Uncle John passed his other hand over her hair,—

"You shall stay with me for the present, my darling,—perhaps as long as I live. But life is not over for you, Alice. You have youth,—you have years in store. For you it is not too late."



AN EVENING MELODY.

Oh that yon pines which crown the steep Their fires might ne'er surrender! Oh that yon fervid knoll might keep, While lasts the world, its splendor!

Pale poplars on the wind that lean, And in the sunset shiver, Oh that your golden stems might screen For aye yon glassy river!

That yon white bird on homeward wing Soft-sliding without motion, And now in blue air vanishing Like snow-flake lost in ocean,

Beyond our sight might never flee, Yet onward still be flying; And all the dying day might be Immortal in its dying!

Pellucid thus in golden trance, Thus mute in expectation, What waits the Earth? Deliverance? Ah, no! Transfiguration!

She dreams of that New Earth divine, Conceived of seed immortal: She sings, "Not mine the holier shrine, But mine the cloudy portal!"



CHESUNCOOK

[Concluded.]

Early the next morning we started on our return up the Penobscot, my companion wishing to go about twenty-five miles above the Moosehead carry to a camp near the junction of the two forks, and look for moose there. Our host allowed us something for the quarter of the moose which we had brought, and which he was glad to get. Two explorers from Chamberlain Lake started at the same time that we did. Red flannel shirts should be worn in the woods, if only for the fine contrast which this color makes with the evergreens and the water. Thus I thought when I saw the forms of the explorers in their birch, poling up the rapids before us, far off against the forest. It is the surveyor's color also, most distinctly seen under all circumstances. We stopped to dine at Ragmuff, as before. My companion it was who wandered up the stream to look for moose this time, while Joe went to sleep on the bank, so that we felt sure of him; and I improved the opportunity to botanize and bathe. Soon after starting again, while Joe was gone back in the canoe for the frying-pan, which had been left, we picked a couple of quarts of tree-cranberries for a sauce.

I was surprised by Joe's asking me how far it was to the Moosehorn. He was pretty well acquainted with this stream, but he had noticed that I was curious about distances, and had several maps. He, and Indians generally, with whom I have talked, are not able to describe dimensions or distances in our measures with any accuracy. He could tell, perhaps, at what time we should arrive, but not how far it was. We saw a few wood-ducks, sheldrakes, and black ducks, but they were not so numerous there at that season as on our river at home. We scared the same family of wood-ducks before us, going and returning. We also heard the note of one fish-hawk, somewhat like that of a pigeon-woodpecker, and soon after saw him perched near the top of a dead white-pine against the island where we had first camped, while a company of peetweets were twittering and teetering about over the carcass of a moose on a low sandy spit just beneath. We drove the fish-hawk from perch to perch, each time eliciting a scream or whistle, for many miles before us. Our course being up-stream, we were obliged to work much harder than before, and had frequent use for a pole. Sometimes all three of us paddled together, standing up, small and heavily laden as the canoe was. About six miles from Moosehead, we began to see the mountains east of the north end of the lake, and at four o'clock we reached the carry.

The Indians were still encamped here. There were three, including the St. Francis Indian who had come in the steamer with us. One of the others was called Sabattis. Joe and the St. Francis Indian were plainly clear Indian, the other two apparently mixed Indian and white; but the difference was confined to their features and complexions, for all that I could see. We here cooked the tongue of the moose for supper,—having left the nose, which is esteemed the choicest part, at Chesuncook, boiling, it being a good deal of trouble to prepare it. We also stewed our tree-cranberries, (Viburnum opulus,) sweetening them with sugar. The lumberers sometimes cook them with molasses. They were used in Arnold's expedition. This sauce was very grateful to us who had been confined to hard bread, pork, and moose-meat, and, notwithstanding their seeds, we all three pronounced them equal to the common cranberry; but perhaps some allowance is to be made for our forest appetites. It would be worth the while to cultivate them, both for beauty and for food. I afterward saw them in a garden in Bangor. Joe said that they were called ebeemenar.

While we were getting supper, Joe commenced curing the moose-hide, on which I had sat a good part of the voyage, he having already cut most of the hair off with his knife at the Caucomgomoc. He set up two stout forked poles on the bank, seven or eight feet high, and as much asunder east and west, and having cut slits eight or ten inches long, and the same distance apart, close to the edge, on the sides of the hide, he threaded poles through them, and then, placing one of the poles on the forked stakes, tied the other down tightly at the bottom. The two ends also were tied with cedar bark, their usual string, to the upright poles, through small holes at short intervals. The hide, thus stretched, and slanted a little to the north, to expose its flesh side to the sun, measured, in the extreme, eight feet long by six high. Where any flesh still adhered, Joe boldly scored it with his knife to lay it open to the sun. It now appeared somewhat spotted and injured by the duck shot. You may see the old frames on which hides have been stretched at many camping-places in these woods.

For some reason or other, the going to the forks of the Penobscot was given up, and we decided to stop here, my companion intending to hunt down the stream at night. The Indians invited us to lodge with them, but my companion inclined to go to the log-camp on the carry. This camp was close and dirty, and had an ill smell, and I preferred to accept the Indians' offer, if we did not make a camp for ourselves; for, though they were dirty, too, they were more in the open air, and were much more agreeable, and even refined company, than the lumberers. The most interesting question entertained at the lumberers' camp was, which man could "handle" any other on the carry; and, for the most part, they possessed no qualities which you could not lay hands on. So we went to the Indians' camp or wigwam.

It was rather windy, and therefore Joe concluded to hunt after midnight, if the wind went down, which the other Indians thought it would not do, because it was from the south. The two mixed bloods, however, went off up the river for moose at dark, before we arrived at their camp. This Indian camp was a slight, patched-up affair, which had stood there several weeks, built shed-fashion, open to the fire on the west. If the wind changed, they could turn it round. It was formed by two forked stakes and a cross-bar, with rafters slanted from this to the ground. The covering was partly an old sail, partly birch-bark, quite imperfect, but securely tied on, and coming down to the ground on the sides. A large log was rolled up at the back side for a headboard, and two or three moose-hides were spread on the ground with the hair up. Various articles of their wardrobe were tucked around the sides and corners, or under the roof. They were smoking moose-meat on just such a crate as is represented by With in De Bry's "Collectio Peregrinationum," published in 1588, and which the natives of Brazil called boucan, (whence buccaneer,) on which were frequently shown pieces of human flesh drying along with the rest. It was erected in front of the camp over the usual large fire, in the form of an oblong square. Two stout forked stakes, four or five feet apart and five feet high, were driven into the ground at each end, and then two poles ten feet long were stretched across over the fire, and smaller ones laid transversely on these a foot apart. On the last hung large, thin slices of moose-meat smoking and drying, a space being left open over the centre of the fire. There was the whole heart, black as a thirty-two pound ball, hanging at one corner. They said, that it took three or four days to cure this meat, and it would keep a year or more. Refuse pieces lay about on the ground in different stages of decay, and some pieces also in the fire, half buried and sizzling in the ashes, as black and dirty as an old shoe. These last I at first thought were thrown away, but afterwards found that they were being cooked. Also a tremendous rib-piece was roasting before the fire, being impaled on an upright stake forced in and out between the ribs. There was a moose-hide stretched and curing on poles like ours, and quite a pile of cured skins close by. They had killed twenty-two moose within two months, but, as they could use but very little of the meat, they left the carcasses on the ground. Altogether it was about as savage a sight as was ever witnessed, and I was carried back at once three hundred years. There were many torches of birch-bark, shaped like straight tin horns, lying ready for use on a stump outside.

For fear of dirt, we spread our blankets over their hides, so as not to touch them anywhere. The St. Francis Indian and Joe alone were there at first, and we lay on our backs talking with them till midnight. They were very sociable, and, when they did not talk with us, kept up a steady chatting in their own language. We heard a small bird just after dark, which, Joe said, sang at a certain hour in the night,—at ten o'clock, he believed. We also heard the hylodes and tree-toads, and the lumberers singing in their camp a quarter of a mile off. I told them that I had seen pictured in old books pieces of human flesh drying on these crates; whereupon they repeated some tradition about the Mohawks eating human flesh, what parts they preferred, etc., and also of a battle with the Mohawks near Moosehead, in which many of the latter were killed; but I found that they knew but little of the history of their race, and could be entertained by stories about their ancestors as readily as any way. At first I was nearly roasted out, for I lay against one side of the camp, and felt the heat reflected not only from the birch-bark above, but from the side; and again I remembered the sufferings of the Jesuit missionaries, and what extremes of heat and cold the Indians were said to endure. I struggled long between my desire to remain and talk with them, and my impulse to rush out and stretch myself on the cool grass; and when I was about to take the last step, Joe, hearing my murmurs, or else being uncomfortable himself, got up and partially dispersed the fire. I suppose that that is Indian manners,—to defend yourself.

While lying there listening to the Indians, I amused myself with trying to guess at their subject by their gestures, or some proper name introduced. There can be no more startling evidence of their being a distinct and comparatively aboriginal race, than to hear this unaltered Indian language, which the white man cannot speak nor understand. We may suspect change and deterioration in almost every other particular, but the language which is so wholly unintelligible to us. It took me by surprise, though I had found so many arrow-heads, and convinced me that the Indian was not the invention of historians and poets. It was a purely wild and primitive American sound, as much as the barking of a chickaree, and I could not understand a syllable of it; but Paugus, had he been there, would have understood it. These Abenakis gossiped, laughed, and jested, in the language in which Eliot's Indian Bible is written, the language which has been spoken in New England who shall say how long? These were the sounds that issued from the wigwams of this country before Columbus was born; they have not yet died away; and, with remarkably few exceptions, the language of their forefathers is still copious enough for them. I felt that I stood, or rather lay, as near to the primitive man of America, that night, as any of its discoverers ever did.

In the midst of their conversation, Joe suddenly appealed to me to know how long Moosehead Lake was.

Meanwhile, as we lay there, Joe was making and trying his horn, to be ready for hunting after midnight. The St. Francis Indian also amused himself with sounding it, or rather calling through it; for the sound is made with the voice, and not by blowing through the horn. The latter appeared to be a speculator in moose-hides. He bought my companion's for two dollars and a quarter, green. Joe said that it was worth two and a half at Oldtown. Its chief use is for moccasins. One or two of these Indians wore them. I was told, that, by a recent law of Maine, foreigners are not allowed to kill moose there at any season; white Americans can kill them only at a particular season, but the Indians of Maine at all seasons. The St. Francis Indian accordingly asked my companion for a wighiggin, or bill, to show, since he was a foreigner. He lived near Sorel. I found that he could write his name very well, Tahmunt Swasen. One Ellis, an old white man of Guilford, a town through which we passed, not far from the south end of Moosehead, was the most celebrated moose-hunter of those parts. Indians and whites spoke with equal respect of him. Tahmunt said, that there were more moose here than in the Adirondack country in New York, where he had hunted; that three years before there were a great many about, and there were a great many now in the woods, but they did not come out to the water. It was of no use to hunt them at midnight,—they would not come out then. I asked Sabattis, after he came home, if the moose never attacked him. He answered, that you must not fire many times so as to mad him. "I fire once and hit him in the right place, and in the morning I find him. He won't go far. But if you keep firing, you mad him. I fired once five bullets, every one through the heart, and he did not mind 'em at all; it only made him more mad." I asked him if they did not hunt them with dogs. He said, that they did so in winter, but never in the summer, for then it was of no use; they would run right off straight and swiftly a hundred miles.

Another Indian said, that the moose, once scared, would run all day. A dog will hang to their lips, and be carried along till he is swung against a tree and drops off. They cannot run on a "glaze," though they can run in snow four feet deep; but the caribou can run on ice. They commonly find two or three moose together. They cover themselves with water, all but their noses, to escape flies. He had the horns of what he called "the black moose that goes in low lands." These spread three or four feet. The "red moose" was another kind, "running on mountains," and had horns which spread six feet. Such were his distinctions. Both can move their horns. The broad flat blades are covered with hair, and are so soft, when the animal is alive, that you can run a knife through them. They regard it as a good or bad sign, if the horns turn this way or that. His caribou horns had been gnawed by mice in his wigwam, but he thought that the horns neither of the moose nor of the caribou were ever gnawed while the creature was alive, as some have asserted. An Indian, whom I met after this at Oldtown, who had carried about a bear and other animals of Maine to exhibit, told me that thirty years ago there were not so many moose in Maine as now; also, that the moose were very easily tamed, and would come back when once fed, and so would deer, but not caribou. The Indians of this neighborhood are about as familiar with the moose as we are with the ox, having associated with them for so many generations. Father Rasles, in his Dictionary of the Abenaki Language, gives not only a word for the male moose, (aianbe) and another for the female, (herar,) but for the bone which is in the middle of the heart of the moose (!), and for his left hind-leg.

There were none of the small deer up there; they are more common about the settlements. One ran into the city of Bangor two years before, and jumped through a window of costly plate glass, and then into a mirror, where it thought it recognized one of its kind, and out again, and so on, leaping over the heads of the crowd, until it was captured. This the inhabitants speak of as the deer that went a-shopping. The last-mentioned Indian spoke of the lunxus or Indian devil, (which I take to be the cougar, and not the Gulo luscus,) as the only animal in Maine which man need fear; it would follow a man, and did not mind a fire. He also said, that beavers were getting to be pretty numerous again, where we went, but their skins brought so little now that it was not profitable to hunt them.

I had put the ears of our moose, which were ten inches long, to dry along with the moose-meat over the fire, wishing to preserve them; but Sabattis told me that I must skin and cure them, else the hair would all come off. He observed, that they made tobacco-pouches of the skins of their ears, putting the two together inside to inside. I asked him how he got fire; and he produced a little cylindrical box of friction-matches. He also had flints and steel, and some punk, which was not dry; I think it was from the yellow birch. "But suppose you upset, and all these and your powder get wet." "Then," said he, "we wait till we get to where there is some fire." I produced from my pocket a little vial, containing matches, stoppled water-tight, and told him, that, though we were upset, we should still have some dry matches; at which he stared without saying a word.

We lay awake thus a long while talking, and they gave us the meaning of many Indian names of lakes and streams in the vicinity,—especially Tahmunt. I asked the Indian name of Moosehead Lake. Joe answered, Sebamook; Tahmunt pronounced it Sebemook. When I asked what it meant, they answered, Moosehead Lake. At length, getting my meaning, they alternately repeated the word over to themselves, as a philologist might,—Sebamook,—Sebamook,—now and then comparing notes in Indian; for there was a slight difference in their dialects; and finally Tahmunt said, "Ugh! I know,"—and he rose up partly on the moose-hide,—"like as here is a place, and there is a place," pointing to different parts of the hide, "and you take water from there and fill this, and it stays here; that is Sebamook." I understood him to mean that it was a reservoir of water which did not run away, the river coming in on one side and passing out again near the same place, leaving a permanent bay. Another Indian said, that it meant Large-Bay Lake, and that Sebago and Sebec, the names of other lakes, were kindred words, meaning large open water. Joe said that Seboois meant Little River. I observed their inability, often described, to convey an abstract idea. Having got the idea, though indistinctly, they groped about in vain for words with which to express it. Tahmunt thought that the whites called it Moosehead Lake, because Mount Kineo, which commands it, is shaped like a moose's head, and that Moose River was so called "because the mountain points right across the lake to its mouth." John Josselyn, writing about 1673, says, "Twelve miles from Casco Bay, and passable for men and horses, is a lake, called by the Indians Sebug. On the brink thereof, at one end, is the famous rock, shaped like a moose deer or helk, diaphanous, and called the Moose Rock." He appears to have confounded Sebamook with Sebago, which is nearer, but has no "diaphanous" rock on its shore.

I give more of their definitions, for what they are worth,—partly because they differ sometimes from the commonly received ones. They never analyzed these words before. After long deliberation and repeating of the word, for it gave much trouble, Tahmunt said that Chesuncook meant a place where many streams emptied in (?), and he enumerated them,—Penobscot, Umbazookskus, Cusabesex, Red Brook, etc.—"Caucomgomoc,—what does that mean?" "What are those large white birds?" he asked. "Gulls," said I. "Ugh! Gull Lake."—Pammadumcook, Joe thought, meant the Lake with Gravelly Bottom or Bed.—Kenduskeag, Tahmunt concluded at last, after asking if birches went up it, for he said that he was not much acquainted with it, meant something like this: "You go up Penobscot till you come to Kenduskeag, and you go by, you don't turn up there. That is Kenduskeag." (?) Another Indian, however, who knew the river better, told us afterward that it meant Little Eel River.—Mattawamkeag was a place where two rivers meet. (?)—Penobscot was Rocky River. One writer says, that this was "originally the name of only a section of the main channel, from the head of the tide-water to a short distance above Oldtown."

A very intelligent Indian, whom we afterward met, son-in-law of Neptune, gave us also these other definitions:—Umbazookskus, Meadow Stream; Millinoket, Place of Islands; Aboljacarmegus, Smooth-Ledge Falls (and Dead-Water); Aboljacarmeguscook, the stream emptying in; (the last was the word he gave when I asked about Aboljacknagesic, which he did not recognize;) Mattahumkeag, Sand-Creek Pond; Piscataquis, Branch of a River.

I asked our hosts what Musketaquid, the Indian name of Concord, Mass., meant; but they changed it to Musketicook, and repeated that, and Tahmunt said that it meant Dead Stream, which is probably true. Cook appears to mean stream, and perhaps quid signifies the place or ground. When I asked the meaning of the names of two of our hills, they answered that they were another language. As Tahmunt said that he traded at Quebec, my companion inquired the meaning of the word Quebec, about which there has been so much question. He did not know, but began to conjecture. He asked what those great ships were called that carried soldiers. "Men-of-war," we answered. "Well," he said, "when the English ships came up the river, they could not go any further, it was so narrow there; they must go back,—go-back,—that's Que-bec." I mention this to show the value of his authority in the other cases.

Late at night the other two Indians came home from moose-hunting, not having been successful, aroused the fire again, lighted their pipes, smoked awhile, took something strong to drink, and ate some moose-meat, and, finding what room they could, lay down on the moose-hides; and thus we passed the night, two white men and four Indians, side by side.

When I awoke in the morning the weather was drizzling. One of the Indians was lying outside, rolled in his blanket, on the opposite side of the fire, for want of room. Joe had neglected to awake my companion, and he had done no hunting that night. Tahmunt was making a cross-bar for his canoe with a singularly shaped knife, such as I have since seen other Indians using. The blade was thin, about three quarters of an inch wide, and eight or nine inches long, but curved out of its plane into a hook, which he said made it more convenient to shave with. As the Indians very far north and northwest use the same kind of knife, I suspect that it was made according to an aboriginal pattern, though some white artisans may use a similar one. The Indians baked a loaf of flour bread in a spider on its edge before the fire for their breakfast; and while my companion was making tea, I caught a dozen sizable fishes in the Penobscot, two kinds of sucker and one trout. After we had breakfasted by ourselves, one of our bedfellows, who had also breakfasted, came along, and, being invited, took a cup of tea, and finally, taking up the common platter, licked it clean. But he was nothing to a white fellow, a lumberer, who was continually stuffing himself with the Indians' moose-meat, and was the butt of his companions accordingly. He seems to have thought that it was a feast "to eat all." It is commonly said that the white man finally surpasses the Indian on his own ground, and it was proved true in this case. I cannot swear to his employment during the hours of darkness, but I saw him at it again as soon as it was light, though he came a quarter of a mile to his work.

The rain prevented our continuing any longer in the woods; so giving some of our provisions and utensils to the Indians, we took leave of them. This being the steamer's day, I set out for the lake at once. At the carry-man's camp I saw many little birds, brownish and yellowish, with some white tail-feathers, hopping on the wood-pile, in company with the slate-colored snow-bird, (Fringilla hiemalis,) but more familiar than they. The lumberers said that they came round their camps, and they gave them a vulgar name. Their simple and lively note, which was heard in all the woods, was very familiar to me, though I had never before chanced to see the bird while uttering it, and it interested me not a little, because I had had many a vain chase in a spring-morning in the direction of that sound, in order to identify the bird. On the 28th of the next month, (October,) I saw in my yard, in a drizzling day, many of the same kind of birds flitting about amid the weeds, and uttering a faint chip merely. There was one full-plumaged Yellow-crowned Warbler (Sylvia coronata) among them, and I saw that the others were the young birds of that season. They had followed me from Moosehead and the North. I have since frequently seen the full-plumaged ones while uttering that note in the spring.

I walked over the carry alone and waited at the head of the lake. An eagle, or some other large bird, flew screaming away from its perch by the shore at my approach. For an hour after I reached the shore there was not a human being to be seen, and I had all that wide prospect to myself. I thought that I heard the sound of the steamer before she came in sight on the open lake. I noticed at the landing, when the steamer came in, one of our bedfellows, who had been a-moose-hunting the night before, now very sprucely dressed in a clean white shirt and fine black pants, a true Indian dandy, who had evidently come over the carry to show himself to any arrivers on the north shore of Moosehead Lake, just as New York dandies take a turn up Broadway and stand on the steps of a hotel.

Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking middle-aged men, with their bateau, who had been exploring for six weeks as far as the Canada line, and had let their beards grow. They had the skin of a beaver, which they had recently caught, stretched on an oval hoop, though the fur was not good at that season. I talked with one of them, telling him that I had come all this distance partly to see where the white-pine, the Eastern stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I had found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered, that he could hardly tell me. However, he said that he had found enough to employ two teams the next winter in a place where there was thought to be none left. What was considered a "tip-top" tree now was not looked at twenty years ago, when he first went into the business; but they succeeded very well now with what was considered quite inferior timber then. The explorer used to cut into a tree higher and higher up, to see if it was false-hearted, and if there was a rotten heart as big as his arm, he let it alone; but now they cut such a tree, and sawed it all around the rot, and it made the very best of boards, for in such a case they were never shaky.

One connected with lumbering operations at Bangor told me that the largest pine belonging to his firm, cut the previous winter, "scaled" in the woods four thousand five hundred feet, and was worth ninety dollars in the log at the Bangor boom in Oldtown. They cut a road three and a half miles long for this tree alone. He thought that the principal locality for the white-pine that came down the Penobscot now was at the head of the East Branch and the Allegash, about Webster Stream and Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes. Much timber has been stolen from the public lands. (Pray, what kind of forest-warden is the Public itself?) I heard of one man who, having discovered some particularly fine trees just within the boundaries of the public lands, and not daring to employ an accomplice, cut them down, and by means of block and tackle, without cattle, tumbled them into a stream, and so succeeded in getting off with them without the least assistance. Surely, stealing pine-trees in this way is not so mean as robbing hen-roosts.

We reached Monson that night, and the next day rode to Bangor, all the way in the rain again, varying our route a little. Some of the taverns on this road, which were particularly dirty, were plainly in a transition state from the camp to the house.

* * * * *

The next forenoon we went to Oldtown. One slender old Indian on the Oldtown shore, who recognized my companion, was full of mirth and gestures, like a Frenchman. A Catholic priest crossed to the island in the same bateau with us. The Indian houses are framed, mostly of one story, and in rows one behind another, at the south end of the island, with a few scattered ones. I counted about forty, not including the church and what my companion called the council-house. The last, which I suppose is their town-house, was regularly framed and shingled like the rest. There were several of two stories, quite neat, with front-yards inclosed, and one at least had green blinds. Here and there were moose-hides stretched and drying about them. There were no cart-paths, nor tracks of horses, but foot-paths; very little land cultivated, but an abundance of weeds, indigenous and naturalized; more introduced weeds than useful vegetables, as the Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen. The children were not particularly ragged nor dirty. The little boys met us with bow in hand and arrow on string, and cried, "Put up a cent." Verily, the Indian has but a feeble hold on his bow now; but the curiosity of the white man is insatiable, and from the first he has been eager to witness this forest accomplishment. That elastic piece of wood with its feathered dart, so sure to be unstrung by contact with civilization, will serve for the type, the coat-of-arms of the savage. Alas for the Hunter Race! the white man has driven off their game, and substituted a cent in its place. I saw an Indian woman washing at the water's edge. She stood on a rock, and, after dipping the clothes in the stream, laid them on the rock, and beat them with a short club. In the grave-yard, which was crowded with graves, and overrun with weeds, I noticed an inscription in Indian, painted on a wooden grave-board. There was a large wooden cross on the island.

Since my companion knew him, we called on Governor Neptune, who lived in a little "ten-footer," one of the humblest of them all. Personalities are allowable in speaking of public men, therefore I will give the particulars of our visit. He was a-bed. When we entered the room, which was one half of the house, he was sitting on the side of the bed. There was a clock hanging in one corner. He had on a black frock-coat, and black pants, much worn, white cotton shirt, socks, a red silk handkerchief about his neck, and a straw hat. His black hair was only slightly grayed. He had very broad cheeks, and his features were decidedly and refreshingly different from those of any of the upstart Native American party whom I have seen. He was no darker than many old white men. He told me that he was eighty-nine; but he was going a-moose-hunting that fall, as he had been the previous one. Probably his companions did the hunting. We saw various squaws dodging about. One sat on the bed by his side and helped him out with his stories. They were remarkably corpulent, with smooth, round faces, apparently full of good-humor. Certainly our much-abused climate had not dried up their adipose substance. While we were there,—for we stayed a good while,—one went over to Oldtown, returned and cut out a dress, which she had bought, on another bed in the room. The Governor said, that "he could remember when the moose were much larger; that they did not use to be in the woods, but came out of the water, as all deer did. Moose was whale once. Away down Merrimack way, a whale came ashore in a shallow bay. Sea went out and left him, and he came up on land a moose. What made them know he was a whale was, that at first, before he began to run in bushes, he had no bowels inside, but"——and then the squaw who sat on the bed by his side, as the Governor's aid, and had been putting in a word now and then and confirming the story, asked me what we called that soft thing we find along the sea-shore. "Jelly-fish," I suggested. "Yes," said he, "no bowels, but jelly-fish."

There may be some truth in what he said about the moose growing larger formerly; for the quaint John Josselyn, a physician who spent many years in this very district of Maine in the seventeenth century, says, that the tips of their horns "are sometimes found to be two fathoms asunder,"—and he is particular to tell us that a fathom is six feet,—"and [they are] in height, from the toe of the forefoot to the pitch of the shoulder, twelve foot, both which hath been taken by some of my sceptique readers to be monstrous lies"; and he adds,—"There are certain transcendentia in every creature, which are the indelible character of God, and which discover God." This is a greater dilemma to be caught in than is presented by the cranium of the young Bechuana ox, apparently another of the transcendentia, in the collection of Thomas Steel, Upper Brook Street, London, whose "entire length of horn, from tip to tip, along the curve, is 13 ft. 5 in.; distance (straight) between the tips of the horns, 8 ft. 8-1/2 in." However, the size both of the moose and the cougar, as I have found, is generally rather underrated than overrated, and I should be inclined to add to the popular estimate a part of what I subtracted from Josselyn's.

But we talked mostly with the Governor's son-in-law, a very sensible Indian; and the Governor, being so old and deaf, permitted himself to be ignored, while we asked questions about him. The former said, that there were two political parties among them,—one in favor of schools, and the other opposed to them, or rather they did not wish to resist the priest, who was opposed to them. The first had just prevailed at the election and sent their man to the legislature. Neptune and Aitteon and he himself were in favor of schools. He said, "If Indians got learning, they would keep their money." When we asked where Joe's father, Aitteon, was, he knew that he must be at Lincoln, though he was about going a-moose-hunting, for a messenger had just gone to him there to get his signature to some papers. I asked Neptune if they had any of the old breed of dogs yet. He answered, "Yes." "But that," said I, pointing to one that had just come in, "is a Yankee dog." He assented. I said that he did not look like a good one. "Oh, yes!" he said, and he told, with much gusto, how, the year before, he had caught and held by the throat a wolf. A very small black puppy rushed into the room and made at the Governor's feet, as he sat in his stockings with his legs dangling from the bedside. The Governor rubbed his hands and dared him to come on, entering into the sport with spirit. Nothing more that was significant transpired, to my knowledge, during this interview. This was the first time that I ever called on a governor, but, as I did not ask for an office, I can speak of it with the more freedom.

An Indian who was making canoes behind a house, looking up pleasantly from his work,—for he knew my companion,—said that his name was Old John Pennyweight. I had heard of him long before, and I inquired after one of his contemporaries, Joe Four-pence-ha'penny; but, alas! he no longer circulates. I made a faithful study of canoe-building, and I thought that I should like to serve an apprenticeship at that trade for one season, going into the woods for bark with my "boss," making the canoe there, and returning in it at last.

While the bateau was coming over to take us off, I picked up some fragments of arrow-heads on the shore, and one broken stone chisel, which were greater novelties to the Indians than to me. After this, on Old Fort Hill, at, the bend of the Penobscot, three miles above Bangor, looking for the site of an Indian town which some think stood thereabouts, I found more arrow-heads, and two little dark and crumbling fragments of Indian earthenware, in the ashes of their fires. The Indians on the Island appeared to live quite happily and to be well treated by the inhabitants of Oldtown.

We visited Veazie's mills, just below the Island, where were sixteen sets of saws,—some gang saws, sixteen in a gang, not to mention circular saws. On one side, they were hauling the logs up an inclined plane by water-power; on the other, passing out the boards, planks, and sawed timber, and forming them into rafts. The trees were literally drawn and quartered there. In forming the rafts, they use the lower three feet of hard-wood saplings, which have a crooked and knobbed butt-end, for bolts, passing them up through holes bored in the corners and sides of the rafts, and keying them. In another apartment they were making fence-slats, such as stand all over New England, out of odds and ends,—and it may be that I saw where the picket-fence behind which I dwell at home came from. I was surprised to find a boy collecting the long edgings of boards as fast as cut off, and thrusting them down a hopper, where they were ground up beneath the mill, that they might be out of the way; otherwise they accumulate in vast piles by the side of the building, increasing the danger from fire, or, floating off, they obstruct the river. This was not only a saw-mill, but a grist-mill, then. The inhabitants of Oldtown, Stillwater, and Bangor cannot suffer for want of kindling-stuff, surely. Some get their living exclusively by picking up the drift-wood and selling it by the cord in the winter. In one place I saw where an Irishman, who keeps a team and a man for the purpose, had covered the shore for a long distance with regular piles, and I was told that he had sold twelve hundred dollars' worth in a year. Another, who lived by the shore, told me that he got all the material of his out-buildings and fences from the river; and in that neighborhood I perceived that this refuse wood was frequently used instead of sand to fill hollows with, being apparently cheaper than dirt.

I got my first clear view of Katadn, on this excursion, from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor, whither I went for this purpose. After this I was ready to return to Massachusetts.

* * * * *

Humboldt has written an interesting chapter on the primitive forest, but no one has yet described for me the difference between that wild forest which once occupied our oldest townships, and the tame one which I find there to-day. It is a difference which would be worth attending to. The civilized man not only clears the land permanently to a great extent, and cultivates open fields, but he tames and cultivates to a certain extent the forest itself. By his mere presence, almost, he changes the nature of the trees as no other creature does. The sun and air, and perhaps fire, have been introduced, and grain raised where it stands. It has lost its wild, damp, and shaggy look, the countless fallen and decaying trees are gone, and consequently that thick coat of moss which lived on them is gone too. The earth is comparatively bare and smooth and dry. The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea. The surface of the ground in the Maine woods is everywhere spongy and saturated with moisture. I noticed that the plants which cover the forest floor there are such as are commonly confined to swamps with us,—the Clintonia borealis, orchises, creeping snowberry, and others; and the prevailing aster there is the Aster acuminatus, which with us grows in damp and shady woods. The asters cordifolias and macrophyllus also are common, asters of little or no color, and sometimes without petals. I saw no soft, spreading, second-growth white-pines, with smooth bark, acknowledging the presence of the wood-chopper, but even the young white-pines were all tall and slender rough-barked trees.

Those Maine woods differ essentially from ours. There you are never reminded that the wilderness which you are threading is, after all, some villager's familiar wood-lot, some widow's thirds, from which her ancestors have sledded fuel for generations, minutely described in some old deed which is recorded, of which the owner has got a plan too, and old bound-marks may be found every forty rods, if you will search. 'Tis true, the map may inform you that you stand on land granted by the State to some academy, or on Bingham's purchase; but these names do not impose on you, for you see nothing to remind you of the academy or of Bingham. What were the "forests" of England to these? One writer relates of the Isle of Wight, that in Charles the Second's time "there were woods in the island so complete and extensive, that it is said a squirrel might have travelled in several parts many leagues together on the top of the trees." If it were not for the rivers, (and he might go round their heads,) a squirrel could here travel thus the whole breadth of the country.

We have as yet had no adequate account of a primitive pine-forest. I have noticed that in a physical atlas lately published in Massachusetts, and used in our schools, the "wood land" of North America is limited almost solely to the valleys of the Ohio and some of the Great Lakes, and the great pine-forests of the globe are not represented. In our vicinity, for instance, New Brunswick and Maine are exhibited as bare as Greenland. It may be that the children of Greenville, at the foot of Moosehead Lake, who surely are not likely to be scared by an owl, are referred to the valley of the Ohio to get an idea of a forest; but they would not know what to do with their moose, bear, caribou, beaver, etc., there. Shall we leave it to an Englishman to inform us, that "in North America, both in the United States and Canada, are the most extensive pine-forests in the world"? The greater part of New Brunswick, the northern half of Maine, and adjacent parts of Canada, not to mention the northeastern part of New York and other tracts further off, are still covered with an almost unbroken pine-forest.

But Maine, perhaps, will soon be where Massachusetts is. A good part of her territory is already as bare and common-place as much of our neighborhood, and her villages generally are not so well shaded as ours. We seem to think that the earth must go through the ordeal of sheep-pasturage before it is habitable by man. Consider Nahant, the resort of all the fashion of Boston,—which peninsula I saw but indistinctly in the twilight, when I steamed by it, and thought that it was unchanged since the discovery. John Smith described it in 1614 as "the Mattahunts, two pleasant isles of groves, gardens, and cornfields"; and others tell us that it was once well wooded, and even furnished timber to build the wharves of Boston. Now it is difficult to make a tree grow there, and the visitor comes away with a vision of Mr. Tudor's ugly fences a rod high, designed to protect a few pear-shrubs. And what are we coming to in our Middlesex towns?—a bald, staring town-house, or meeting-house, and a bare liberty-pole, as leafless as it is fruitless, for all I can see. We shall be obliged to import the timber for the last, hereafter, or splice such sticks as we have;—and our ideas of liberty are equally mean with these. The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder,—and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree, cut down within the memory of man! As if individual speculators were to be allowed to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of the firmament, one by one. We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.

They have even descended to smaller game. They have lately, as I hear, invented a machine for chopping up huckleberry-bushes fine, and so converting them into fuel!—bushes which, for fruit alone, are worth all the pear-trees in the country many times over. (I can give you a list of the three best kinds, if you want it.) At this rate, we shall all be obliged to let our beards grow at least, if only to hide the nakedness of the land and make a sylvan appearance. The farmer sometimes talks of "brushing up," simply as if bare ground looked better than clothed ground, than that which wears its natural vesture,—as if the wild hedges, which, perhaps, are more to his children than his whole farm beside, were dirt. I know of one who deserves to be called the Tree-hater, and, perhaps, to leave this for a new patronymic to his children. You would think that he had been warned by an oracle that he would be killed by the fall of a tree, and so was resolved to anticipate them. The journalists think that they cannot say too much in favor of such "improvements" in husbandry; it is a safe theme, like piety; but as for the beauty of one of these "model farms," I would as lief see a patent churn and a man turning it. They are, commonly, places merely where somebody is making money, it may be counterfeiting. The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.

Nevertheless, it was a relief to get back to our smooth, but still varied landscape. For a permanent residence, it seemed to me that there could be no comparison between this and the wilderness, necessary as the latter is for a resource and a background, the raw material of all our civilization. The wilderness is simple, almost to barrenness. The partially cultivated country it is which chiefly has inspired, and will continue to inspire, the strains of poets, such as compose the mass of any literature. Our woods are sylvan, and their inhabitants woodmen and rustics,—that is, selvaggia, and the inhabitants are salvages. A civilized man, using the word in the ordinary sense, with his ideas and associations, must at length pine there, like a cultivated plant, which clasps its fibres about a crude and undissolved mass of peat. At the extreme North, the voyagers are obliged to dance and act plays for employment. Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have,—the common which each village possesses, its true paradise, in comparison with which all elaborately and wilfully wealth-constructed parks and gardens are paltry imitations. Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago. The poet's, commonly, is not a logger's path, but a woodman's. The logger and pioneer have preceded him, like John the Baptist; eaten the wild honey, it may be, but the locusts also; banished decaying wood and the spongy mosses which feed on it, and built hearths and humanized Nature for him.

But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger's path and the Indian's trail, to drink at some new and more bracing fountain of the Muses, far in the recesses of the wilderness.

The kings of England formerly had their forests "to hold the king's game," for sport or food, sometimes destroying villages to create or extend them; and I think that they were impelled by a true instinct. Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which the bear and panther, and some even of the hunter race, may still exist, and not be "civilized off the face of the earth,"—our forests, not to hold the king's game merely, but to hold and preserve the king himself also, the lord of creation,—not for idle sport or food, but for inspiration and our own true re-creation? or shall we, like villains, grub them all up, poaching on our own national domains?



MY CHILDREN.

Have you seen Annie and Kitty, Two merry children of mine? All that is winning and pretty Their little persons combine.

Annie is kissing and clinging Dozens of times in a day,— Chattering, laughing, and singing, Romping, and running away.

Annie knows all of her neighbors. Dainty and dirty alike,— Learns all their talk, and, "be jabers," Says she "adores little Mike!"

Annie goes mad for a flower, Eager to pluck and destroy,— Cuts paper dolls by the hour, Always her model—a boy!

Annie is full of her fancies, Tells most remarkable lies, (Innocent little romances,) Startling in one of her size.

Three little prayers we have taught her, Graded from winter to spring; Oh, you should listen my daughter Saying them all in a string!

Kitty—ah, how my heart blesses Kitty, my lily, my rose! Wary of all my caresses, Chary of all she bestows.

Kitty loves quietest places, Whispers sweet sermons to chairs, And, with the gravest of faces, Teaches old Carlo his prayers.

Matronly, motherly creature! Oh, what a doll she has built— Guiltless of figure or feature— Out of her own little quilt!

Nought must come near it to wake it; Noise must not give it alarm; And when she sleeps, she must take it Into her bed, on her arm.

Kitty is shy of a caller, Uttering never a word; But when alone in the parlor, Talks to herself like a bird.

Kitty is contrary, rather, And, with a comical smile, Mutters, "I won't," to her father,— Eyeing him slyly the while.

Loving one more than the other Isn't the thing, I confess; And I observe that their mother Makes no distinction in dress.

Preference must be improper In a relation like this; I wouldn't toss up a copper— (Kitty, come, give me a kiss!)



THE KINLOCH ESTATE, AND HOW IT WAS SETTLED.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER VII.

Early Monday morning, Mr. Hardwick walked across the green to call upon Mrs. Kinloch. Lucy Ransom, the house-maid, washing in the back-yard, saw him coming, and told her mistress;—before he rang, Mrs. Kinloch had time to tie on her lace cap, smooth her hair, and meet him in the hall.

"Good mum-morning, Mrs. Kinloch!"

"Walk in, Mr. Hardwick,—this way, into the sitting-room."

He took a seat quietly by the maple-shaded window. Mrs. Kinloch was silent and composed. Her coolness nerved instead of depressing him, and he began at once.

"I've ker-come to see you about the debt which my nun-nephew, Mark, owes the estate."

"I don't know what I can do about it," she replied, in a placid tone.

"We've ben nun-neighbors, now, these f-fifteen years, Mrs. Kinloch, and never h-had any difficulty th-that I know on. An' as the ler-law had been used per-pretty ha'sh toward Mark, I th-thought I'd see ef 'twa'n't per-possible't some mistake had ben made."

"I don't know what mistake there has been. Squire Clamp must collect whatever is due. It isn't harsh to do that, is it?"

"Not ha'sh to a-ask for it, but not jest the ker-kind thing to bring ser-suit before askin'. Mark got a word and a ber-blow, but the blow came f-first. We didn't treat yer-you so when you was a widder."

"So you go back to old times, and bring up my poverty and your charity, do you?" said the widow, bitterly.

"By nun-no means," replied the blacksmith. "I don't w-wish to open 'counts th-that've ben settled so long; an' more, I don't intend to ber-ber-beg from you, nor a-anybody else. We pay our debts, an' don't 'xpect nor don't wer-want to do any different."

"Then I don't see what you are so flurried about."

"Ef so be Squire Ker-Kinloch was alive, I could tell you ber-better; or rather, I shouldn't have to go to yer-you about it. He allers give Mark to underst-hand that he shouldn't be hard upon him,—th-that he could pay along as he ger-got able."

"Why should he favor him more than others? I am sure not many men would have lent the money in the first place, and I don't think it looks well to be hanging back now."

"As to why yer-your husband was disposed to favor Mark, I have my opinion. But the der-dead shall rest; I sh-sha'n't call up their pale faces." He drew his breath hard, and his eyes looked full of tender memories.

After a moment he went on. "I don't w-wish to waste words; I mum-merely come to say that Mark has five hunderd dollars, and that I can scrape up a couple o' hunderd more, and will give my note w-with him for the balance. Th-that's all we can handily do; an' ef that'll arnswer, we should ler-like to have you give word to stop the suit."

"You will have to go to Squire Clamp," was the reply. "I don't presume to dictate to my lawyer, but shall let him do what he thinks best. You haven't been to him, I conclude? I don't think he will be unreasonable."

Mr. Hardwick looked steadily at her.

"Wer-well, Mrs. Kinloch," said he, slowly, "I th-think I understand. Ef I don't, it isn't because you don't mum-make the matter plain. I sha'n't go to Squire Clamp till I have the mum-money, all of it. I hope no a-a-enemy of yourn will be so hard to y-you as my friends are to me."

With singular command over her tongue and temper, Mrs. Kinloch contented herself with hoping that he would find no difficulty in arranging matters with the lawyer, bade him good-morning, civilly, and shut the door behind him. But when he was gone, her anger, kept so well under control before, burst forth.

"Stuttering old fool!" she exclaimed, "to come here to badger me!—to throw up to me the wood he cut, or the apples he brought me!—as though Mr. Kinloch hadn't paid that ten times over! He'll find how it is before long."

"What's the matter?" asked Mildred, meeting her step-mother in the hall, and noticing her flushed cheek, her swelling veins, and contorted brows.

"Why, nothing, but a talk with Uncle Ralph, who has been rather saucy."

"Saucy? Uncle Ralph saucy? Why, he is the most kindly man in the world,—sometimes hasty, but always well-mannered. I don't see how he could be saucy."

"I advise you not to stand up for him against your mother."

"I shouldn't defend him in anything wrong; but I think there must be some misunderstanding."

"He is like Mark, I suppose, always perfect in your eyes."

This was the first time since Mr. Kinloch's death that the step-mother had ever alluded to the fondness which had existed between Mark and Mildred as school-children, and her eyes were bent upon the girl eagerly. It was as though she had knocked at the door of her heart, and waited for its opening to look into the secret recesses. A quick flush suffused Mildred's face and neck.

"You are unkind, mother," she said; for the glance was sharper than the words; and then, bursting into tears, she went to her room.

"So it has come to this!" said Mrs. Kinloch to herself. "Well, I did not begin at all too soon."

She walked through the hall to the back piazza. She heard voices from beyond the shrubbery that bordered the grass-plot where the clothes were hung on lines to dry. Lucy, the maid, evidently was there, for one; indeed, by shifting her position so as to look through an opening in the bushes, Mrs. Kinloch could see the girl; but she was not busy with her clothes-basket. An arm was bent around her plump and graceful figure. The next instant, as Mrs. Kinloch saw by standing on tiptoe, two forms swayed toward each other, and Lucy, no way reluctantly, received a kiss from—Hugh Branning!

Very naughty, certainly,—but it is incumbent on me to tell the truth, and accordingly I have put it down.

Now my readers are doubtless prepared for a catastrophe. They will expect to hear Mrs. Kinloch cry, "Lucy Ransom, you jade, what are you doing? Take your clothes and trumpery and leave this house!" You will suppose that her son Hugh will be shut up in the cellar on bread and water, or sent off to sea in disgrace. That is the traditional way with angry mistresses, I know; but Mrs. Kinloch was not one of the common sort. She did not know Talleyrand's maxim,—"Never act from first impulses, for they are always—right!" Indeed, I doubt if she had ever heard of that slippery Frenchman; but observation and experience had led her to adopt a similar line of policy.

Therefore she did not scold or send away Lucy; she could not well do without her; and besides, there were reasons which made it desirable that the girl should remain friendly. She did not call out to her hopeful son, either,—although her fingers did itch to tweak his profligate ears. She knew that a dispute with him would only end in his going off in a huff, and she thought she could employ him better. So she coughed first and then stepped out into the yard. Hugh presently came sauntering down the walk, and Lucy sang among the clothes-lines as blithely and unconcerned as though her lips had never tasted any flavor more piquant than bread and butter.

It was rather an equivocal look which the mistress cast over her shoulder at the girl. It might have said,—"Poor fool! singe your wings in the candle, if you will." It might have been only the scorn of outraged virtue.

"Hugh," said Mrs. Kinloch, "come into the house a moment. I want to speak with you."

The young man looked up rather astonished, but he could not read his mother's placid face. Her hair lay smooth on her temples, under her neat cap; her face was almost waxy pale, her lips gently pressed together; and if her clear, gray eyes had beamed with a warm or more humid light, she might have served a painter as a model for a

"steadfast nun, devout and pure."

When they reached the sitting-room, Mrs. Kinloch began.

"Hugh, do you think of going to sea again? Now that I am alone in the world, don't you think you can make up your mind to stay at home?"

"I haven't thought much about it, mother. I suppose I should go when ordered, as a matter of course; I have nothing else to do."

"That need not be a reason. There is plenty to do without waiting for promotion in the navy till you are gray."

"Why, mother, you know I have no profession, and, I suppose I may say, no money. At least, the Squire made no provision for me that I know of, and I'm sure you cannot wish me to live on your 'thirds.'"

"My son, you should have some confidence in my advice, by this time. It doesn't require a great fortune to live comfortably here."

"Yes, but it is deused dull in this old town. No theatre,—no concert,—no music at all, but from organ-grinders,—no parties,—nothing, in fact, but prayer-meetings from one week's end to another. I should die of the blues here."

"Only find something to do, settle yourself into a pleasant home, and you'll forget your uneasiness."

"That's very well to say"——

"And very easy to do. But it isn't the way to begin by flirting with every pretty, foolish girl you see. Oh, Hugh! you are all I have now to love. I shall grow old soon, and I want to lean upon you. Give up the navy; be advised by me."

Hugh whistled softly. He did not suppose that his mother knew of his gallantry. He was amused at her sharp observation.

"So you think I'm a flirt, mother?" said he. "You are out, entirely. I'm a pattern of propriety at home!"

"You need not tell me, Hugh! I know more than you think. But I didn't know that a son of mine could be so simple as I find you are."

"She's after me," thought Hugh. "She saw me, surely."

His mother went on.

"With such an opportunity as you have to get yourself a wife——Don't laugh! I want to see you married, for you will never sow your wild oats until you are. With such a chance as you have"——

"Why, mother," broke in Hugh, "it isn't so bad as that."

"Isn't so bad? What do you mean?"

"Why, you know what you're driving at, and so do I. Lucy is a good girl enough, but I never meant anything serious. There's no need of my marrying her."

"What are you talking about?"

"Now, mother, what's the use? You are only trying to read me a moral lecture, because I gave Lucy a harmless smack."

"Lucy Ransom!" repeated Mrs. Kinloch, with ineffable scorn. "Lucy Ransom! I hope my son isn't low enough to dally with a housemaid, a scullion! If I had seen such a spectacle, I should have kept my mouth shut for shame. 'A guilty conscience needs no accuser'; but I am sorry you had not pride enough to keep your disgusting fooleries to yourself."

"Regularly sold!" muttered Hugh, as he beat a rat-tattoo on the window-pane.

"I gave you credit for more penetration, Hugh. Now, just look a minute. What would you think of the shrewdness of a young man, who had no special turn for business, but a great fondness for taking his ease,—with no money nor prospect of any,—and who, when he had the opportunity to step at once into fortune and position, made no movement to secure it?"

"Well, the application?"

"The fortune may be yours, if you will."

"Don't tell me riddles. Show me the prize, and I'm after it."

"But it has an incumbrance."

"Well?"

"A pretty, artless, affectionate little woman, who will make you the best wife in the world."

"Splendid, by Jove! Who is she?"

"You needn't look far. We generally miss seeing the thing that is under our nose."

"Why, mother, there isn't an heiress in Innisfield except my sister Mildred."

"Mildred is not your sister. You are no more to each other than the two farthest persons on earth."

"True enough! Well, mother, you are an old 'un!"

"Don't!"—with a look of disgust,—"don't use your sailor slang here! To see that doesn't require any particular shrewdness."

"But Mildred never liked me much. She always ran from me, like the kitten from old Bose. She has always looked as though she thought I would bite, and that it was best she should keep out of reach under a chair."

"Any young man of good address and fair intelligence can make an impression on a girl of eighteen, if he has the will, the time, and the opportunity. You have everything in your favor, and if you don't take the fortune that lies right in your path, you deserve to go to the poor-house."

Hugh meditated.

"Good-morning," said Mrs. Kinloch. "You know the horse and carriage, or the saddle-ponies, are always yours when you want to use them."

Great discoveries seem always so simple, that we wonder they were not made from the first. The highest truths are linked with the commonest objects and events of daily life.

Hugh looked about him as much astonished as though he had been shown a gold mine in old Quobbin, where he could dig for the asking. What determination he made, the course of our story will show.



CHAPTER VIII.

Hugh had ordered George, the Asiatic, to saddle the ponies after dinner, intending to ask Mildred to take a ride northward, through the pine woods; but on making inquiries, he found that she had walked out, leaving word that she should be absent all day.

"Confound it!" thought he,—"a mishap at the start! I'm afraid the omen isn't a good one. However, I must kill time some way. I can't lay up here, like a ship in ordinary; better be shaken by storms or covered with barnacles at sea than be housed up, worm-eaten or crumbled into powder by dry-rot on shore."

He went to ride alone, but did not go in the direction of the pine woods.

Mildred could not get over the unpleasant impressions of the morning, so, rather than remain in her room this fine day, she had walked across the meadow, east of the mill-pond, to a farm-house, where she was a frequent and welcome visitor. On her way, she called for Lizzy Hardwick, the blacksmith's daughter, who accompanied her. Mr. Alford, the farmer, was a blunt, good-humored, and rather eccentric man, shrewd and well to do, but kindly and charitable. He had no children, and he enjoyed the occasional visits of his favorites heartily; so did his wife, Aunt Mercy. Her broad face brightened as she saw the girls coming, and her plump hands were both extended to greet them. They went to the dairy to see the creaking cheese-presses, ate of the fresh curd, saw the golden stores of butter;—thence to the barn, where they clambered upon the hay-mow, found the nest of a bantam, took some of the little eggs in their pockets;—then coming into the yard, they patted the calves' heads, scattered oats for the doves, that, with pink feet and pearly blue necks, crowded around them to be fed, and next began to chase a fine old gander down to the brook, when Mr. Alford, getting over the fence, called out, "Hold on, girls! don't bother Uncle Ralph!—don't!"

"Where is Uncle Ralph?" asked Mildred.

"Why, that gander you've been chasin'; and he's about the harn'somest bird I know on, too. Talk about swans! there never was a finer neck, nor a prettier coat of feathers on anything that ever swum. His wings are powerful; only let him spread 'em, and up he goes; but as for his feet, he limps just a little, as you see. No offence, Lizzy. I love your father as well as you do; but when I hear him, with his idees so grand,—the minister don't begin with him,—and yet to be bothered, as he is sometimes, to get a word out, I think of my good old fellow here, whose wings are so much better'n his legs. Come here, Ralph! You see he knows his name. There!"—patting his head,—"that's a good fellow! Now go and help marm attend to your goslins."

The kindly tone and the caress took away from the comparison any idea of disrespect, and the girls laughed at the odd conceit,—Lizzy, at least, not a little proud of the implied compliment. Mr. Alford left them, to attend to his affairs, and they went on with their romp,—running on the top of the smooth wall beside the meadow, gathering clusters of lilac blossoms from the fatherly great posy that grew on the sunny side of the house, and admiring the solitary state of the peacock, as, with dainty step, he trailed his royal robe over the sward. Soon they heard voices at the house, and, going round the corner of the shed, saw Uncle Ralph and Mark Davenport talking with Mr. Alford at the door.

Not to make a mystery of a simple matter, the blacksmith had come to borrow of Mr. Alford the money necessary to make up the amount owing by Mark to the Kinloch estate.

The young man had shown great readiness to accompany his uncle; praiseworthy, certainly; but I am inclined to think he had somehow got an intimation that the girls had preceded him.

Fortunately, the farmer was able to lend the sum wanted, and, as he had an errand in town, he took Mr. Hardwick with him in his wagon.

Mark was left, nothing loath, to walk home with the girls. Do not think he was wanting in affection for his cousin Lizzy, if he wished that she were, just for one hour, a hundred miles away. They took a path that led over the plain to the river, intending to cross upon a foot-bridge, a short distance above the village. But though Mark was obliged to be silent on the matter he had most at heart, Mildred was not unaware of his feelings. A tone, a look, a grasp of the hand serves for an index, quite as well as the most fervent speech. The river makes a beautiful bend near the foot-bridge, and its bank is covered with a young growth of white pines. They sat down on a hillock, under the trees, whose spicy perfume filled the air, and looked down the stream towards the village. How fair it lay in the soft air of that June day! The water was deep and blue, with a reflected heaven. The mills that cluster about the dam, a mile below, were partially concealed by young elms, silver-poplars, and water-maples. Gardens sloped on either bank to the water's edge. Neat, white houses gleamed through the trees and shrubbery around the bases of the hills that hem in the valley; and the tall, slender spire of the meeting-house shewed fairly against its densely-wooded background. Verily, if I were a painter, I should desire no lovelier scene for my canvas than that on which Mark and Mildred looked. Lizzy walked away, and began hunting checkerberries with an unusual ardor. She did understand; she would not be Mademoiselle de Trop any longer. Kind soul! so unlike young women in general, who won't step aside gracefully, when they should! Further I can vouch, that she neither hemmed, nor made eyes, nor yet repeated the well-worn proverb, "Two's company, but three's none." No, she gathered berries and sang snatches of songs as though she were quite alone.

Now those of my readers who have the good-fortune still to linger in teens are expecting that I shall treat them to a report of this delightful tete-a-tete. But it must not be told. The older people would skip it, or say, "Pshaw!" And besides, if it were set down faithfully, you would be sadly disappointed; the cleverest men, even, are quite sure to appear silly (to other people) when in love. The speeches of the Romeos and Claude Melnottes, with which you have been so enchanted, would be common-place enough, if translated into the actual prose in which they were delivered. When Shakspeare wooed Anne Hathaway, it might have been different; but consider, you will wait some time before you find a lover like him. No, when your time comes, it will be soon enough. You will see your hero in his velvet cloak and plumed hat, with the splendor of scenery and the intoxication of the music. I don't choose to show him to you in morning dress at rehearsal, under daubed canvas and dangling machinery.

However full of poetry and passion Mark's declaration was for Mildred, to him it was tame and hesitating enough. It seemed to him that he could not force into the cold formula of words the emotion that agitated him. But with quickening breath he poured out his love, his hopes, and his fears,—the old burden! She trembled, her eyelids fell; but at length, roused by his pleading tones, she looked up. Their eyes met; one look was enough; it was a reciprocal electric flash. With a sudden energy he clasped her in his arms; and it was a very pretty tableau they made! But in the quick movement his heedless foot chanced to touch a stone, which rolled down the bank and fell into the stream with a splash. The charm was broken.

"What's that?" cried Lizzy from a distance, forgetting her discretion. "Did a pickerel jump?"

"No," replied Mark, "the pickerel know me of old, and don't come about for fear that I have a hook and line in my pocket. It was only a stone rolling into the river."

"You come here a moment," continued the unthoughtful Lizzy; "here's a beautiful sassafras sapling, and I can't pull it up by the roots alone."

"Send for the dentist, then."

"Go and help her," said Mildred, softly.

"Well," said Mark, with a look of enforced resignation,—"if I must."

The sapling grew on the steep bank, perhaps fifty yards from where he had been sitting. He did not use sufficient care to brace himself, as he pulled with all his might, and in a moment, he knew not how, he rolled down into the river. The girls first screamed, and then, as he came out of the water, shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog, they laughed immoderately. The affair did not seem very funny to Mark, and he joined in the laugh with no great heartiness. The shock had effectually dispelled all the romance of the hour.

"I'm so sorry!" said Lizzy, still laughing at his grotesque and dripping figure.

"You must hurry and get dry clothes on, Mark," said Mildred. "Squire Clamp's is the nearest house across the bridge."

"Hang Squire Clamp! his clothes would poison me. I'd as lief go to a quarantine hospital to be dressed."

"Don't!" said Lizzy.

But he kept on in the same mercurial strain.—"Clamp lives on poison, like Rappaccini's daughter, in Hawthorne's story; only it makes him ugly instead of fair, as that pretty witch was. His wife never had any trouble with spiders as long as she lived; he had only to blow into a nest, and the creatures would tumble out, and give up their venomous ghosts. No vermin but himself are to be seen in his neighborhood; the rats even found they couldn't stand it, and had to emigrate."

"The breath that killed spiders must have been a little too powerful, at times, for Mrs. Clamp, one would think," said Mildred.

"It was," said Mark. "She died one day, after Clamp had cheated a widow out of her dower."

"Don't stop longer for your fun," said Mildred, "you'll surely take cold. Besides, I can't have you making any disparaging remarks upon my guardian."

"Bless my soul! your guardian! how imprudent, to be sure!"—with a significant twinkle. "Well, I'm going. Banfield's is the nearest house; so we'll part here."

The girls went towards the village; and Mark, making vigorous strides across the meadow, took a straight line for Banfield's. Near the house is a piece of woods,—one corner of the leafy mantle that covers the hill slipped down its side and trailing upon the borders of the fertile field below. Just as he passed the woods he saw Hugh Branning letting down the bars and leading his pony out into the road. The only bridle-path through the woods led over the hill to the little house on the westerly slope, where lived Dame Ransom, Lucy's bowed and wrinkled grandmother. Mark wondered not a little where the midshipman had been; but as he still retained the memory of the old quarrel, he did not accost him, and presently thought no more of it. Reaching the house, he got some dry clothes and then went home with bounding steps. The earth was never so beautiful nor the sky so benign. The cloud of doubt had furled off and left his heaven blue. He had spoken and found that the dream of his boyhood and the hope of his youth had become the proud triumph of his manhood. Mildred Kinloch loved him! loved him as sincerely as when they were both children! What higher felicity was to be thought of? And what a motive for exertion had he now! He would be worthy of her, and the world should acknowledge that the heiress had not stooped when she mated with him.



CHAPTER IX.

Mrs. Kinloch was surprised at finding that neither Hugh nor Mildred, nor yet Lucy Ransom, was in the house.

Mildred came home first and was not accompanied by Hugh, as Mrs. Kinloch had hoped. He had not found her, then,—perhaps he had not sought for her. Next Lucy returned, coming through the garden which stretched up the hill. Being questioned, she answered that she had been to her grandmother's, and had come back the nearest way over the hill, through the woods.

"What had she gone for after the fatigue of washing-day?"

"Because Squire Clamp, who owned the house her grandmother lived in, wanted her to take a message."

Mrs. Kinloch began to become interested. "Squire Clamp!" she exclaimed,—"when did you see him?"

"He called here yesterday evening,—on his way to Mr. Hardwick's, I guess."

"Why didn't he ask me if you could go? I think he's pretty free to send my girls about the town on his errands."

"You were out, Ma'am,—in the next house; and after he'd gone I forgot it."

"You remembered it to-day, it seems."

"Yes'm; after dinner I thought of it and hurried right off; but granny was sick and foolish, and didn't want to let me come away, so I couldn't get back as quick as I meant to."

"Well, you can go to the kitchen."

"Yes'm."

"I must keep an eye on that girl," thought Mrs. Kinloch. "She is easily persuaded, fickle, without strong sense, and with only a very shallow kind of cunning. She might do mischief. What can Squire Clamp want? The old hovel her grandmother lives in isn't worth fifty dollars. Whatever has been going on, I'm glad Hugh is not mixed up in it."

Just then Hugh rode up, and, tying his horse, came in. He seemed to have lost something of the gayety of the morning. "I am tired," he said. "I had to get off and lead the pony down the hill, and it's steep and stony enough."

"There are pleasant roads enough in the neighborhood," said his mother, "without your being obliged to take to the woods and clamber over the mountains."

"I know it," he replied; "but I had been up towards the Allen place, and I took a notion to come back over the hill."

"Then you passed Lucy's house?"

"Yes. The bridle-path leads down the hill about a mile above this; but on foot one may keep along the ridge and come down into the valley through our garden."

"So I suppose; in fact, I believe Lucy has just returned that way."

"Indeed! it's strange I didn't see her."

"It is strange."

Hugh bore the quiet scrutiny well, and his mother came to the conclusion that the girl had told the truth about her going for the lawyer.

Presently Mildred came down from her room, and after a few minutes Mrs. Kinloch went out, casting a fixed and meaning look at her son. She seemed as impatient for the issue of her scheme, as the child who, after planting a seed, waits for the green shoot, and twice a day digs down to see if it has not sprouted.

Mildred, as the reader may suppose, was not likely to be very agreeable to her companion; the recollections of the day were too vivid, too delicious.

She could not part with them, but constantly repeated to herself the words of love, of hope, and enthusiasm, which she had heard. So she moved or talked as in a dream, mechanically, while her soul still floated away on the summer-sea of reverie.

Hugh looked at her with real admiration; and, in truth, she deserved it. A fairer face you would not see in a day's journey; her smooth skin, not too white, but of a rich creamy tint,—eyes brown and inclined to be dreamy,—her hair chestnut and wavy,—a figure rather below the medium size, but with full, graceful lines,—these, joined with a gentle nature and a certain tremulous sensibility, constituted a divinity that it was surely no sin to worship. If sin it were, all the young men in Innisfield had need of immediate forgiveness.

Hugh had some qualms about approaching the goddess. He was sensible of a wide gulf between himself and her, and he could not but think that she was aware of it too.

"You have been to Mr. Alford's?"

A momentary pause.

"Did you speak, Hugh?"

He repeated the question. Her eyes brightened a moment as she nodded in the affirmative; then they grew dim again, like windows seen from without when the light is withdrawn to an inner room. She seemed as unconscious as a pictured Madonna.

"A beautiful day for your walk," he ventured again. The same pause, the same momentary interest as she answered, followed by the same abstraction.

"I suppose," said he, at length, "that I am having the last of my idle days here; I expect to be ordered to sea shortly."

"Indeed!" Mildred looked up.

"I shall be very sorry to leave here," he continued.

"Yes, Innisfield is quite pretty this summer. But I supposed that the pleasures of the seaport and of adventure abroad were more attractive to you than this monotonous life."

"'Tis rather slow here, but—I—I meant to say that I shall be sorry to leave you."

"Me? Why, mother can take care of me."

"Certainly she will, but I shall miss you."

"No doubt you'll think of us, when you are away; I'm sure we shall remember you. We shall never sit down to the table without thinking of your vacant chair."

It was impossible to misinterpret her kind, simple, sisterly tones. And Hugh could but feel that they indicated no particle of tenderness for him. The task of winning her was yet wholly to be done, and there was no prospect that she would give him the least encouragement in advance, if she did not utterly refuse him at the end. He saw that he must not count on an easy victory, but prepare for it by a slow and gradual approach.

Mildred sat some time leaning out of the window, then opening her piano, for the first time since her father's death, she sat down and played a nocturne by Mendelssohn. The music seemed a natural expression of her feelings,—suited to the heart "steeped in golden languors," in the "tranced summer calm." The tones rang through the silent rooms, pervading all the charmed air, so that the ear tingled in listening,—as the lips find a sharpness with the luscious flavor of the pine-apple. The sound reached to the kitchen, and brought a brief pleasure, but a bitterer pang of envy, to Lucy's swelling bosom. It calmed for a moment the evil spirit in Hugh's troubled heart. And Mrs. Kinloch in her solitary chamber, though she had always detested the piano, thought she had never heard such music before. She had found a new sense, that thrilled her with an exquisite delight. It was a good omen, she was sure, that Mildred should now, after so long a time, feel inclined to play. Only a light heart, and one supremely careless or supremely happy, could touch the keys like that. "Hugh must be a fortunate boy," she thought; and she could have hugged him for joy. What thought Hugh, as she rose from her seat at the instrument like one in a trance and walked towards the hall? Conflicting emotions struggled for mastery; but, hardly knowing what he did, he started up and offered her a caress. It was not unusual, but her nerves had acquired an unwonted sensitiveness; she shuddered, and rushed from him up the stairs. He could have torn his hair with rage.

"Am I, then, such a bear," he asked himself, "that she is afraid of me?"

A light at the end of the hall caught his eye. It was Lucy with tear-stained cheeks going to bed,—unconscious that the flaring candle she carried was dripping upon her dress,—unconscious that the one she both loved and feared was looking at her as she slowly went up the back-stairs. Truly, how little the inmates of that house knew of the secrets of each other's hearts! It was strange,—was it not?—that, after so long intimacy, they could not understand each other better! How many hearts do you really know?



CHAPTER X.

"Verily, a good day's work," thought Squire Clamp, as he stretched his legs in his office that Monday evening. "Mrs. Kinloch is a very shrewd woman, an extraordinarily capable woman. What a wife for a lawyer she'd make!—so long as she plotted for, and not against him. But Theophilus Clamp was not born to be overreached by one of the weaker sex. I was sure my late lamented friend could not have left his affairs in such utter disorder,—no schedule of property,—no statement of debts; too good a business man for that was Walter Kinloch. I shall now be able to know from these documents what my late client was really worth, and how large a dower the disconsolate widow has reserved for herself. Doubtless she has put by enough to suffice for her old age,—and mine, too, I am inclined to think; for I don't believe I can do better than marry her when the mourning is ended. My late spouse, to be sure, would make a quiet man rather apprehensive about a second venture; but if Mrs. Kinloch is a Tartar, she is not a vulgar shrew, but will be lady-like, even if she is bitter. I think I shall take her. Of course she'll consent. I should like to see the unmarried woman in Innisfield that would dare refuse Theophilus Clamp. When she knows—that I know—what she knows, she'll do pretty much what I tell her. I wonder if she hasn't set on foot a marriage between her scapegrace son and Mildred? That would be a mishap, truly! But, as guardian, I can stave that off until the estate is settled, my wedding over, and myself comfortably in possession. Then, perhaps, we'll let the young folks marry,—at least we'll think of it. If my son George, now, had not that unlucky hare-lip, who knows? H'm, well, to business again. Let's see. It's just as that remarkably keen woman suspected. Hardwick's shop does stand partly on the land of the estate that joins it; the line will run right through his forge, and leave the trip-hammer and water-wheel in our possession; for I paced the distance this morning. Tomorrow Gunter will make sure of it by a survey; though I think we'd better do it while the old man is gone to dinner. He's sometimes apt to use emphatic language. Perhaps now his mangy cur Caesar will seize me by the coat again! Perhaps Mark will insult me, and the old man laugh at it in his sleeve! I shouldn't wonder if they managed to pay the notes, but on the title to the shop we have them fast."