But for the most part the brook lay wide open to the sky, and the
tide, rising and sinking somewhat irregularly in the pond below,
made curious alternations in its depth and in the swiftness of its
current. For about half a mile we navigated this lazy little river,
and then we found that rowing would carry us no farther, for we came
to a place where the stream issued with a livelier flood from an
archway in a thicket.
This woodland portal was not more than four feet wide, and the
branches of the small trees were closely interwoven overhead. We
shipped the oars and took one of them for a paddle. Stooping down,
we pushed the boat through the archway and found ourselves in the
Fairy Dell. It was a long, narrow bower, perhaps four hundred feet
from end to end, with the brook dancing through it in a joyous,
musical flow over a bed of clean yellow sand and white pebbles.
There were deep places in the curves where you could hardly touch
bottom with an oar, and shallow places in the straight runs where
the boat would barely float. Not a ray of unbroken sunlight leaked
through the green roof of this winding corridor; and all along the
sides there were delicate mosses and tall ferns and wildwood flowers
that love the shade.
At the upper end of the bower our progress in the boat was barred by
a low bridge, on a forgotten road that wound through the pine-woods.
Here I left my lady Graygown, seated on the shady corner of the
bridge with a book, swinging her feet over the stream, while I set
out to explore its further course. Above the wood-road there were
no more fairy dells, nor easy-going estuaries. The water came down
through the most complicated piece of underbrush that I have ever
encountered. Alders and swamp maples and pussy-willows and gray
birches grew together in a wild confusion. Blackberry bushes and
fox-grapes and cat-briers trailed and twisted themselves in an
incredible tangle. There was only one way to advance, and that was
to wade in the middle of the brook, stooping low, lifting up the
pendulous alder-branches, threading a tortuous course, now under and
now over the innumerable obstacles, as a darning-needle is pushed in
and out through the yarn of a woollen stocking.
It was dark and lonely in that difficult passage. The brook divided
into many channels, turning this way and that way, as if it were
lost in the woods. There were huge clumps of OSMUNDA REGALIS
spreading their fronds in tropical profusion. Mouldering logs were
covered with moss. The water gurgled slowly into deep corners under
the banks. Catbirds and blue jays fluttered screaming from the
thickets. Cotton-tailed rabbits darted away, showing the white flag
of fear. Once I thought I saw the fuscous gleam of a red fox
stealing silently through the brush. It would have been no surprise
to hear the bark of a raccoon, or see the eyes of a wildcat gleaming
through the leaves.
For more than an hour I was pushing my way through this miniature
wilderness of half a mile; and then I emerged suddenly, to find
myself face to face with--a railroad embankment and the afternoon
express, with its parlour-cars, thundering down to Southampton!
It was a strange and startling contrast. The explorer's joy, the
sense of adventure, the feeling of wildness and freedom, withered
and crumpled somewhat preposterously at the sight of the parlour-
cars. My scratched hands and wet boots and torn coat seemed unkempt
and disreputable. Perhaps some of the well-dressed people looking
out at the windows of the train were the friends with whom we were
to dine on Saturday. BATECHE! What would they say to such a
costume as mine? What did I care what they said!
But, all the same, it was a shock, a disenchantment, to find that
civilization, with all its absurdities and conventionalities, was so
threateningly close to my new-found wilderness. My first enthusiasm
was not a little chilled as I walked back, along an open woodland
path, to the bridge where Graygown was placidly reading. Reading, I
say, though her book was closed, and her brown eyes were wandering
over the green leaves of the thicket, and the white clouds drifting,
drifting lazily across the blue deep of the sky.
II
A BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
On the voyage home, she gently talked me out of my disappointment,
and into a wiser frame of mind.
It was a surprise, of course, she admitted, to find that our
wilderness was so little, and to discover the trail of a parlour-car
on the edge of Paradise. But why not turn the surprise around, and
make it pleasant instead of disagreeable? Why not look at the
contrast from the side that we liked best?
It was not necessary that everybody should take the same view of
life that pleased us. The world would not get on very well without
people who preferred parlour-cars to canoes, and patent-leather
shoes to India-rubber boots, and ten-course dinners to picnics in
the woods. These good people were unconsciously toiling at the hard
and necessary work of life in order that we, of the chosen and
fortunate few, should be at liberty to enjoy the best things in the
world.
Why should we neglect our opportunities, which were also our real
duties? The nervous disease of civilization might prevail all
around us, but that ought not to destroy our grateful enjoyment of
the lucid intervals that were granted to us by a merciful
Providence.
Why should we not take this little untamed brook, running its humble
course through the borders of civilized life and midway between two
flourishing summer resorts,--a brook without a single house or a
cultivated field on its banks, as free and beautiful and secluded as
if it flowed through miles of trackless forest,--why not take this
brook as a sign that the ordering of the universe had a "good
intention" even for inveterate idlers, and that the great Arranger
of the world felt some kindness for such gipsy-hearts as ours? What
law, human or divine, was there to prevent us from making this
stream our symbol of deliverance from the conventional and
commonplace, our guide to liberty and a quiet mind?
So reasoned Graygown with her
"most silver flow
Of subtle-paced counsel in distress."
And, according to her word, so did we. That lazy, idle brook became
to us one of the best of friends; the pathfinder of happiness on
many a bright summer day; and, through long vacations, the faithful
encourager of indolence.
Indolence in the proper sense of the word, you understand. The
meaning which is commonly given to it, as Archbishop Trench pointed
out in his suggestive book about WORDS AND THEIR USES, is altogether
false. To speak of indolence as if it were a vice is just a great
big verbal slander.
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