Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated) (509 page)

A drove of pigs passing at dusk. They appeared not so much disposed to ramble and go astray from the line of march as in daylight, but kept together in a pretty compact body. There was a general grunting, not violent at all, but low and quiet, as if they were expressing their sentiments among themselves in a companionable way. Pigs, on a march, do not subject themselves to any leader among themselves, but pass on, higgledy-piggledy, without regard to age or sex.

September 1st. — Last evening, during a walk, Graylock and the whole of Saddleback were at first imbued with a mild, half-sunshiny tinge, then grew almost black, — a huge, dark mass lying on the back of the earth and encumbering it. Stretching up from behind the black mountain, over a third or more of the sky, there was a heavy, sombre blue heap or ledge of clouds, looking almost as solid as rocks. The volumes of which it was composed were perceptible, by translucent lines and fissures; but the mass, as a whole, seemed as solid, bulky, and ponderous in the cloud-world as the mountain was on earth. The mountain and cloud together had an indescribably stern and majestic aspect. Beneath this heavy cloud, there was a fleet or flock of light, vapory mists, flitting in middle air; and these were tinted, from the vanished sun, with the most gorgeous and living purple that can be conceived, — a fringe upon the stern blue. In the opposite quarter of the heavens, a rose-light was reflected, whence I know not, which colored the clouds around the moon, then well above the horizon, so that the nearly round and silver moon appeared strangely among roseate clouds, — sometimes half obscured by them.

A man with a smart horse, upon which the landlord makes laudatory remarks. He replies that he has “a better at home.” Dressed in a brown, bright-buttoned coat, smartly cut. He immediately becomes familiar, and begins to talk of the license law, and other similar topics, — making himself at home, as one who, being much of his time upon the road, finds himself at ease at any tavern. He inquired after a stage agent, named Brigham, who formerly resided here, but now has gone to the West. He himself was probably a horse-jockey.

An old lady, stopping here over the Sabbath, waiting for to-morrow's stage for Greenfield, having been deceived by the idea that she could proceed on her journey without delay. Quiet, making herself comfortable, taken into the society of the women of the house.

September 3d. — On the slope of Bald Mountain a clearing, set in the frame of the forest on all sides, — a growth of clover upon it, which, having been mowed once this year, is now appropriated to pasturage. Stumps remaining in the ground; one tall, barkless stem of a tree standing upright, branchless, and with a shattered summit. One or two other stems lying prostrate and partly overgrown with bushes and shrubbery, some of them bearing a yellow flower, — a color which Autumn loves. The stumps and trunks fire-blackened, yet nothing about them that indicates a recent clearing, but the roughness of an old clearing, that, being removed from convenient labor, has none of the polish of the homestead. The field, with slight undulations, slopes pretty directly down. Near the lower verge, a rude sort of barn, or rather haystack roofed over, and with hay protruding and hanging out. An ox feeding, and putting up his muzzle to pull down a mouthful of hay; but seeing me, a stranger, in the upper part of the field, he remains long gazing, and finally betakes himself to feeding again. A solitary butterfly flitting to and fro, blown slightly on its course by a cool September wind, — the coolness of which begins to be tempered by a bright, glittering sun. There is dew on the grass. In front, beyond the lower spread of forest, Saddle Mountain rises, and the valleys and long, swelling hills sweep away. But the impression of this clearing is solitude, as of a forgotten land.

It is customary here to toll the bell at the death of a person, at the hour of his death, whether A. M. or P. M. Not, however, I suppose, if it happen in deep night.

“There are three times in a man's life when he is talked about, — when he is born, when he is married, and when he dies.” “Yes,” said Orrin S —
 
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— , “and only one of the times has he to pay anything for it out of his own pocket.” (In reference to a claim by the guests of the bar-room on the man Amasa Richardson for a treat.)

A wood-chopper, travelling the country in search of jobs at chopping. His baggage a bundle, a handkerchief, and a pair of coarse boots. His implement an axe, most keenly ground and sharpened, which I had noticed standing in a corner, and thought it would almost serve as a razor. I saw another wood-chopper sitting down on the ascent of Bald Mountain, with his axe on one side and a jug and provisions on the other, on the way to his day's toil.

The Revolutionary pensioners come out into the sunshine to make oath that they are still above ground. One, whom Mr. S —
 
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— saluted as “Uncle John,” went into the bar-room, walking pretty stoutly by the aid of a long, oaken staff, — with an old, creased, broken and ashen bell-crowned hat on his head, and wearing a brown old-fashioned suit of clothes. Pretty portly, fleshy in the face, and with somewhat of a paunch, cheerful, and his senses, bodily and mental, in no very bad order, though he is now in his ninetieth year. “An old man's withered and wilted apple,” quoth Uncle John, “keeps a good while.” Mr. S —
 
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— says his grandfather lived to be a hundred, and that his legs became covered with moss, like the trunk of an old tree. Uncle John would smile and cackle at a little jest, and what life there was in him seemed a good-natured and comfortable one enough. He can walk two or three miles, he says, “taking it moderate.” I suppose his state is that of a drowsy man but partly conscious of life, — walking as through a dim dream, but brighter at some seasons than at others. By and by he will fall quite asleep, without any trouble. Mr. S —
 
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— , unbidden, gave him a glass of gin, which the old man imbibed by the warm fireside, and grew the younger for it.

September 4th. — This day an exhibition of animals in the vicinity of the village, under a pavilion of sail-cloth, — the floor being the natural grass, with here and there a rock partially protruding. A pleasant, mild shade; a strip of sunshine or a spot of glimmering brightness in some parts. Crowded, — row above row of women, on an amphitheatre of seats, on one side. In an inner pavilion an exhibition of anacondas, — four, — which the showman took, one by one, from a large box, under some blankets, and hung round his shoulders. They seemed almost torpid when first taken out, but gradually began to assume life, to stretch, to contract, twine and writhe about his neck and person, thrusting out their tongues and erecting their heads. Their weight was as much as he could bear, and they hung down almost to the ground when not contorted, — as big round as a thigh, almost, — spotted and richly variegated. Then he put them into the box again, their heads emerging and writhing forth, which the showman thrust back again. He gave a descriptive and historical account of them, and a fanciful and poetical one also. A man put his arm and head into the lion's mouth, — all the spectators looking on so attentively that a breath could not be heard. That was impressive, — its effect on a thousand persons, — more so than the thing itself.

In the evening the caravan people were at the tavern, talking of their troubles in coming over the mountain, — the overturn of a cage containing two leopards and a hyena. They are a rough, ignorant set of men, apparently incapable of taking any particular enjoyment from the life of variety and adventure which they lead. There was the man who put his head into the lion's mouth, and, I suppose, the man about whom the anacondas twined, talking about their suppers, and blustering for hot meat, and calling for something to drink, without anything of the wild dignity of men familiar with the nobility of nature.

A character of a desperate young man, who employs high courage and strong faculties in this sort of dangers, and wastes his talents in wild riot, addressing the audience as a snake-man, — keeping the ring while the monkey rides the pony, — singing negro and other songs.

The country boors were continually getting within the barriers, and venturing too near the cages. The great lion lay with his fore paws extended, and a calm, majestic, but awful countenance. He looked on the people as if he had seen many such concourses. The hyena was the most ugly and dangerous looking beast, full of spite, and on ill terms with all nature, looking a good deal like a hog with the devil in him, the ridge of hair along his back bristling. He was in the cage with a leopard and a panther, and the latter seemed continually on the point of laying his paw on the hyena, who snarled, and showed his teeth. It is strange, though, to see how these wild beasts acknowledge and practise a degree of mutual forbearance, and of obedience to man, with their wild nature yet in them. The great white bear seemed in distress from the heat, moving his head and body in a peculiar, fantastic way, and eagerly drinking water when given it. He was thin and lank.

The caravan men were so sleepy, Orrin S —
 
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— says, that he could hardly wake them in the morning. They turned over on their faces to show him.

Coming out of the caravansary, there were the mountains, in the quiet sunset, and many men drunk, swearing, and fighting. Shanties with liquor for sale.

The elephant lodged in the barn.

September 5th. — I took a walk of three miles from the village, which brought me into Vermont. The line runs athwart a bridge, — a rude bridge, which crosses a mountain stream. The stream runs deep at the bottom of a gorge, plashing downward, with rapids and pools, and bestrewn with large rocks, deep and shady, not to be reached by the sun except in its meridian, as well on account of the depth of the gorge as of the arch of wilderness trees above it. There was a stumpy clearing beyond the bridge, where some men were building a house. I went to them, and inquired if I were in Massachusetts or Vermont, and asked for some water. Whereupon they showed great hospitality, and the master-workman went to the spring, and brought delicious water in a tin basin, and produced another jug containing “new rum, and very good; and rum does nobody any harm if they make a good use of it,” quoth he. I invited them to call on me at the hotel, if they should cone to the village within two or three days. Then I took my way back through the forest, for this is a by-road, and is, much of its course, a sequestrated and wild one, with an unseen torrent roaring at an unseen depth, along the roadside.

My walk forth had been an almost continued ascent, and, returning, I had an excellent view of Graylock and the adjacent mountains, at such a distance that they were all brought into one group, and comprehended at one view, as belonging to the same company, — all mighty, with a mightier chief. As I drew nearer home, they separated, and the unity of effect was lost. The more distant then disappeared behind the nearer ones, and finally Graylock itself was lost behind the hill which immediately shuts in the village. There was a warm, autumnal haze, which, I think, seemed to throw the mountains farther off, and both to enlarge and soften them.

To imagine the gorges and deep hollows in among the group of mountains, — their huge shoulders and protrusions.

“They were just beginning to pitch over the mountains, as I came along,” — stage-driver's expression about the caravan.

A fantastic figure of a village coxcomb, striding through the bar-room, and standing with folded arms to survey the caravan men. There is much exaggeration and rattle-brain about this fellow.

A mad girl leaped from the top of a tremendous precipice in Pownall, hundreds of feet high, if the tale be true, and, being buoyed up by her clothes, came safely to the bottom.

Inquiries about the coming of the caravan, and whether the elephant had got to town, and reports that he had.

A smart, plump, crimson-faced gentleman, with a travelling-portmanteau of peculiar neatness and convenience. He criticises the road over the mountain, having come in the Greenfield stage; perhaps an engineer.

Bears still inhabit Saddleback and the neighboring mountains and forests. Six were taken in Pownall last year, and two hundred foxes. Sometimes they appear on the hills, in close proximity to this village.

September 7th. — Mr. Leach and I took a walk by moonlight last evening, on the road that leads over the mountain. Remote from houses, far up on the hillside, we found a lime-kiln, burning near the road; and, approaching it, a watcher started from the ground, where he had been lying at his length. There are several of these lime-kilns in this vicinity. They are circular, built with stones, like a round tower, eighteen or twenty feet high, having a hillock heaped around in a great portion of their circumference, so that the marble may be brought and thrown in by cart-loads at the top. At the bottom there is a doorway, large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture. Thus an edifice of great solidity is constructed, which will endure for centuries, unless needless pains are taken to tear it down. There is one on the hillside, close to the village, wherein weeds grow at the bottom, and grass and shrubs too are rooted in the interstices of the stones, and its low doorway has a dungeon-like aspect, and we look down from the top as into a roofless tower. It apparently has not been used for many years, and the lime and weather-stained fragments of marble are scattered about.