oh, yes, where _is_ Merrill?" asked another. "The man with the leaky scow
and the white muslin awning, who always charged a York shilling for
ferrying people over to the Elysian Fields lying among the rocks and logs
yonder."
"I remember, once," said the old gentleman, "that while his lieutenant
paddled us around under the spray of the fall yonder, and over to the steps
which used to hang from the rocks there on the opposite side, Merrill read
us an autograph letter from Queen Victoria, dated in the kitchen at
Buckingham Palace while the august lady said that she was rolling
apple-dumplings,--and also gave us a lecture on geography, in which he
proved that this spot was the very centre of the earth, from which all
latitude and longitude ought to be calculated."
"Well, he was right in some degree," said Halstead Rowan, who stood near,
and who fixed his regards at the same moment on Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame,
still looking after the welfare of that interesting child. There was not
even the suspicion of a smile upon his face as he went on, and there
certainly was not upon the face of the lady for whose benefit the discourse
was evidently intended. "I do not know about the latitude and longitude,
but this Pool is certainly the centre of the earth and exactly opposite to
China, so that a plummet, with _a line long enough_, dropped here, would be
certain to come out somewhere on the shores of the Hoangho or the Kiangku."
"Nonsense!" said one grave lady (not Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame) who did not
appreciate the joke.
"Not a bit of it, madame!" said the scamp, who thereupon turned his battery
at once in her direction. "There is no doubt whatever of the truth of the
statement, for I have been here myself when the defunct pig-tailed Chinamen
came popping up, who had committed suicide by drowning themselves on the
other side of the world, on account of the cruelty of a copper-colored
divinity with almond eyes and feet the size and shape of the last dumpling
in the pot, or a trifling deficiency in the rat-crop or the dog-census."
"Impudence!" muttered _that_ lady, who seemed to regard the "whopper" as a
personal insult; but the majority of the company appeared to view the
affair in a very different light and to be rather pleased than otherwise
with the go-ahead fellow who could walk over verbal and physical bridges
with the same charming recklessness. It may be anticipating to say that
there was one among them, whose face had paled when he trod the log over
the Flume, and who could not even laugh at the light words which she
otherwise enjoyed,--so much deep and new and strange feeling lay at the
bottom of the interest. And it may _not_ be anticipating, in the minds of
any who have perused the late foregoing pages with due attention, to say
that that silent, thoughtful, observing one was Clara Vanderlyn, between
whom and the Illinoisan there yawned a gulf of circumstance and position so
wide and deep that no one but a madman (or what is madder still--a mad
_woman_) could possibly have dreamed of stepping over it.