"So much the better; it is more convenient than a birch bark shanty."
"I give you notice that I mean to take my ease in that tent."
"I hope you will."
"One can be comfortable in the woods, as well as elsewhere. Remember, colonel, that we are out for amusement, and not after scalps. Last summer, you drove ahead, rain or shine, through thickets, and swamps, and ponds, as if you were on some errand of life and death. For this once, have mercy on frail humanity, and moderate your ardor."
Morton gave the pledge required. They passed the evening in arranging the details of their journey, set forth and spent three or four weeks in the forest between the settled districts of Canada and Maine, poling their canoe up lonely streams, meeting no human face, but smoking their pipes in great contentment by their evening camp fire. They chased a bear, and lost him in a windfall; killed two moose, six deer, and trout without number; and underwent, with exemplary patience, a martyrdom of midges, black flies, and mosquitoes. And when, at last, they turned their faces homeward, they wiled the way with plans of longer journeyings,—more bear, more moose, more deer, more trout, more midges, black flies, and mosquitoes.
CHAPTER V.
| Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.—Gray. |
It was a week before "class day,"—that eventful day which was virtually to close the college career of Morton and his contemporaries. The little janitor, commonly called Paddy O'Flinn, was ringing the evening prayer bell from the cupola of Harvard Hall,—its tone was dull and muffled, some graceless sophomore having lately painted it white, inside and out,—and the students were mustering at the summons. The sedate and the gay, the tender freshman and the venerable senior, the prosperous city beau and the awkward country bumpkin, one and all were filing from their respective quarters towards the chapel in University Hall. The bell ceased; the loiterers quickened their steps; the last belated freshman, with the dread of the proctor before his eyes, bounded frantically up the steps; and for a brief space all was silence and solitude. Then there was a murmuring, rushing sound, as of a coming tempest, and University Hall disgorged its contents, casting forth the freshmen and juniors at one door, and the sophomores and seniors at the other.
Of these last was Morton, who, with three or four of his class, walked across the college yard, towards the great gateway. By his side was a young man named Rosny, carelessly dressed, but with a lively, dare-devil face, and the look of a good-natured game cock.