CHAPTER XXII.
A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER--A NEW LAKE--A MOOSE--HIS CAPTURE--A SUMPTUOUS DINNER.
We started the next morning on an exploring voyage up the right-hand stream, which enters this beautiful lake some half a mile west of the one we had looked into the day before. On either hand, as we pa.s.sed along the narrow channel, was a natural meadow, covered with a luxuriant growth of rank gra.s.s and weeds, conspicuous among which was a beautiful flower, the like of which I have never seen anywhere else.
I am no botanist, and therefore cannot describe it in the language of the florist, so that the learned in that beautiful science might cla.s.sify it. It resembles somewhat the wild lily in shape, growing upon a tall, strong stem, almost like the stem of the flag. The flower itself is double, and its deep crimson--the deepest almost of any flower I have ever seen--shone conspicuously, as it waved gracefully in the breeze above the surrounding vegetation. It has one defect, however; it is without fragrance, I infer from the fact that its roots spread far out every way, and reach down into the water beneath, that it can hardly be transferred to the garden, or become civilized. It would be a great acquisition to the collection of the florist if it could, for I know of no flower that excels it in richness of color, gracefulness of appearance, or in gorgeousness of beauty.
We saw abundance of deer feeding quietly upon the narrow meadows, and upon the lily pads on our way. We had no inclination to injure them, and we let them feed on. Some of them were hugely astonished, however, at our presence, and dashed away, whistling and snorting, into the forest. Two miles from the lake, we came to a rocky barrier, down which the stream, came rushing and roaring, for fifty or sixty rods, in a descent of perhaps sixty feet in all. Around these rapids the boats were carried, and we found, above them, the water deep and sluggish, flowing through a dense forest, the tall trees on the banks stretching their leafy arms across the narrow channel, forming above it an arch delightfully cool, through which the sunlight could scarcely penetrate. We followed this channel a long way, when we came to a little lake or pond, four or five miles in circ.u.mference. It was a perfect gem, laying there all alone, so calm, so lovely in its solitude, with no sign of civilization around it, no sound of civilization startling its echoes from their sleep of ages, no human voice having perhaps ever been heard upon its sh.o.r.e since the red man departed from the hunting-ground of his fathers. The sh.o.r.es all around it were bold and rocky, save on the western side, where a broad sandy beach, of a quarter of a mile in extent, lay between the water and the shadow of the deep forest beyond. A solitary island of half a dozen acres, covered with majestic pines and tall, straight spruce trees, rises near the centre of the lake, adding a new charm to its quiet beauty. The waters of this little lake are clearer and more transparent than those of any other we had seen; we could see the white sh.e.l.ls on its sandy bottom, fifteen feet below the surface. This peculiarity induced us to believe that we were above the stratum of iron ore which seems to underlay most of this wild region, coloring, while it does not render impure, the waters of most of these lakes and rivers. I have frequently, in my wanderings in these northern wilds, stumbled upon outcropping orebeds, which, were they nearer market, or more accessible to the energy and enterprise of the American people, would be capable of building up gigantic fortunes, but they are all valueless here, and probably will continue so for generations to come.
We saw the fresh tracks of a moose on the sandy beach, tracks that had been made that morning, and we concluded to spend the day here, in the hope of securing one of these gigantic deer. We rowed to the island, intending to encamp there. We entered a little bay, of half an acre, the points forming it coming within a few yards of each other, and the branches of the trees intertwining their long arms lovingly above. As we landed, our dogs began nosing and dashing about, as if suddenly roused into excitement by the hot scent of some animal that had been disturbed by our coming. They broke into a simultaneous cry, and plunged like mad into the thicket. We pushed our boat back towards the open water, when we heard the plunge of some animal into the lake, on the other side of the island. Martin, who was in the leading boat with me, by a few vigorous pulls at the oar, rounded the point between us and the spot where we had heard the plunge, and there, not ten rods from the sh.o.r.e, making for the mainland, was the game which, of all others, we most desired to see.
"A moose! by Moses!" exclaimed Martin, in huge excitement. "Hurrah!
hurrah! A moose! he"s ours! he can"t escape!" and away he dashed in pursuit. The other boats now hove in sight, and a loud hurrah! went up from each, when they saw the nature of the game that had been started.
There was no difficulty in overtaking the animal, desperate as were his efforts to escape. We shot past him, and turned him back in a direction towards the island again, and I picked up my rifle to settle the matter.
"Don"t shoot him," said Martin; "don"t shoot him yet; he can"t get away, and if you kill him, he"ll sink; and if he don"t, we can"t get him into the boat. Let us drive him back to the island." The other boats were, by this time, up with us, every man in a wild state of excitement, eager to be first in at the death. We had headed the animal towards the island, with our three boats so arranged, as that he could swim in no other direction, without running one of them down.
The dogs had started a deer that had taken to the water, on the other side of the island.
"Look here!" said I; "gentlemen, this game is mine. I claim him by right of discovery, and my right must not be interfered with."
"Very well," the Doctor answered, "we"ll only take a hand in his capture if he"s likely to escape. So, go ahead."
As we came within a few yards of the sh.o.r.e, and we could see that the animal"s hoofs touched the bottom, I aimed carefully at his head, and fired. He made one desperate lunge forward, and turned over on his side, dying with scarcely a straggle, the ball having pa.s.sed directly through his brain.
This was the first and only live moose I have ever seen. He was not a large one, being, probably, a three-year-old, but well-grown. We should have called him a monster, had we not, before that time, seen in various museums the stuffed skins of those a quarter or a third larger. He would have weighed, as shot, probably between five and six hundred pounds. He had made this solitary island his home, as we ascertained by his spoor and other signs that we found upon subsequent explorations. We saw his bed but a few rods from where we landed, and from which our dogs had aroused him, though they, in their excitement, had overrun his scent, and dashed off after a deer.
We had now accomplished one of the objects of our journey in this direction, and as the law we had imposed upon ourselves had reached its limits, prohibiting our shooting another moose that day, even should an opportunity occur, we concluded to return to our shanty, on the lake below. We, therefore, dressed our moose, and taking with us the skin and hind quarters, started down stream to a late dinner on Little Tupper"s Lake. Indeed, there was a sort of necessity for our doing so. We had left our provisions there, calculating to return in the afternoon, not having taken with us even pepper or salt, wherewith to season the food which, upon constraint, we might cook during our absence. A few crackers, in the pockets of each, was all, in the provision line, that we had provided ourselves with, and though, when we saw the moose-tracks in the sand, we had concluded to rough it, for a single night, for the chance of securing such rare game, yet having secured it, that part of our mission was accomplished, and we turned towards home.
On our return to the lake, Spalding and myself rowed across to the mouth of a cold brook, to procure a supply of fresh trout, upon which, with our moose and bear-meat, to dine. This we soon accomplished, and on our arrival home, we found huge pieces of moose and bear roasting before a blazing fire. The meat was supported upon long sticks, one end of which was sharpened, and the meat spitted upon it, and the other thrust into the ground, in a slanting direction, so as to bring the roasting pieces into a proper position before the fire. The meat was removed occasionally, and turned, until the roasting process was completed, and then served up on clean birch bark, just peeled from the trees, in the place of platters. We had tin plates, knives, and forks, with us, also a tea-kettle, tin cups, and tea of the choicest quality, sugar, pepper, salt, and pork. The man who cannot make a meal where the viands present are moose-meat, bear, jerked venison, fresh trout, and pork, and for drink the best of tea and the purest and coldest spring water, had better keep out of the Rackett woods.
The people, whoever they were, who prepared the camp in which we were domiciled, had an eye to convenience and comfort. The shanty was built of logs, on three sides, the crevices between which were filled with moss, and the sloping roof neatly covered with bark, in layers, like an old-fashioned roof, covered with split shingles. The front was open, and directly before it was a rough fire-place, with jams, made of small boulders, laid up with clay, regularly-fashioned, as if intended for a kitchen. This fire-place was three or four feet high, and served an excellent purpose, with reference to our cookery, and the lighting of our shanty at night. It served, also, to conduct the smoke upward, and prevented it from being blown into our faces, as we sat in front, at once, of our sleeping-place and our camp-fire. The only things that reminded us of civilization, aside from what we carried with us, were the innumerable crickets that, through all the night, kept up their chirruping in the crevices of this rude fireplace. There was something old-fashioned and sociable in their song. These, with the shrill notes of the little peepers along the sh.o.r.e, were old sounds to us, familiar voices, and they fell pleasantly on the ear. We had finished our meal, and taken to our pipes in the evening, as the sun went down among the old forests, away off in the west. The greyness of twilight came stealing over the water, and grew into darkness in the beautiful valley where that lake lay sleeping. The stars stole out silently, and set their watch in the sky, and calmness and repose rested upon everything around us.
"I remember," said Smith, "the first year that I was in college, of hearing two learned professors disputing about what sort of animal it was that made the piping noise we hear in the marshy places, and stagnant pools, in the spring time, usually known as peepers. One insisted that it was a newt, or small lizard; and I remember that he went to his library, and brought a volume which proved his theory to be correct. The other denied the authority of the author, and insisted that the peeper was a frog. The discussion excited my curiosity, and I made up my mind to satisfy myself on the subject, if possible, by occular demonstration. There was a small marshy place, half a mile, or so, from the college grounds, from which I had heard, in my walks, the music of the peepers coming up every evening, in a loud and joyous chorus. I watched by it a number of evenings, and though there were a plenty of peepers, piping merrily enough, yet I could not get sight of one to save me. I began to think it was a myth, the viewless spirit of the bog, that made all the noises about which the learned professors had been disputing. At last, however, I got sight of a peeper, caught him in the act, and saw that it was, in fact, a little frog, nothing more, nothing less. He was not more than three feet from me, and though, when I moved, he hid himself in the muddy water, yet I managed to capture and take him home alive. He was a little animal, certainly, not larger than a half-dollar piece, and it was marvellous how a thing so small could make such a loud and piercing noise. I took him to my room, and placed him in a water-tight box, in which I fashioned an artificial bog, in the hope that he would confirm my testimony by his piping. The second evening, as I sat in my room, poring over the recitations of the morrow, he lifted up his voice, loud, shrill, and clear, as when singing in his native marsh. I hurried, in triumph, to the learned disputants about his ident.i.ty, and in their presence, he furnished unanswerable evidence that the peeper was a frog, and not a newt. I was complimented by both the learned pundits, as though I had added a great item to the aggregate of human knowledge."
"You _did_ do a great thing, my friend," said Spalding, "you solved a mystery about which men, wise in the learning of the books, had perhaps been disputing for centuries. What are the peepers? asked the naturalist, who listened to their piping notes from the marshy places in the spring time. It was a matter of small practical importance, what they were. Still it was a question which MIND wanted to have solved. Its solution would do no great amount of good to the world.
But then it was a mystery which it was the business of mind to lay bare; and what more has science done in tracing the history and progress of this earth of ours, as written upon the rocks, among which geology has been so long delving? "What are the peepers?" asked the naturalist. "They are newts, little lizards," answers a learned pandit. "They are spirits of the bog, myths, that hold their carnival in the early gra.s.s of the marshy pools," says the theorist and poet, who _believes_ in the idealities of a poetic fancy. "They are frogs,"
says a third, who is ready to chop any amount of logic in favor of his system of frogology, and hereupon columns of argument, and pages of learned discussion, have been held over the ident.i.ty of the jolly peepers of the spring-time.
"But you discarded logic, threw away argument, and came down to the sure demonstrations of sober fact. You watched by the marshy pool, and caught the "peeper" in the act, took him "_in flagrante, delicto_," as the lawyers say, and thus ended the theoretical discussion about the "peepers." You placed another fixed fact upon the page of natural history.
"And how often has the wisdom of the schools, the philosophy of the profoundest theorists, been overthrown by the simple demonstrations of practical facts? For a thousand years the world was in pursuit of the giant power that lay hidden in heated vapor, the steam that came floating up from boiling water. That power eluded the grasp and baffled the research of human genius, which was looking so earnestly after it, until ingenuity gave it up, and philosophy p.r.o.nounced it a delusion. Not far from the beginning of the present century, practical experiment began to develop the mysterious power of steam. Rudely and imperfectly harnessed, at first, it still made the great wheel revolve, and men talked about making it a great motor for mechanical purposes. Philosophy volunteered its demonstrations of the absolute impossibility of such a thing. Still human ingenuity felt its way carefully onward, until the great fact was developed, that steam was in truth capable of moving machinery, was endowed almost with vitality, and could be made to throw the shuttle and spin. Ingenious men hinted that it might be made to propel water-craft in the place of wind and sails, and thus be harnessed into the service of commerce, as it had already been into that of manufactures. Here again philosophy interposed its axioms, and declared the scheme among the wild vagaries of a distempered fancy. But years rolled on, and the tall ship that swung out upon the broad ocean, and moved forward when the air was still and calmness was on the face of the deep, forward in the eye of the wind--forward in the teeth of the storm, that stopped not for billow or blast, gave the lie to philosophy, and scattered the theory of the wise like chaff.
"The lightning, that fierce spirit of the storm, that darted down on its mission of destruction from the black cloud floating in the sky, became a thing of interest to the mechanical world, and the question was asked, "Why cannot the lightning be harnessed into the service of man, and be made utilitarian?" Philosophy sneered at the wild delusion, but see how that same subtle and mysterious agency has been conquered? Note how truthfully it carries every word intrusted to its charge, along thousands of miles of the telegraph wire, with a speed, in comparison with which, sound is a laggard, a speed that annihilates alike s.p.a.ce and time. Men looked into a mirror, and seeing their own counterpart, a _fac-simile_ of themselves reflected there, began to ask, "Why may not that shadow be fixed; fastened in some way, to remain upon the polished surface that gives it back, even after the original may be mouldering in the grave?" Here again philosophy laid its finger upon its nose, and winked facetiously, as if it had found a new subject for ridicule, in the stupendous folly of such an inquiry.
But from that simple question, rose up the Daguerreian art; an art which fixes upon metallic plates, upon paper, the shadow of a man, of palace and cottage, of mountain and field, giving thus a picture ten thousand times truer to nature than the pencil of the cunningest artist. These and a thousand other mighty triumphs of human ingenuity have fought their way onward to their present position, against the fogyism of philosophy, the inertia of the schoolmen. They have been the sequence of cold, resistless demonstrations of experiment and fact. The world would stand still but for the spirit of research for the practical; for experimental, and not theoretical knowledge, that is abroad. It is this spirit that moves the world in all its present matchless career of progress, and distinguishes our era above all others of the world"s existence. You may be thankful, my friend, that you have been able to add another fixed fact to the stock of human knowledge, even though it be only that the "peeper" is a frog, and not a "newt" or a "myth."
"But who would suppose that such a tiny little frogling could make such a loud, shrill, and ear-piercing sound? Who would think that a million of such puny things, could make the air of a summer evening so full of the music of their songs? I remember how, in my boyhood, I listened to their voices, which came up loudest, shrillest, merriest, when twilight was spreading its grey mantle over the earth; while the song of the birds was hushing into silence, and the coming darkness was lulling the things of the day into repose; Oh! how merrily they sang along the little brooklet that took its rise in a spring in the meadow, and wended its way among the young gra.s.s, just springing into verdure, to the beautiful lake beyond. Their song is in my ear now, and that meadow, that beautiful lake, the tall hills on the summits of which the departing sunlight lingered, the tall maples that cl.u.s.tered in their conelike beauty around that gushing fountain, the cl.u.s.tered plum trees, the giant oak, spared by the woodman"s axe when the old forest was swept away, the fields, the "Gulf" in the hill-side, and the beautiful creek, that came cascading down the shelving rocks, and leaping over precipices in which the speckled trout sported: all these are before me now--a vision of loveliness, all the more dear because stamped upon the memory when life was young. Oh! Time! Time! the wrecks that lie scattered in thy pathway! That little brooklet, and the peepers, the fountain, the maples, and the meadow, are all gone.
The brave old oak was riven by the lightning. The fields have crept up to the very summit of the hills, and even the stream that came down from the mountain has vanished away, save when the rains, or the melting snows send it in a freshet over the rocks where, when I was a boy, it was cascading always. That beautiful meadow, too, is gone, and the streets of a modern village, with blocks of houses, and stores, and shops, occupy the place where I swung my first scythe. The old log-house vanished years and years ago. A steamboat ploughs its way through that beautiful lake, and the things of my boyhood are but visions of memory, called up from the long, long past. Not one landmark of the olden time remains. Oh! Time! Time!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CRICKET IN THE WALL--THE MINISTER"S ILl.u.s.tRATION--OLD MEMORIES.
We spent the following day in drifting quietly around the lake, floating lazily in the little bays, under the shadow of the tall trees, and lounging upon small islands, gathering the low-bush whortleberries which grew in abundance upon them. We filled our tin pails with this delicious fruit for a dessert for our evening meal. On one of these islands we found indications of its being inhabited by wood rabbits, and we sent Cullen to the shanty for the dogs to course them, not however with any intention of capturing them, but to enjoy the music of the chase, and hear the voices of the hounds echoing over the water. We landed them upon the island, and began beating for the game. The hounds understanding that their business was the pursuit of deer, and having hunted the island over thoroughly, came back to us, and sat quietly down upon their haunches, as much as to say there was nothing there worth looking after. But we had seen one of the little animals that had been roused from its bed by the dogs, and we called their special attention to the fact by leading them to the spot, and bidding them to "hunt him up." They understood our meaning, and started on the trail, with a loud and cheerful cry. For half an hour, they coursed him round and round the island, making the lake vocal with their merry music. We might have shot the game they were pursuing fifty times, but we had no design against its life. The little fellow did not seem to be greatly alarmed, for we noted him often, when by doubling he had temporarily thrown off the dogs, squat himself down, and throw his long ears back in the direction of the sound that had been pursuing him; and when the dogs straightened upon his trail, and approached where he sat, he would bound nimbly away among the thick bushes to double on them again.
We called off the dogs and pa.s.sed on to float along under the shadow of the forest trees and the hills, and take an occasional trout by way of experiment among the broken rocks along the sh.o.r.e. We had dispatched Cullen to the shanty to prepare dinner for us by six o"clock, at which hour we were to be at home. Cullen had promised, to use his own expression, "to spread himself" in the preparation of this meal, and he kept his promise. On our return, we found a sirloin of moose roasted to a turn, a stake of bear-meat broiled on the coals, a stew of jerked venison, and as pleasant a dish of fried trout and pork as an epicure could desire. Our appet.i.tes were keen, and we did ample justice to his cookery. This was one of the most delightful evenings that I have ever spent in the northern woods. There was such a calm resting upon all things, such an impress of repose upon forest and lake, such a cheerful quiet and serenity all around us, that one could scarcely refrain from rejoicing aloud in the beauty and the glory of the hour. As the sun sank to his rest behind the western hills, and the twilight began to gather in the forest and over the lake, the moon rose over the eastern high lands, walking with a queenly step up into the sky, casting a long line of brilliant light across the waters, showing the shadows of the mountains in bold outline in the depths below, and paling the stars by her brightness above. We all felt that we were recruiting in strength so rapidly in these mountain regions, where the air was so bracing and pure, under the influence of exercise, simple diet, natural sleep, and the absence of the labors and cares of business, that we were contented, notwithstanding the monotony that began to mark our everyday proceedings.
"I have been listening," said Spalding, as we sat upon the rude benches in front of our camp-fire, indulging in our usual season of smoking after our meals, "to the song of the crickets in those rude jams, and they call up sad, yet pleasant memories from the long past; of the old log house, the quiet fire-place, the crane in the jam, the great logs blazing upon the hearth of a cold winter evening, the house dog sleeping quietly in the corner, and the cat nestled confidingly between his feet. Oh! the days of old! the days of old! These crickets call back with these memories the circle that gathered around the hearth of my home, when I was young. Father, mother, brothers, sisters, playmates, and friends. How quietly some of them grew old and ripe, and then dropped into the grave. How quietly others stole away in their youth to the home of the dead, and how the rest have drifted away on the currents of life and are lost to me in the mists and shadows of time. Even the home and the hearth are gone; they
"Battled with time and slow decay,"
until at last they were wiped out from the things that are. The song of the peepers is a pleasant memory, and comes welling up with a thousand cherished recollections of our vanished youth; but the song of the cricket that made its home in the jams of the great stone fire-place is pleasanter, and the memories that come floating back with his remembered lay are pleasanter still. He was always there. He was not silent, like the out-door insect, through the spring month and the cold of winter, piping only in sadness when the still autumnal evenings close in their brightness and beauty over the earth; but he sang always, and his chirrup was heard at all seasons. In the winter the fire on the hearth warmed him; in the summer he had a cool resting place, and he was cheerful and merry through all the long year. And this reminds me of an anecdote of a venerable minister, who pa.s.sed years ago to his rest. He was a Scotchman, and when preaching to his own congregation at Salem, in Washington comity, he indulged in broad Scotch, which to those who were accustomed to it was exceedingly pleasant. I was a boy then, and was returning with my father from a visit to Vermont. We stopped over the Sabbath at Salem, and attended worship in the neat little church of that pleasant village. There were no railroads in those days. The iron horse had not yet made his advent, and the scream of the steam whistle had never startled the echoes that dwell among the gorges of the Green Mountain State. Oh!
Progress! Progress! I have travelled that same route often since, more than once within the year, and I flew over in an hour what was the work of all that cold winter day that brought us at night to that neat little village of Salem. I thought, as I dashed with a rush over the road I once travelled so leisurely, how change was written upon everything; how time and progress had obliterated all the old landmarks, leaving scarcely anything around which memory could cling.
Well! well! it is so everywhere. All over the world, change, improvement, progress are the words. The venerable minister, for his locks were grey, and time had ploughed deep furrows down his cheeks, and draws palpable lines across his brow, was, as my memory paints him, the personification of earnestness, sincerity and truth. The text and the drift of the sermon I have forgotten, save the little fragment that fixed itself in my memory by the singularity of the figure by which he ill.u.s.trated his meaning. He was speaking of the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the human heart, and how gently it won men from their sinful ways. He said, "It was not boisterous, like the rush of the tempest; it was not fierce, like the lightning; it was not loud, like the thunder; but it was a still sma" voice, like a wee cricket in the wa"s." I regard the cricket that chirruped in the wall as an inst.i.tution. One of the past to be sure, swept away by the current of progress, whose course is onward always; over everything, obliterating everything, hurling the things of today into history, or burying them in eternal oblivion. In this country there is nothing fixed, nothing stationary, and never has been since the first white man swung his axe against the outside forest tree; since the first green field was opened up to the sunlight from the deep shadows of the old forests that had stood there, grand, solemn, and boundless since this world was first thrown from the hand of G.o.d. There will be nothing fixed for centuries to come. The tide of progress will sweep onward in the future as it has done in the past. Onward is the great watchword of America, and American inst.i.tutions; onward and onward, over the ancient forests; onward, over the log-houses that stood in the van of civilization; over the great fire-places; over the cricket in the wall; over the old house dog that slept in the corner; over the loved faces that cl.u.s.tered around the blazing hearth in the days of our childhood; over everything primitive, everything, my friends, that you and I loved, when we were little children, and that comes drifting along down on the current of memory--bright visions of the returnless past. Ah, well! it is best that it should be so. It is best that the world should move on; that there should be no pause, no halting in the onward march. What are we that the earth should stand still at our bidding, or pause to contemplate our tears? Dust to dust is the great law, but so long as a phoenix rises from the ashes of decay, what right have we to murmur? Time may desolate and destroy, but man can build up and beautify. True, his works perish as he perishes, but new works and new men are rising forever to fill, and more than fill, the vacancies and desolations of the past. Go ahead then, world! Sweep along, Progress! Mow away, Time! Tear down temple and stronghold; sweep away the marble palace and log-house! sweep away infancy and youth, manhood and old age; wipe out old memories, and pa.s.s the sponge over cherished recollections. The energy and the ingenuity of man are an over-match even for time. From the ruins of the past, from the desolations of decay, new structures will rise, and a new harvest, more abundant than the old, will spring up from the stubble over which Time"s sickle has pa.s.sed. Recuperation is a law stronger than decay, and it is written all over the face of the earth."
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ACCIDENTS OF LIFE--"SOME MEN ACHIEVE GREATNESS, AND SOME HAVE GREATNESS THRUST UPON THEM"--A SLIDE--RATTLESNAKES AT THE TOP AND AN ICY POOL AT THE BOTTOM--A FANCIFUL THEORY.
While we sat thus conversing, our boatmen went down along the beach, and around a little point that ran out into the lake, to bathe. They were jolly, but uncultivated men, given to rudeness and profanity of speech when out of our immediate presence, and by themselves, and we heard from them, while they were splashing and struggling in the water, expressions somewhat inelegant as well as profane.
"I have often thought," said Spalding, as we listened to the rude and sometimes profane speech of our men, "how vast the influence which circ.u.mstances or accident, over which men have no control, have upon their conduct and destiny in this world, if not in the next. The poet has well said,
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of Ocean bear; And many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
"These rude men are but testifying to the great truth, that man is the creature, in a greater or less degree, of circ.u.mstances; that he is great or small, polished or rude, wise or simple, according to the accident of his birth, or the surroundings in the midst of which his journey of life lays. True, there _are_ intellects that will work themselves into position, men who will hew their way upward in spite of the difficulties which beset them, as there are others who will plunge down to degradation and dishonor, in defiance of tender rearing, of education, of a.s.sociation, and all the allurements to an upward career that can be presented to the human understanding. But these are so rare, that they may be properly regarded as exceptions to the general rule; so rare, indeed, as to prove its truth. You and I can look around us, and from among our acquaintances select many men and women, whose genius and solid understanding, and whose virtues too, have remained undeveloped, and probably will do so till they die, from lack of opportunity for their exercise. Accident seems to have stricken them from their legitimate sphere. Circ.u.mstances, for which they were not responsible, and over which they could exercise no control, have barred them out from their seeming true position in the world, and the genius which was intended for the daylight and the eagle"s flight towards the sun, is left to skim in darkness along the ground, like the course of the mousing owl. We have all seen another thing, which baffles our philosophy, while it proves the truth of the theory of which I am speaking. We have seen men, and see them every day, who, from no quality of heart or mind seem fitted to rise in the world, occupying commanding positions to which accident has lifted them; whose genius commands no admiration, whose virtues are of a doubtful character, and who possess no one quality which ent.i.tles them to our respect or the respect of the world. As the former are the victims of circ.u.mstance, these latter are its creatures. Both are the sport of fortune; the one cla.s.s its victims, and the other its favorites. How is all this to be accounted for? And where rests the responsibility of failure, and where the credit of success? Are there accidents floating about among the paths marked out on the chart of life by the Deity, which jostle his creatures from the destiny intended for them? Or were men thrown loose upon the currents of life, to take their chances of good and evil, to be virtuous or vile, according to the influences among which they were floating, to be fortunate or otherwise, as the means of advancing themselves drifted within their reach? If so, where rests the responsibility, I ask again, of failure, and where the credit of success? Children are born into the world under strangely different influences. One first sees the light in the haunts of vice and crime, amidst the corruptions which fester away down in the depths of a great city. The influences which surround it are only and always evil. They are such in infancy, in childhood, in youth, and in manhood. Another is cradled under the influence of intelligences, piety, virtue; having around it always the safeguards of refined and Christian civilization. What is the difference in the degree of responsibility attached to the future of these antipode beginnings? Can you tell me where, and how these wide, terribly wide distinctions are to be reconciled? When and where the career of these germs of being, starting from points so wide asunder, are to meet, and how the balances of good and evil, of suffering and enjoyment of sinning and retribution, are to be adjusted at last? I have been asking myself, too, while listening to the speech of these men, so thoughtlessly uttered, where these profane epithets, these impious expressions, are to rest at last? Who can tell whether they do not go jarring through the universe, marring the music of the spheres, throwing discord into the anthems of the morning stars when they sing together, a wail among the glad voices of the sons of G.o.d, when they shout for joy? In this world, and to the dulness of human perception, when the sound of the impious words has died away, or a smile comes back to the face clouded by the angry thought, the effect seems to have ceased; but it may not be so. The word or the thought may be wandering for ages, vibrating still, away off among the outer creations of G.o.d. The angel that bore them at the beginning from the lips or the heart, may be flying still, and generations and centuries may have pa.s.sed, before his journeying with them shall have ceased.
"It is a fanciful idea, that whatever we say or think, is immortal; that every word we utter goes ringing through the universe forever; that every thought of the heart becomes a creation, a thing of vitality in some shape, starting forward among the things of some sort of life, never to die! I have sometimes, in my dreamy hours, speculated upon the truth of such a theory, and reasoned with myself in favor of its reality. All I can say in its favor, however, is that I cannot disprove it. It may be true, or it may not. There are other mysteries quite as incomprehensible, the results of which we can see, without being able to penetrate the darkness in which they dwell. But a.s.suming its truth, and appreciating the consequences which would follow, we should rule the tongue with a sterner sway, and guard the heart with a more watchful care than is our wont. Think of the obscene word becoming a living ent.i.ty, the profane oath a thing of life; the filthy or impure thought, a.s.suming form and vitality, all starting forward to exist forever among the creations of infinite purity. Who would own one of these ogres in comparison with the beautiful things of G.o.d? Who would say of the obscene word, the profane oath, or the filthy or impious thought, "this is mine. I made it. I am the author of its being--its creator!" And yet it may be so. If it is, there are few of us who have not thrown into life much, very much to mar the harmonies of nature, to throw discord among the spheres."
"Your statement," remarked Smith, "that accident has much to do with making or marring the fortunes of men, is doubtless true. Men are destroyed by accident, and their lives are sometimes saved by it. And if you"ll put away metaphysics, come out of the cloud in which you have hid yourself in your dreamy speculations, I will furnish you with a case in point, showing that a man may get into a very unpleasant predicament, where he runs a great risk and gets some hard knocks, and yet be able to thank G.o.d for it, in perfect earnestness of spirit. A case of the kind came under my own observation, and while there was not much philosophy, or abstract speculation about it, there was a great deal of hard practical fact. It happened when I was a boy, at the old homestead, in the valley that stretches to the southwest from the head of Crooked Lake. That valley is hemmed in by high and steep hills, and at the tune of which I speak, was much more beautiful in my view than it is now. There was no village there then, and the farms which stretched from hill to hill were greatly less valuable than they are now; but the woods and pastures, and meadows, lay exactly in the right places, and had among them partridges, and squirrels, and pigeons, and cattle, and sheep enough to make things pleasant; besides, there were plenty of trout in those days, in the stream that flows along through the valley midway between the hills. On the north side, coming down through a gorge, or "the gulf," as we used to call it, was a stream which, in the dry season of the year, was a little brook, trickling over the rocks, but which, in the spring freshets, or when the clouds emptied themselves on the mountain, was a wild, foaming, roaring, and resistless torrent. In following this stream into "the gulf," you walked on a level plain between walls of rock, rising two or three hundred feet on either hand, and a dozen or more rods apart, until you came to "the falls," down which the stream rushed with a plunge and a roar, when its back was up, or over which, in the dry season, it quietly rippled. These "falls" were not perpendicular, but steep as the roof of a Dutch barn, and it was a great feat to climb them when the stream was low. Ascending about fifty feet, you came to a broad flat rock, large and smooth as a parlor floor, and which in the summer season was dry. Well, one day, in company with a boy who was visiting me, I went up to the "falls,"
and we concluded to climb the shelving rocks to the "table;" and taking off our shoes and stockings, entered upon the perilous ascent--for such to some extent it was. Hands and feet, fingers and toes, were all put in requisition. My friend began the ascent before I did, and was half way up when I started. I ought to have said, that at the foot of the "falls," was a basin, worn away by the torrent, and in which the water, clear and cold, then stood to the depth of three or four feet. We were toiling painfully up, when I heard a rush above, and in an instant my friend came like an arrow past me, sliding down the shelving rocks on his back, or rather in a half-sitting posture, his rear to the rocks. I won"t undertake to say that the fire flew as he went by me, for the rocks were slate, and therefore such a phenomenon was not likely to occur, but the entire absence of the seat of my friend"s pantaloons, and the blood that trickled down to his toes, showed that the friction was considerable. As he pa.s.sed me, I heard him exclaim, "thank G.o.d," and the next instant he plunged into the cold water at the base of the falls. What there was to be thankful for in such a descent over the rocks, I could not at the time comprehend, as the chances were in favor of a broken back, or neck, or some other consummation equally out of the range of grat.i.tude, in an ordinary way. He came up out of the water blowing and snorting like a porpoise with a cold in his head, and waded to the sh.o.r.e. "Come down,"
he shouted, which I did, not quite so far or fast as he did, but fast enough to make an involuntary plunge, head foremost, into the pool at the bottom. The occasion of his catastrophe was this: he had ascended so near the table rock, that his hands were upon it, and was lifting himself up, when, as his eyes came above the surface, the edge upon which his hands with most of his weight rested, gave way, and he started for the basin below. But he had a view of what satisfied him that to this accident he owed his life, and it was a sense of grat.i.tude for his escape, that prompted the exclamation I heard as he went b.u.mping past me. Coiled on the rock above, and within reach of his face, were several large rattlesnakes, and he always insisted that one made a spring at him, as his hands gave way, and he put out for the basin into which he plunged. He was a good deal bruised, but his escape from the poisonous reptiles reconciled him to that."
CHAPTER XXV.
HEADED TOWARDS HOME--THE MARTIN AND SABLE HUNTER--HIS CABIN--AUTUMNAL SCENERY.