PUNCHINELLO'S VACATIONS.
After, all there is nothing like nature, in her primevality. When man attempts to add a finishing-touch to the loveliness of the forest, lake, or ocean, he makes a botch of it. What would the glowing tropics be, if Park Commissioners had charge of them? The heart, sick of the giddy flutterings of Man, seeks the sympathy of the shadowy dell, where the jingle of coin is heard not, and where the votaries of fashion flaunt not their vain tissues in the ambient air.
So, last week, thought Mr. P., and the moment he could get away he went on a little trip to the Dismal Swamp.
There he found Nature--there was primevality indeed! An instantaneous rapport took place between his feelings and the scene; of which the delicious loveliness can be imagined from this picture.
As he slowly floated along the shingle canal, from Suffolk to the "Dismal," what raptures filled his soul! Here, in the recesses of that solemn mixture of trees and water, which they were rapidly approaching, he could commune with his own soul, as it were. Mr. P. had never communed with his own soul, as it were, though he knew it must be a nice thing, because he had read so much about it. So he determined to try it. It was a delightful anticipation--like scenting a new fancy drink.
But his reflections were rudely interrupted. The men who propelled the scow which Mr. P. had chartered, had not pushed it more than four or five miles into the mystic recesses of the Swamp, when they suddenly stopped with a cry of "Breakers ahead!" Mr. P. rushed to the bow, and there he beheld two doleful heads just peering above the waters of the narrow canal. He started back in amazement. He thought, at first, that they were Naiads--(they could not be Dryads)--or some other watery spirits of these wilds. But he soon saw that they were nothing of the kind. It was only Messrs. SCHENCK, of Ohio, and KELLEY, of Pennsylvania, and through the limpid water it was easy to see that each of them was endeavoring to raise a sunken log from the bottom.
"Why, what in the world are you doing here?" cried Mr. P.
Mr. SCHENCK, of Ohio, looked up sadly, and, dropping his log upon the bottom, stood upon it, and thus replied:
"You may well be surprised, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, but we are here for the public good. We have reason to suspect, that, following the example of the Chinese Opium-smugglers, the vile traitors who are trying to break down our iron interests have smuggled quantities of scrap--iron into this country, and it is our belief that these sunken logs have been bored and are full of it."
At this Mr. P. laughed right out.
"Oh, you may laugh if you please!" cried SCHENCK, of Ohio, "and perhaps you can tell me why these logs are so heavy--why they lie here at the bottom instead of floating--why--" but at this instant he slipped from the log on which he was standing, and with a splash and a bubbling, he disappeared. The men who were pushing the scow thought this an admirable opportunity to pass on, and shouting to KELLEY, of Pennsylvania, to bob his head, the gallant bark floated safely over these enthusiastic conservators of our iron interests.
Although diverted for a time by this incident, a shadow soon began to spread itself gradually over the mind of Mr. P. Was there, then, no place where the subtle influence of man did not spread itself like a noxious gas?--Where, oh, where! could one commune with his own soul, as it were?
At length they reached Lake Drummond, that placid pool in the somnolent shades, and Mr. P. put up at the house of a melancholy man, with a fur cap, who lived in a cabin on the edge of the lonely water.
For supper they had catfish, and perch, and trout, and seven-up, and euchre, and poker, and when the meal was over Mr. P. went out for a moonlight row upon the lake. He had to make the most of his time, for it would take him so long to get back to Nassau street, you know. He had not paddled his scow more than half an hour over the dark but moon-streaked waters of the lake, when he met with the maiden who, all night long, by her firefly lamp, doth paddle her light canoe. This estimable female steered her bark alongside the scow, and to the startled Mr. P. she said: "Have you my tickets?"
"Tickets!" cried Mr. P. "Me?--tickets? What tickets?"
"Why, one ticket, of course, on the Norfolk, Petersburg and Richmond line; and a through ticket from Richmond to New York, by way of Fredericksburg and Washington. What other tickets could I mean?"
"I know nothing about them," said Mr. P.; "and what can you possibly want with railroad tickets?"
"Oh, I am going to leave here," said she.
"Indeed!" cried Mr. P. "Going to leave here--this lake; this swamp; this firefly lamp? To leave this spot, rendered sacred to your woes by the poem of the gifted MOORE--"
"No more!" cried she. "I'm tired of hearing everybody that comes to this pond a-singin' that doleful song."
"That is to say," said Mr. P., with a smile, "if your canoe is birch, you are Sycamore."
"That's so," she gravely grunted.
"But tell me," said Mr. P., "where in the world can you be going?"
At this the maiden took a straw, and ramming it down the chimney of her lamp, stirred up the flies until they glittered like dollar jewelry. Then she chanted, in plaintive, tones, the following legend:
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"Three women came, one moonlight night, And tempted me away. They said, 'No longer on this lake, Good maiden, must you stay. We're SUSAN A. and ANNA D., And LUCY S. also, And what a lone female can do We want the world to know. No better instance can we give, Oh, Indian maid! than you, How woman can, year after year. Paddle her own canoe.'" |
"Just so," said Mr. P., "but don't you think that as you are--that is to say--that not being of corporeal substance--by which I mean having been so long departed, as it were; or, to speak more plainly--"
"Oh, yes! I know.--Dead, you mean," said the maiden. "But that makes no difference. They'll be glad enough of a ghost of an example."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. P. "And yet their cause is good enough. I don't see why they should make up--"
He would have said more, but turning, he saw that the Indian maid, despairing of her tickets, had gone.
The next day Mr. P. went home himself. He communed with his own soul, as it were, for a little while, and has no doubt it did him a deal of good. But it would take so long to get back to his office, you see.
As a cheap watering place, where there are no fancy drives or fancy horses; no club-houses; no big hotels; no gay company; nor anything to tempt a man to sacrifice health and money in the empty pursuit of pleasure, Mr. P. begs to recommend the Dismal Swamp.
If he knew of any other watering place of which as much might be said, he would mention it--but he don't.