Mosses from an old manse
was its own reward, though the hope of praise also became a powerful
incitement. Since I shall never feel the warm gush of new thought as I
did then, let me beseech the reader to believe that my tales were not
always so cold as he may find them now. With each specimen will be
given a sketch of the circumstances in which the story was told. Thus
my air-drawn pictures will be set in frames perhaps more valuable than
the pictures themselves, since they will be embossed with groups of
characteristic figures, amid the lake and mountain scenery, the
villages and fertile fields, of our native land. But I write the book
for the sake of its moral, which many a dreaming youth may profit by,
though it is the experience of a wandering story-teller.
A FLIGHT IN THE FOG.
I set out on my rambles one morning in June about sunrise. The day
promised to be fair, though at that early hour a heavy mist lay along
the earth and settled in minute globules on the folds of my clothes, so
that I looked precisely as if touched with a hoar-frost. The sky was
quite obscured, and the trees and houses invisible till they grew out
of the fog as I came close upon them. There is a hill towards the west
whence the road goes abruptly down, holding a level course through the
village and ascending an eminence on the other side, behind which it
disappears. The whole view comprises an extent of half a mile. Here I
paused; and, while gazing through the misty veil, it partially rose and
swept away with so sudden an effect that a gray cloud seemed to have
taken the aspect of a small white town. A thin vapor being still
diffused through the atmosphere, the wreaths and pillars of fog,
whether hung in air or based on earth, appeared not less substantial
than the edifices, and gave their own indistinctness to the whole. It
was singular that such an unromantic scene should look so visionary.
Half of the parson’s dwelling was a dingy white house, and half of it
was a cloud; but Squire Moody’s mansion, the grandest in the village,
was wholly visible, even the lattice-work of the balcony under the
front window; while in another place only two red chimneys were seen
above the mist, appertaining to my own paternal residence, then
tenanted by strangers. I could not remember those with whom I had dwelt
there, not even my mother. The brick edifice of the bank was in the
clouds; the foundations of what was to be a great block of buildings
had vanished, ominously, as it proved; the dry-goods store of Mr.
Nightingale seemed a doubtful concern; and Dominicus Pike’s tobacco
manufactory an affair of smoke, except the splendid image of an Indian
chief in front. The white spire of the meeting-house ascended out of
the densest heap of vapor, as if that shadowy base were its only
support: or, to give a truer interpretation, the steeple was the emblem
of Religion, enveloped in mystery below, yet pointing to a cloudless
atmosphere, and catching the brightness of the east on its gilded vane.
As I beheld these objects, and the dewy street, with grassy intervals
and a border of trees between the wheeltrack and the sidewalks, all so
indistinct, and not to be traced without an effort, the whole seemed
more like memory than reality. I would have imagined that years had
already passed, and I was far away, contemplating that dim picture of
my native place, which I should retain in my mind through the mist of
time. No tears fell from my eyes among the dewdrops of the morning; nor
does it occur to me that I heaved a sigh. In truth, I had never felt
such a delicious excitement nor known what freedom was till that moment
when I gave up my home and took the whole world in exchange, fluttering
the wings of my spirit as if I would have flown from one star to
another through the universe. I waved my hand towards the dusky
village, bade it a joyous farewell, and turned away to follow any path
but that which might lead me back. Never was Childe Harold’s sentiment
adopted in a spirit more unlike his own.
Naturally enough, I thought of Don Quixote. Recollecting how the knight
and Sancho had watched for auguries when they took the road to Toboso,
I began, between jest and earnest, to feel a similar anxiety. It was
gratified, and by a more poetical phenomenon than the braying of the
dappled ass or the neigh of Rosinante. The sun, then just above the
horizon, shone faintly through the fog, and formed a species of rainbow
in the west, bestriding my intended road like a gigantic portal. I had
never known before that a bow could be generated between the sunshine
and the morning mist. It had no brilliancy, no perceptible hues, but
was a mere unpainted framework, as white and ghostlike as the lunar
rainbow, which is deemed ominous of evil. But, with a light heart, to
which all omens were propitious, I advanced beneath the misty archway
of futurity.
I had determined not to enter on my profession within a hundred miles
of home, and then to cover myself with a fictitious name. The first
precaution was reasonable enough, as otherwise Parson Thumpcushion
might have put an untimely catastrophe to my story; but as nobody would
be much affected by my disgrace, and all was to be suffered in my own
person, I know not why I cared about a name. For a week or two I
travelled almost at random, seeking hardly any guidance except the
whirling of a leaf at, some turn of the road, or the green bough that
beckoned me, or the naked branch that pointed its withered finger
onward. All my care was to be farther from home each night than the
preceding morning.
A FELLOW-TRAVELLER.
One day at noontide, when the sun had burst suddenly out of a cloud,
and threatened to dissolve me, I looked round for shelter, whether of
tavern, cottage, barn, or shady tree. The first which offered itself
was a wood,—not a forest, but a trim plantation of young oaks, growing
just thick enough to keep the mass of sunshine out, while they admitted
a few straggling beams, and thus produced the most cheerful gloom
imaginable. A brook, so small and clear, and apparently so cool, that I
wanted to drink it up, ran under the road through a little arch of
stone without once meeting the sun in its passage from the shade on one
side to the shade on the other. As there was a stepping-place over the
stone wall and a path along the rivulet, I followed it and discovered
its source,—a spring gushing out of an old barrel.
In this pleasant spot I saw a light pack suspended from the branch of a
tree, a stick leaning against the trunk, and a person seated on the
grassy verge of the spring, with his back towards me. He was a slender
figure, dressed in black broadcloth, which was none of the finest nor
very fashionably cut. On hearing my footsteps he started up rather
nervously, and, turning round, showed the face of a young man about my
own age, with his finger in a volume which he had been reading till my
intrusion. His book was evidently a pocket Bible. Though I piqued
myself at that period on my great penetration into people’s characters
and pursuits, I could not decide whether this young man in black were
an unfledged divine from Andover, a college student, or preparing for
college at some academy. In either case I would quite as willingly have
found a merrier companion; such, for instance, as the comedian with
whom Gil Blas shared his dinner beside a fountain in Spain.
After a nod, which was duly returned, I made a goblet of oak-leaves,
filled and emptied it two or three times, and then remarked, to hit the
stranger’s classical associations, that this beautiful fountain ought
to flow from an urn instead of an old barrel. He did not show that he
understood the allusion, and replied very briefly, with a shyness that
was quite out of place between persons who met in such circumstances.
Had he treated my next observation in the same way, we should have
parted without another word.
“It is very singular,” said I,—“though doubtless there are good reasons
for it,—that Nature should provide drink so abundantly, and lavish it
everywhere by the roadside, but so seldom anything to eat. Why should
not we find a loaf of bread on this tree as well as a barrel of good
liquor at the foot of it?”
“There is a loaf of bread on the tree,” replied the stranger, without
even smiling—at a coincidence which made me laugh. “I have something to
eat in my bundle; and, if you can make a dinner with me, you shall be
welcome.”
“I accept your offer with pleasure,” said I. “A pilgrim such as I am
must not refuse a providential meal.”
The young man had risen to take his bundle from the branch of the tree,
but now turned round and regarded me with great earnestness, coloring
deeply at the same time. However, he said nothing, and produced part of
a loaf of bread and some cheese, the former being evidently home baked,
though some days out of the oven. The fare was good enough, with a real
welcome, such as his appeared to be. After spreading these articles on
the stump of a tree, he proceeded to ask a blessing on our food, an
unexpected ceremony, and quite an impressive one at our woodland table,
with the fountain gushing beside us and the bright sky glimmering
through the boughs; nor did his brief petition affect me less because
his embarrassment made his voice tremble. At the end of the meal he
returned thanks with the same tremulous fervor.
He felt a natural kindness for me after thus relieving my necessities,
and showed it by becoming less reserved. On my part, I professed never
to have relished a dinner better; and, in requital of the stranger’s
hospitality, solicited the pleasure of his company to supper.
“Where? At your home?” asked he.
“Yes,” said I, smiling.
“Perhaps our roads are not the same,” observed he.
“O, I can take any road but one, and yet not miss my way,” answered I.
“This morning I breakfasted at home; I shall sup at home to-night; and
a moment ago I dined at home. To be sure, there was a certain place
which I called home; but I have resolved not to see it again till I
have been quite round the globe and enter the street on the east as I
left it on the west. In the mean time, I have a home everywhere, or
nowhere, just as you please to take it.”
“Nowhere, then; for this transitory world is not our home,” said the
young man, with solemnity. “We are all pilgrims and wanderers; but it
is strange that we two should meet.”
I inquired the meaning of this remark, but could obtain no satisfactory
reply. But we had eaten salt together, and it was right that we should
form acquaintance after that ceremony as the Arabs of the desert do,
especially as he had learned something about myself, and the courtesy
of the country entitled me to as much information in return. I asked
whither he was travelling.
“I do not know,” said he; “but God knows.”
“That is strange!” exclaimed I; “not that God should know it, but that
you should not. And how is your road to be pointed out?”
“Perhaps by an inward conviction,” he replied, looking sideways at me
to discover whether I smiled; “perhaps by an outward sign.”
“Then, believe me,” said I, “the outward sign is already granted you,
and the inward conviction ought to follow. We are told of pious men in
old times who committed themselves to the care of Providence, and saw
the manifestation of its will in the slightest circumstances, as in the
shooting of a star, the flight of a bird, or the course taken by some
brute animal. Sometimes even a stupid ass was their guide. May I not be
as good a one?”
“I do not know,” said the pilgrim, with perfect simplicity.
We did, however, follow the same road, and were not overtaken, as I
partly apprehended, by the keepers of any lunatic asylum in pursuit of
a stray patient. Perhaps the stranger felt as much doubt of my sanity