"What now to me the jars of life,
Its petty cares, its harder throes?
The hills are free from toil and strife,
And clasp me in their deep repose."
"Now," says Eric, "who is ready for the ascent of the Black Mountain?"
This question is addressed to the assembled party the day after our return to Asheville. The drive from Alexander's was very pleasant, and the next day is brilliantly clear—so clear that Eric says:
"If we were only on the Black, what a view we should have!"
"How far is it to the Black?" asks Aunt Markham, with a sigh. "Can we go and return in a day?"
"My dear mother, what are you thinking of?" says Eric. "It is a day's journey from here to the foot of the mountain. Then it takes the best part of the next day to ascend it; and when you are once on top you are very willing to spend the night there."
"Spend the night!—where?"
"In a cave."
"Eric!"
"I am not joking, I assure you—Charley will tell you that I am not. It is a very good shelter, and balsam-boughs make a capital bed."
"A cave!—balsam-boughs!" Aunt Markham looks so sincerely and utterly overwhelmed that most of us cannot restrain a laugh. "It can't be possible, Eric," she says majestically, "that you expect me to go on such an expedition as that?"
"Honestly, I don't think you would be likely to enjoy it," replies Eric candidly. "You had better stay here, perhaps, while the rest of us go."
This proposal is not received so easily as it is made. Aunt Markham looks still more majestic. "You forget that there ought to be a chaperon in such a party," she says.
"I'm chaperon enough," answers Eric, coolly. "Haven't I been taking care of Alice and Sylvia all their lives, and can't I take care of them on the Black Mountain? But, if it will set your mind at rest on the propriety question, Mrs. Cardigan talks of accompanying us."
"I disapprove of Mrs. Cardigan," is on the tip of Aunt Markham's tongue, but she does not utter the words. The propriety question must, she thinks, be considered, and even the shadow of a chaperon is sometimes better than none.
"I suppose you invited her to join our party?" says Charley to Eric.
"On the contrary, she invited herself," he answers quietly. "It was fortunate, perhaps, since I suppose she will do for a chaperon—eh, mother?"
"I think she stands very much in need of one herself," says Aunt Markham, severely.
Notwithstanding this unfavorable opinion, the matter is settled as Eric suggested. The idea of ascending a mountain on horseback, and spending the night in a cave, is more than Aunt Markham's philosophy is able to endure.
"Twenty-five years ago I might have done such a thing," she says, "but now—"
"I'd like of all things to see mother mounted on a horse," remarks Rupert, with a burst of laughter.
"You are an undutiful boy to wish to make game of your own mother—and you will never be gratified," says Aunt Markham.
Later in the day Mrs. Cardigan joins us, and we discuss the details of the expedition.
"The first essentials," says Eric, "are to provide ourselves with plenty to eat and plenty to wear. Unless we are careful on those points, we shall suffer with hunger and cold."
70"Not a doubt of that!" says Charley. "The Black Mountain is the most famous place I know for becoming ravenously hungry and uncomfortably cold."
"But there is no reason why it should be so," says Mr. Lanier. "Surely it is possible for a party to take with them all that they are likely to need in the way of food and clothing."
"Not so possible as you might think. The air up there gives people appetites such as they never had before in their lives; and the nights are often so cold that no amount of clothing will keep you warm."
"But you make fires, do you not?" asks Mrs. Cardigan.
"We try to do so; but the balsam is the only wood to be had, and it is the hardest wood in the world out of which to make a fire. If you relax your attention to it for five minutes, it quietly subsides into a charred mass of black logs."
"What a prospect!" says Mrs. Cardigan, laughing. "We are to be starved and to be frozen; and what is to repay us for all this?"
"The view," says Sylvia, "and the proud consciousness of standing on the highest point of land east of the Rocky Mountains."
"But it is extremely likely that you will not have the view," says Charley. "The rule on the Black is not to have it. People who live near the mountain will tell you that you might count on your fingers the days in the year when its summit is not wrapped in clouds."
"I think Mr. Kenyon must be endeavoring to dissuade us from making the ascent," says Mrs. Cardigan.
"It is certainly very kind of him to raise our spirits with such pleasant accounts of all that we are likely to encounter," says Sylvia. "But, in spite of hunger, cold, and clouds, we mean to go."
"I never doubted that for a moment," says Charley.
"With such an able commanding officer as Mr. Markham, I am sure there is no reason to apprehend any misadventures," says Mrs. Cardigan, turning her bright, brunette face toward Eric.
"An officer should not be complimented before his ability has been tested," he answers. "If it is settled that we start to-morrow, I must go and make arrangements for a supply of provisions."
He goes—rather glad, I think, to escape from the fair widow's bewitching glances. This lady is never at a loss for a subject, however. All men, from seventeen to seventy, she esteems her lawful prey, and, failing one, she falls back, with easy grace, upon another. She steps now out of the room in which we are sitting onto a balcony, and calls Mr. Lanier to admire the view of the mountains that lie in blue waves along the southern horizon.
"I am so glad that you advised me to come to this place," we hear her say. "Down at the Springs one was so shut in by hills that it was almost equivalent to being in an oven; but here we have these lovely distant views, and such a stimulating atmosphere. If I were so fortunate as to be like yourself, one of a pleasant party, how I should delight in scampering all over the country! But it is so depressing to be alone."
"I am sure there is no reason, save your own choice, why you should ever be alone," says Mr. Lanier, gallantly.
"Mark my words, Sylvia," I say, aside, "Mrs. Cardigan has invited herself to accompany us to the Black—she will invite herself to accompany us still farther if we do not take care."
"Well, why not?" asks Sylvia, carelessly. "She is rather entertaining. Are you afraid for Eric's peace of mind?"
"Are you not afraid for Ralph Lanier's allegiance?"
She laughs.
"Not I. More attractive women than Mrs. Cardigan have tried to shake that—and failed."
I make no remark on this confident statement, but I think that there is a limit to the perseverance of most men, and that a man so persistently snubbed as Ralph Lanier might be excused for finding a balm for his feelings in the attentions of so charming a woman as Mrs. Cardigan.
The next morning we start on our expedition. The day is bright with the golden brightness of September, and has that serene charm of atmosphere which makes the autumn a season of delight. Obedient to orders, we lourselves with wraps of all kinds, but we cannot imagine that we shall find need for half of them. Neither can we imagine that under any possible circumstances our appetites will grow large enough 71to consume the amount of provisions with which Eric fills the wagon.
"I think Mr. Markham must be preparing for a more extensive trip than we know of," says Mrs. Cardigan, with a laugh.
"Eric, do you mean to drive the phaeton?" I ask.
"Oh, pray do, Mr. Markham!" cries Mrs. Cardigan eagerly. "I am so fond of sitting on the front seat, where I can watch the horses—and so fond of driving, too, when there is a gentleman by to take the reins if any thing should happen."
"That won't do!" says Eric, and he smiles as he looks at the speaker, who stands on the steps in her becoming costume and coquettish hat. "If you take the reins, you must be prepared to take the consequences also."
"I'll take any thing whatever, if you will only let me drive those beautiful horses," she says, gayly.
Sylvia rides, as usual; but Mr. Lanier's horse is unluckily lame, so he is obliged to leave it behind and accept a seat in the phaeton. This necessity depresses his spirits, but Charley's are correspondingly high, and he canters off by Sylvia's side with an air not calculated to remove his rival's depression.
With many last injunctions from Aunt Markham not to break our necks, and to be sure and come back on the third day, we finally drive off. Our way out of Asheville lies toward the Swannanoa, and when we reach that stream we follow the stage-rimmediately along its bank. The valley spreads fair and green around us, morning lights and shades are on the hills, a tender yet radiant haze drapes the far blue mountains, the river flows swiftly by, full of glancing brightness.
"This is the rwhich leads to Swannanoa Gap," says Ralph Lanier. "Do we follow it far?"
"For about twelve miles," Eric answers. "As far as Alexander's."
"I thought we left Alexander's on the French Br" says Mrs. Cardigan, who is driving, and does it—as she does every thing—with grace and skill.
"This is another Alexander's—and a very different one," says Eric.
The r which for twelve miles leads directly up the valley of the Swannanoa, is uniformly good. We ford the river several times, and see it in all phases of its capricious loveliness, and with every possible background—now level farm-lands and purple hills, then a beautiful pass dark with overhanging shade, again a picturesque mill with the water flashing over its dam in a sheet of silver, or mountains rising behind mountains with patches of shadow on their deep gorges and wooded sides. Through all these varying scenes the river takes its way with sweet impetuosity, swirling in rapids, flowing still and deep between its banks, or rippling gayly over stony shallows.
"'Swannanoa! well they named thee
In the mellow Indian tongue,
"Beautiful" thou art most truly,
And right worthy to be sung,'"
says Mr. Lanier, who has found this verse on the back of a photograph.
"It is tame here, compared to what it is as it comes down the Black Mountain," says Eric. "Some glens on the stream there I have never seen surpassed for wildness and beauty."
"Shall we see them?" asks Mrs. Cardigan.
"If you like, and if you are not afraid of rattlesnakes, which abound in such places. Our course lies directly to the head-waters of the river."
"Great place for trout-fishing, isn't it?" asks Mr. Lanier.
"Splendid place," responds Eric. "You would suspect me of exaggeration if I were to say how many speckled trout I have caught there in a day."
"Oh, how delightful!" cries Mrs. Cardigan. "May I catch some, too, please? I am devoted to fishing."
Both gentlemen laugh at this.
"Are you prepared to go into the stream and wade?" they ask. "That is the way to fish for mountain trout. The growth along the banks is so dense that no other mode answers."
"If you had given me warning, I should have brought a wading costume along," she says; "but at present I am not provided for any thing of that kind."
On we go, bowling lightly and easily over the ralong which the heavy stage jolts and bumps.
"This is the perfection of traveling!" cries Mrs. Cardigan.
72The spirited horses, which are the pride and delight of Eric's heart, do not need a touch of the whip as they move forward in that long, swinging trot which seems pleasure instead of labor to thoroughbreds. All around us lies the brightness of the mellow day, and the varied glory of the mountain landscape. Great hills stand bathed in sunshine or dappled with shade, while at their feet are coves in which the br low farmhouses stand, with sunny meadows and fields of waving corn.
At noon we reach Alexander's, where we stop for dinner and rest two or three hours during the heat of the day.
"There is no need of haste in getting to Patton's," says Eric, with a shrug. "You will have quite enough of it, for we can't ascend the mountain until to-morrow."
This seems to us a provoking delay, but we are too well drilled to think of murmuring.
"Eric knows," says Sylvia to Mrs. Cardigan, who is bold enough to express some disapproval. "He has spent every summer since he was a boy in this country, and he is so enamored of it that I think he will end by living here altogether."
When we set forth again, the afternoon has little heat in its soft glory. After leaving Alexander's, we turn abruptly from the stage-rstraight toward the dark mountains that stand like giants before us. As we advance, these great heights, which make others seem like pigmy hills, inclose us on all sides, wearing every tint of dark purple and blue. Their majestic loneliness, their wild grandeur, strike one with a sense of absolute awe. We look at them, in the everlasting fixity of their repose, and realize— as perhaps it has never chanced to us to realize before—the brevity and insignificance of our existences.
"I don't wonder that mountaineers, as a rule, are melancholy," says Sylvia, who is riding behind the phaeton. "If I lived always in the shadow of these mountains, I should feel their solemnity in every act of my life; I should never be able to throw it off."
"You think so because you never have lived in their shadow," says Eric. "If you did, you would soon discover that their solemnity, which strikes you so much now, would affect you very little."
"'They emblem that eternal rest
We cannot compass in our speech,'"
she says, in a low voice, looking at the splendid masses as they tower against the sky, wrapped in eternal silence and motionless calm.
As we penetrate deeper into the mountains, our rleads up a narrow valley, along which a stream—clearer than crystal, if such a thing can be—takes its course, and crosses our ragain and again.
"Is this the Swannanoa?" some one asks.
"It is Swannanoa Creek," Eric answers; "the branch of the stream which comes down from the Black."
The sun has dropped behind the hills that hem us in, and a few broken masses of gorgeous clouds are floating above the dark-blue peaks of Craggy, when we reach the house where we are to spend the night—Patton's, at the foot of the mountain. It is a rough place, poorly kept—hotels for tourists have not yet risen in these fastnesses—but the people, here as elsewhere, are civil, obliging, and ready to give us their best. Mrs. Cardigan grimaces a little over the room into which we are ushered; but it has at least the merit of cleanliness, which Sylvia points out.
"Will you want supper?" asks a gaunt woman, coming to the door while we are shaking off the dust of travel.
We reply emphatically that we will want supper, and probably manifest a little surprise at the question, for she goes on to explain it.
"I see you have your own purvisions," she says, "and I thought you might mean to make your supper off'en 'em. Some folks does."
"That is the reason why some folks nearly starve on the top of the mountain," says Sylvia, with the air of one who knows all about such matters. "We don't mean to touch those provisions until we are on the highest peak of the Black."
"Here is something that we can touch, however," says Mrs. Cardigan, opening a basket of grapes. "And now let us go out for a walk."
The entire sky is flushed with a radiance which shows that the hidden sunset must be of unusual glory, when we leave the house and, crossing the neglected yard, take our way to the stream that sings over its rocks not more than twenty yards distant. We enter a forest rarched with shade, but, although we are not more than two steps from 73the creek, we can only obtain glimpses of its flashing beauty, so dense is the growth along its banks. At length we hear such a tumult of falling water that we feel sure something specially worth seeing is hidden from our sight, and, nerved to desperation, plunge recklessly into the thicket. Only Mrs. Cardigan holds back and suggests snakes—but Sylvia laughs.
"You are quite as likely to meet a snake where you are as here," she says. "You can't possibly guard against them, so the best thing to do is to go where you like without thinking of them."
"Mrs. Cardigan suggests snakes."
Encouraged by this philosophical view of things, Mrs. Cardigan follows, and we find ourselves in one of those glens of which Eric has spoken. Large bowlders strew the channel of the stream, over and around which, in foaming rapids and cascades, the limpid water frets and whirls. A wilderness of ivy and rhododendron, interspersed with tapering pines and stately firs, makes a wall of green along the banks, and, as we spring from rock to rock until we find ourselves in the middle of the current, we agree that, for wild and romantic loveliness, we have scarcely seen this surpassed.
"Is it not strange," says Sylvia, "that the higher one goes in these mountains, the more luxuriant the forest-growth becomes? Look at that hill-side! It is like a tropical jungle."
"Oh, to be here when the rhododendron is in bloom!" cries Mrs. Cardigan, clasping her hands; and indeed, everywhere that one turns, the br polished leaves of this "victor-wreath" of the mountains meet the glance.
We sit on the rocks, enthroned like mermaids, with the brawling stream around us, the rich, green hillside towering in front, the absolute solitude of virgin Nature in every sight and sound. We do not observe that the sunset radiance fades from the patch of sky immediately over our heads, and the soft gray tints of twilight begin to steal over the scene, until steps and voices on the hidden rrouse us to a realization that our companions are in search of us.
"Hush! Not a word!" whispers Mrs. Cardigan. "Let us see if they can find us."
"Here!" says Eric's voice. "Don't you see that they have broken through here? We'll find them out in the stream there."
"I see some figures—dryads and naiads, perhaps—on the rocks," says Charley, forcing his way through the dense chaparral of ivy and laurel.
The dryads and naiads answer with a laugh.
"Here is an excellent place if you would like another plunge-bath, Charley," I say, pointing to a crystal pool just below the rock on which I am seated.
"I wonder you ladies were not afraid of snakes," remarks Mr. Lanier, glancing round apprehensively as he makes his appearance through the bushes and over the trailing vines.
When we stroll slowly back, the cool, clear dusk has fallen. On our right the mighty peaks of the Black stand dark against the sky; immediately in front are the fantastic outlines of Craggy; overhead the moon is shining from a deep-blue sky, and the air has a freshness that is suggestive of frost.
"What a different atmosphere from that of Asheville!" says Sylvia. "And if it is so cool here to-night, what will it be on the mountain to-morrow night?"74
"'Let us see if they can find us.'"
"Cold enough to need all your wraps—and more besides," answers Eric.
We find a fire very pleasant when we return to the house. We gather around it after supper, and, with no other light than the ruddy, flickering blaze, talk until late bedtime. Eric and Charley try each to "top" the other's stories of adventures, and, if they do not succeed in this, they at least interest and amuse their audience, while Rupert sits by, drinking in every detail with absorbed attention.
"What a feast is in store for you!" says Eric, suddenly laying his hand on the boy's shoulder. "I luckily encountered an old acquaintance of mine this afternoon, who will be our guide to-morrow. His name is Dan Burnet, and he is one of the most famous hunters of this region. He will tell you bear-stories by the dozen."
"He shall tell them around the campfire to-morrow night," says Mrs. Cardigan. "How delightful and picturesque!"
"Since I have had no adventures with 75which the present party are not familiar, I shall make a diversion in the order of entertainment, and tell a ghost-story," says Sylvia. "Attention, Rupert! I know you are almost as fond of ghosts as of bears."
We can all follow this lead, so half a dozen indifferent ghost-stories are told, and provoke more laughter than terror. Then we say good-night, and separate. We find the atmosphere of our large, unwarmed chamber very chilly, but Sylvia stoutly declines to stop up a broken window-pane.
"We had better accustom ourselves to the climate," she says. "To-morrow night we shall be much colder, without any window-panes at all."
The house has been given up to our occupation—the family retiring to a smaller one across the yard—and the lights are scarcely out and things grown quiet before a strange noise (apparently caused by the shuffling of many feet) is heard on the piazza upon which our door opens.
"What is that?" asks Mrs. Cardigan.
"Ghosts, perhaps—or bandits," answers Sylvia.
"Bears," I suggest. "This is a bear-country."
"But I never heard that bears invaded houses—in platoons, too," says Mrs. Cardigan. "Listen! The noise is immediately by our door. Upon my word, I don't like this! If the door was locked it would be a different matter; but to have nothing but a chair between us and—and we don't know what!"
"It is certainly dreadful," says Sylvia, with a laugh in her voice. "It is queer. Somebody, or several somebodies, seem to be pulling something down. I tell you what"—a light spring to the floor—"I can see through the window what is going on. It is moonlight, you know."
Her bare feet trip noiselessly across the room, she pulls the curtain back from the window, looks cautiously out, and then bursts into a laugh.
"Hounds," she says. "There are several of them, and they are doing their best to get into our provisions."
"Hounds!" repeats Mrs. Cardigan, and she, too, springs to the floor. "Drive them away, for mercy's sake! If they devour our provisions, we shall have to go back to Asheville."
The window is raised forthwith, and two voices in energetic chorus bid the hounds depart—which they do immediately. Then, having routed the enemy, they are about to return to bed, when I suggest that it will be inconvenient to repeat this performance all night.
"You have repelled one attack," I say; "but those dogs will make another in ten minutes. Don't you think it might be well to bring the provisions in?"
"Impossible," says Mrs. Cardigan. "It would be an hour's work. Mr. Markham has provisions for a regiment there."
"We had better bring them in," says Sylvia. "As Alice says, it will never answer to leave them there, unless we appoint a watchman."
"It was shamefully careless of the boys to leave them," I say—from the force of old habit we still speak of Eric and Charley as "the boys." "They ought to be waked, to take them in."
"But who is to wake them?" asks Mrs. Cardigan.
"They sleep like the seven sleepers," says Sylvia. "We might thump on their door for an hour without rousing them. Come, let us do it ourselves."
So we do it ourselves. Perhaps the hounds, if they have any sense of humor and are not too hungry, enjoy the scene from a distance—three spectral, white-robed figures engaged in conveying into safe quarters various baskets and packages of edibles.
"There," says Sylvia, when we bring the last within the door, which is fastened again with a chair, "now we will let those careful gentlemen wonder where their provisions are to-morrow morning."
This kindly intention is carried into effect. We are wakened early by a thump at our door, and Rupert's voice shouts, "Time to be up!" Then this young gentleman proceeds to the end of the piazza where a tin basin is placed for the use of the public. Hardly a minute elapses before we hear an exclamation. "Thunder!" he says. "Brother Eric, O Brother Eric, where are the provisions?"
"Where are what?" asks Eric, coming out on the piazza. "Did you ask about the provisions? Why, where are they? Did anybody take them into the house last night?— Charley, did you?"
76"Not I," answers Charley's voice. "Have they disappeared? No doubt somebody put them away—Harrison, most likely."
"Three spectral, white-robed figures."
"No, sir, I didn't," says Harrison, appearing on the scene. "But there's hounds here, and they may have carried 'em off."
"By Jove!" says another voice—the dismayed voice of Mr. Lanier. "But hounds would have devoured the food where they found it."
"It's all gone, anyway," says Rupert. "Harrison, look about. The baskets must be somewhere. I know they were left here, for I saw them just before I went to bed."
"And might have thought of bringing them in," says Eric.
"We ought to tell them—really we ought!" says Sylvia, with a laugh.
"Don't do any thing of the kind," says Mrs. Cardigan. "Let them look and wonder."
We hear a great deal of searching, and such exclamations as, "Very mysterious, by George!" and "What the deuce could have gone with the things?"—and preserve, I regret to state, a profound silence, until there comes another thump on our door.
"I say"—it is Rupert's voice again—"do you happen to have the provisions in there?"
"The provisions!" answers Sylvia, in a tone of innocent surprise. "Pray, what should we be doing with the provisions?"
"Well, they have disappeared—" Rupert begins, when I interpose with the truth.
"They are here, Rupert," I say. "We brought them in last night to keep them from the dogs. But you deserve to have had them eaten, for your carelessness."
"They've got 'em!" we hear Rupert report a minute later, "and we owe them a good turn for not saying a word all this time."
There is so much preparation necessary for our departure that it is some time after breakfast before we start. About eight o'clock the guide arrives—a stalwart, brshouldered man of thirty-six or eight, with a frank, sunburned face, and a suggestion of the soldier as well as the hunter in his appearance.
"What a study for a picture!" says Sylvia. "What a thorough type of the mountaineer! If he only wore a Tyrolean hat, now—"
The Guide.
"Like a brigand in an opera!" says 77Charley. "What ideas women have, to be sure! Why, if you looked at it from the right point of view, that old felt is as much more picturesque as it is more comfortable."
"I suppose you flatter yourself that yours is picturesque," she says.
"Not quite so much so as Lanier's English hat, perhaps, but sufficiently so for my taste.—Hallo, Burnet!—which is the pack-horse?"
"This one," answers Mr. Burnet. He has brought with him three horses and a mule. One is led up to the piazza and ld with a number of shawls, several quilts— which Eric insists upon borrowing from Mrs. Patton—and the provisions, which have been packed pell-mell into an enormous bag. Side-saddles are placed on the others, and loud are Sylvia's remonstrances when she finds she is not to be allowed to ride Bonnibelle.
"I can't permit you to put your neck in jeopardy by riding a horse not accustomed to climbing," says Eric, authoritatively. "These animals have been reared on the mountains, and are as sure-footed as goats."
"They are quite as ugly," remarks the young lady, ungratefully. Then she glances from their tall, raw-boned proportions to the small, round mule which stands by, composedly switching its tail. "If I can't ride Bonnibelle, I will ride that," she says.
"A very good choice," observes Mr. Lanier. "Mules are not handsome, but they are better on mountains—because more sure-footed—than horses."
"They are only slightly inclined to prefer their own way," says Charley, "and two of a trade never agree."
Sylvia does not condescend to notice this remark. She mounts the mule—disregarding the laughter which we cannot restrain—and announces that she is ready. Mrs. Cardigan and I are elevated on the tall mountain-steeds; the gentlemen mount the lowland horses, on which they do not hesitate to risk their necks; the guide, with his axe on his shoulder, leads the pack-horse in front—and so we start.
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