"Wandering as in a magic dream,
By shadowy wood and crystal stream,
By mountain-peak and forest-dell,
Where fauns and fairies love to dwell,
We enter the enchanted clime,
Forgotten in the lapse of time,
The golden land of fair idlesse,
Of sylvan sports and joyousness."
Riding horse by shadowy wood and crystal stream
A day of summer warmth, yet with a stimulating quality in the air unlike the languid heat we left below, a cloudless sky, a flood of sunshine, a sparkling mist draping the distant azure mountains—this is the aspect with which Buncombe greets the strangers within her borders when they open their windows the next morning.
These windows look down on the Main Street, but there is room and to spare in Asheville, so we are not hedged in by buildings. Immediately in front is an open space through which we look at the green hills on which the town is built, rising with gentle, undulating swell in every direction, while afar lie the blue mountains, height overtopping height, peak rising behind peak, graceful lines blending, through the gaps more remote ranges to be seen lying so pale and faint on the horizon that it is almost impossible to tell where mountains end and sky begins. It is only a glimpse of the beauty which is in store for us, yet we are delighted. There is a brilliancy about the scene which is almost startling. We were not prepared for such clear, exquisite colors—colors that would thrill an artist's inmost soul—such emerald greenness, such heavenly blueness, such diamond-like brightness of atmosphere.
"It is a country of which to dream!" cries Sylvia, clasping her hands. "Why have we never come here before? Why have we gone everywhere else, and neglected this Arcadia lying at our very door?"
"In order that we might be fitted to appreciate it when we did come," I reply. "We are now able to compare it—unbiased by any spell of earthly association—with much more famous regions, and to declare that it surpasses them all."
"Surpasses them!—I should think so, indeed! Have you ever seen anywhere else such tints as those on the mountains yonder? Come! I see a piazza—let us go out on it. One cannot have too much of this air. It is like an elixir of life."
We go out on the piazza. The air is indeed like an elixir in its buoyancy and lightness. Birds are singing in the leafy depths of the trees that droop before the hotel, people are passing up and down the street—among them we presently recognize Eric, 14walking with a more elastic step than is customary with him in the low-country. MacGregor's foot is plainly on his native heath. He stops to shake hands with every other person whom he meets, and there is much cordiality in these greetings. Sylvia watches him with amused eyes. When he passes under the piazza she leans over and speaks:
"What is the Arcadian form of salutation, Eric? Shall one say 'God save you!' or 'The top of the morning?' Isn't it delicious—the country, I mean? Alice and I are here. Come up."
"You had better come down," he says. "The breakfast-bell is ringing. I will meet you in the parlor in five minutes."
In five minutes we meet in that apartment. Aunt Markham has declined to rise for breakfast, and reports that she is aching in every limb from the trying passage of Swannanoa Gap. "I don't know when I shall recover," she says, solemnly. Charley is always incorrigibly lazy, therefore it follows that we go in to breakfast attended by Eric alone.
It is the height of the season for tourists, and we hear—in fact, we heard before we crossed the mountains—that every house of entertainment in Asheville is crowded. The 'Eagle' demurred about receiving us, but Eric's influence carried our point. This morning we see that the hotel is full to overflowing. As we eat our breakfast leisurely, we criticize the parties that come and go, and are edified by a great deal of fashion. After a while Charley appears, and drops into a seat by Sylvia.
"I see no signs of the linen blouse, the alpenstock, or the thick boots," he says, regarding her pretty toilet with evident appreciation. "Are we going to resign the rle of explorers, and subside into ordinary summer idlers?"
"I have not the faintest idea what you mean to do," she replies, "but, judging by the manner in which you begin the campaign, I should think you were likely to be more of a summer idler than any thing else. As for the rest of us, we have arranged our plan of action for the day. After breakfast we are going to devote ourselves to seeing Asheville and the French Br This afternoon we shall walk to—to—what is the name of the place, Eric?"
"Beaucatcher," answers Eric.
"And to-night let us go to Elk Mountain," says Charley, meekly. "It is only about seven miles distant—a pleasant point for a moonlight stroll."
"No, to-night we are going to—what is the name of that place, Eric?"
"Battery Porter," says Eric.
"Yes, and then to-morrow we are going to MacSomebody's Hill—Eric says it commands the finest view east of the Mississippi—and the day after to Elk Mountain, and the day after that—"
But the expression of Charley's face is so full of genuine consternation that I interpose.
"Pray spare us, Sylvia. We are not making the tour of Europe after the manner of Brown, Jones, and Robinson—the greatest amount of sight-seeing to be accomplished in the smallest deal of time. We are summer idlers, and we do not mean to exhaust ourselves by making a business of pleasure. Don't let us be tied down to a programme. Let us see all these beautiful places in the manner and at the time that seems to us best."
"Hear! hear!" says Charley, gratefully—but Sylvia regards me with disapprobation.
"We are not likely to see very much if the manner and the time are left to some of the party," she remarks.
"May I be allowed to suggest riding or driving, instead of walking?" says Charley. "Asheville is a town of magnificent distances—every place is a mile at least from every other place—and the French Br which you speak of seeing, is a mile from them all."
"What are miles in this climate?" asks Sylvia, loftily.
After breakfast we set forth to discover what miles are in this climate, and we find them quite as long as those to which we have been accustomed. Charley is right. Asheville is a place of magnificent distances, and if it is ever built up within its corporate limits, it will be the metropolis which its inhabitants fondly hope to see it. Yet as we stroll around and about (or, to speak more correctly, up and down the streets), we decide that one could hardly under any circumstances wish it other than it is—less a town than a collection of country-seats scattered irregularly and picturesquely over the innumerable 15hills. There is no point from which the eye does not command a great expanse of country and mountain-ranges overtopped by mountain-ranges, besides the most charming bits of foreground landscape. As a rule, I dislike comparisons in scenery— especially comparisons which introduce Switzerland—but it is impossible to refrain from saying that in general effect Asheville reminds one of a Swiss town. The green heights over which the gabled houses are scattered, the r winding away to the breezy uplands, the air of brightness and cleanliness, the winsome glades and valleys, and the frame of distant mountains—so soft, so graceful, so heavenly fair, that it is impossible to wish their violet outlines transformed to the dazzling majesty of the pure, awful Alpine peaks.
"Now," says Eric, as with much expenditure of breath we gain the top of the beautiful hill on which the Catholic church stands—decidedly the loveliest site in the town—"you can see how Asheville is situated. You perceive that the hills on which it is built rise up from the valleys of the French Brand Swannanoa—"
"How can we perceive it?" demands Sylvia. "Neither the French Brnor the Swannanoa is visible. It is a matter of faith, not sight, so far as they are concerned. I see the hills—and they are astonishingly green."
"West of the Blue Ridge the famous blue grass grows—which makes Western North Carolina one of the finest grazing regions in the world," says Charley, who is seated in the church-door, fanning himself with his straw hat. He utters this item of information with an air which seems to say that Eric shall not monopolize all the honors of ciceroneship.
"And what are those?—and those?—and those?" asks Sylvia, indicating various peaks in the beautiful mountain panorama spread toward the south and west.
"Those at which you are looking," says Eric, "belong to the range of the Cold Mountain—and that most prominent peak is Pisgah. Its shape and height make it a landmark through all the country south of the Black."
We can well credit this, looking at Pisgah with admiring eyes. It lifts its head boldly, this commanding pyramid, from among a number of lesser peaks, the lines of which recede away on each side until they lie like azure clouds on the far horizon.
"From Beaucatcher, yonder," says Eric, pointing to a bold hill—the last of a spur running down from the Black—which bounds the prospect on the east, "there is a most extensive view. One hundred and eighty peaks are said to be in sight. I never counted them—but I can believe it."
"Let us go there at once," says Sylvia.
A faint groan proceeds from Charley in the rear.
"Not this morning," I say. "Let us go there for the sunset. Now we are bound to the French Br"
Charley groans again—evidently this is not much of an improvement on Beaucatcher—but he rises and we descend the hill. A steep street runs along its base. We climb this for some distance, and presently find ourselves in a shady lane, with a stretch of meadow-land before us, and several country-seats in sight.
"What a charming place!" says Sylvia, sitting down on the roots of a great oak by the rside to rest. "We are in the country, and yet not in the country. Alice, had you any idea that Asheville would be like this?"
"Not the least," I answer, looking beyond green meadows and wooded hills to the shadows moving across the distant mountains.
"How confidently one draws a mental picture of a place and accepts it for reality!" Sylvia goes on, tracing figures in the sand with the point of her parasol. "I fancied we should find an ordinary village—rather pretty, perhaps—but chiefly remarkable for being twenty-two hundred feet above the sea—"
"Twenty-two hundred and fifty," says Charley. "The people insist on having the credit of every fraction."
"Good as a health-resort, no doubt," Sylvia proceeds, "but full of the depressing village air and village stagnation one knows so well. Instead, I look round, and what do I see?"
"Mountains," says Eric, literally.
"A bright little spa," the young lady announces, emphatically, "which only needs fashion to make it an American Baden."
"I hope it may be a long time before fashion finds it," says Eric, dryly.
16"Then you must hope that it may be a long time before there is a railr" I say. "One cannot expect to keep Fashion out when once steam has opened the way for her capricious majesty."
"The place, even now," says Charley, "might be a great summer-resort—counting its visitors by thousands, instead of by hundreds—if it would arouse to a sense of its own interest, and provide a proper place to lodge them.[A] A modern hotel, with fine grounds—"
[A] Since this party were in Asheville, a "proper place" has been provided.
"And a band of music," says Sylvia.
"Of course a band of music, a good table, and good servants, would realize your American Baden in short order."
"You are fine Arcadians," I remark, severely, "to plan deliberately the destruction of all you profess to admire. If I had Mr. Ruskin's gift of invective, I would wither you with my indignation. Not having it, I exult in the fact that you can neither build your hotel, nor bring your bands of music and army of tourists."
"The railway will bring them, however," says Sylvia, beginning to hum a Strauss waltz.
At this moment a carriage appears driving along the lane. It is a small basket-phaeton, drawn by a large horse, instead of a pony, and contains a lady and a gentleman. The wheels roll smoothly and easily over the shadow-dappled r the lady holds her fringed parasol with coquettish grace; the sound of their gay voices floats to us. We begin to walk on, but Sylvia looks round. "After all, driving is pleasanter than walking," she says.
"Are you tired?" says Charley. "Take my arm."
Before she can accept or decline this civility, an exclamation is heard from the phaeton. "Ciel!" cries a voice with a French accent, "is not that Sylvia Norwood? I am sure it must be!—Victor, stop—stop a moment!"
"But you are not sure, Adèle," a man's voice remonstrates.
"I must make sure," replies the other, eagerly.
Then the tall horse is induced to stop, and we look at Sylvia. She turns toward the phaeton, and, as the lady springs lightly to the ground, advances, and holds out her hand. "You are Adèle Dupont," she says. "I am very glad to meet you."
"It is—it is herself!" cries Miss Dupont, rushing forward, and embracing her with effusion.
In the effort to refrain from smiling—knowing that the eyes of the gentleman in the phaeton are upon us—we all look so grave that one might suppose something very sad to be occurring. In reality I am much amused. I have heard of Miss Dupont—a creole, from New Orleans, with whom Sylvia was at school—and I know that the encounter is not altogether agreeable to the latter. She puts what is popularly known as "a good face" on the matter, however, and, when the embraces and kisses subside, says:
"How singular that we should meet here, Adèle! Where do you come from?"
"From the Warm Springs," answers Adèle. "We reached there a month ago, and I should have been content to stay until it was time to go back to New Orleans, but some of our party wanted to travel. We arrived here day before yesterday. We are going—oh, everywhere! And you?"
"I reached here with a party, last night. The length of our stay is indefinite—our plans are indefinite, also. Here is my sister, let me introduce you."
Miss Dupont is introduced to me, Eric is presented, also Charley. She says something graceful and flattering to each of us—being, evidently, one of the persons whose ease and readiness, especially in the line of compliments, make less-favored people feel stiff and awkward. Then she turns to Sylvia:
"Now that you have made me acquainted with your sister and cousins," she says, "I must introduce my brother to you.—Victor, can you leave the horse for a few minutes?"
Victor does so readily enough. He is a slender, dark-eyed man, with a great deal of French grace in his manner. He is thirty, perhaps, and looks interesting and artistic. I see Charley (who is neither dark-eyed, interesting, nor artistic) regard him with evident disfavor. Eric is more cordial, and, while he and Sylvia talk to the stranger, Miss Dupont informs me, in a dramatic aside, that he is a charming musician, that he has been a gallant soldier, and that "we"—the Dupont family understood—are most proud of and devoted to him.
17"But where are you all going?" she asks, suddenly turning her attention from me to Charley, in a manner for which I am not entirely unprepared. "Victor and I have been driving aimlessly. Is there any special place to go to? Is there any particular thing to be seen?"
Now, Adèle Dupont is by no means a very pretty woman, but she is a woman who makes the best of her personal appearance, and who has a grace and style that would redeem ugliness itself. She is attractive and beguiling. She knows it, and Charley knows it, too.
"There are several places," he replies. "Have you been to Beaucatcher? Have you driven out to the Swannanoa—or the French Br"
"We came up the French Br you know. As for Beaucatcher—no, I have not seen it, nor the Swannanoa."
"We were just on our way to Beaucatcher," says Mr. Dupont to Sylvia.
"You had better wait until this afternoon, and join our party," says Eric, good-naturedly. "We are going there to see the sunset."
"Yes, of course we will wait," says Miss Dupont, graciously. "If Victor and I went alone, we should not know one mountain from another; but no doubt you"—the beguiling eyes again appeal to Charley—"know the names of them all."
"Not quite," replies Charley, modestly—he really does not know a single mountain besides Pisgah, which, from its shape, is unmistakable—"but I will do my best to enlighten you."
With this arrangement we separate. The Duponts return to their phaeton. We continue our walk, discussing them the while—not altogether in a spirit of charity.
"Adèle Dupont is delightful until you find that she is insincere," says Sylvia, when Charley remarks that she is very agreeable.
"A little insincerity in a woman does not matter," says that lax young moralist, "if the result is good."
"Indeed!" says Sylvia, in a tone of sarcasm. "How edifying it is to the feeble feminine intellect to hear masculine opinions! If insincerity is not objectionable in a woman, what do you consider it in a man?"
"Almost as contemptible as affectation," Mr. Kenyon replies: "and, unless I am greatly mistaken, Monsieur Victor Dupont is a very good example of the last."
Sylvia smiles scornfully.
"I have never seen an Anglo-Saxon man," she says, "who did not consider a foreigner, or anybody with foreign manners, affected. Such judgments are—are—"
"Pray don't hesitate to say what they are," remarks Charley, quietly, as she hesitates.
"Are generally the result of prejudice, jealousy, or provincial ignorance," she goes on, impetuously, with the color mounting to her cheeks.
"Prejudice, jealousy, provincial ignorance!" repeats Charley, meditatively. "Under which head does my judgment come, I wonder? Prejudice?—why should I be prejudiced? Jealousy?—of whom should I be jealous? Provincial ignorance?—I am afraid I must plead guilty on that score. I have never been in New Orleans."
"You have been in Paris, however," I observe, "and therefore ought to be familiar with French manners."
"And Miss Dupont's are very good," he says, with the air of one making a deduction.
I give the matter up, and walk on with Eric, leaving Sylvia and Charley to fight their battle alone. We hear them disputing behind us.
"A person may be enthusiastic and effusive without being affected," Sylvia declares.
"With an impressionable temperament, feelings are so easily aroused that persons of that kind are often unjustly accused of insincerity," Charley says.
Eric and I look at each other and smile. We are accustomed to the sparring and wrangling of these two.
We do not go to the French Br An avenue which is very creditable to the town has been opened toward it, and along this we walk for some distance, admiring at every step the green landscape around us and the splendid heights far away; but our pedestrian powers are exhausted before we reach the river. Wiser with regard to Asheville distances, and saddened by the necessity of toiling over the cobble-stones which pave the streets, we return to the hotel.
As we approach the door, we are astonished to see a stout lady in the act of being assisted from the small phaeton with which 18we have already made acquaintance, by a slender, graceful gentleman.
"There is Mr. Dupont!" says Sylvia, looking at the latter.
"There is Aunt Markham!" I exclaim, looking at the former.
"Aunt Markham!" repeats Charley. "By Jove, so it is! What do you suppose she has been doing?"
"Driving with Mr. Dupont, apparently," says Eric, whom nothing surprises.
We find that this conjecture is correct. When we come up, Aunt Markham receives us benignly.
"Mr. Dupont, whom I believe you have met," she says—we bow, and Mr. Dupont bows—"has been kindly driving me around Asheville a little. It is really a very pretty place—only exceedingly scattered. I should dislike to be obliged to walk very much here. You must all be dreadfully tired."
"I am more vexed than tired," says Sylvia, "for we did not reach the French Brafter all—it is too far away."
"If you would like to see that river, will you not allow me the pleasure of driving you to it?" says Mr. Dupont, eagerly. "I shall be greatly honored."
Mr. Dupont proposes—a Drive.
Sylvia hesitates.
"But your horse must be tired," she says, "and you—are not you tired, also, of playing cavalier of dames?"
"The horse has done nothing to speak of—nothing to tire him," says the young creole, gallantly; "and, as for me, life offers me no greater happiness than to be a cavalier of dames. If mademoiselle will only be gracious enough to trust herself with me—"
Mademoiselle is gracious. She smiles; nobody knows better than Sylvia herself that she has a very charming smile.
"You are very kind," she says, "and the phaeton looks very inviting. Yes, I will go. The French Bris only a mile distant, I believe."
As he assists her into the little carriage, Mr. Dupont says something in French— like all creoles, he falls into this language whenever he wants to be very complimentary or impressive—the substance of which is that he should be glad if it were twenty miles distant. Then they drive away, leaving us standing on the sidewalk.
"Mr. Dupont is a most agreeable person," says Aunt Markham, taking Eric's arm as she slowly mounts the steps of the hotel-piazza. "It is a very good test of a young man's breeding and disposition when he is attentive to an elderly woman. He pressed me to drive with him as if I had been seventeen."
Charley puts his hands in the pockets of his coat, and I see that it would relieve his mind to whistle. He refrains, however, and is repaid for this act of self-denial. As we enter the hotel, a light, silvery voice is heard in the parlor, singing a gay French song. "That is Miss Dupont, I suppose," I say to Charley. He nods, and, turning, enters the room. The song breaks off abruptly. There is a trill of laughter; then I hear, "So my brother has carried Sylvia off! Are you inconsolable, Mr. Kenyon?"
"Not if you will let me hear the rest of that song," says Charley the hypocrite.
An hour, two hours pass, without any sign of the return of Sylvia and Mr. Dupont. Aunt Markham grows uneasy, and asks if I do not think that the horse may have run away and killed them, or else that they may have fallen into the river and been drowned. I quiet her fears by assuring her that there is no great probability that either of these 19events has occurred. I entertain a strong suspicion of what has occurred, but I say nothing about it, having long since realized that while men (and women) are what they are, flirtation will be very likely to exist.
The dinner-bell rings presently, and, notwithstanding her uneasiness, Aunt Markham decides not to wait for the absent culprit. "This air gives one a really remarkable appetite," she says. We go down-stairs, therefore, but, as we cross the passage, the tall horse and small phaeton draw up before the door, and Sylvia's pretty, flushed face looks at us.
"Don't scold, auntie!" she cries, as she enters the hall, bearing a large stone jug in both her hands. "I have been on such an expedition in your behalf! Can you imagine what I have here? You must taste it at once.—Mr. Dupont, please make somebody bring a glass!"
The Prize from the Springs.
Mr. Dupont darts away, and in less than a minute returns with a glass. He holds it while Sylvia uncorks the jug.
"Is it mountain-dew?" I ask, skeptically.
She laughs; the liquid flows clear as crystal into the glass; Mr. Dupont presents it, with a bow, to Aunt Markham, who receives and tastes it.
"Sulphur-water!" she says, as one might say "Champagne!"
"Yes, sulphur-water," says Sylvia, exultantly, "quite as good—I mean as bad—as that in Greenbrier, Virginia, of which you are so fond!"
"Not quite so good, my dear," says Aunt Markham, tasting again, with the air of a connoisseur, "It is not so strong as the Greenbrier sulphur."
"It is strong enough," says Sylvia. "I tasted it and thought it so abominable that I determined to bring you some at once. So Mr. Dupont went to a house on a hill—"
"All houses are on hills in this country," I say, parenthetically.
"Except those that are in coves," says Sylvia. "He borrowed the jug there, and we are to take it back to-morrow."
"But I thought you made the journey on Aunt Markham's behalf, and from this it appears that you did not think of her until you were at the spring?"
"I will tell you all about it at dinner," says the young lady, flying up-stairs.
At dinner we hear an account of the expedition.
"To begin at the beginning," says Sylvia, "the French Bris a most beautiful river. We crossed it on a long bridge, and I made Mr. Dupont stop in the middle while I took in the view. On one side the stream—which is so clear that its water is a translucent emerald—winds through a fertile valley, with Smith's Creek—why don't they give things better names?—flowing into it, draped over with lovely trees and vines. On the other side there are bold, green hills, rising abruptly from the water's edge, round the base of which the river makes a sweeping curve as it disappears from sight. It was so charming that I could not bear to come back, and Mr. Dupont, seeing that I was anxious to go farther—"
"H'm!" says Charley.
"Said that he remembered having been here when a child, and staying at a place called Deaver's Springs, a few miles from Asheville. 'It was a very pretty place,' he said, 'if I could remember where it was.' I suggested that we should ask the direction from some inhabitant of the country—which we accordingly did, and heard that we must 'drive straight on.' So we drove straight on, along an excellent ridge r with mountains 20to right of us, mountains to left of us, mountains before us and behind us. I have never conceived any thing so beautiful as the lights and shades on those superb heights, or their exquisite colors. Once we saw rain falling far away among the purple gorges, with the sun shining on it, and the effect was fairly divine!"
"A very common effect among mountains," says Eric.
"I am sorry for people who can only admire uncommon things," says Sylvia, "when the things that are best worth admiring in the world are all of them common. Mr. Dupont fully agrees with me that this is the most beautiful country in America."
Scene on the Rside.
"I wonder if he has seen them all?" says Charley.
"We were so engrossed," Sylvia proceeds, ignoring this remark, "that we drove on, forgetting all about time and distance, until after a while we reached some bars, where we had been directed to 'turn off'—or, rather, to turn in. Mr. Dupont let them down, and from a house across the rseveral children came rushing to mind the gap while we went to the spring. The rinto which we turned led us past a log-cabin, in front of which two or three stout men were lazily smoking and gossiping. We asked for a tumbler—were given one of thick, green glass, and drove on. Mr. Dupont pointed out a hill on the left as the site of the hotel which was once quite a place of resort."
"I have heard of Deaver's Springs," says Aunt Markham. "The hotel was burned, I believe."
"Yes, burned and never rebuilt; but the 21springs are still there, with a pavilion over them. We drove down the hill at the risk of smashing the phaeton or breaking our necks—for, having come so far, of course we felt it incumbent on us to drink some of the water.—As soon as I tasted it, I thought of you, auntie, and I sent Mr. Dupont back to the house to get a vessel in which we could bring some to you. He returned with the jug you have seen, and I filled it myself."
"Thank you, my dear," says Aunt Markham.
"The moral of the story," says Eric, "is that this young lady was going to see the French Br and the only glimpse of the river to be obtained between Asheville and Deaver's Springs is what you see while crossing it."
"The moral of the story is that the best philosophy in life is to enjoy all that you can, when you can," says Sylvia, gayly.
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