But over on the new route they have strung the Telegraph, where the rise of flour and the fall of foes are transmitted by the same flash, and the price of barley and a priceless blessing go flickering along in company. The houses on the old road—what few there are left—stand with their backs to the railway and the telegraph; and the wheeled World, as it goes thundering by, looks askance upon the back-kitchens and pig-pens of the old-time.
But the houses on the new road are very new, and smell of paint; the blinds are very green, and the people very grand. The East and the West have kissed each other across the Continent, and every body and thing between is brisk as a flea, and breathless as a king's trumpeter. Even Consumption has whipped up its pale horse to a gallop, and dashed into the steeple-chase of the Age.
And year after year the old road grows dimmer, and the grass gets green across the track, and it is rechristened "the long pasture," and is surrendered to the lowing herds and the singing birds. In the midst of a region humming with life, it alone is silent, and almost awakens human sympathy, so wandering and lost and desolate it is.
Sometimes, as you dust along the turnpike, you can see it as it comes in sight round a clump of tangled trees, and "makes" as if it would venture into the new thoroughfare and go somewhere, but it never does, for, speedily sinking back into the hollow, it is lost among the willows.
Like a very old memory in the heart is it, and all forget it but the Year. Spring remembers it, and borders it with green and sprinkles it with the gold coin of the dandelion and the little stars of the Mayweed. Summer sends the bees thither to bugle among the thistle-blows, and the ground-sparrows build in its margins, and the faded ribbon of yellow sand grows bright in its glowing sun. The winds waft the breath of the morning over its desolate way, and the rains long ago beat out the old footprints it used to bear. Autumn sighs as it follows it through the ravine and among the hemlocks, and the drifts that Winter heaps are unbroken and stainless.
No bolder feet, old Road, ever left their impress on other pathways; no truer hearts than hastened on thy rugged way, have ever turned beautiful in the "better land." If there were ever those whose laugh was music, then thy woods have heard it. The daughters of the West are passing fair, but those young brows of old, whose white flashed white again from thy singing streams, and eyes glanced back to eyes—no brighter and no purer were ever bent above a classic wave.
Like thee, those brows are furrowed and those eyes are dim. Like thee, Ambition's line fades from the eye of Time, and like the dusty "runways" of thy brooks, soft pulses have grown dry and dumb.
CHAPTER VIII.
A BIRD HEAVEN.
Does any theological reason exist why there should not be in some blessed planet or other a Bird Heaven, a realm where the green gates of Spring are forever opening and the fruits of Summer are for ever ripening, whose skies are full of the downiest of clouds and the softest of songs?
Were I to be constituted the Peter of the gate of that Paradise, there are very few birds to which free entrance should not be given, except Cochin China, Shanghai, and Bramah Pootrah hens; the raven should be admitted for the sake of the poet, and even the owl should have a hollow tree all to itself, and a meadow of mice for its portion; but for prowling cats and naughty boys, for snares and for fowlers, there should be no salvation. No early frosts, no chilling rains, the cherries all free, and great fields of grain for the pigeons. Birds, everywhere birds! Not a bush but would have a song in it, all trees would be "singing trees," and all nests sacred as so many little arks of the Covenant.