My window overlooked a grassy plain of perhaps half a mile, the view being closed by the Gate of the Notch, now disfigured by snow-sheds built for the protection of the railway. The massive, full-rounded bulk of Webster rose above, the forests of Willard tumbled down into the ragged fissure. Half-way between the hotel and the Gate, over-borne by the big shadow of Mount Clinton, extends the pretty lakelet which is the fountain-head of the Saco. Beyond the lake, and at the left, is where the old Notch House stood. This lake was once a beaver-pond, and this plain a boggy meadow, through which a road of corduroy and sods conducted the early traveller. The highway and railway run amicably side by side, dividing the little vale in two.
This pass, which was certainly known to the Indians, was, in 1771, rediscovered by Timothy Nash, a hunter, who was persuaded by Benjamin Sawyer, another hunter, to admit him to an equal share in the discovery. In 1773 Nash and Sawyer received a grant of 2184 acres, skirting the mountains on the west, as a reward. With the prodigality characteristic of their class, the hunters squandered their large acquisition in a little time after it was granted. Both the Crawford and Fabyan hotels stand upon their tract.
Of many excursions which this secluded retreat offers, that to the summit of Mount Washington, by the bridle-path opened in 1840 by Thomas J. Crawford, and that to the top of Mount Willard, are the principal. The route to the first begins opposite to the hotel, at the left; the latter turns from the glen a quarter of a mile below, on the right. Supposing Mount Washington a cathedral set on an eminence, you are here on the summit of the eminence, with one foot on the immense staircase of the cathedral.
Our resolve to ascend by the bridle-path was already formed, and we regarded the climb up Mount Willard as indispensable. As for the cascades, which lulled us to sleep, who shall describe them? We could not lift our eyes to the heights above without seeing one or more fluttering in the play of the breeze, and making rainbows in pure diversion. President Dwight, in his “Travels,” has no more eloquent passage than that describing the Flume Cascade. How many since have thrown down pen or pencil in sheer despair of reproducing, by words or pigments, the aerial lightness, the joyous freedom; above all, the exuberant, unquenchable vitality that characterize mountain water-falls! Down the Notch is a masterpiece, hidden from the eye of the passer-by, called Ripley Falls, which fairly revels in its charming seclusion. Only a short walk from the hotel, by a woodland path, there is another, Beecher’s Cascade, whose capricious leaps and playful somersaults, all the while volubly chattering to itself, like a child alone with its playthings, fascinates us, as sky, water, and fire charm the eyes of an infant. It is always tumbling down, and as often leaping to its feet to resume its frolicsome gambols, with no loss of sprightliness or sign of weariness that we can detect. Only a lover may sing the praises of these mountain cascades falling from the skies:
“The torrent is the soul of the valley. Not only is it the Providence or the scourge, often both at once, but it gives to it a physiognomy; it gladdens or saddens it; it lends it a voice; it communicates life to it. A valley without its torrent is only a hole.”
They give the name of Idlewild to the romantic sylvan retreat, reached by a winding path, diverging near the hotel, on the left. I visited it in company with Mr. Atwater, whose taste and enthusiasm for the work have converted the natural disorder of the mountain side into a trysting-place fit for elves and fairies; but where one encounters ladies in elegant toilets, enjoying a quiet stroll among the fern-draped rocks. Some fine vistas of the valley mountains have been opened through the woods—beautiful little bits of blue, framed in illuminated foliage. One notes approvingly the revival of an olden taste in the cutting and shaping of trees into rustic chairs, stairways, and arbors.
After a day like ours, the great fires and admirable order of the hotel were grateful indeed. If it is true that the way to man’s heart lies through his stomach, the cherry-lipped waiter-girl, who whispered her seductive tale in my too-willing ear at supper, made a veritable conquest. My compliments to her, notwithstanding the penalty paid for lingering too long over the griddle-cakes.
The autumn nights being cool, it was something curious to see the parlor doors every now and then thrown wide open, to admit a man who came trundling in on a wheelbarrow a monster log fit for the celebration of Yule-tide. The city guest, accustomed to the economy of wood at home, because it is dear, looks on this prodigality first with consternation, and finally with admiration. When the big log is deposited on the blazing hearth amid fusees of sparks, the easy-chairs again close around the fireplace a charmed circle; and while the buzz of conversation goes on, and the faces are illuminated by the ruddy glow, the wood snaps, and hisses, and spits as if it had life and sense of feeling. The men talk in drowsy undertones; the ladies, watching the chimney-soot catch fire and redden, point out to each other the old grandame’s pictures of “folks coming home from meeting.” This scene is the counterpart of a warm summer evening on the piazza—both typical of unrestrained, luxurious indolence. How many pictures have appeared in that old fireplace! and what experiences its embers revived! Water shows us only our own faces in their proper mask—nothing more, nothing less; but fire, the element of the supernatural, is able, so at least we believe, to unfold the future as easily as it turns our eyes into the past. If only we could read!
When we arose in the morning, what was our astonishment to see the surrounding mountains white with snow. Like one smitten with sudden terror, they had grown gray in a night. Striking, indeed, was the transformation from yesterday’s pomp; beautiful the contrast between the dark green below and the dead white of the upper zones. Thickly incrusted with hoar-frost, the stiffened foliage of the pines and firs gave those trees the unwonted appearance of bursting into blossom. Over all a dull and brooding sky shed its cold, wan light upon the glen, forbidding all thought of attacking the high summits, at least for this day.