That lonely dwelling stood among the hills
By a gray mountain stream.—Southey.
AFTER the events described in the last chapter, I continued, like the navigator of unknown coasts, my tour of the great range. Half a mile below the Glen House, the Great Gulf discharges from its black throat the little river rising on the plateau at its head. The head of this stupendous abyss is a mountain, and mountains wall it in. Its depths remain unexplored except by an occasional angler or trapper.
Two and a half miles farther on a road diverges to the left, crosses the Peabody by a bridge, and stretches on over a depression of the range to Randolph, where it intersects the great route from Lancaster and Jefferson to Gorham. Over the river, snugly ensconced at the foot of Mount Madison, is the old Copp place. Commanding, as it does, a noble prospect up and down the valley, and of all the great peaks except Washington, its situation is most inviting; more than this, the picture of the weather-stained farm-house nestling among these sleeping giants revives in fullest vigor our preconceived idea of life in the mountains, already shaken by the balls, routs, and grand toilets of the hotels. The house, as we see by Mistress Dolly Copp’s register, has been known to many generations of tourists. The Copps have lived here about half a century.
Travellers going up or down, between the Glen House and Gorham, usually make a détour as far as Copp’s, in order to view the Imp to better advantage than can be done from the road. Among these travellers some have now and then knocked at the door and demanded to see the Imp. The hired girl invariably requests them to wait until she can call the mistress.
Directly opposite the farm-house the inclined ridge of Imp Mountain is broken down perpendicularly some two hundred feet, leaving a jagged cliff, resembling an immense step, facing up the valley. This is a mountain of the Carter chain, sloping gradually toward the Glen House. Upon this cliff, or this step, is the distorted human profile which gives the mountain its name. A strong, clear light behind it is necessary to bring out all the features, the mouth especially, in bold relief against the sky, when the expression is certainly almost diabolical. One imagines that some goblin, imprisoned for ages within the mountain, and suddenly liberated by an earthquake, exhibits its hideous countenance, still wearing the same look it wore at the moment it was entombed in its mask of granite. The forenoon is the best time, and the road, a few rods back from the house, the best point from which to see it. The coal-black face is then in shadow.
The Copp farm-house has a tale of its own, illustrating in a remarkable manner the amount of physical hardship that long training, and familiarity with rough out-of-door life, will occasionally enable men to endure. Seeing two men in the door-yard, I sat down on the chopping-block, and entered into conversation with them.
By the time I had taken out my note-book I had all the members of the household and all the inmates of the barn-yard around me. I might add that all were talking at once. The matron stood in the door-way, which her ample figure quite filled, trifling with the beads of a gold necklace. A younger face stared out over her shoulder; while an old man, whose countenance had hardened into a vacant smile, and one of forty or thereabouts, alternately passed my glass one to the other, with an astonishment similar to that displayed by Friday when he first looked through Crusoe’s telescope.
“Which of you is named Nathaniel Copp?” I asked, after they had satisfied their curiosity.
“That is my name,” the younger very deliberately responded. “Really,” thought I, “there is little enough of the conventional hero in that face;” therefore I again asked, “Are you the same Nathaniel Copp who was lost while hunting in the mountains, let me see, about twenty-five years ago?”