MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE

 By Nathaniel Hawthorne

 SKETCHES FROM MEMORY

THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 

It was now the middle of September. We had come since sunrise fromBartlett, passing up through the valley of the Saco, which extendsbetween mountainous walls, sometimes with a steep ascent, but oftenas level as a church-aisle. All that day and two preceding ones wehad been loitering towards the heart of the White Mountains, --thoseold crystal hills, whose mysterious brilliancy had gleamed upon ourdistant wanderings before we thought of visiting them. Height afterheight had risen and towered one above another till the clouds beganto hang below the peaks. Down their slopes were the red pathways ofthe slides, those avalanches of earth, stones, and trees, whichdescend into the hollows, leaving vestiges of their track hardly tobe effaced by the vegetation of ages. We had mountains behind usand mountains on each side, and a group of mightier ones ahead. Still our road went up along the Saco, right towards the centre ofthat group, as if to climb above the clouds in its passage to thefarther region. 

In old times the settlers used to be astounded by the inroads of theNorthern Indians, coming down upon them from this mountain rampartthrough some defile known only to themselves. It is, indeed, awondrous path. A demon, it might be fancied, or one of the Titans, was travelling up the valley, elbowing the heights carelessly asideas he passed, till at length a great mountain took its standdirectly across his intended road. He tarries not for such anobstacle, but, rending it asunder a thousand feet from peak to base, discloses its treasures of hidden minerals, its sunless waters, allthe secrets of the mountain's inmost heart, with a mighty fractureof rugged precipices on each side. This is the Notch of the WhiteHills. Shame on me that I have attempted to describe it by so meanan image, feeling, as I do, that it is one of those symbolic sceneswhich lead the mind to the sentiment, though not to the conception, of Omnipotence. 

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We had now reached a narrow passage, which showed almost theappearance of having been cut by human strength and artifice in thesolid rock. There was a wall of granite on each side, high andprecipitous, especially on our right, and so smooth that a fewevergreens could hardly find foothold enough to grow there. This isthe entrance, or, in the direction we were going, the extremity, ofthe romantic defile of the Notch. Before emerging from it, therattling of wheels approached behind us, and a stage-coach rumbledout of the mountain, with seats on top and trunks behind, and asmart driver, in a drab great-coat, touching the wheel-horses withthe whip-stock and reigning in the leaders. To my mind there was asort of poetry in such an incident, hardly inferior to what wouldhave accompanied the painted array of an Indian war-party glidingforth from the same wild chasm. All the passengers, except a veryfat lady on the back seat, had alighted. One was a mineralogist, ascientific, green-spectacled figure in black, bearing a heavyhammer, with which he did great damage to the precipices, and putthe fragments in his pocket. Another was a well-dressed young man, who carried an operaglass set in gold, and seemed to be making aquotation from some of Byron's rhapsodies on mountain scenery. There was also a trader, returning from Portland to the upper partof Vermont; and a fair young girl, with a very faint bloom like oneof those pale and delicate flowers which sometimes occur amongalpine cliffs. 

They disappeared, and we followed them, passing through a deep pineforest, which for some miles allowed us to see nothing but its owndismal shade. Towards nightfall we reached a level amphitheatre, surrounded by a great rampart of hills, which shut out the sunshinelong before it left the external world. It was here that weobtained our first view, except at a distance, of the principalgroup of mountains. They are majestic, and even awful, whencontemplated in a proper mood, yet, by their breadth of base and thelong ridges which support them, give the idea of immense bulk ratherthan of towering height. Mount Washington, indeed, looked near toHeaven: he was white with snow a mile downward, and had caught theonly cloud that was sailing through the atmosphere to veil his head. Let us forget the other names of American statesmen that have beenstamped upon these hills, but still call the loftiest WASHINGTON. Mountains are Earth's undecaying monuments. They must stand whileshe endures, and never should be consecrated to the mere great menof their own age and country, but to the mighty ones alone, whoseglory is universal, and whom all time will render illustrious. 

The air, not often sultry in this elevated region, nearly twothousand feet above the sea, was now sharp and cold, like that of aclear November evening in the lowlands. By morning, probably, therewould be a frost, if not a snowfall, on the grass and rye, and anicy surface over the standing water. I was glad to perceive aprospect of comfortable quarters in a house which we wereapproaching, and of pleasant company in the guests who wereassembled at the door. 

OUR EVENING PARTY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

WE stood in front of a good substantial farm-house, of old date inthat wild country. A sign over the door denoted it to be the WhiteMountain Post-Office, --an establishment which distributes lettersand newspapers to perhaps a score of persons, comprising thepopulation of two or three townships among the hills. The broad andweighty antlers of a deer, "a stag of ten, " were fastened at thecorner of the house; a fox's bushy tail was nailed beneath them; anda huge black paw lay on the ground, newly severed and stillbleeding, the trophy of a bear-hunt. Among several persons collectedabout the doorsteps, the most remarkable was a sturdy mountaineer, of six feet two, and corresponding bulk, with a heavy set offeatures, such as might be moulded on his own blacksmith's anvil, but yet indicative of mother wit and rough humor. As we appeared, he uplifted a tin trumpet, four or five feet long, and blew atremendous blast, either in honor of our arrival or to awaken anecho from the opposite hill. 

Ethan Crawford's guests were of such a motley description as to formquite a picturesque group, seldom seen together except at some placelike this, at once the pleasure-house of fashionable tourists andthe homely inn of country travellers. Among the company at the doorwere the mineralogist and the owner of the gold operaglass whom wehad encountered in the Notch; two Georgian gentlemen, who hadchilled their Southern blood that morning on the top of MountWashington; a physician and his wife from Conway; a trader ofBurlington and an old squire of the Green Mountains; and two youngmarried couples, all the way from Massachusetts, on the matrimonialjaunt. Besides these strangers, the rugged county of Coos, in whichwe were, was represented by half a dozen wood-cutters, who had slaina bear in the forest and smitten off his paw. 

I had joined the party, and had a moment's leisure to examine thembefore the echo of Ethan's blast returned from the hill. Not one, but many echoes had caught up the harsh and tuneless sound, untwisted its complicated threads, and found a thousand aerialharmonies in one stern trumpet-tone. It was a distinct yet distantand dream-like symphony of melodious instruments, as if an airy bandhad been hidden on the hillside and made faint music at the summons. No subsequent trial produced so clear, delicate, and spiritual aconcert as the first. A field-piece was then discharged from thetop of a neighboring hill, and gave birth to one long reverberation, which ran round the circle of mountains in an unbroken chain ofsound and rolled away without a separate echo. After theseexperiments, the cold atmosphere drove us all into the house, withthe keenest appetites for supper. 

It did one's heart good to see the great fires that were kindled inthe parlor and bar-room, especially the latter, where the fireplacewas built of rough stone, and might have contained the trunk of anold tree for a backlog. 

A man keeps a comfortable hearth when his own forest is at his verydoor. In the parlor, when the evening was fairly set in, we heldour hands before our eyes to shield them from the ruddy glow, andbegan a pleasant variety of conversation. The mineralogist and thephysician talked about the invigorating qualities of the mountainair, and its excellent effect on Ethan Crawford's father, an old manof seventy-five, with the unbroken frame of middle life. The twobrides and the doctor's wife held a whispered discussion, which, bytheir frequent titterings and a blush or two, seemed to havereference to the trials or enjoyments of the matrimonial state. Thebridegrooms sat together in a corner, rigidly silent, like Quakerswhom the spirit moveth not, being still in the odd predicament ofbashfulness towards their own young wives. The Green Mountainsquire chose me for his companion, and described the difficulties hehad met with half a century ago in travelling from the ConnecticutRiver through the Notch to Conway, now a single day's journey, though it had cost him eighteen. The Georgians held the albumbetween them, and favored us with the few specimens of its contents, which they considered ridiculous enough to be worth hearing. Oneextract met with deserved applause. It was a "Sonnet to the Snow onMount Washington, " and had been contributed that very afternoon, bearing a signature of great distinction in magazines and annuals. The lines were elegant and full of fancy, but too remote fromfamiliar sentiment, and cold as their subject, resembling thosecurious specimens of crystallized vapor which I observed next day onthe mountain-top. The poet was understood to be the young gentlemanof the gold opera-glass, who heard our laudatory remarks with thecomposure of a veteran. 

Such was our party, and such their ways of amusement. But on awinter evening another set of guests assembled at the hearth wherethese summer travellers were now sitting. I once had it incontemplation to spend a month hereabouts, in sleighing-time, forthe sake of studying the yeomen of New England, who then elbow eachother through the Notch by hundreds, on their way to Portland. There could be no better school for such a purpose than EthanCrawford's inn. Let the student go thither in December, sit downwith the teamsters at their meals, share their evening merriment, and repose with them at night when every bed has its threeoccupants, and parlor, bar-room, and kitchen are strewn withslumberers around the fire. Then let him rise before daylight, button his great-coat, muffle up his ears, and stride with thedeparting caravan a mile or two, to see how sturdily they make headagainst the blast. A treasure of characteristic traits will repayall inconveniences, even should a frozen nose be of the number. 

The conversation of our party soon became more animated and sincere, and we recounted some traditions of the Indians, who believed thatthe father and mother of their race were saved from a deluge byascending the peak of Mount Washington. The children of that pairhave been overwhelmed, and found no such refuge. In the mythologyof the savage, these mountains were afterwards considered sacred andinaccessible, full of unearthly wonders, illuminated at loftyheights by the blaze of precious stones, and inhabited by deities, who sometimes shrouded themselves in the snow-storm and came down onthe lower world. There are few legends more poetical than that ofthe "Great Carbuncle" of the White Mountains. The belief wascommunicated to the English settlers, and is hardly yet extinct, that a gem, of such immense size as to be seen shining miles away, hangs from a rock over a clear, deep lake, high up among the hills. They who had once beheld its splendor were enthralled with anunutterable yearning to possess it. But a spirit guarded thatinestimable jewel, and bewildered the adventurer with a dark mistfrom the enchanted lake. Thus life was worn away in the vain searchfor an unearthly treasure, till at length the deluded one went upthe mountain, still sanguine as in youth, but returned no more. Onthis theme methinks I could frame a tale with a deep moral. 

The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to these superstitionsof the red men, though we spoke of them in the centre of theirhaunted region. The habits and sentiments of that departed peoplewere too distinct from those of their successors to find much realsympathy. It has often been a matter of regret to me that I wasshut out from the most peculiar field of American fiction by aninability to see any romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty inthe Indian character, at least till such traits were pointed out byothers. I do abhor an Indian story. Yet no writer can be moresecure of a permanent place in our literature than the biographer ofthe Indian chiefs. His subject, as referring to tribes which havemostly vanished from the earth, gives him a right to be placed on aclassic shelf, apart from the merits which will sustain him there. 

I made inquiries whether, in his researches about these parts, ourmineralogist had found the three "Silver Hills" which an Indiansachem sold to an Englishman nearly two hundred years ago, and thetreasure of which the posterity of the purchaser have been lookingfor ever since. But the man of science had ransacked every hillalong the Saco, and knew nothing of these prodigious piles ofwealth. By this time, as usual with men on the eve of greatadventure, we had prolonged our session deep into the night, considering how early we were to set out on our six miles' ride tothe foot of Mount Washington. There was now a general breaking up. I scrutinized the faces of the two bridegrooms, and saw but littleprobability of their leaving the bosom of earthly bliss, in thefirst week of the honeymoon and at the frosty hour of three, toclimb above the clouds; nor, when I felt how sharp the wind was asit rushed through a broken pane and eddied between the chinks of myunplastered chamber, did I anticipate much alacrity on my own part, though we were to seek for the "Great Carbuncle. "

THE CANAL-BOAT. 

I was inclined to be poetical about the Grand Canal. In myimagination De Witt Clinton was an enchanter, who had waved hismagic wand from the Hudson to Lake Erie and united them by a wateryhighway, crowded with the commerce of two worlds, till theninaccessible to each other. This simple and mighty conception hadconferred inestimable value on spots which Nature seemed to havethrown carelessly into the great body of the earth, withoutforeseeing that they could ever attain importance. I pictured thesurprise of the sleepy Dutchmen when the new river first glitteredby their doors, bringing them hard cash or foreign commodities inexchange for their hitherto unmarketable produce. Surely the waterof this canal must be the most fertilizing of all fluids; for itcauses towns, with their masses of brick and stone, their churchesand theatres, their business and hubbub, their luxury andrefinement, their gay dames and polished citizens, to spring up, till in time the wondrous stream may flow between two continuouslines of buildings, through one thronged street, from Buffalo toAlbany. I embarked about thirty miles below Utica, determining tovoyage along the whole extent of the canal at least twice in thecourse of the summer. 

Behold us, then, fairly afloat, with three horses harnessed to ourvessel, like the steeds of Neptune to a huge scallop-shell inmythological pictures. Bound to a distant port, we had neitherchart nor compass, nor cared about the wind, nor felt the heaving ofa billow, nor dreaded shipwreck, however fierce the tempest, in ouradventurous navigation of an interminable mudpuddle; for a mudpuddleit seemed, and as dark and turbid as if every kennel in theland paid contribution to it. With an imperceptible current, itholds its drowsy way through all the dismal swamps and unimpressivescenery that could be found between the great lakes and the sea-coast. Yet there is variety enough, both on the surface of thecanal and along its banks, to amuse the traveller, if anoverpowering tedium did not deaden his perceptions. 

Sometimes we met a black and rusty-looking vessel, laden withlumber, salt from Syracuse, or Genesee flour, and shaped at bothends like a square-toed boot, as if it had two sterns, and werefated always to advance backward. On its deck would be a squarehut, and a woman seen through the window at her household work, witha little tribe of children who perhaps had been born in this strangedwelling and knew no other home. Thus, while the husband smoked hispipe at the helm and the eldest son rode one of the horses, on wentthe family, travelling hundreds of miles in their own house andcarrying their fireside with them. The most frequent species ofcraft were the "line-boats, " which had a cabin at each end, and agreat bulk of barrels, bales, and boxes in the midst, or lightpackets like our own decked all over with a row of curtained windowsfrom stem to stern, and a drowsy face at every one. Once weencountered a boat of rude construction, painted all in gloomyblack, and manned by three Indians, who gazed at us in silence andwith a singular fixedness of eye. Perhaps these three alone, amongthe ancient possessors of the land, had attempted to derive benefitfrom the white mail's mighty projects and float along the current ofhis enterprise. Not long after, in the midst of a swamp and beneatha clouded sky, we overtook a vessel that seemed full of mirth andsunshine. It contained a little colony of Swiss on their way toMichigan, clad in garments of strange fashion and gay colors, scarlet, yellow, and bright blue, singing, laughing, and makingmerry in odd tones and a babble of outlandish words. One prettydamsel, with a beautiful pair of naked white arms, addressed amirthful remark to me. She spoke in her native tongue, and Iretorted in good English, both of us laughing heartily at eachother's unintelligible wit. I cannot describe how pleasantly thisincident affected me. These honest Swiss were all itinerantcommunity of jest and fun journeying through a gloomy land and amonga dull race of money-getting drudges, meeting none to understandtheir mirth, and only one to sympathize with it, yet still retainingthe happy lightness of their own spirit. 

Had I been on my feet at the time instead of sailing slowly along ina dirty canal-boat, I should often have paused to contemplate thediversified panorama along the banks of the canal. Sometimes thescene was a forest, dark, dense, and impervious, breaking awayoccasionally and receding from a lonely tract, covered with dismalblack stumps, where, on the verge of the canal, might be seen a log-cottage and a sallow-faced woman at the window. Lean and aguish, she looked like poverty personified, half clothed, half fed, anddwelling in a desert, while a tide of wealth was sweeping by herdoor. Two or three miles farther would bring us to a lock, wherethe slight impediment to navigation had created a little mart oftrade. Here would be found commodities of all sorts, enumerated inyellow letters on the window-shutters of a small grocery-store, theowner of which had set his soul to the gathering of coppers andsmall change, buying and selling through the week, and counting hisgains on the blessed Sabbath. The next scene might be the dwelling-houses and stores of a thriving village, built of wood or small graystones, a church-spire rising in the midst, and generally twotaverns, bearing over their piazzas the pompous titles of "hotel, ""exchange, " "tontine, " or "coffee-house. " Passing on, we glide nowinto the unquiet heart of an inland city, --of Utica, for instance, --and find ourselves amid piles of brick, crowded docks and quays, rich warehouses, and a busy population. We feel the eager andhurrying spirit of the place, like a stream and eddy whirling usalong with it. Through the thickest of the tumult goes the canal, flowing between lofty rows of buildings and arched bridges of hewnstone. Onward, also, go we, till the hum and bustle of strugglingenterprise die away behind us and we are threading an avenue of theancient woods again. 

This sounds not amiss in description, but was so tiresome in realitythat we were driven to the most childish expedients for amusement. An English traveller paraded the deck, with a rifle in his walking-stick, and waged war on squirrels and woodpeckers, sometimes sendingan unsuccessful bullet among flocks of tame ducks and geese whichabound in the dirty water of the canal. I, also, pelted thesefoolish birds with apples, and smiled at the ridiculous earnestnessof their scrambles for the prize while the apple bobbed about like athing of life. Several little accidents afforded us good-natureddiversion. At the moment of changing horses the tow-rope caught aMassachusetts farmer by the leg and threw him down in a veryindescribable posture, leaving a purple mark around his sturdy limb. A new passenger fell flat on his back in attempting to step on deckas the boat emerged from under a bridge. Another, in his Sundayclothes, as good luck would have it, being told to leap aboard fromthe bank, forthwith plunged up to his third waistcoat-button in thecanal, and was fished out in a very pitiable plight, not at allamended by our three rounds of applause. Anon a Virginiaschoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed the helmsman'swarning, "Bridge! bridge!" was saluted by the said bridge on hisknowledge-box. I had prostrated myself like a pagan before hisidol, but heard the dull, leaden sound of the contact, and fullyexpected to see the treasures of the poor man's cranium scatteredabout the deck. However, as there was no harm done, except a largebump on the head, and probably a corresponding dent in the bridge, the rest of us exchanged glances and laughed quietly. O, bowpitiless are idle people!

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The table being now lengthened through the cabin and spread forsupper, the next twenty minutes were the pleasantest I had spent onthe canal, the same space at dinner excepted. At the close of themeal it had become dusky enough for lamplight. The rain patteredunceasingly on the deck, and sometimes came with a sullen rushagainst the windows, driven by the wind as it stirred through anopening of the forest. The intolerable dulness of the sceneengendered an evil spirit in me. Perceiving that the Englishman wastaking notes in a memorandum-book, with occasional glances round thecabin, I presumed that we were all to figure in a future volume oftravels, and amused my ill-humor by falling into the probable veinof his remarks. He would hold up an imaginary mirror, wherein ourreflected faces would appear ugly and ridiculous, yet still retainall undeniable likeness to the originals. Then, with more sweepingmalice, he would make these caricatures the representatives of greatclasses of my countrymen. 

He glanced at the Virginia schoolmaster, a Yankee by birth, who, torecreate himself, was examining a freshman from Schenectady Collegein the conjugation of a Greek verb. Him the Englishman wouldportray as the scholar of America, and compare his erudition to aschool-boy's Latin theme made up of scraps ill-selected and worseput together. Next the tourist looked at the Massachusetts farmer, who was delivering a dogmatic harangue on the iniquity of Sundaymails. Here was the far-famed yeoman of New England; his religion, writes the Englishman, is gloom on the Sabbath, long prayers everymorning and eventide, and illiberality at all times; his boastedinformation is merely an abstract and compound of newspaperparagraphs, Congress debates, caucus harangues, and the argument andjudge's charge in his own lawsuits. The book-monger cast his eye ata Detroit merchant, and began scribbling faster than ever. In thissharp-eyed man, this lean man, of wrinkled brow, we see daringenterprise and close-fisted avarice combined. Here is theworshipper of Mammon at noonday; here is the three times bankrupt, richer after every ruin; here, in one word, (O wicked Englishman tosay it!) here is the American. He lifted his eyeglass to inspect aWestern lady, who at once became aware of the glance, reddened, andretired deeper into the female part of the cabin. Here was thepure, modest, sensitive, and shrinking woman of America, --shrinkingwhen no evil is intended, and sensitive like diseased flesh, thatthrills if you but point at it; and strangely modest, withoutconfidence in the modesty of other people; and admirably pure, withsuch a quick apprehension of all impurity. 

In this manner I went all through the cabin, hitting everybody ashard a lash as I could, and laying the whole blame on the infernalEnglishman. At length I caught the eyes of my own image in thelooking-glass, where a number of the party were likewise reflected, and among them the Englishman, who at that moment was intentlyobserving myself. 

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The crimson curtain being let down between the ladies and gentlemen, the cabin became a bedchamber for twenty persons, who were laid onshelves one above another. For a long time our variousincommodities kept us all awake except five or six, who wereaccustomed to sleep nightly amid the uproar of their own snoring, and had little to dread from any other species of disturbance. Itis a curious fact that these snorers had been the most quiet peoplein the boat while awake, and became peace-breakers only when otherscease to be so, breathing tumult out of their repose. Would it werepossible to affix a wind-instrument to the nose, and thus makemelody of a snore, so that a sleeping lover might serenade hismistress or a congregation snore a psalm-tune! Other, thoughfainter, sounds than these contributed to my restlessness. My headwas close to the crimson curtain, --the sexual division of the boat, --behind which I continually heard whispers and stealthy footsteps;the noise of a comb laid on the table or a slipper dropped on thefloor; the twang, like a broken harp-string, caused by loosening atight belt; the rustling of a gown in its descent; and the unlacingof a pair of stays. My ear seemed to have the properties of an eye;a visible image pestered my fancy in the darkness; the curtain waswithdrawn between me and the Western lady, who yet disrobed herselfwithout a blush. 

Finally all was hushed in that quarter. Still I was more broadawake than through the whole preceding day, and felt a feverishimpulse to toss my limbs miles apart and appease the unquietness ofmind by that of matter. Forgetting that my berth was hardly so wideas a coffin, I turned suddenly over and fell like an avalanche onthe floor, to the disturbance of the whole community of sleepers. As there were no bones broken, I blessed the accident and went ondeck. A lantern was burning at each end of the boat, and one of thecrew was stationed at the bows, keeping watch, as mariners do on theocean. Though the rain had ceased, the sky was all one cloud, andthe darkness so intense that there seemed to be no world except thelittle space on which our lanterns glimmered. Yet it was animpressive scene. 

We were traversing the "long level, " a dead flat between Utica andSyracuse, where the canal has not rise or fall enough to require alock for nearly seventy miles. There can hardly be a more dismaltract of country. The forest which covers it, consisting chiefly ofwhite-cedar, black-ash, and other trees that live in excessivemoisture, is now decayed and death-struck by the partial draining ofthe swamp into the great ditch of the canal. Sometimes, indeed, ourlights were reflected from pools of stagnant water which stretchedfar in among the trunks of the trees, beneath dense masses of darkfoliage. But generally the tall stems and intermingled brancheswere naked, and brought into strong relief amid the surroundinggloom by the whiteness of their decay. Often we beheld theprostrate form of some old sylvan giant which had fallen and crusheddown smaller trees under its immense ruin. In spots wheredestruction had been riotous, the lanterns showed perhaps a hundredtrunks, erect, half overthrown, extended along the ground, restingon their shattered limbs or tossing them desperately into thedarkness, but all of one ashy white, all naked together, in desolateconfusion. Thus growing out of the night as we drew nigh, andvanishing as we glided on, based on obscurity, and overhung andbounded by it, the scene was ghostlike, --the very land ofunsubstantial things, whither dreams might betake themselves whenthey quit the slumberer's brain. 

My fancy found another emblem. The wild nature of America had beendriven to this desert-place by the encroachments of civilized man. And even here, where the savage queen was throned on the ruins ofher empire, did we penetrate, a vulgar and worldly throng, intrudingon her latest solitude. In other lands decay sits among fallenpalaces; but here her home is in the forests. 

Looking ahead, I discerned a distant light, announcing the approachof another boat, which soon passed us, and proved to be a rusty oldscow, --just such a craft as the "Flying Dutchman" would navigate onthe canal. Perhaps it was that celebrated personage himself whom Iimperfectly distinguished at the helm in a glazed cap and roughgreat-coat, with a pipe in his mouth, leaving the fumes of tobacco ahundred yards behind. Shortly after our boatman blew a horn, sending a long and melancholy note through the forest avenue, as asignal for some watcher in the wilderness to be ready with a changeof horses. We had proceeded a mile or two with our fresh team whenthe tow-rope got entangled in a fallen branch on the edge of thecanal, and caused a momentary delay, during which I went to examinethe phosphoric light of an old tree a little within the forest. Itwas not the first delusive radiance that I had followed. 

The tree lay along the ground, and was wholly converted into a massof diseased splendor, which threw a ghastliness around. Being fullof conceits that night, I called it a frigid fire, a funeral light, illumining decay and death, an emblem of fame that gleams around thedead man without warming him, or of genius when it owes itsbrilliancy to moral rottenness, and was thinking that such ghostliketorches were just fit to light up this dead forest or to blazecoldly in tombs, when, starting from my abstraction, I looked up thecanal. I recollected myself, and discovered the lanterns glimmeringfar away. 

"Boat ahoy!" shouted I, making a trumpet of my closed fists. 

Though the cry must have rung for miles along that hollow passage ofthe woods, it produced no effect. These packet-boats make up fortheir snail-like pace by never loitering day nor night, especiallyfor those who have paid their fare. Indeed, the captain had aninterest in getting rid of me; for I was his creditor for abreakfast. 

"They are gone, Heaven be praised!" ejaculated I; "for I cannotpossibly overtake them. Here am I, on the 'long level, ' atmidnight, with the comfortable prospect of a walk to Syracuse, wheremy baggage will be left. And now to find a house or shed wherein topass the night. " So thinking aloud, I took a flambeau from the oldtree, burning, but consuming not, to light my steps withal, and, like a jack-o'-the-lantern, set out on my midnight tour.