THE PEAK FROM THE NORTH
My own light was now growing dim, so I extinguished it in order to save the remaining oil for emergencies. Immediately afterwards a bat flew against the lantern, and then perched upon a lichen-hung rock near by, to recover his composure. The moon slowly made way with the clouds, and by two o’clock a quarter part of the sky was clear. The mercury had dropped to 52°, and the moisture hurled against the mountain by the wind was condensed and sent boiling and seething up the sides of the peak. Tongues of fog lapped around me with the same spasmodic motion which flames display in rising from a plate of burning alcohol. At first they scarcely reached the peak; then they came to my feet, and swept past me around both sides of my platform; finally they flung themselves higher and higher, hiding not only the black valley from which they came, but Paugus and more distant peaks, the sky, the moon, and the glimmering stars. Suddenly from the fog-filled air came once more the gruesome sound which I had heard earlier in the night. Its cause was nearer to me now, and I felt sure that it was some creature of the air, and consequently nothing which could cause me inconvenience. I strained my eyes to see the creature as it passed, but in vain, until in its flight it chanced to cross the face of the moon. Then the mystery was solved. I saw that it was either a night-hawk or a bird of similar size. The speed at which it was flying was wonderful. When it tacked or veered, it produced the extraordinary sounds which, with their echoes from the rocks, had so puzzled me at first. Once or twice during the night I had heard night-hawks squawking, and from this time on their harsh voices were heard at intervals mingled with the booming which, for some unexplained reason, they make by night as well as by day; after as well as during the breeding season.
A few minutes after two o’clock a large meteor shot across a small patch of clear sky near the constellation Andromeda, and was quenched in the fog. From time to time other smaller ones flashed in brief glory in the same quarter of the heavens, and one brilliant fragment burned its way past Jupiter, as though measuring its passing glory with the light of the planet. The wind was falling, the temperature rising, and, following these two influences, the fog decreased, until its only remnants clung to the ponds and rivers far below. Two thirds of the sky were clear by three o’clock. In the east, the Pleiades sparkled in mysterious consultation; farther north, Capella flashed her colored lights, and Venus, radiant with a lustre second only to Selene’s own, threw off the clouds which for an hour had concealed her loveliness, and claimed from Mars the foremost place in the triumph of the night. Her reign was short. At a quarter after three I noticed that the cloudbank which lay along the eastern and northern horizon was becoming more sharply defined by the gradual growth of a white band above it. A greater orb than Venus was undermining her power in the east. The white line imperceptibly turned to a delicate green, and extended its area to left and right and upward. The clouds in the high sky took on harder outlines and rounder shapes. Shadows were being cast among them, and a light was stealing through them from something brighter even than the yellow moon. The pale green band had changed to blue, the blue was deepening to violet, and through this violet sky the brightest meteor of the night passed slowly down until it met the hills. High in the sky the stars were growing dim, and the spaces between the clouds, which looked for all the world like a badly painted picture, were growing blue, deep real blue. The line of brightest light above the eastern clouds showed a margin of orange. Venus in the violet sky was still dazzling, but her glory was no longer of the night, but of the twilight. She was wonderful, in spite of the stronger light which was slowly overpowering her. Mars burned like a red coal low down in the west, unaffected thus far by the sun’s rays, while Jupiter, supreme among the high stars, was paling fast as the light of day rolled towards him.
The eastern sky looked strangely flat. Its colors were like a pastel drawing. Small, very black clouds, with hard outlines, lay unrelieved against the violet, silver, and orange. A full hour had sped by since I first noted the coming of the day, and still the earth below slept on. Hark! up from the deep valley below the Cow comes a single bird-voice, but scarcely are its notes sprinkled upon the cool, clear air, when a dozen, yes, fifty singers join their voices in a medley of morning music. The first songster was a white-throat, and the bulk of the chorus was made up of juncos and white-throats, the stronger song of Swainson’s and hermit thrushes coming in clearly now and then from points more distant from the peak. There was ecstasy in those matins. No sleepy choir of mortal men or women ever raised such honest, buoyant music in honor of the day’s coming. The birds love the day, and they love life for all that each day brings. They labor singing, and they sing their vespers, as they sing their matins, with hearts overflowing with joy and thanksgiving.
VIEW FROM “THE COW,” SHOWING MOAT MOUNTAIN AND MOUNT PEQUAWKET BEYOND
There is something inexpressibly touching and inspiring in the combination of fading night, with its planets still glowing, and the bird’s song of welcome to the day. Night is more eloquent than day in telling of the wonders of the vast creation. Day tells less of distance, more of detail; less of peace, more of contest; less of immortality, more of the perishable. The sun, with its dazzling light and burning heat, hides from us the stars, and those still depths as yet without stars. It narrows our limit of vision, and at the same time hurries us and worries us with our own tasks which we will not take cheerfully, and the tasks of others which are done so ill. Night tells not only of repose on earth, but of life in that far heaven where every star is a thing of motion and a creation full of mystery. Men who live only in great cities may be pitied for being atheists, for they see little beyond the impurity of man; but it seems incredible that a being with thoughts above appetite, and imagination above lust, should live through a night in the wilderness, with the stars to tell him of space, the dark depths of the sky to tell him of infinity, and his own mind to tell him of individuality, and yet doubt that some Being more powerful and less fickle than himself is in this universe. The bird-music coming before the night is ended combines the purest and most joyous element of the day with the deep meaning of the night. The birds bear witness to the ability of life to love its surroundings and to be happy. The night bears witness to the eternity of life and to the harmony of its laws.
BRINGING HOME THE BEAR.
The horn of Chocorua rose into a sky full of threatening colors and shadows. Its own coloring was sinister, its outlines vague, its height apparently greater than usual. Low, growling thunder came from its ledges and ravines. The forest at its feet, which ended at my door, was silent; no whisper swept through its waiting leaves. In the west as in the north, cloud masses were boiling up into the sky, covering the blue with white, gray, and black, through which now and then shot a ray of gold from the protesting sun. A tempest seemed brewing as a not unwelcome close of a mid-August day.