Part 18

Casting an eye upward, and finding the houses on the summit were hidden by the retreating curvature of the cone, I saw, with chagrin, light mists scudding over my head. It was a notice to hasten my movements idle to disregard here. Crossing as rapidly as possible Bigelow's Lawn--the half-mile of grass ground referred to, where I sunk ankle-deep in moss, or stumbled twenty times in as many rods over concealed stones--I skirted the head of the chasm for some distance. But from above the ravine does not make a startling impression. I, however, discovered, lodged underneath its walls, a bank of snow. All around I heard water gurgling under my feet in rock-worn channels while making its way tranquilly to the brow of the ravine. These little underground runlets are the same that glide over the head-wall, and are the head tributaries of the Ellis.[29]

Retracing my way to the ridge and to the path, which I followed for some distance, startling the silence with an occasional halloo, I descended into the hollow, where the Lake of the Clouds seems to have checked itself, white and still, on the very edge of the tremendous gully, cut deep into the western slopes. The lake is the fountain-head of the Ammonoosuc. Its waters are too cold to nourish any species of fishes; they are too elevated for any of the feathered tribe to pay it a visit.

Strange spectacle! A fairy haunt, rock-rimmed and fringed about with Alpine shrubs, half-disclosing, half-concealing its bare bosom, coyly reposed on this wind-swept ridge, like "a good deed in a naughty world." From its crystal basin a tiny rill trickled through soft moss to the dizzy verge beyond, where, like some airy sprite, clothed with the rainbow and tossing its white tresses to the sport of the breeze, it tripped gayly over the grisly precipice and fell in a silvery shower from height to height. Where it passed, flowers, ferns, and rich herbage sprung forth upon the hard face of the granite. Tapering fir-trees exhaled a dewy freshness; aspens quivered with the delight of its coming, and aged trees, tottering, decrepit, piteous to see, stretched their withered limbs toward heaven. On it went, and still on, leaving its white robe clinging to the mountain side. All the forest seemed crowding forward to catch it; but, now reverently kissing the feet of the old trees, now saucily flinging a handful of crystal in the faces of scowling cliffs, it eluded the embrace of the forest, which thrilled with its musical laughter from lowest deeps to the summit of high-rocking pines. When it was no longer visible a sonorous murmur heralded its triumphal progress. No wonder the bewildered eye roved from bleak summit to voluptuous vale; from the handful of drops above to the brimming river below. The miracle of Horeb was being repeated hour by hour, like an affair of every-day life.

This hand-mirror of Venus has two tiny companion pools close by. The weary explorer may sip a draught of sweetest savor while admiring their exceeding beauty--a beauty heightened by its unexpectedness, and teaching that not all is barren even here. A benison on those little lakes!

Stone houses of refuge are much needed on the mountains over which the Crawford trail reaches the summit. They should always be provided with fagots for a fire, clean straw or boughs for a bed, and printed directions for the inexperienced traveller to follow. A fireplace, furnished with a crane and a kettle for heating water, would be absolute luxuries. Being done, this glorious promenade--the equal of which does not exist in New England--would be taken with confidence by numbers, instead of, as now, by the few. It is the appropriate pendant of the ascent from the Glen by the carriage-road, or from Fabyan's by the railway. One can hardly pretend to have seen the mountains in their grandest aspects until he has threaded this wondrous picture-gallery, this marvellous hall of statues.[30]

While recrossing the plateau, from which Washington has the appearance of one mountain piled upon another, I suddenly came upon a dead sparrow in my path. Poor little fellow! he was too adventurous, and sunk on stiffening pinions beneath the frozen wind. Ten steps farther on a large brown butterfly flew up and fluttered cheerily along the path. Why, then, did the bird die and the butterfly live?

This mountain butterfly, which endured cold that the bird could not, has excited the attention of naturalists, it is said. The mountain is 6293 feet high, and the butterflies never descend below an elevation of about 5600 feet. Here they "disport during the month of July of every year," thriving upon the scanty deposits of honey found in the flowers of the few species of hardy plants that grow in the crevices of the rocks at this great altitude, and upon other available liquid substances. The insect measures, from tip to tip of the expanded fore-wings, about one and eight-tenths inches. It is colored in shades of brown, with various bands and marblings diversifying the surface of the wings. The butterfly is known to naturalists as the _OEneis semidea_, and was first described, in 1828, by Thomas Say. An allied species occurs on Long's Peak and other elevated heights in Colorado; and another is found at Hopedale, Labrador; but they are confined to these widely separated localities. It is surmised that the butterfly, like the Alpine flora, beautifully illustrates the presence, or rather the advance and retreat, of the glacier.

I took up the little winged chorister of the vale who was not able to make spring come to the mountain for all his warbling. Truly, was not the little bird's fate typical of those ambitious climbers for fame who, chilled to death by neglect or indifference, die singing on the heights? So the sparrow's fall gave me food for reflection, during which I reached the little circular enclosure at the foot of the cone.

Once more I climbed the rambling and rocky stairs leading to the summit; but long before reaching it clouds were drifting above and below me. The day was to end like so many others. The crabbed old mountain had exhausted his store of benevolence. I hurried on down the Glen road. After descending a mile I heard a rumbling sound, deep and prolonged, like distant thunder. The thought of being overtaken on the mountain by a thunder-storm made me quicken my pace almost to a run. On turning the corner where the snow-bank had lain, like a lion in the path, devoutly wishing myself well and safely over, I felt something rise in my throat. The bank was no longer there. Every vestige of it had disappeared, and, in all probability, its sudden plunge down the mountain was what I had taken for thunder. Ten minutes sooner and I should have been upon its treacherous bridge.

I passed the Half-Way House, entered the dusk forest, where the tree-tops were swaying wildly to and fro, the birds flitting silently, and the tall pines discordantly humming, as if getting the pitch of the storm. Suddenly it grew dark. A stream of fire blinded me with its glare. Then a deafening peal shook the solid earth. Another and another succeeded: Olympian salvos greeted the arrival of the storm king.

The rain was pattering among the leaves when I emerged into the open vale, guided by the lights of the Glen House shining through the darkness. My heavy feet almost refused to carry me farther, and I walked like the statue in "Don Juan."

THIRD JOURNEY.

PAGE I. _THE PEMIGEWASSET IN JUNE_ 209

II. _THE FRANCONIA PASS_ 224

III. _THE KING OF FRANCONIA_ 237

IV. _FRANCONIA, AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD_ 248

V. _THE CONNECTICUT OX-BOW_ 256

VI. _THE SACK OF ST. FRANCIS DE SALES_ 259

VII. _MOOSEHILLOCK_ 267

VIII._BETHLEHEM_ 276

IX. _JEFFERSON, AND THE VALLEY OF ISRAEL'S RIVER_ 291

X. _THE GREAT NORTHERN PEAKS_ 304

THIRD JOURNEY.

I.

_THE PEMIGEWASSET IN JUNE._

O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings, Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine, Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf-pine! WHITTIER.

Plymouth lies at the entrance to the Pemigewasset Valley, like an encampment pitched to dispute its passage. At present its design is to facilitate the ingress of tourists.

I am sitting at the window this morning looking down the Pemigewasset Valley. It is a gray, sad morning. Wet clouds hang and droop heavily over. In the distance the frayed and tattered edges are rolled up, half-disclosing the humid outlines of the hills on the other side of the valley. The trees are budded with rain-drops. Through a lattice of bordering foliage I look down upon the river, shrunken by drought to half its usual breadth, and exposing its parched bed of sand and pebbles. It gives an expiring gurgle in its stony throat. It is one of those mornings that, in spite of our philosophy, strangely affect the spirits, and are like a presentiment of evil. The clouds are funereal draperies; the river chants a dirge.

In this world of ours, where events push each other aside with such appalling rapidity, perhaps it is scarcely remembered that Hawthorne breathed his last in this house on the night of May 18th, 1864. He who was born in sight of these mountains had come among them to die.

In company with his old college mate and loving friend, General Pierce, he came from Centre Harbor to Plymouth the day previous to the sad event. Devoted friends--and few men have known more devoted--had for some time seen that his days were numbered. The fire had all but gone out from his eye, which seemed interrogating the world of which he was already more than half an inhabitant. A presentiment of his approaching end seemed foreshadowed in the changed look and faltering step of Hawthorne himself: he walked like a man consciously going to his grave. Still, much was hoped--it could hardly be that much was expected--from this journey, and from the companionship of two men grown gray with care, each standing on the pinnacle of his ambition, each disappointed, but united, one to the other, by the ties of life-long friendship; turning their backs upon the gay world, and walking hand-in-hand among the sweet groves and pleasant streams like boys again. It was like a dream of their lost youth: the reality was no more.

On this journey General Pierce was the watchful, tender, and sympathetic nurse. Without doubt either of these men would have died for the other.

But these hopes, these cares, alas! proved delusive. The angel of death came unbidden into the sacred companionship; the shadow of his wings hovered over them unseen. In the night, without a sigh or a struggle, as he himself wished it might be, the hand of death was gently and kindly laid on the fevered brain and fluttering heart. In the morning his friend entered the chamber to find only the lifeless form of Nathaniel Hawthorne plunged in the slumber that knows no awakening. Great heart and mighty brain were stilled forever.

While the weather gives such inhospitable welcome let us employ the time by turning over a leaf from history. According to Farmer, the intervales here were formerly resorted to by the Indians for hunting and fishing. At the mouth of Baker's River, which here joins the Pemigewasset, they had a settlement. Graves, bones, gun-barrels, besides many implements of their rude husbandry, have been discovered. Here, it is said, the Indians were attacked by a party of English from Haverhill, Massachusetts, led by Captain Baker, who defeated them, killed many, and destroyed a large quantity of fur. From him Baker's River receives its name.

Before the French and Indian war broke out this region was debatable ground, into which only the most celebrated and intrepid white hunters ventured. Among these was a young man of twenty-three, named Stark, who lived near the Amoskeag Falls, in what is now Manchester. In April, 1752, Stark was hunting here with three companions, one of whom was his brother William. They had pitched their camp on Baker's River, in the present limits of Rumney, and were prosecuting their hunt with good success, when they suddenly discovered the presence of Indians in their vicinity. Though it was a time of peace, they were not the less apprehensive on that account, and determined to change their position. But the Indians had also discovered the white hunters, and prepared to entrap them. When Stark went out very early the next morning to collect the traps he was intercepted and made prisoner. The Indians then took a position on the bank of the river to ambush his companions as they came down. Eastman, who was on the shore, next fell into their hands; but the two others were in a canoe floating quietly down the stream out of reach. Stark was ordered to hail and decoy them to the shore. He obeyed; but, instead of lending himself to the treachery, shouted to his friends that he was taken, and to save themselves. They instantly steered for the opposite shore, receiving a volley as they did so. Stinson, one of those in the boat, was shot dead; but William Stark escaped through the heroism of his brother, who knocked up the guns of the savages as they covered him with fatal aim.

Stark and his fellow-prisoner were taken to St. Francis by Actæon and his prowling band, with whom they had had the misfortune to fall in. At St. Francis the Indians set Stark hoeing their corn. At first he cut up the corn and spared the weeds; but this expedient not serving to relieve him of the drudgery, he threw his hoe into the river, telling his captors that hoeing corn was the business of squaws, not of warriors. This answer procured him recognition among them as a spirit worthy of themselves. He was adopted into the tribe, and called the "Young Chief." The promise of youth was fulfilled. The young hunter of the White Mountains and the conqueror of Bennington are the same.

The choice is open to leave the railway here and enter the mountains by the Pemigewasset Valley, or to continue by it the route which conducts to the summit of Mount Washington, by Bethlehem and Fabyan's. To journey on by rail to the Profile House is seventy-five miles, while by the common road, following the Pemigewasset, the distance is only thirty miles. A daily stage passes over this route, which I risk nothing in saying is always one of the delightful reminiscences of the whole journey. Deciding in favor of the last excursion, my first care was to procure a conveyance.

At three in the afternoon I set out for Campton, seven miles up the valley, which the carriage-road soon enters upon, and which by a few unregarded turnings is presently as fast shut up as if its mountain gates had in reality swung noiselessly together behind you. Hardly had I recovered from the effect of the deception produced by seeing the same mountain first in front, next on my right hand, and then shifted over to the other side of the valley, when I saw, spanned by a high bridge, the river in violent commotion far down below me.

The Pemigewasset, confined here between narrow banks, has cut for itself two deep channels through its craggy and cavernous bed; but one of these being dammed for the purpose of deepening the other, the general picturesqueness of the fall is greatly diminished. Still, it is a pretty and engaging sight, this cataract, especially if the river be full, although you think of a mettled Arabian harnessed in a tread-mill when you look at it. Livermore Fall, as it is called, is but two miles from Plymouth, the white houses of which look hot in the same brilliant sunlight that falls so gently upon the luxuriant green of the valley. The feature of this fall is the deep water-worn chasm through which it plunges.

By crossing the bridge here the left bank of the stream may be followed, the valley towns of Campton, Thornton, and Woodstock being divided by it into numerous villages or hamlets, frequently puzzling the uninitiated traveller, who has set out in all confidence, but who is seized by the most cruel perplexity, upon hearing that there are four villages in Campton, each several miles distant from the other. One would have pleased him far better.

Crossing this bridge, and descending to the level meadow below the falls, I made a brief inspection of the establishment for breeding and stocking with trout and salmon the depleted mountain streams of New Hampshire. The breeding-house and basins are situated just below the falls, on the banks of the river. This is a work undertaken by the State, with the expectation of repeopling its rivers, brooks, and ponds with their finny inhabitants. All those streams immediately accessible from the villages are so persistently fished by the inhabitants as to afford little sport to the angler from a distance, who is compelled to go farther and fare worse; but the State is certainly entitled to much credit for its endeavor to make two trout grow where only one grew before. It is feared, however, that the experiment of stocking the Pemigewasset with salmon will not prove successful. The farmers who live along the banks say that one of these fish is rarely seen, although the fishery is protected by the most rigid regulations. No one who has not visited the mountains between May 1st--the earliest date when fishing is permitted--and the middle of June, can have an idea of the number of sportsmen every year resorting to the trout streams, or of the unheard-of drain upon those streams. Not the least of many ludicrous sights I have witnessed was that of a man, weighing two hundred pounds, excitedly swinging aloft a trout weighing less than two ounces, and this trophy he exhibited to me with unfeigned triumph--the butcher! This is mere slaughter, and ought not to be tolerated. A pretty sight is to see the breeding-trout follow you in your walk around the margin of their little basin to be fed from your hand. They are tame as pigeons and ravenous as sharks.

Mount Prospect, in Holderness, is the first landmark of note. It is seen, soon after leaving Plymouth, rising from the opposite side of the valley, its green crest commanding a superb view of the lake region below, and of the lofty Franconia Mountains above. It is worth ascending this mountain were it only to see again the beautiful islet-spotted Squam Lake and far-reaching Winnipiseogee quivering in noonday splendor.

The beautiful valley is now open throughout its whole extent. Of course I refer only to that portion lying above Plymouth. But it is an anomaly of mountain valleys. Its length is about twenty-five miles, and its greatest width, I should judge, not more than three or four. For twenty miles it is almost as straight as an arrow. There is nothing to hinder a perfectly free and open view up or down. Contrast this with the wilful and tortuous windings of the Ammonoosuc, or the Saco, which seem to grope and feel their way foot by foot along their cramped and crooked channels. The angle of ascent, too, is here so gradual as to be scarcely noticed until the foot of the mountain wall, at its head, is reached. True, this valley is not clothed with a feeling of overpowering grandeur, but it is beautiful. It is not terrible, but bewitching.

The vista of mountains on the east side of the valley becomes every moment more and more extended, and more and more interesting. A long array of summits trending away to the north, with detached mountains heaved above the lower clusters, like great whales sporting in a frozen sea, is gradually uncovered. Green as a carpet, level as a floor, the valley, adorned with clumps of elms, groves of maples, and strips of tilled land of a rich chocolate brown, makes altogether a picture which sets the eye fairly dancing. Even the daisies, the clover, and the buttercups which so plentifully spangle the meadows seem far brighter and sweeter in this atmosphere, nodding a playful welcome as you pass them by. We are in the country of flowers.

Since passing Blair's and the bridge over the river to Campton Hollow I was on the alert for that first and most engaging view of the Franconia Mountains which has been so highly extolled. Perhaps I should say that one poetic nature has revealed it to a thousand others. Without doubt this landscape is the more striking because it is the first, and consequently deepest, impression of grand mountain scenery obtained by those upon whom at a turn of the road, and without premonition, it flashes like the realization of some ecstatic vision.

Half a mile below the little hamlet of West Campton the road crosses the point of a hill pushed well out into the valley. It is here that the circlet of mountains is seen enclosing the valley on all sides like a gigantic palisade. In one place, far away in the north, this wall is shattered to its centre, like the famous Breach of Roland; and through this enormous loop-hole we see golden mists rising above the undiscovered country beyond. We are looking through the far-famed Franconia Notch. On one side the clustered peaks of Lafayette lift themselves serenely into the sky. On the left a silvery light is playing on the ledges of Mount Cannon, softening all the asperities of this stern-visaged mountain. The two great groups now stand fully and finely exposed; though the lower and nearer summits are blended with the higher by distance. Remark the difference of outline. A series of humps marks the crest-line of the group, which culminates in the oblique wall of Mount Cannon. On the contrary, that on the right, culminating in Lafayette, presents two beautiful and regular pyramids, older than Cheops, which sometimes in early morning exactly resemble two stately monuments, springing alert and vigorous as the day which gilds them. At a distance of twenty miles it demands good eyes and a clear atmosphere to detect the supporting lines of these pyramidal structures, which in reality are two separate mountains, Liberty and Flume. This exquisite landscape seldom fails of producing a rapturous outburst from those who are making the journey for the first time.

There are many points of resemblance between this view and that of the White Mountains from Conway Corner. Both unfold at once, and in a single glance, the principal systems about which all the subordinate chains seem manoeuvring under the commanding gaze of Washington or Lafayette.

Soon after starting it was evident that my driver's loquaciousness was due to his having "crooked his elbow" too often while loitering about Plymouth. The frequent plunge of the wheels into the ditches by the roadside, accompanied with a shower of mud, was little conducive to the calm and free enjoyment of the beauties of the landscape. The driver alone was unconcerned, and as often as good fortune enabled him to steer clear of upsetting his passengers would articulate, thickly, "Don't be alarmed, Cap': no one was ever hurt on this road."

Silently committing myself to that Providence which is said to watch over the destinies of tipplers, I breathed freely only when we drew up at the hospitable door of the village inn, bespattered with mud, but with no broken bones.