After crossing a prairie about a dozen miles in width, and taking breakfast with a farmer upon its edge, I continued my journey over the undulating plains until near the middle of the afternoon, when I reached my present stage. The whole region, as I journeyed through it, lay still and quiet: every farmhouse and log-cabin was deserted by its tenants, who had congregated to the nearest villages to celebrate the day; and, verily, not a little did my heart smite me at my own heedless desecration of the political Sabbath of our land.
Vandalia, Ill.
XX
"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes—"
Childe Harold.
"The sun in all his broad career
Ne'er looked upon a fairer land,
Or brighter skies or sweeter scenes."
Ever since the days of that king of vagabonds, the mighty Nimrod of sacred story, and, for aught to the contrary, as long before, there has existed a certain roving, tameless race of wights, whose chief delight has consisted in wandering up and down upon the face of the earth, with no definite object of pursuit, and with no motive of peregrination save a kind of restless, unsatisfied craving after change; in its results much like the migratory instinct of passage-birds, but, unlike that periodical instinct, incessant in exercise. Now, whether it so be that a tincture of this same vagrant, Bohemian spirit is coursing my veins under the name of "Yankee enterprise," or whether, in my wanderings through these wild, unsettled regions, I have imbibed a portion thereof, is not for me to decide. Nevertheless, sure it is, not unfrequently are its promptings detected as I journey through this beautiful land.
It is evening now, and, after the fatigues of a pleasant day's ride, I am seated beneath the piazza [222] of a neat farmhouse in the edge of a forest, through which, for the last hour, my path has conducted, and looking out upon a broad landscape of prairie. My landlord, a high-minded, haughty Virginia emigrant, bitterly complains because, forsooth, in the absence of slave-labour, he is forced to cultivate his own farm; and though, by the aid of a Dutchman, he has made a pretty place of it, yet he vows by all he loves to lay his bones within the boundaries of the "Ancient Dominion." My ride since noon has been delightful; over broad plains, intersected by deep creeks, with their densely-wooded bottoms. These streams constitute one of the most romantic features of the country. I have crossed very many during my tour, and all exhibit the same characteristics: a broad, deep-cut channel, with precipitous banks loaded with enormous trees, their trunks interwoven and matted with tangled underbrush and gigantic vegetation. As the traveller stands upon the arch of the bridge of logs thrown over these creeks, sometimes with an altitude at the centre of forty feet, he looks down upon a stream flowing in a deep, serpentine bed, and winding away into the dusky shades of the overhanging woods, until a graceful bend withdraws the dark surface of the waters from his view. In the dry months of summer, these creeks and ravines are either completely free of water, or contain but a mere rivulet; and the traveller is amazed at the depth and breadth of a channel so scantily supplied. But at the season of the spring or autumnal rains the scene is changed: a deep, turbid torrent rolls [223] wildly onward through the dark woods, bearing on its surface the trunks of trees and the ruins of bridges swept from its banks; and the stream which, a few weeks before, would scarcely have wet the traveller's sole, is now an obstacle in his route difficult and dangerous to overcome.
Within a few miles of my present quarters an adventure transpired of some slight interest to myself, at least, as it afforded me a weary trudge beneath a broiling sun. As I was leisurely pursuing my way through the forest, I had chanced to spy upon the banks of the roadside a cluster of wild flowers of hues unusually brilliant; and, with a spirit worthy of Dr. Bat,[149] I at once resolved they should enrich my "hortus siccus." Alighting, therefore, and leaving my steed by the roadside, I at length succeeded, after most laudable scramblings for the advancement of science, in gathering up a bouquet of surpassing magnificence. Alas! alas! would it had been less so; for my youthful steed, all unused to such sights and actions, and possessing, moreover, a most sovereign and shameful indifference to the glories of botany, had long, with suspicious and sidelong glances, been eying the vagaries of his truant master; and now, no sooner did he draw nigh to resume his seat and journey, than the ungracious and ungrateful quadruped flung aloft his head, and away he careered through the green branches, mane streaming and saddle-bags flapping. In vain was the brute addressed in language the most mild and conciliatory that ever insinuated itself into horse's lug; in vain was he ordered, [224] in tones of stern mandate, to cease his shameless and unnatural rebellion, and to surrender himself incontinently and without delay to his liege: entreaty and command, remonstrance and menace, were alike unsuccessful; and away he flew, "with flowing tail and flying mane," in utter contempt of all former or future vassalage. At one moment he stood the attitude of humbleness and submission, coolly cropping the herbage of the high banks; and then, the instant the proximity of his much-abused master became perilous to his freedom, aloft flew mane and tail, and away, away, the animal was off, until an interval consistent with his new-gained license lay behind him. After an hour of vexatious toiling through dust and sun, a happily-executed manœuvre once more placed the most undutiful of creatures in my power. And then, be ye sure, that in true Gilpin fashion, "whip and spur did make amends" for all arrears of unavenged misbehaviour.