It was the benediction hour. The placid air of the day shed a new
tranquillity over the consoling landscape. The heart of the earth
seemed to taste a repose more perfect than that of common days. A
hermit-thrush, far up the vale, sang his vesper hymn; while the
swallows, seeking their evening meal, circled above the river-fields
without an effort, twittering softly, now and then, as if they must
give thanks. Slight and indefinable touches in the scene, perhaps
the mere absence of the tiny human figures passing along the road or
labouring in the distant meadows, perhaps the blue curls of smoke
rising lazily from the farmhouse chimneys, or the family groups
sitting under the maple-trees before the door, diffused a sabbath
atmosphere over the world.
Then said the lad, lying on the grass beside me, "Father, who owns
the mountains?"
I happened to have heard, the day before, of two or three lumber
companies that had bought some of the woodland slopes; so I told
him their names, adding that there were probably a good many
different owners, whose claims taken all together would cover
the whole Franconia range of hills.
"Well," answered the lad, after a moment of silence, "I don't see
what difference that makes. Everybody can look at them."
They lay stretched out before us in the level sunlight, the sharp
peaks outlined against the sky, the vast ridges of forest sinking
smoothly towards the valleys, the deep hollows gathering purple
shadows in their bosoms, and the little foothills standing out in
rounded promontories of brighter green from the darker mass behind
them.
Far to the east, the long comb of Twin Mountain extended itself back
into the untrodden wilderness. Mount Garfield lifted a clear-cut
pyramid through the translucent air. The huge bulk of Lafayette
ascended majestically in front of us, crowned with a rosy diadem of
rocks. Eagle Cliff and Bald Mountain stretched their line of
scalloped peaks across the entrance to the Notch. Beyond that
shadowy vale, the swelling summits of Cannon Mountain rolled away to
meet the tumbling waves of Kinsman, dominated by one loftier crested
billow that seemed almost ready to curl and break out of green
silence into snowy foam. Far down the sleeping Landaff valley the
undulating dome of Moosilauke trembled in the distant blue.
They were all ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn
groves of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the
stately pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the
tremulous thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide
outlooks, and the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of
little rivers,--we knew and loved them all; they ministered peace
and joy to us; they were all ours, though we held no title deeds and
our ownership had never been recorded.
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