The Frenzy of Unrest 303 



sea as that in Richard the Third." And Jim stopped rowing, 

 took his cigar out and leaned forward with his eyes on the 

 bhie haze about the mountains, and quoted the well-known 

 lines : 



" O Lord ! meth ought, what pain it was to drown ! 



What dreadful noise of water in mine ears ! 



What ugly sights of death within mine eyes ! 



Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks ; 



A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon ; 



Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 



Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, 



All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea. 



Some lay in dead men's skulls ; and, in those holes, 



Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, 



(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems." 



'' There's a picture for you," said the boatman, picking 

 up his stroke; and as I sat and held the trembling rod I 

 could not but wonder where Jim attained all his Shakespear- 

 ean lore, as there was not a question relating to the Bard 

 of Avon that he could not talk on and talk well, and to 

 the point. 



I once invited a man and a scholar to fish with Jim. I 

 had not told him of my boatman's peculiarity, but he soon 

 discovered it when Jim tripped him on a quotation and 

 proved him wrong. There was a mystery about Jim. Who 

 he was, or where he came from, I know not, nor did any one. 

 I fancied he affected the extreme idioms of the Yankee, the 

 droppings of ** ings " to conceal the fact that he had once 

 been a man of parts somewhere, as when he forgot himself 

 he dropped into the air and manner that only come from 

 association with men of ripe scholarship. Whatever it was, 

 Jim was a man of mystery; he had left the world behind, 

 and with the shade of William Shakespeare he had taken 

 to the woods and left the haunts of men. Some day, I 

 thought, some one who had known Jim In the long ago will 

 drop into his camp, as it is practically impossible wholly to 

 escape from the world, even in an Adirondack forest. 



