Harper's New Monthly Magazine. No. XVI.—September, 1851—Vol. III

"I had left my friend's house one evening, just before dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up the noble Kennebeck, which glided directly before the door. The evening was fine and clear. The new moon peered from her lofty seat, and cast her rays on the frosty pines that skirted the shore, until they seemed the realization of a fairy-scene. All Nature lay in a quiet which she sometimes chooses to assume, while water, earth, and air seemed to have sunken into repose.

"I had gone up the river nearly two miles, when, coming to a little stream which emptied into the larger, I turned in to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a century's growth met overhead, and formed an evergreen archway, radiant with frost-work. All was dark within; but I was young and fearless, and as I peered into the unbroken forest, that reared itself to the borders of the stream, I laughed in very joyousness. My wild hurra rang through the woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. Occasionally a night-bird would flap its wings from some tall oak.

"The mighty lords of the forest stood as if naught but time could bow them. I thought how oft the Indian-hunter concealed himself behind these very trees – how oft the arrow had pierced the deer by this very stream, and how oft his wild halloo had rung for his victory. I watched the owls as they fluttered by, until I almost fancied myself one of them, and held my breath to listen to their distant hooting.

"All of a sudden a sound arose; it seemed from the very ice beneath my feet. It was loud and tremendous at first, until it ended in one long yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal – so fierce, and amid such an unbroken solitude, that it seemed a fiend from hell had blown a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on the shore snap, as if from the tread of some animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend with things of earthly and not spiritual mould, as I first fancied. My energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of defense. The moon shone through the opening by which I had entered the forest, and considering this the best means of escape, I darted toward it like an arrow. It was hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could scarcely excel my desperate flight; yet, as I turned my eyes to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double that of my own. By their great speed, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that they were the much-dreaded gray wolf.

"I had never met with these animals, but, from the description given of them, I had but little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their untamable fierceness, and the untiring strength which seems to be a part of their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveler.

"'With their long gallop, which can tireThe hound's deep hate, the hunter's fire,'

they pursue their prey, and naught but death can separate them. The bushes that skirted the shore flew past with the velocity of light as I dashed on in my flight. The outlet was nearly gained; one second more, and I would be comparatively safe, when my pursuers appeared on the bank directly above me, which rose to the height of some ten feet. There was no time for thought; I bent my head and dashed wildly forward. The wolves sprang, but, miscalculating my speed, sprang behind, while their intended prey glided out into the river.

"Nature turned me toward home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was now some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me that I was again the fugitive. I did not look back; I did not feel sorry or glad; one thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return, of their tears if they should never again see me, and then every energy of mind and body was exerted for my escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days I spent on my skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute an alternate yelp from my pursuers made me but too certain they were close at my heels. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I fancied I could hear their deep breathing. Every nerve and muscle in my frame was stretched to the utmost tension.

"The trees along the shore seemed to dance in the uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed; yet still they seemed to hiss forth with a sound truly horrible, when an involuntary motion on my part turned me out of my course. The wolves close behind, unable to stop and as unable to turn, slipped, fell, going on far ahead, their tongues lolling out, their white tusks gleaming from their bloody mouths, their dark, shaggy breasts freckled with foam; and as they passed me their eyes glared, and they howled with rage and fury. The thought flashed on my mind that by this means I could avoid them, viz., by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on ice except on a right line.

"I immediately acted on this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly toward me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed past my pursuers. A fierce growl greeted my evolution, and the wolves slipped upon their haunches and sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the wolves getting more excited and baffled, until, coming opposite the house, a couple of stag-hounds, aroused by the noise, bayed furiously from their kennels. The wolves, taking the hint, stopped in their mad career, and after a moment's consideration turned and fled. I watched them till their dusky forms disappeared over a neighboring hill; then, taking off my skates, I wended my way to the house, with feelings better to be imagined than described."

Such annoyances from these migrating beasts, in the vicinity of logging berths as above named, are of recent date. Up to 1840 I had been much in the wild forests of the northeastern part of Maine, clearing wild land during the summer and logging in the winter, and up to this period had never seen a satisfactory evidence of their presence. But since this period they have often been seen, and in such numbers and of such size as to render them objects of dread.

THE HIGHEST HOUSE IN WATHENDALE

CHAPTER THE FIRST

High up among the mountains of Westmoreland, there is a valley which we shall call Wathendale. The lowest part of this valley, is some hundreds of feet above the heads of the dwellers on the nearest mail-road; and yet, as if such a place of abode was not near enough to the sky, there are houses as high up as they can well be put, in the hollows of the mountains which overlook the dale. One of these small farmsteads is as old-fashioned a place as can be seen; and well it may be so; for the last owners were fond of telling that the land had been in their family for five hundred years. A stranger might wonder what could carry any body up to such a place five hundred years ago; but the wonder would only show that the stranger did not know what was doing in the district in those days. Those were the days when the tenants of the Abbots of Furness used to hold land in the more fertile spots, in companies of four – one of whom was always to be ready to go forth to fight in the Border wars. And those were the days when the shepherds and herdsmen in the service of the Abbey used to lead their sheep and cattle as far up the mountains as they could find food – to be the better out of the way of the marauders from the north. Besides the coarse grass of these uplands, there were the sprouts of the ash and holly, which were a good food for the beasts. To be sure, there were wolves, up in those lonely places; but they were kept out by rough stone walls, which were run up higher and higher on the mountain side, as the woods receded before the tillage of new settlers. The first of the Fells, who made their boast of a proprietorship of five hundred years, was probably a shepherd of the Abbots of Furness; who, having walled in some of the sprouting and sheltering wood on this upland, and built himself a hut of stones in the midst, became regarded as the tenant first, and then the proprietor, like many of the dwellers in the vales below. When the woods were decayed and gone, the croft came under tillage; and no tradition has told of the time when the Fells did not yearly crop, in one way or another, the three fields which were seen from below, like little patches of green beside the fissure which contained the beck (or brook) that helped to feed the tarn (or mountain pond) a quarter of a mile below.

There was grumbling in this mountain nest about the badness of our times in comparison with the old days; grumbling in a different dialect from that which is heard in our cities; but in much the same spirit. In this house, people were said to be merrier formerly – the girls spinning and weaving, and the lads finding plenty to do in all weathers; while the land produced almost every thing that the family wanted – with the help of the hill-side range for the cows and sheep. A man had not to go often to market then; and very rarely was it necessary to buy any thing for money, though a little bartering might go forward among the Dalesmen on occasion. Now – but we shall see how it was "now."

Mrs. Fell and her daughter Janet were making oaten bread one December day; – a work which requires the full attention of two persons. The cow-boy appeared at the door, with a look of excitement very unusual in him. He said somebody was coming; and the somebody was Backhouse, the traveling merchant. The women could not believe it – so late in the year; but they left their baking to look out; and there, sure enough, was the peddler, with his pack on his shoulders, toiling up the steep. They saw him sit down beside the barn, and wipe his brows, though it was December. They saw him shoulder his pack again; and then the women entered into consultation about something very particular that they had to say to him. As people who live in such places grow dull, and get to think and speak with extraordinary slowness, the plot was not complete when the peddler appeared at the door. He explained himself quickly enough; had thought he would make one more round, as the season was mild – did not know how long the snow might lie when it did come – believed people liked to wear something new at Christmas; so here he was. When would he take his next round? O! when the weather should allow of his bringing his stock of spring goods. He detected some purpose under the earnestness with which he was pressed to say when he would come. He would come when the Fells pleased, and bring what they pleased. He must come before the first of April, and must bring a bunch of orange flowers, and a white shawl, and —

"Two sets of the orange flowers," said Janet.

"What! two brides!" exclaimed Backhouse. "Are they to be both married in one day?"

Mrs. Fell explained that there was to be a bride's maid, and that Janet wished that her friend should be dressed exactly like herself. Backhouse endeavored to prove that only brides should wear orange flowers; but Janet was sure her friend would be best pleased to wear what she wore; and the peddler remembered that nobody within call of the chapel bell would know any better; so he promised all that was desired. And next, he sold half the contents of his pack, supplying the women with plenty of needlework for the winter evenings. Brides enjoy having a new wardrobe as much in the mountains as in towns – perhaps more.

Whenever the young carpenter, Raven, came up to see his betrothed, he found her sewing, and some pretty print, or muslin, or bit of gay silk lying about. It was all very pleasant. The whole winter went off pleasantly, except for some shadow of trouble now and then, which soon passed away. For instance, Raven was once absent longer than usual, by full three days; and when he did come, there were marks left which told that he had staid away because he had been ashamed of two black eyes.

"He had been drinking, I dare say," said Mrs. Fell to Janet afterward, with the air of indifference with which drunkenness is apt to be spoken of in the district. "I don't wonder he did not like to show himself."

"I don't think it is his way," observed Janet.

"No; it is not a habit with him; and they all do get too much, now and then – two or three times a year – and it will be seldomer than that when he comes to live up here."

Raven was to be adopted as a son, on marrying the only child, and it was very right; for Fell was growing old; and he was more feeble than his years warranted. Rheumatism plagued him in the winter, and he was overworked in the summer. Raven would help to manage the little farm, and he would do all the carpentering work, and put the whole place in repair, outside and in. Every thing was to go well after the wedding.

Sally, the bridesmaid, came in good time to put the orange flowers into her coarse Dunstable bonnet, which streamed with white ribbons. It was a fine April morning, when the party set off down the mountain for their walk of three miles to the chapel. The mother remained at home When Fell returned, he told her it had gone off extremely well, and the clergyman had spoken very kindly; and that Fleming's cart was ready, as had been promised, to take the young people to the town where they were to be entertained at dinner. It was all right, and very pleasant. And the old people sat down to dinner, dressed in their best, and saying, many times over, that it was all right with them, and very pleasant. The only thing was – if Raven's name had but been Fell! The Fells having lived here for five hundred years —

"The family, but not always the name," the wife observed. There was a Bell that lived here once; and the land would be in the family still, in the best way it could, as they had no children but Janet.

Well; that was true, Fell agreed; and it was all right, and very pleasant.

CHAPTER THE SECOND

That evening, three ladies went up to the chapel to see the sunset from the church-yard, which commanded an exquisite view. It was a place in which, at such an hour, it was easy to forget, even with the graves before their eyes, that there was sin or sorrow in the world. The ladies sat on the steps till the last glow had faded from the clouds, and the mountains stood up, clear and solemn, against a green sky, from which every tinge of sunset had vanished; and then they came down, with thoughts as bright and calm as the stars which were beginning to come out overhead. When they entered on a long stretch of straight road, they saw before them an odd-looking group. In the dusk it seemed as if a man and a woman were carrying something very heavy – moving toward them at a pace hopelessly slow. A woman was some way in advance of them – loitering and looking back. When they came up to her, it was a young woman, with orange flowers in her bonnet, and a smart white shawl on her shoulders. She was carrying a man's hat, new, but half covered with mud. It was now too clear that the heavy thing which the other two were trying to haul along was a man. Never did man look more like a brute. His face, when it could be seen, was odious; swollen, purple, without a trace of reason or feeling left in it; but his head hung so low, with his long black hair dipping on the ground, that it was not easy to see his face. His legs trailed behind him, and his new clothes were spattered with dirt.

"It looks like apoplexy," said, the elder lady to her companions: and she asked the young woman who was carrying the hat, whether the man was in a fit.

"No, ma'am; he has only been overcome. It is his wedding. He was married this morning."

"Married this morning! And is that his wife?"

"Yes, ma'am; and the other is bridegroom's man."

It would have touched any heart to see poor Janet, as the ladies passed – her honest, sun-burned face, all framed in orange flowers, grave and quiet, while she put forth her utmost strength (which was not small) to hold up her wretched husband from the dirt of the road. The other man was a comely youth, dressed in his best, with a new plaid fastened across his breast. The ladies looked back, and saw that it would never do. The elder lady returned, and laying her hand on the poor young woman's shoulder, said,

"This is no work for you. It is too much for you. Let him lie, while I speak to the people at this farm-house. I know them; and they will send a man to take him into the house."

Poor Janet spoke very calmly when she said they could take him a little further; but her lips quivered slightly. The lady spoke to a man who was feeding calves in a stable; and asked him to help to dip the bridegroom's head in a cistern by the road-side, and then take him into the house.

"How far is it from his home?" the lady inquired of Sally. "The High House in Wathendale! You will not get him there to-night at this rate."

The farm-house people promised a cart, if the party could wait till it came by.

"How could such a thing happen?" said the lady. "Is there no one to teach this man his duty better than this? Does he know the clergyman?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Sally, adding very simply, "but there would be no use in the clergyman speaking to him now, he would not understand."

"No, indeed," replied the lady. "But he will feel ill enough to-morrow, and then I hope somebody that he respects will speak to him in a way that he will remember."

"To think," she said to her companions, as they walked away past the cistern where the groveling bridegroom was undergoing his ducking, "that that is the creature whom the poor girl bound herself this morning to love, cherish, and obey! What a beginning of the cherishing!"

Fell and his wife had not expected the young people home early; but it was much later than the latest time they had fixed, before they heard any thing of them. When at last the party appeared, emerging from the night mist, all the three sober ones were dreadfully weary. The ascent had been terrible; for Raven had not yet begun to recover.

No fine sentiment was wasted upon the occasion; for the indifference which had rather shocked the ladies, was the real state of mind of people too much accustomed to the spectacle of intemperance. Mrs. Fell declared she was vexed with him – that she was; and then she put on her bedgown, in order to sit up with her daughter, for Raven was now so sick that he must be waited on all night. Mrs. Fell said repeatedly, as so often before, that all men were apt to take too much now and then; and it would happen less often now he had come to live up here. Yet, her husband's words would run in her head, that it was all right, and very pleasant. When, in the dawn of the morning, her daughter made her go to bed, she dropped asleep with those words in her ears; while poor Janet, chilly, sick at heart, and worn out, was at length melting into tears.

When, the next afternoon, her husband sat nursing his aching head beside the fire-place, he was struck with some compunction at the sight of her red eyes. Of course, he declared, as drunkards always do, it should never happen again. Of course, he laid the blame, as drunkards always do, on other people. Of course, he said, as drunkards always do, that it was no habit of his; and that this was an accident – for once and away. Of course, his wife believed him, as young wives always do.

For some time it appeared all true, and every thing went on very cheerfully. On the fine days there was as much field-work as both men could do; and so many repairs were needed of gates and posts, cart and cow-house, dwelling-house and utensils, that all the rainy days for six months were too little for the carpentering Raven had upon his hands. He had not been tipsy above twice in all that time: once on a stormy day, when he had sat lazily scorching himself before the fire, with the laborer and cow-boy, who were driven in by stress of weather, and who yawned till they made the whole party weary. Raven disappeared for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and came out of the barn to supper in a state far from sober. The other time was when he had gone to market in October, to sell oats. At all other times he worked well, was kind to the old people, and very fond of Janet, and justified Fell's frequent declaration, that it was all right now, and very pleasant.

The winter was the trying season. Sometimes the dwellers in the high house were snowed up, and many days were too stormy for work. The men grew tired of sitting round the fire all day, hearing the wind blow, and the rain pelt; and the women were yet more tired of having them there. There were no books; and nobody seemed to think of reading. There were some caricatures of the Pope and of Bonaparte, and a portrait of King George the Third, on the walls; and these were all the intellectual entertainment in the house, unless we except four lines of a hymn which Janet had marked on her sampler, when she was a child. Raven went more and more to the barn, sometimes on pretense of working; but his hammer and saw were less and less heard; and instead of coming in cheerfully to supper, he was apt to loiter in, in a slouching way, to hide the unsteadiness of his gait, and was quarrelsome with Fell, and cross to Janet. He never conducted himself better, however; never was more active, affectionate, helpful, and considerate, than at the time when old Fell sank and died – during that month of early spring when Janet was confined. He was like son and daughter at once, Mrs. Fell declared – and doctor and nurse, too, for that matter: and his father-in-law died, blessing him, and desiring him to take care of the farm, and prosper on it, as it had been in the family for five hundred years.

When the old man was buried, and the seed all in the ground, and Janet about again, Raven not only relaxed his industry, but seemed to think some compensation due to him for his late good behavior. Certain repairs having been left too long untouched, and Mrs. Fell being rather urgent that they should not be further neglected, it came out that Raven had sold his tools. Sold his tools! – Yes; how could he help it? It was necessary, as they had all agreed, to change away the old cow for a spring calver; and what could he do but sell his tools to pay the difference? Janet knew, and so did her mother, though neither of them said so, that more money had gone down his throat, all alone in the barn, than would have paid for the exchange of cows.

The decline of their property began with this. When decline has begun with the "statesmen" of the Lake District, it is seldom or never known to stop; and there was nothing to stop it in this case. On a small farm, where the health and industry of the owner are necessary to enable him to contend with the new fashions and improvements of the low country, and where there is no money capital behind to fall back upon, any decline of activity is fatal; and in two or three years Raven's health had evidently given way. His industry had relaxed before. He lost his appetite; could not relish the unvaried and homely fare which his land supplied; craved for dainties which could not be had, except by purchase; lost his regular sleep, and was either feverish and restless, or slept for fifteen hours together, in a sort of stupor. His limbs lost their strength, and he became subject to rheumatism. Then he could not go out in all weathers to look after his stock. One of his best sheep was missing after a flood; and it was found jammed in between two rocks in the beck, feet uppermost – drowned, of course. Another time, four more sheep were lost in a snowdrift, from not being looked after in time. Then came the borrowing a plow. It was true, many people borrowed a plow; nobody thought much of that – nobody but Mrs. Fell. She thought much of it; for her husband, and his father before him, had always used their own plows. Then came borrowing money upon the land, to buy seed and stock. It was true, many "statesmen" mortgaged their land; but then, sooner or later, it was always found too difficult to pay the interest, and the land went into the hands of strangers; and Mrs. Fell sighed when she said she hoped Raven would remember that the farm had been in the Family for five hundred years. Raven answered that he was not likely to forget it for want of being told; and from that moment the fact was not mentioned again Mrs. Fell kept it in her heart, and died in the hope that no new-fangled farmer, with a south country name would ever drive his plow through the old fields.