After weeks of the din of Strauss and Gungl, the soothing strains of
the Pastoral Symphony. Now no more the kettle-drum and the ceaseless
promenade in showy corridors, but the oaten pipe under the spreading
maples, the sheep feeding on the gentle hills of Otsego, the carnival of
the hop-pickers. It is time to be rural, to adore the country, to speak
about the dew on the upland pasture, and the exquisite view from Sunset
Hill. It is quite English, is it not? this passion for quiet, refined
country life, which attacks all the summer revelers at certain periods
in the season, and sends them in troops to Richfield or Lenox or some
other peaceful retreat, with their simple apparel bestowed in modest
fourstory trunks. Come, gentle shepherdesses, come, sweet youths in
white flannel, let us tread a measure on the greensward, let us wander
down the lane, let us pass under the festoons of the hop-vines, let us
saunter in the paths of sentiment, that lead to love in a cottage and a
house in town.
Every watering-place has a character of its own, and those who have
given little thought to this are surprised at the endless variety in the
American resorts. But what is even more surprising is the influence
that these places have upon the people that frequent them, who appear to
change their characters with their surroundings. One woman in her season
plays many parts, dashing in one place, reserved in another, now gay
and active, now listless and sentimental, not at all the same woman at
Newport that she is in the Adirondack camps, one thing at Bar Harbor and
quite another at Saratoga or at Richfield. Different tastes, to be sure,
are suited at different resorts, but fashion sends a steady procession
of the same people on the round of all.
The charm of Richfield Springs is in the character of the landscape. It
is a limestone region of gentle slopes and fine lines; and although
it is elevated, the general character is refined rather than bold,
the fertile valleys in pleasing irregularity falling away from rounded
wooded hills in a manner to produce the impression of peace and repose.
The lay of the land is such that an elevation of a few hundred feet
gives a most extensive prospect, a view of meadows and upland pastures,
of lakes and ponds, of forests hanging in dark masses on the limestone
summits, of fields of wheat and hops, and of distant mountain ranges. It
is scenery that one grows to love, and that responds to one's every mood
in variety and beauty. In a whole summer the pedestrian will not exhaust
the inspiring views, and the drives through the gracious land, over
hills, round the lakes, by woods and farms, increase in interest as one
knows them better. The habitues of the place, year after year, are at a
loss for words to convey their peaceful satisfaction.
In this smiling country lies the pretty village of Richfield, the
rural character of which is not entirely lost by reason of the hotels,
cottages, and boardinghouses which line the broad principal street.
The centre of the town is the old Spring House and grounds. When our
travelers alighted in the evening at this mansion, they were reminded of
an English inn, though it is not at all like an inn in England except in
its atmosphere of comfort. The building has rather a colonial character,
with its long corridors and pillared piazzas; built at different times,
and without any particular plans except to remain old-fashioned, it is
now a big, rambling white mass of buildings in the midst of maple-trees,
with so many stairs and passages on different levels, and so many nooks
and corners, that the stranger is always getting lost in it--turning up
in the luxurious smoking-room when he wants to dine, and opening a door
that lets him out into the park when he is trying to go to bed. But
there are few hotels in the country where the guests are so well taken
care of.
This was the unbought testimony of Miss Lamont, who, with her uncle, had
been there long enough to acquire the common anxiety of sojourners that
the newcomers should be pleased, and who superfluously explained the
attractions of the place to the artist, as if in his eyes, that rested
on her, more than one attraction was needed. It was very pleasant to
see the good comradeship that existed between these two, and the frank
expression of their delight in meeting again. Here was a friendship
without any reserve, or any rueful misunderstandings, or necessity for
explanations. Irene's eyes followed them with a wistful look as they
went off together round the piazza and through the parlors, the girl
playing the part of the hostess, and inducting him into the mild
gayeties of the place.
The height of the season was over, she said; there had been tableaux and
charades, and broom-drills, and readings and charity concerts. Now the
season was on the sentimental wane; every night the rooms were full of
whist-players, and the days were occupied in quiet strolling over the
hills, and excursions to Cooperstown and Cherry Valley and “points of
view,” and visits to the fields to see the hop-pickers at work. If there
were a little larking about the piazzas in the evening, and a group here
and there pretending to be merry over tall glasses with ice and straws
in them, and lingering good-nights at the stairways, why should the aged
and rheumatic make a note of it? Did they not also once prefer the dance
to hobbling to the spring, and the taste of ginger to sulphur?
Of course the raison d'etre of being here is the sulphur spring. There
is no doubt of its efficacy. I suppose it is as unpleasant as any in the
country. Everybody smells it, and a great many drink it. The artist said
that after using it a week the blind walk, the lame see, and the dumb
swear. It renews youth, and although the analyzer does not say that it
is a “love philter,” the statistics kept by the colored autocrat who
ladles out the fluid show that there are made as many engagements at
Richfield as at any other summer fair in the country.
There is not much to chronicle in the peaceful flow of domestic life,
and, truth to say, the charm of Richfield is largely in its restfulness.
Those who go there year after year converse a great deal about their
liking for it, and think the time well spent in persuading new arrivals
to take certain walks and drives. It was impressed upon King that he
must upon no account omit a visit to Rum Hill, from the summit of which
is had a noble prospect, including the Adirondack Mountains. He tried
this with a walking party, was driven back when near the summit by a
thunder, storm, which offered a series of grand pictures in the sky and
on the hills, and took refuge in a farmhouse which was occupied by a
band of hop-pickers. These adventurers are mostly young girls and young
men from the cities and factory villages, to whom this is the only
holiday of the year. Many of the pickers, however, are veterans. At this
season one meets them on all the roads, driving from farm to farm
in lumber wagons, carrying into the dull rural life their slang, and
“Captain Jinks” songs, and shocking free manners. At the great hop
fields they lodge all together in big barracks, and they make lively
for the time whatever farmhouse they occupy. They are a “rough lot,” and
need very much the attention of the poet and the novelist, who might (if
they shut their eyes) make this season as romantic as vintage-time on
the Rhine, or “moonshining” on the Southern mountains. The hop field
itself, with its tall poles draped in graceful vines which reach from
pole to pole, and hang their yellowing fruit in pretty festoons and
arbors, is much more picturesque than the vine-clad hills.
Mrs. Bartlett Glow found many acquaintances here from New York and
Philadelphia and Newport, and, to do her justice, she introduced Irene
to them and presently involved her in so many pleasure parties and
excursions that she and King were scarcely ever alone together. When
opportunity offered for a stroll a deux, the girl's manner was so
constrained that King was compelled to ask the reason of it. He got very
little satisfaction, and the puzzle of her conduct was increased by her
confession that she loved him just the same, and always should.
“But something has come between us,” he said. “I think I have the right
to be treated with perfect frankness.”
“So you have,” she replied. “There is nothing--nothing at least that
changes my feeling towards you.”
“But you think that mine is changed for you?”
“No, not that, either, never that;” and her voice showed excitement as
she turned away her head. “But don't you know, Stanhope, you have not
known me very long, and perhaps you have been a little hasty, and--how
shall I say it?--if you had more time to reflect, when you go back to
your associates and your active life, it might somehow look differently
to you, and your prospects--”
“Why, Irene, I have no prospects without you. I love you; you are my
life. I don't understand. I am just yours, and nothing you can do will
ever make it any different for me; but if you want to be free--”
“No, no,” cried the girl, trying in vain to restrain her agitation
and her tears, “not that. I don't want to be free. But you will not
understand. Circumstances are so cruel, and if, Stanhope, you ever
should regret when it is too late! It would kill me. I want you to be
happy. And, Stanhope, promise me that, whatever happens, you will not
think ill of me.”
Of course he promised, he declared that nothing could happen, he vowed,
and he protested against this ridiculous phantom in her mind. To a
man, used to straightforward cuts in love as in any other object of
his desire, this feminine exaggeration of conscientiousness is wholly
incomprehensible. How under heavens a woman could get a kink of duty in
her mind which involved the sacrifice of herself and her lover was past
his fathoming.
The morning after this conversation, the most of which the reader has
been spared, there was an excursion to Cooperstown. The early start of
the tally-ho coaches for this trip is one of the chief sensations of the
quiet village. The bustle to collect the laggards, the importance of the
conductors and drivers, the scramble up the ladders, the ruses to get
congenial seat-neighbors, the fine spirits of everybody evoked by the
fresh morning air, and the elevation on top of the coaches, give the
start an air of jolly adventure. Away they go, the big red-and-yellow
arks, swinging over the hills and along the well-watered valleys, past
the twin lakes to Otsego, over which hangs the romance of Cooper's
tales, where a steamer waits. This is one of the most charming of the
little lakes that dot the interior of New York; without bold shores or
anything sensational in its scenery, it is a poetic element in a refined
and lovely landscape. There are a few fishing-lodges and summer cottages
on its banks (one of them distinguished as “Sinners' Rest”), and a hotel
or two famous for dinners; but the traveler would be repaid if there
were nothing except the lovely village of Cooperstown embowered in
maples at the foot. The town rises gently from the lake, and is very
picturesque with its church spires and trees and handsome mansions; and
nothing could be prettier than the foreground, the gardens, the
allees of willows, the long boat wharves with hundreds of rowboats and
sail-boats, and the exit of the Susquehanna River, which here swirls
away under drooping foliage, and begins its long journey to the sea. The
whole village has an air of leisure and refinement. For our tourists the
place was pervaded by the spirit of the necromancer who has woven
about it a spell of romance; but to the ordinary inhabitants the long
residence of the novelist here was not half so important as that of
the very distinguished citizen who had made a great fortune out of some
patent, built here a fine house, and adorned his native town. It is not
so very many years since Cooper died, and yet the boatmen and loungers
about the lake had only the faintest impression of the man-there was a
writer by that name, one of them said, and some of his family lived near
the house of the great man already referred to. The magician who
created Cooperstown sleeps in the old English-looking church-yard of the
Episcopal church, in the midst of the graves of his relations, and there
is a well-worn path to his head-stone. Whatever the common people of
the town may think, it is that grave that draws most pilgrims to the
village. Where the hillside cemetery now is, on the bank of the lake,
was his farm, which he visited always once and sometimes twice a day. He
commonly wrote only from ten to twelve in the morning, giving the rest
of the time to his farm and the society of his family. During the period
of his libel suits, when the newspapers represented him as morose
and sullen in his retirement, he was, on the contrary, in the highest
spirits and the most genial mood. “Deer-slayer” was written while
this contest was at its height. Driving one day from his farm with his
daughter, he stopped and looked long over his favorite prospect on the
lake, and said, “I must write one more story, dear, about our little
lake.” At that moment the “Deerslayer” was born. He was silent the
rest of the way home, and went immediately to his library and began the
story.
The party returned in a moralizing vein. How vague already in the
village which his genius has made known over the civilized world is
the fame of Cooper! To our tourists the place was saturated with his
presence, but the new generation cares more for its smart prosperity
than for all his romance. Many of the passengers on the boat had
stopped at a lakeside tavern to dine, preferring a good dinner to the
associations which drew our sentimentalists to the spots that were
hallowed by the necromancer's imagination. And why not? One cannot live
in the past forever. The people on the boat who dwelt in Cooperstown
were not talking about Cooper, perhaps had not thought of him for a
year. The ladies, seated in the bow of the boat, were comparing notes
about their rheumatism and the measles of their children; one of them
had been to the funeral of a young girl who was to have been married
in the autumn, poor thing, and she told her companion who were at the
funeral, and how they were dressed, and how little feeling Nancy seemed
to show, and how shiftless it was not to have more flowers, and how the
bridegroom bore up-well, perhaps it's an escape, she was so weakly.
The day lent a certain pensiveness to all this; the season was visibly
waning; the soft maples showed color, the orchards were heavy with
fruit, the mountain-ash hung out its red signals, the hop-vines were
yellowing, and in all the fence corners the golden-rod flamed and made
the meanest high-road a way of glory. On Irene fell a spell of sadness
that affected her lover. Even Mrs. Bartlett-Glow seemed touched by some
regret for the fleeting of the gay season, and the top of the coach
would have been melancholy enough but for the high spirits of Marion
and the artist, whose gayety expanded in the abundance of the harvest
season. Happy natures, unrestrained by the subtle melancholy of a
decaying year!
The summer was really going. On Sunday the weather broke in a violent
storm of wind and rain, and at sunset, when it abated, there were
portentous gleams on the hills, and threatening clouds lurking about
the sky. It was time to go. Few people have the courage to abide the
breaking of the serenity of summer, and remain in the country for the
more glorious autumn days that are to follow. The Glows must hurry back
to Newport. The Bensons would not be persuaded out of their fixed plan
to “take in,” as Mr. Benson expressed it, the White Mountains. The
others were going to Niagara and the Thousand Islands; and when King
told Irene that he would much rather change his route and accompany her,
he saw by the girl's manner that it was best not to press the subject.
He dreaded to push an explanation, and, foolish as lovers are, he was
wise for once in trusting to time. But he had a miserable evening. He
let himself be irritated by the lightheartedness of Forbes. He objected
to the latter's whistling as he went about his room packing up his
traps. He hated a fellow that was always in high spirits. “Why, what has
come over you, old man?” queried the artist, stopping to take a critical
look at his comrade. “Do you want to get out of it? It's my impression
that you haven't taken sulphur water enough.”
On Monday morning there was a general clearing out. The platform at
the station was crowded. The palace-cars for New York, for Niagara, for
Albany, for the West, were overflowing. There was a pile of trunks as
big as a city dwelling-house. Baby-carriages cumbered the way; dogs were
under foot, yelping and rending the tender hearts of their owners; the
porters staggered about under their loads, and shouted till they
were hoarse; farewells were said; rendezvous made--alas! how many
half-fledged hopes came to an end on that platform! The artist thought
he had never seen so many pretty girls together in his life before, and
each one had in her belt a bunch of goldenrod. Summer was over, sure
enough.
At Utica the train was broken up, and its cars despatched in various
directions. King remembered that it was at Utica that the younger Cato
sacrificed himself. In the presence of all the world Irene bade him
good-by. “It will not be for long,” said King, with an attempt at
gayety. “Nothing is for long,” she said with the same manner. And then
added in a low tone, as she slipped a note into his hand, “Do not think
ill of me.”
King opened the note as soon as he found his seat in the car, and this
was what he read as the train rushed westward towards the Great Fall:
“MY DEAR FRIEND,--How can I ever say it? It is best that we
separate. I have thought and thought; I have struggled with myself.
I think that I know it is best for you. I have been happy--ah me!
Dear, we must look at the world as it is. We cannot change it--if
we break our hearts, we cannot. Don't blame your cousin. It is
nothing that she has done. She has been as sweet and kind to me as
possible, but I have seen through her what I feared, just how it is.
Don't reproach me. It is hard now. I know it. But I believe that
you will come to see it as I do. If it was any sacrifice that I
could make, that would be easy. But to think that I had sacrificed
you, and that you should some day become aware of it! You are free.
I am not silly. It is the future I am thinking of. You must take
your place in the world where your lot is cast. Don't think I have
a foolish pride. Perhaps it is pride that tells me not to put
myself in a false position; perhaps it is something else. Never
think it is want of heart in.
“Good-by.
“IRENE”
As King finished this he looked out of the window.
The landscape was black.