Part 7

From time to time a scarlet maple flamed up in the midst of the forest, and its red foliage, scattered at our feet by the wind, glowed like flakes of fire beaten from an anvil. A tangled maze of color changed the road into an avenue bordered with rare and variegated plants. Autumn's bright sceptre, the golden-rod, pointed the way. Blue and white daisies strewed the greensward.

After passing Sawyer's River, the road turned abruptly to the north, skirting the base of the Nancy range. We were at the door of the second chamber in this remarkable gallery of nature.

Before crossing the threshold it is expedient to allude to the incident which has given a name not only to the mountain, but to the torrent we see tearing its impetuous way down from the upper forests. The story of Nancy's Brook is as follows:

In the latter part of the last century, a maiden, whose Christian name of Nancy is all that comes down to us, was living in the little hamlet of Jefferson. She loved, and was betrothed to a young man of the farm. The wedding-day was fixed, and the young couple were on the eve of setting out for Portsmouth, where their happiness was to be consummated at the altar. In the trustfulness of love, the young girl confided the small sum which constituted all her marriage-portion to her lover. This man repaid her simple faith with the basest treachery. Seizing his opportunity, he left the hamlet without a word of explanation or of adieu. The deserted maiden was one of those natures which cannot quietly sit down under calamity. Urged on by the intensity of her feelings, she resolved to pursue her recreant lover. He could not resist her prayers, her entreaties, her tears! She was young, vigorous, intrepid. With her to decide and to act were the same thing. In vain the family attempted to dissuade her from her purpose. At nightfall she set out.

A hundred years ago the route taken by this brave girl was not, as to-day, a thoroughfare which one may follow with his eyes shut. It was only an obscure path, little travelled by day, deserted by night. For thirty miles, from Colonel Whipple's, in Jefferson, to Bartlett, there was not a human habitation. The forests were filled with wild beasts. The rigor of the season--it was December--added its own perils. But nothing could daunt the heroic spirit of Nancy; she had found man more cruel than all besides.

The girl's hope was to overtake her lover before dawn at the place where she expected he would have camped for the night. She found the camp deserted, and the embers extinguished. Spurred on by hope or despair, she pushed on down the tremendous defile of the Notch, fording the turbulent and frozen Saco, and toiling through deep snows and over rocks and fallen trees, until, feeling her strength fail, she sunk exhausted on the margin of the brook which seems perpetually bemoaning her sad fate. Here, cold and rigid as marble, under a canopy of evergreen which the snow tenderly drooped above, they found her. She was wrapped in her cloak, and in the same attitude of repose as when she fell asleep on her nuptial couch of snow-crusted moss.

The story goes that the faithless lover became a hopeless maniac on learning the fate of his victim, dying in horrible paroxysms not long after. Tradition adds that for many years, on every anniversary of her death, the mountains resounded with ravings, shrieks, and agonized cries, which the superstitious attributed to the unhappy ghost of the maniac lover.[6]

It was not quite noon when we entered the beautiful and romantic glen under the shadow of Mount Crawford. Upon our left, a little in advance, a solidly-built English country-house, with gables, stood on a terrace well above the valley. At our right, and below, was the old Mount Crawford tavern, one of the most ancient of mountain hostelries. Upon the opposite side of the vale rose the enormous mass of Mount Crawford; and near where we stood, a humble mound, overgrown with bushes, enclosed the mortal remains of the hardy pioneer whose monument is the mountain.

We had an excusable curiosity to see a man who, in the prime of life, had forsaken the city, its pleasures, its opportunities, and had come to pass the rest of his life among these mountains; one, too, whose enormous possessions procured for him the title of Lord of the Valley. We heard with astonishment that our day's journey, of which we had completed the half only, was wholly over his tract--I ought to say his dominions--that is, over thirteen miles of field, forest, and mountain. This being equal to a small principality, it seemed quite natural and proper to approach the proprietor with some degree of ceremony.

A servant took our cards at the door, and returned with an invitation to enter. The apartment into which we were conducted was the most singular I have ever seen; certainly it has no counterpart in this world, unless the famous hut of Robinson Crusoe has escaped the ravages of time. It was literally crammed with antique furniture, among which was a high-backed chair used in dentistry; squat little bottles, containing chemicals; and a bench, on which was a spirit-lamp; a turning-lathe, a small portable furnace, and a variety of instruments or tools of which we did not know the use. A few prints and oil-paintings adorned the walls. A cheerful fire burnt on the hearth.

"Were we in the sixteenth century," said George, "I should say this was the laboratory of some famous alchemist."

Further investigation was cut short by the entrance of our host, who was a venerable-looking man, turned of eighty, with a silver beard falling upon his breast, and a general expression of benignity. He stooped a little, but seemed hale and hearty, notwithstanding the weight of his fourscore years.

Doctor Bemis received us graciously. For an hour he entertained us with the story of his life among the mountains, "to which," said he, "I credit the last forty-five years--for I at first came here in pursuit of health." After he had satisfied our curiosity concerning himself, which he did with perfect _bonhomie_, I asked him to describe Abel Crawford, the veteran guide of the White Hills.

"Abel," said the doctor, "was six feet four; Erastus, the eldest son, was six feet six, or taller than Washington; and Ethan was still taller, being nearly seven feet. In fact, not one of the sons was less than six feet; so you may imagine what sort of family group it was when 'his boys,' as Abel loved to call them, were all at home. Ah, well!" continued the doctor, with a sigh, "that kind of timber does not flourish in the mountains now. Why, the very sight of one of those giants inspired the timid with confidence. Ethan, called in his day the Giant of the Hills, was a man of iron frame and will. Fear and he were strangers. He would take up an exhausted traveller in his sinewy arms and carry him as you would a baby, until his strength or courage returned. The first bridle-path up the mountain was opened by him in--let me see--ah! I have it, it was in 1821. Ethan, with the help of his father, also built the Notch House above.[7]

"Abel was long-armed, lean, and sinewy. Doctor Dwight, whose 'Travels in New England' you have doubtless read, stopped with Crawford, on his way down the Notch, in 1797. His nearest neighbor then, on the north, was Captain Rosebrook, who lived on or near the site of the present Fabyan House. Crawford's life of hardship had made little impression on a constitution of iron. At seventy-five he rode the first horse that reached the summit of Mount Washington. At eighty he often walked to his son's (Thomas J. Crawford), at the entrance of the Notch, before breakfast. I recollect him perfectly at this time, and his appearance was peculiarly impressive. He was erect and vigorous as one of those pines on yonder mountain. His long white hair fell down upon his shoulders, and his fresh, ruddy face was always expressive of good-humor.

"The destructive freshet of 1826," continued the doctor, "swept everything before it, flooding the intervale, and threatening the old house down there with instant demolition. During that terrible night, when the Willey family perished, Mrs. Crawford was alone with her young children in the house. The water rose with such rapidity that she was driven to the upper story for safety. While here, the thud of floating trees, driven by the current against the house, awakened new terrors. At every concussion the house trembled. Wooden walls could not long stand that terrible pounding. The heroic woman, alive to the danger, seized a stout pole, and, going to the nearest window, kept the side of the house exposed to the flood free from the mass of wreck-stuff collected against it. She held her post thus throughout the night, until the danger had passed. When the flood subsided, Crawford found several fine trout alive in his cellar."

"When do the great freshets usually occur?" I asked.

"In the autumn," replied our host. "It is not the melting snows, but the sudden rainfalls that we fear."

"Yes," resumed he, reflectively, "the Crawfords were a family of athletes. With them the race of guides became extinct. Soon after settling here, Abel went with his wife to Bartlett on some occasion, leaving their two boys in the care of a hired man. When they had gone, this man took what he could find of value and decamped. When Abel returned, which he did on the following day, he immediately set out in pursuit of the thief, overtook him thirty miles from here, in the Franconia forests, flogged him within an inch of his life, and let him go."

"Sixty miles on foot, and alone, to recover a few stolen goods, and punish a thief!" cried the astonished colonel; "that beats Daniel Boone."

"Yes; and what is more, the boys were brought up to face hunger, cold, fatigue, with Indian stoicism, and even to encounter bears, lynxes, and wolves with no other weapons than those provided by nature. There, now, was Ethan, for example," said the doctor, smiling at the recollection. "One day he took it into his head to have a tame bear for the diversion of his guests. Well, he caught a young one, half grown, and remarkably vicious, in a trap. But how to get him home! At length Ethan tied his fore and hind paws together so he couldn't scratch, and put a muzzle of withes over his nose so he couldn't bite. Then, shouldering his prize as he would a bag of meal, the guide started for home, in great glee at the success of his clever expedient. He had not gone far, however, before Bruin managed to get one paw wholly and his muzzle partly free, and began to scratch and struggle and snap at his captor savagely. Ethan wanted to get the bear home terribly; but, after having his clothing nearly torn off his back, he grew angry, and threw the beast upon the ground with such force as to kill him instantly."

"Report," said I, "credits you with naming most of the mountains which overlook the intervale."

"Yes," replied the doctor, "Resolution, over there"--indicating the mountain allied to Crawford, and to the ridge which forms one of the buttresses of Mount Washington--"I named in recognition of the perseverance of Mr. Davis, who became discouraged while making a path to Mount Washington in 1845."

"Is the route practicable?" I asked.

"Practicable, yes; but nearly obliterated, and seldom ascended. Have you seen Frankenstein?" demanded the doctor, in his turn.

We replied in the negative.

"It will repay a visit. I named it for a young German artist who passed some time with me, and who was fascinated by its rugged picturesqueness. Here is some of his work," pointing to the paintings which, apparently, formed the foundation of the collection on the walls.

Our host accompanied us to the door with a second injunction not to forget Frankenstein.

"You have something there good for the eyes," I observed, indicating the green carpet of the vale beneath us.

"True; but you should have seen it when the deer boldly came down the mountain and browsed quietly among the cattle. That was a pretty sight, and one of frequent occurrence when I first knew the place. At that time," he continued, "the stage passed up every other day. Sometimes there were one or two, but seldom three passengers."

Proceeding on our way, we now had a fine view of the Giant's Stairs, which we had already seen from Mount Carrigain, but less boldly outlined than they appear from the valley, where they really look like two enormous steps cut on the very summit of the opposite ridge. No name could be more appropriate, though each of the degrees of this colossal staircase demands a giant not of our days; for they are respectively three hundred and fifty, and four hundred and fifty feet in height. It was over those steps that the Davis path ascended.

A mile or a mile and a half above the Crawford Glen, we emerged from behind a projecting spur of the mountain which hid the upper valley, when, by a common impulse, we stopped, fairly stupefied with admiration and surprise.

Thrust out before us, athwart the pass, a black and castellated pile of precipices shot upward to a dizzy height, and broke off abruptly against the sky. Its bulging sides and regular outlines resembled the clustered towers and frowning battlements of some antique fortress built to command the pass. Gashed, splintered, defaced, it seemed to have withstood for ages the artillery of heaven and the assaults of time. With what solitary grandeur it lifted its mailed front above the forest, and seemed even to regard the mountains with disdain! Silent, gloomy, impregnable, it wanted nothing to recall those dark abodes of the Thousand and One Nights, in which malignant genii are imprisoned for thousands of years.

This was Frankenstein. We at once accord it a place as the most suggestive of cliffs. From the other side of the valley the resemblance to a mediæval castle is still more striking. It has a black gorge for a moat, so deep that the head swims when crossing it; and to-day, as we crept over the cat's-cradle of a bridge thrown across for the passage of the railway, and listened to the growling of the torrent far down beneath, the whole frail structure seemed trembling under us.

But what a contrast! what a singular freak of nature! At the foot of this grisly precipice, clothing it with almost superhuman beauty, was a plantation of maples and birches, all resplendent in crimson and gold. Never have I seen such masses of color laid on such a background. Below all was light and splendor; above, all darkness and gloom. Here the eye fairly revelled in beauty, there it recoiled in terror. The cliff was like a naked and swarthy Ethiopian up to his knees in roses.

We walked slowly, with our eyes fixed on these cliffs, until another turn of the road--we were now on the railway embankment--opened a vista deserving to be remembered as one of the marvels of this glorious picture-gallery.

The perfection and magnificence of this truly regal picture, the gigantic scale on which it is presented, without the least blemish to mar its harmony or disturb the impression of one grand, unique whole, is a revelation to the least susceptible nature in the world.

Frankenstein was now a little withdrawn, on our left. Upon the right, fluttering its golden foliage as if to attract our attention, a plantation of tall, satin-stemmed birches stretched for some distance along the railway. Between the long buttress of the cliff and this forest lay open the valley of Mount Washington River, which is driven deep into the heart of the great range. There, through this valley, cutting the sapphire sky with their silver silhouette, were the giant mountains, surmounted by the splendid dome of Washington himself.

Passing beyond, we had a fine retrospect of Crawford, with his curved horn; and upon the dizzy iron bridge thrown across the gorge beneath Frankenstein, striking views are obtained of the mountains below. They seemed loftier and grander, and more imposing than ever.

Turning our faces toward the north, we now beheld the immense bulk and superb crest of Willey. On the other side of the valley was the long battlement of Mount Webster. We were at the entrance of the great Notch.

VIII.

_THROUGH THE NOTCH._

Around his waist are forests braced, The avalanche in his hand.--BYRON.

The valley, which had continually contracted since leaving Bartlett, now appeared fast shut between these two mountains; but on turning the tremendous support which Mount Willey flings down, we were in presence of the amazing defile cloven through the midst, and giving entrance to the heart of the White Hills.

These gigantic mountains divided to the right and left, like the Red Sea before the Israelites. Through the immense trough, over which their crests hung suspended in mid-air, the highway creeps and the river steals away. The road is only seen at intervals through the forest; a low murmur, like the hum of bees, announces the river.

I have no conception of the man who can approach this stupendous chasm without a sensation of fear. The idea of imminent annihilation is everywhere overwhelming. The mind refuses to reason, or rather to fix itself, except on a single point. What if the same power that commanded these awful mountains to remove should hurl them back to ever-during fixedness? Should, do I say? The gulf seemed contracting under our very eyes--the great mountains toppling to their fall. With an eagerness excited by high expectation, we had pressed forward; but now we hesitated.

This emotion, which many of my readers have doubtless partaken, was our tribute to the dumb but eloquent expression of power too vast for our feeble intellects to measure. It was the triumph of matter over mind; of the finite over the infinite.

Below, it was all admiration and surprise; here, all amazement and fear. The more the mountains exalted themselves, the more we were abased. Trusting, nevertheless, in our insignificance, we moved on, looking with all our eyes, absorbed, silent, and almost worshipping.

The wide split of the Notch, which we had now entered, had on one side Mount Willey, drawn up to his full height; and on the other Mount Webster, striped with dull red on clingy yellow, like an old tiger's skin. Willey is the highest; Webster the most remarkable. Willey has a conical spire; Webster a long, irregular battlement. Willey is a mountain; Webster a huge block of granite.

For two miles the gorge winds between these mountains to where it is apparently sealed up by a sheer mass of purple precipices lodged full in its throat. This is Mount Willard. The vast chasm glowed with the gorgeous colors of the foliage, even when a passing cloud obscured the sun. These general observations made, we cast our eyes down into the vale reposing at our feet. We had chosen for our point of view that to which Abel Crawford conducted Sir Charles Lyell in 1845. The scientist has made the avalanche bear witness to the glacier, precisely as one criminal is made to convict another under our laws.

Five hundred feet below us was a little clearing, containing a hamlet of two or three houses. From this hamlet to the storm-crushed crags glistening on the summit of Mount Willey the track of an old avalanche was still distinguishable, though the birches and alders rooted among the débris threatened to obliterate it at no distant day.

We descended by this still plain path to the houses at the foot of the mountain. One and the other are associated with the most tragic event connected with the history of the great Notch.

We found two houses, a larger and smaller, fronting the road, neither of which merits a description; although evidence that it was visited by multitudes of curious pilgrims abounded on the walls of the unoccupied building.

Since quite early in the century, this house was kept as an inn; and for a long time it was the only stopping-place between Abel Crawford's below and Captain Rosebrook's above--a distance of thirteen miles. Its situation, at the entrance of the great Notch, was advantageous to the public and to the landlord, but attended with a danger which seems not to have been sufficiently regarded, if indeed it caused successive inmates particular concern. This fatal security had a lamentable sequel.

In 1826 this house was occupied by Samuel Willey, his wife, five children, and two hired men. During the summer a drought of unusual severity dried the streams, and parched the thin soil of the neighboring mountains. On the evening of the 26th of June, the family heard a heavy, rumbling noise, apparently proceeding from the mountain behind them. In terror and amazement they ran out of the house. They saw the mountain in motion. They saw an immense mass of earth and rock detach itself and move toward the valley, at first slowly, then with gathered and irresistible momentum. Rocks, trees, earth, were swooping down upon them from the heights in three destroying streams. The spectators stood rooted to the spot. Before they could recover their presence of mind the avalanche was upon them. One torrent crossed the road only ten rods from the house; another a little distance beyond; while the third and largest portion took a different direction. With great labor a way was made over the mass of rubbish for the road. The avalanche had shivered the largest trees, and borne rocks weighing many tons almost to the door of the lonely habitation.

This awful warning passed unheeded. On the 28th of August, at dusk, a storm burst upon the mountains, and raged with indescribable fury throughout the night. The rain fell in sheets. Innumerable torrents suddenly broke forth on all sides, deluging the narrow valley, and bearing with them forests that had covered the mountains for ages. The swollen and turbid Saco rose over its banks, flooding the Intervales, and spreading destruction in its course.

Two days afterward a traveller succeeded in forcing his way through the Notch. He found the Willey House standing uninjured in the midst of woful desolation. A second avalanche, descended from Mount Willey during the storm, had buried the little vale beneath its ruins. The traveller, affrighted by the scene around him, pushed open the door. As he did so, a half-famished dog, sole inmate of the house, disputed his entrance with a mournful howl. He entered. The interior was silent and deserted. A candle burnt to the socket, the clothing of the inmates lying by their bedsides, testified to the haste with which this devoted family had fled. The death-like hush pervading the lonely cabin--these evidences of the horrible and untimely fate of the family--the appalling scene of wreck all around, froze the solitary intruder's blood. In terror he, too, fled from the doomed dwelling.

On arriving at Bartlett, the traveller reported what he had seen. Assistance was despatched to the scene of disaster. The rescuers came too late to render aid to the living, but they found, and buried on the spot, the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Willey, and the two hired men. The remaining children were never found.

It was easily conjectured that the terrified family, alive at last to the appalling danger that menaced them, and feeling the solid earth tremble in the throes of the mountain, sought safety in flight. They only rushed to their doom. The discovery of the bodies showed but too plainly the manner of their death. They had been instantly swallowed up by the avalanche, which, in the inexplicable order of things visible in great calamities, divided behind the house, leaving the frail structure unharmed, while its inmates were hurried into eternity.[8]