Drifting, why cannot we drift forever
Let all the world and its worries go!—
Let us float and float on the flowing river,
Whither,—we neither care nor know;—
Dreaming a dream, might we ne’er awaken!
There’s joy enough in this passive bliss;
The wrestling crowd and its cares forsaken
Was ever Nirvana more blest than this?
Nay! but our hearts are forever lifting
The screen of the present,—however fair,—
Not long, not long, may we go on drifting,—
Not long enjoy surcease from care!
Ours is a nobler task and guerdon
Than aimless, drifting, however blest;
Only the heart that can bear the burden
Can share the joy of the victor’s rest!”
“Well, I appreciate the poetry, of course,” said Mr. Winthrop, when Kate had duly thanked the reciter, “but, I am glad that did not come from me! We Americans are always getting the credit of being too restless for repose,—for enjoying anything in a leisurely manner. But it seems there are other people who, like Faust, cannot say to the present moment, ‘Stay, thou art fair!’”
“I’m afraid that’s a trait of the age,” replied Hugh. “But I rather think it is nobler, on the whole, to be always ‘pressing on to the things that are before.’”
“We look before and after
And pine for what is not!”
quoted Mr. Winthrop—“even in the beauty of this exquisite night.”
And after that no words were spoken till the two canoes grated, almost at the same moment, on the pebbly beach.
The sojourn at Sumach Lodge was now nearly at an end, for our party had still far to go, and much to see. The next day was to be devoted to an excursion in the steam-yacht to a bit of very picturesque scenery some few miles down the main shore of the river—“a miniature Saguenay,” as Mr. Leslie described it, and, at the same time, they were to get a glimpse of the Canoe Camp which had been just opened, and which was to have an illumination in the evening that they all wanted to see.
They started early next morning for Halstead Bay, where the picturesque little “rift” or cañon began. The Oneida carried them swiftly down the few miles of river, till within the curve of the bay which was hemmed in by high wooded hills, where they disembarked from the yacht, in which they could not proceed much further, and had recourse to the skiffs which they had brought in tow. As they rowed farther up, the hills drew nearer to the bay or creek until they became almost sheer precipices, rising up, weather-worn and splintered, from the narrowing channel, which was full of reeds and water plants and fleets of water-lilies, from which they supplied themselves to their hearts’ content. Here and there the stern rugged crags were festooned with trailing plants and delicate harebells, in what May declared were natural hanging baskets. Cranes and water-hens flew up from the tall sedges, and Kate pointed out to Mr. Winthrop a fine loon diving for his food. “Very likely you will hear him laugh, by and by,”—said Kate, for he had been expressing some curiosity as to the loon’s laugh in the verses Hugh had recited. “We often hear its ‘laugh’ at Sumach Lodge,” she said, “and very weird it sounds at night. I don’t know whether its elfin ‘laugh’ or its cry seems the most uncanny. It has interested Hugh so much, and so has the old legend of Clote-scarp and the loon.”
And as Mr. Winthrop had never heard this legend, Hugh told the Indian story, how Clote-scarp, or Glooscap—the Micmac Hiawatha, had at length, wearied with the cruelty and wickedness of man and the savage warfare of the brute creation, departed from the land until the reign of peace should be re-established; and that the loon awaits his return, and laments his absence in the melancholy cry which it utters from time to time. “Curious,” he added, “how that idea of the Deliverer, temporarily departed, seems to have taken root in all lands, from Arthur and Barbaroosa to Hiawatha and Clote-scarp. But what a magnificent cliff that is!” for now they had nearly reached the head of the little cañon, and the higher bluffs seemed to grow grander and more picturesque as the channel narrowed.