A Tramp Abroad
“Yes ... you've come to the right place for that. When did you arrive?”
“Just an hour ago.”
“When are you intending to leave?”
“For New York tomorrow evening--for San Francisco next morning.”
“Just so.... What are you going to do tomorrow?”
“DO! Why, I've got to go to the President with the petition and the
delegation, and get the appointment, haven't I?”
“Yes ... very true ... that is correct. And then what?”
“Executive session of the Senate at 2 P.M.--got to get the appointment
confirmed--I reckon you'll grant that?”
“Yes ... yes,” said Riley, meditatively, “you are right again. Then
you take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for San
Francisco next morning?”
“That's it--that's the way I map it out!”
Riley considered a while, and then said:
“You couldn't stay ... a day ... well, say two days longer?”
“Bless your soul, no! It's not my style. I ain't a man to go fooling
around--I'm a man that DOES things, I tell you.”
The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts. Riley stood
silent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then he
looked up and said:
“Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby's, once? ...
But I see you haven't.”
He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastened
him with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and proceeded to unfold
his narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched
comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a
wintry midnight tempest:
“I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson's time. Gadsby's was
the principal hotel, then. Well, this man arrived from Tennessee
about nine o'clock, one morning, with a black coachman and a splendid
four-horse carriage and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond
of and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby's, and the clerk and the
landlord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he said,
'Never mind,' and jumped out and told the coachman to wait--
said he hadn't time to take anything to eat, he only had a little claim
against the government to collect, would run across the way, to
the Treasury, and fetch the money, and then get right along back to
Tennessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry.
“Well, about eleven o'clock that night he came back and ordered a bed
and told them to put the horses up--said he would collect the claim in
the morning. This was in January, you understand--January, 1834--the 3d
of January--Wednesday.
“Well, on the 5th of February, he sold the fine carriage, and bought
a cheap second-hand one--said it would answer just as well to take the
money home in, and he didn't care for style.
“On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses--said he'd
often thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountain
roads with where a body had to be careful about his driving--and there
wasn't so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a pair
easy enough.
“On the 13th of December he sold another horse--said two warn't
necessary to drag that old light vehicle with--in fact, one could snatch
it along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was good
solid winter weather and the roads in splendid condition.
“On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought a
cheap second-hand buggy--said a buggy was just the trick to skim along
mushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try a
buggy on those mountain roads, anyway.
“On the 1st August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an old
sulky--said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawk
when they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky--didn't believe they'd
ever heard of a sulky in their lives.
“Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman--said he
didn't need a coachman for a sulky--wouldn't be room enough for two in
it anyway--and, besides, it wasn't every day that Providence sent a man
a fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate
negro as that--been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, but
didn't like to THROW him away.
“Eighteen months later--that is to say, on the 15th of February,
1837--he sold the sulky and bought a saddle--said horseback-riding was
what the doctor had always recommended HIM to take, and dog'd if he
wanted to risk HIS neck going over those mountain roads on wheels in the
dead of winter, not if he knew himself.
“On the 9th of April he sold the saddle--said he wasn't going to risk
HIS life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over a
rainy, miry April road, while he could ride bareback and know and feel
he was safe--always HAD despised to ride on a saddle, anyway.
“On the 24th of April he sold his horse--said 'I'm just fifty-seven
today, hale and hearty--it would be a PRETTY howdy-do for me to be
wasting such a trip as that and such weather as this, on a horse, when
there ain't anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot through
the fresh spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that IS
a man--and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little bundle, anyway,
when it's collected. So tomorrow I'll be up bright and early, make my
little old collection, and mosey off to Tennessee, on my own hind legs,
with a rousing good-by to Gadsby's.'
“On the 22d of June he sold his dog--said 'Dern a dog, anyway, where
you're just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure tramp through the
summer woods and hills--perfect nuisance--chases the squirrels, barks
at everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords--man
can't get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature--and I'd a blamed sight
ruther carry the claim myself, it's a mighty sight safer; a dog's
mighty uncertain in a financial way--always noticed it--well, GOOD-by,
boys--last call--I'm off for Tennessee with a good leg and a gay heart,
early in the morning.'”
There was a pause and a silence--except the noise of the wind and the
pelting snow. Mr. Lykins said, impatiently:
“Well?”
Riley said:
“Well,--that was thirty years ago.”
“Very well, very well--what of it?”
“I'm great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every evening to
tell me good-by. I saw him an hour ago--he's off for Tennessee early
tomorrow morning--as usual; said he calculated to get his claim through
and be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. The tears
were in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennessee
and his friends once more.”
Another silent pause. The stranger broke it:
“Is that all?”
“That is all.”
“Well, for the TIME of night, and the KIND of night, it seems to me the
story was full long enough. But what's it all FOR?”
“Oh, nothing in particular.”
“Well, where's the point of it?”
“Oh, there isn't any particular point to it. Only, if you are not in
TOO much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that post-office
appointment, Mr. Lykins, I'd advise you to 'PUT UP AT GADSBY'S' for a
spell, and take it easy. Good-by. GOD bless you!”
So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonished
school-teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow image
shining in the broad glow of the street-lamp.
He never got that post-office.
To go back to Lucerne and its fishers, I concluded, after about
nine hours' waiting, that the man who proposes to tarry till he sees
something hook one of those well-fed and experienced fishes will find
it wisdom to “put up at Gadsby's” and take it easy. It is likely that
a fish has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years; but no
matter, the patient fisher watches his cork there all the day long, just
the same, and seems to enjoy it. One may see the fisher-loafers just as
thick and contented and happy and patient all along the Seine at Paris,
but tradition says that the only thing ever caught there in modern times
is a thing they don't fish for at all--the recent dog and the translated
cat.
CHAPTER XXVII
[I Spare an Awful Bore]
Close by the Lion of Lucerne is what they call the “Glacier Garden”--and
it is the only one in the world. It is on high ground. Four or five
years ago, some workmen who were digging foundations for a house came
upon this interesting relic of a long-departed age. Scientific men
perceived in it a confirmation of their theories concerning the glacial
period; so through their persuasions the little tract of ground was
bought and permanently protected against being built upon. The soil was
removed, and there lay the rasped and guttered track which the ancient
glacier had made as it moved along upon its slow and tedious journey.
This track was perforated by huge pot-shaped holes in the bed-rock,
formed by the furious washing-around in them of boulders by the
turbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers. These huge round
boulders still remain in the holes; they and the walls of the holes are
worn smooth by the long-continued chafing which they gave each other in
those old days.
It took a mighty force to churn these big lumps of stone around in that
vigorous way. The neighboring country had a very different shape, at
that time--the valleys have risen up and become hills, since, and the
hills have become valleys. The boulders discovered in the pots had
traveled a great distance, for there is no rock like them nearer than
the distant Rhone Glacier.
For some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue lake
Lucerne and at the piled-up masses of snow-mountains that border it all
around--an enticing spectacle, this last, for there is a strange and
fascinating beauty and charm about a majestic snow-peak with the sun
blazing upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it--but finally we
concluded to try a bit of excursioning around on a steamboat, and a dash
on foot at the Rigi. Very well, we had a delightful trip to Fluelen, on
a breezy, sunny day. Everybody sat on the upper deck, on benches, under
an awning; everybody talked, laughed, and exclaimed at the wonderful
scenery; in truth, a trip on that lake is almost the perfection of
pleasuring.
The mountains were a never-ceasing marvel. Sometimes they rose straight
up out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamer
with their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-clad
mountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet
the clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and
repulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye.
And they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one could
not imagine a man being able to keep his footing upon such a surface,
yet there are paths, and the Swiss people go up and down them every day.
Sometimes one of these monster precipices had the slight inclination of
the huge ship-houses in dockyards--then high aloft, toward the sky, it
took a little stronger inclination, like that of a mansard roof--and
perched on this dizzy mansard one's eye detected little things like
martin boxes, and presently perceived that these were the dwellings of
peasants--an airy place for a home, truly. And suppose a peasant should
walk in his sleep, or his child should fall out of the front
yard?--the friends would have a tedious long journey down out of those
cloud-heights before they found the remains. And yet those far-away
homes looked ever so seductive, they were so remote from the troubled
world, they dozed in such an atmosphere of peace and dreams--surely no
one who has learned to live up there would ever want to live on a meaner
level.
We swept through the prettiest little curving arms of the lake, among
these colossal green walls, enjoying new delights, always, as the