There is the scow (not a very romantic craft, reader, I own) fastened by its stone to the bank; and near it is the very skiff Davis and I used. The skiff is light and fleet, but as for the scow, it goes every way but the straight one. It will glide corner-wise, and make tolerable good way even broadside; but as for going straight forward, it appears to be the last thing in the world it intends doing. However, not more than four can sit comfortably in the skiff, so the majority of us must trust ourselves to the cork-screw propensities of the scow. Lavigne and Murray, with their ladies, take possession of the former, and the rest of us the latter. We all, then, embark upon the pure, glossy sheet for the recess. Ha! ha! ha! this is too amusing. Whilst the skiff shoots from us straight as a dart toward the goal, we go shuffling and wriggling along, first one side and then the other, like a bumpkin in a ball-room; and as the four who assumed the paddles relax their efforts in despair, the old scow turns broadside, and as if in contempt, is actually, I believe, making way backward.
“Paddle away, boys!” I exclaim, “or we’ll be at the bank again in a minute.”
“Paddle yourself,” growls Hull, who always entertained a decided objection to much exertion, although in the enthusiasm of the moment he had grasped one of the propellers. I seize the paddle he relinquishes, and whilst he seats himself sluggishly on the side of the scow, I bend myself to my task. The skiff is by this time half way over; and the good-natured laugh of its party at our troubles, comes ringing over the water. However, after a while we “get the hang” of the odd thing, and the pleasant tap, tap, tap of the ripples at its front, tell that we are moving merrily forward. Oh, isn’t the kiss of that wandering air-breath delicious! Whew! what a fluttering and whizzing! A flock of wild ducks, scared up from that long, grassy shallow to the right. How the sunshine gleams upon their purple backs, and flashes from their rapid wings. There they go toward the outlet at “the mills.” And the water, how beautifully mottled are its depths; how clear and transparent! It seems almost like another atmosphere. See the fishes swarming below. There goes a shiner like a flash of silver; is that an ingot of gold shooting past there, or a yellow perch? And, upon my word, if there wasn’t a salmon-trout showing its long, dark wavy back beside that log at the bottom, large enough for a six-pounder. I do wish we had our lines here. However, we came for a pic-nic, not a “fish.”
Well, here we are at the recess, and the skiff has been here certainly these fifteen minutes. It is a beautiful place, really. The bank recedes in a half circle from the water, leaving a space of short, thick turf, with an edge of pure white sand, on which the ripples cream up and melt in the most delicate lace-work. The place is in cool shadow, cast by the tall trees of the forest crowning the bank—and such fine trees, too. There is the white birch, with its stem of silver-satin; the picturesque grim hemlock, soaring into the heavens, with a naked top dripping with gray moss; the beech, showing a bark spotted like a woodpecker; and the maple, lifting upon a trunk fluted like a cathedral-column, a green dome of foliage, as regular as if fashioned by an architect. Of all the forest-trees the maple is my favorite, although it is somewhat difficult to select where all are so beautiful. Besides the birch, hemlock, and beech, above mentioned, there is the poplar or aspen, which, although horribly nervous, is a very pretty tree. The stem is smooth and polished, with white streaks over its green; the limbs stretch out broadly, and the leaves are finely cut with a “white lining” underneath. When the breezes are stirring, the changes of the tree are marvellous; and its whispers in a still, sunny, noon, when the rest of the woodland is motionless, are delightful, like the continuous and rapid drip, drip, drip, of a little rill in the grass. Then there is the elm, bending over its flexile summit in a perpetual bow to the trees around it, with clusters of fringe over its branches in April, and flaunting its October banner of rich yellow. There is the chestnut also, in June showing you tassels of pale gold amidst long, deep-green leaves, and in the autumn hanging its brown fruit over head, as if tempting you to climb. And lastly, there is the bass-wood, displaying in the latter days of May its creamy blossoms, so sweet, that you know you are approaching it, whilst wandering in the forest, by the rich odor alone. Still the maple, the beautiful maple, is “my passion.” It hails the blue-bird in spring, with its crimson fringes, dropping them in a short time to lie like live embers amidst the green velvet of the rising grass; in summer it clothes itself in broad scalloped leaves that flicker to the most delicate wind in the softest music, changing from green to white very gracefully, and in the autumn—reader, you have witnessed a crimson cloud burning in the mid-west, at sunset, after a shower! well, the color is not richer than that of the maple in that magic season. It shows like a beacon in the forest. I have stood in a deep dell, so deep, that I could discern a white star or two in the sky above me, and seeing the autumnal maple, have supposed it for the instant a spot of flame. How splendid! how gorgeous it is in its “fall” garb! It blushes, as Percival says,
“Like a banner bathed in slaughter.”
There are various flowers peeping out of the crevices of the bank—the pink briar-rose, and the yellow wild sunflower. The mellow hum of the bee swings now and then past us; and the cricket grates upon its tiny bars (a fairy lute) from the dusky nooks about. It is just the place for the occasion. There is a natural mound, too, in the middle of the place, that will serve excellently well for a table. So let us open our baskets and produce their contents. Ham, chicken, tongue, sandwiches, et cetera, with pies, cake, and preserved fruit. Some half-dozen long-necked bottles then make their appearance, with their brand upon them. What can be within them! What is that which makes the cork pirouette with such a “pop” in the air, and then swells to the rim of the glass in a rich, glittering foam, and with a delicious hum, like the monotone of a sea-shell? Don’t you know, reader? If you don’t, I shan’t tell you. It isn’t water, however.
The cloth, in snowy whiteness, is spread over the mound, and garnished with cup, saucer, plate, and dish. In an angle of the bank, faced with rock, a fire in the meanwhile has been lighted, of pine-knots and dry branches, for the manufacture of our tea and coffee. One of the party, having gone a little into the woods in search of blackberries, now returns, bearing a basket heaped up with the rich, glossy fruit, as black as Kather—somebody’s eyes—(the somebody is now making our tea and coffee at the fire yonder)—and they are as bright specimens of ebony as any I know of. The golden butter, and the silver sugar—(I like epithets—don’t you, Mr. Critic?)—are ranged in their places with the other viands, and the whole so crowd the table-cloth as fairly to hide its whiteness. We draw to, and fall to. What a clatter of knives and forks, and what a sound of cheerful voices. Care is at a discount—mirth is in the ascendant, and nature is in accordance with our mood. We are in the height of fashion, too, out here in the woods, so far as respects music, to grace our repast; not the clanging sounds of brass instruments, and the head-ache poundings of the bass-drum, but the sweet melodies of the forest. A cat-bird is spitting out a succession of short notes like a bassoon; the brown thrasher is sounding her clear piccolo flute; one of the large black woodpeckers of our forests, with a top-knot like a ruby, is beating his drum on the hollow beech yonder; a blue-jay every now and then makes an entrée with his trumpet, and the little wren flourishes her clarionet in such a frenzy of music as fairly to put her out of breath. The scene itself is very bright and beautiful. Sunset has now fallen upon us. A broad beam of mellow light slants through the trees above us, making the leaves transparent, each one looking as if of carved gold, and shooting through the midst of our party so as to bathe sweetly the faces of some three or four of our girls, and then making a bridge over the long nose of Hull, it stretches across the lake to the opposite shore, where the windows of Jordan’s Inn are in a blaze with it. At the edge of the lake, and a few feet from our party, a great swarm of gnats is dancing in its light, now up, now down, speckling the air in the shape of a wheel in motion. And the lake before us—so pure, so breathless, so holy—it seems entranced in a mute sunset prayer to its Maker. It has a tongue of praise sometimes—a tongue of liquid and dashing music—but it is now holding “Quaker meeting,” and is communing with God in sacred silence. And yet, after all, not wholly silence, for these little ripples, clothed in silver, run up the sand, and then fall prostrate, with a sound like the faint patterings of a shower upon leaves.
With the exception of this pencil of light, our hollow is filled with a cool, clare-obscure tint, like sunshine robbed of its glare—or like sunshine and moonlight mingled together—or, on the whole, like the rich harvest moonlight, with a dash of green in it. It is exquisitely soft, soothing, and beautiful. It seems like a light reproduced by the forests after they have all day been drinking the day-beams.
The jest—the story—the lively sally—the quick repartee, pass gayly around the circle. The destruction amongst the good things of the table becomes momentarily less, and finally ceases altogether. The solitary sunbeam melts away, but the clouds overhead are becoming richer and rosier; and the lake—it is a perfect Eden of beauty. Pure as innocence, and smooth as the brow of childhood, it stretches away, decked in the most glorious colors that eye ever beheld. Long lines of imperial purple—the tenderest azure—broad spaces of gleaming gold, and bars of richest crimson—all, all are blended upon the beautiful sheet, like the tints that tremble upon “shot” silk, or those that chase each other along the neck of the sheldrake. The sight fills the heart brim full of loveliness, so as even to surcharge the eye with tears. The most delicious emotions struggle for utterance, but the majesty of the beauty represses all sound—it awes the soul to silence. Old memories throng upon the heart—memories of early, happy days, and of the loved and lost. The lost—ah, too soon did some die in their young beauty, whilst others dropped, like ripe fruit, into the tomb. But they all went home, receiving “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Happy in their lot, ay, truly happy. And the youthful hopes and aspirations, they have all, too, vanished. The indefinite brightness resting upon the future—the soaring ambition—the romantic day-dream—the generous feeling—the warm trustfulness and confidence in the goodness of our race—all, all vanished.
Now right across that streak of crimson the loon pursues her way. Her track seems made of diamonds and rubies, and the plumage of her wings is touched with the magic brilliance that fills the breathless air. And now she glides within yon purple shadow, and is seen no more. The tints grow richlier, and then begin to fade; sweet rural sounds come softly over the water; the low of cattle; the tinkling sheep-bell; the echoing bark of the dog; and the ploughman’s shout to his homeward oxen.