pretty cove beyond the sloping pasture; 

 and westward past the Rock, along the 

 wooded shore of Norman's Woe to the 

 cliffs at Rafe's Chasm and the sunset. 

 One fairy sunset there was never matched 

 anywhere in my experience, the sky one 

 dome of soft luminous pink, the sea an- 

 other sky, the earth translucent floating 

 between, like the firmament that divided 

 the waters. 



A little way back from that shore ran 

 in our day over hill, dale and brook an 

 old grass-grown road, by each brook a 

 ruined cellar, reputed trace of Acadian 

 dwelling. The hills are among the sharp- 

 est little' pitches ever seen. Driving at 

 our ease about New England nowadays, 

 we are fain to exclaim : Of a truth our 

 forefathers would seem to have climbed 

 hills by preference (and laid stone walls 

 for exercise). But swamps were their 

 horror, and the poor creatures had to 

 thread their way through mazes of them. 

 There can be no doubt that these wet 

 areas are much restricted now, leaving 

 lis but a faint idea of ancestral difficul- 

 ties in this regard ; but even up to our 

 time grandmothers told awe-struck chil- 

 dren fragments of half-forgotten stories 

 of the horrors of the swamps. Ours told 

 of an already nameless young soldier, 

 perhaps in the Great Swamp Fight, 

 who, sinking slowly before the eyes of 

 his comrades, pushed his watch to them 

 over the bog, bidding them take it back 

 to his mother. How if was they could 

 do nothing to help him, did not appear. 



The Magnolia Swamp lies north of 

 the ridges, and some magnolia trees 

 grow in an arm of it more accessible 

 than the rest. Long before you reach a 

 tree the dead swamp air is redeemed by 

 their fresh fragrance if any flowers are 

 in bloom ; and * redeemed is well said ; 

 for the swamp-air of the dog days is 

 rendered doubly oppressive by millions 

 of stiff white spikes borne by the ob- 

 noxious clethra in odor "overbearin' 

 and upsettin'," — as Aunt Semantha said 

 widders were in temper. You enter 

 over turf wherein remain divers small 

 deep swamp-holes surrounded by crim- 

 son calopogon, yellow-eyed grass, white 

 cotton-grass and the pretty little yellow- 

 horned bladder root. Further in, the 

 path becomes miry, and you have to put 



aside the long swaying wands of the 

 swamp loosestrife with its whorls of 

 magenta bloom, and catch at the shrubs 

 to keep you out of the mud. (At this 

 point the poison sumach officiously ten- 

 ders aid), but the path to your goal, the 

 magnolia tree, leads aside into the bush 

 where the footing is perfectly hard and 

 peculiarly flat; and it doesn't exactly 

 quake and doesn't exactly sound hollow, 

 yet something tells you the bog is be- 

 neath, and you are walking on a crust. 

 To return to the old road : it forded 

 two brooks, the Red Brook which runs 

 into the sea behind Norman's Woe 

 Rock, and the White Brook which runs 

 out (amid much ivy) 'over the rocky 

 beach by the Dry Chasm. The Red 

 Brook must have been much bigger for- 

 merly, for it turned a saw-mill before 

 1700, and the ruined dam is still to be 

 seen a little way below the ford, where 

 it serves as a bridge. This brook is 

 charged with coloring-matter from the 

 swamps, so that it lines your tin cup 

 with gold (if you chance to have "es- 

 caped from the Bastille of civihzation"), 

 and it furnishes the most unsatisfying 

 draught ever swallowed. Not a drop 

 ever seems to go lower than your col- 

 lar-button. It makes one thirsty to think 

 of it. But it was lovely to look at ! It 

 ran out of a great bed of cardinal, 

 jewel- weed and raspberry-bushes (which 

 bore monstrous berries because they 

 stood with their feet in the water) and 

 spread out in a big red pool at the foot 

 of a gentle dip in the grassy road ; and 

 from the upper level you looked over the 

 brook at a preternaturally steep little 

 pitch beyond, where the road climbed a 

 pine-clad hill, bowing out to the very 

 verge of the dark descent to a ferny 

 swamp, cradle of the brook. The dark 

 background was faced with bright 

 growth, and all in the light of sweet 

 summer mornings with water sparkling 

 in the bay and in the brook ! Above, 

 the road turned sharply, broadening 

 into a level glade set round with bar- 

 berry-bushes, door-yard of a vanished 

 dwelling, and then turned another cor- 

 ner round the cellar and away. This 

 was a cherished haunt. A little side- 

 long, slippery path, parallel with the 

 brook led down a rugged slope of pine 



