"That'll do," I said, "Mrs. Symonds; I don't want to hear another word, unless it relates to—ham and eggs."
Truly, I fear that the neat-handed Phillis must have been aweary that night before she had satisfied Gargantua. A messenger soon summoned Shipley, and he was with me before midnight; he explained all his movements satisfactorily, and I could not but acknowledge he had acted throughout discreetly and well. We sat far into the morning, discussing future plans. Ultimately it was settled that he should start with the roan, so soon as the animal should be rested and fit for the road, traveling by moderate stages, to some resting-place near Oakland. The rendezvous was to be determined by information he would receive in those parts; and I was to be advised of it by a letter left for me in Cumberland. Shipley reckoned that it would take him ten days at least to make his point. This interval I was to spend in Baltimore; from which I was to proceed, with my horse, to Cumberland, in the cars. This plan had the double advantage of saving Falcon over two hundred miles of march, and of enabling my guide to make his way, more securely, as a solitary traveler. He could not trust himself on the railroad, nor would it have been safe to attempt the transport of two horses.
So, on the following day, I made—anything but a triumphant—entry into Baltimore. Kindly greetings and condolences could not enable me during that last visit to shake off a restless discontent—a gloomy distrust of the future—a vague sense of shameful defeat.
CHAPTER VII.
FALLEN ACROSS THE THRESHOLD.
Early on Monday, the 30th of April, I addressed myself to the journey once more, taking the cars to Cumberland, whither Falcon had preceded me by two days, and this time I bound myself by a vow—not lightly to be broken—that I would not see Baltimore again, of free will or free agency, till I had heard the tuck of Southern drums. The most remarkable part of the road is from Point of Rocks to Harper's Ferry, inclusive, where the rails find a narrow space to creep between the river and the cliffs of Catoctin and Elk Mountains. The last-named spot is especially picturesque, standing on a promontory washed on either side by the Potomac and Shenandoah, with all the natural advantages of abrupt rocks, feathery hanging woods, and broken water. Thenceforward there is little to interest or to compensate for the sluggishness of pace and frequency of delays. The track winds on always through the same monotony of forest and hill, plunging into the gorges and climbing the shoulders of bluffs, with the audacity of gradient and contempt of curve that marks the handiwork of American engineers. I wonder that one of these did not take Mount Cenis in hand, and save the monster tunnel. The line was strongly picketed; everywhere you saw the same fringe of murky-white tents, and at every station the same groups of squalid soldiery.
What especially exasperated me was, the incessant and continuous neighborhood of the Potomac. If you left it for a few minutes you were certain to come upon it again before the eye had time to forget the everlasting foam-splashed ochre of the sullen current, and at each fresh point it met you undiminished in volume, unabated in turbulency. Long before this I had begun to look at the river in the light of a personal enemy. I think that Xerxes, in the matter of the Hellespont, did wisely and well. Did I possess his resources of men and money, I would fain do so and more likewise to that same Potomac, subdividing its waters till the pet spaniel of "my Mary Jane" should ford them without wetting the silky fringes of her trailing ears.
Theoretically, a road passing through leagues of forest-clad hills ought to be pleasant, if not interesting; practically, you are bored to death before you get half way through. There is a remarkable scarcity of anything like fine-grown, timber; the underwood is luxuriant enough, especially where the mountain laurel abounds; but in ten thousand acres of stunted firwood, you would look in vain for any one tree fit to compare with the gray giants that watch over Norwegian fiords, or fit to rank in "the shadowy army of the Unterwalden pines."
We reached Cumberland shortly after sundown; my first visit was to the stables, where I hoped to find Falcon. Imagine my disgust on hearing that, through an accident on the line, the unlucky horse had been shut up for forty-six hours in his box, with provender just enough for one day. He had been well tended, however, and judiciously fed in small quantities at frequent intervals, and, barring that he looked rather "tucked up," did not seem much the worse for his enforced fast.