FOREST AND STREAM 
845 
reeipiee of a thousand feet or so, with the stream at the 
ottom checkered and sparkling in the moon’s rays ; then 
going onward, you strike some grim rock-hound cavity 
or basin that looks like a fit spot for the unhallowed rites 
of the Walpurgis Night that Dr. Faustus witnessed by the 
light of the stare, in the dim recesses of the Utirtz Moun¬ 
tains, Ride on a hundred yards or so, and you wall enter 
a level spot,-carpeted with the greenest of swards, with 
the moonlight playing fantastic shadows, and the rock- 
bound wall rises sternly up as if to hide such a tender, 
fair spot from all human scrutiny. In just such a ground 
as this Queen Mab, his elfish majesty, Oberon, and all her 
fairy court, hold (heir nightly revels ; and if you wait 
long enough you will see Puck with Ida tricksiness hand¬ 
ing out the dainty, delicate Titani, followed by her maids 
of honor and lords of her diminutive court; and while 
the sovereign of all the fairies holds her court, you will 
find the sentinels swinging by spider webs from the 
boughs of the trees, keeping watch and ward iover the 
bachannalian jollity. Still vide on ; and you will pass a nar¬ 
row defile, just such a place as that "where Fra Diavolo 
stopped the coach of the English milord and relieved him 
Of all his money, after paying court to Lady Alcash in 
the disguise of the “ Marquis au Claire de la Lune,” and 
trying to take her bridal diamonds but yet a month 
old. Then you begin to descend the winding road, and 
at last reach the very bottom of the gorge. In a small 
clearing there is a house, dark, grim, aud forbidding, sol¬ 
itary and alone ; a house that your imagination peoples 
with crime-stained people; a private mad-house where 
men and women are buried into a worse place than the 
grave, where the sound of the la3h, the screams of the 
inmates, the sullen curses of the keepers, break the mid¬ 
night silence. You knock ; the watchdog answers by a 
deep bay ; a light flashes in the window ; a door opens, 
and a mountaineer's hearty welcome greets you, and 
your tired horses whinny out their satisfaction." Falling 
to sleep in a huge bed, we forget our moonlight reveries 
in the more vivid fancies of dreamland. 
The next day we spent in aimless saunterings; our 
horses were in tip top condition, and we in a most ap- 
reeiative humor. Leaving the main road we struok, hap- 
azard, a blind patch, as they call them here, running in 
a zig-zag manner ; hut that bore steadily upwards to the 
very top of the mountains. It was a long distance, and 
the fiery beams of the sun beat with fearful force on our 
heads. We toiled and struggled on, the sungetting more 
intense every moment, and the path became so rocky and 
steep that we had to diamount and lead our horses. They 
stumbled laboriously after us, and sent a perfect shower 
of stones clattering downward. We hugged the hill aud 
climbed as best we could, for it was impossible to rest on 
the steep cliff. Ever aud anon we would pause long 
enough to wipe the perspiration off our faces, and if we 
were not so profuse in curses as the celebrated army of 
Flanders, that doubtless marched up a similar bill, it 
was because of our good training in youth. “ Patience.” 
saith Solomon, or some other wise man, 11 will accomplish 
anything ; ” and adding to it a little perserverance we 
mounted that mountain at last. It was a steep hill ; so 
steep indeed, that the old women who lived at the foot 
of it always looked up the chimney in the evening to see 
whether her cows were coming home, 
“ The. Israelites were never more glad to reach the 
promised land than I am to get on the top of the world,” 
Mr. Smith pantingly observed. 
“I’ll he hanged,” said Mr, Jones, “if anybody but a 
bow-legged man ought to attempt to climb those heights." 
Mr. Robinson demurred at this, and said a mountaineer 
ought to have one limb longer than the other. Both 
agreed, however, that lowland legs of the .average sym¬ 
metry and length, were never intended by nature to 
make their way skyward by way of manual labor. 
But I will hurry on with my story. As 1 said before, 
we arrived on the top of the mountain, and, like Hopeful 
in the Pilgrim’s Progress, wo were breathless and weak. 
And what was our surprise to find on. the very summit, a 
comfortable log-house and out-buildings, built in the pri- 
mative style that the genuine mountaineer most affects. 
To our bail the proprietor came to the door, and we were 
as much startled by his appearance as ever was the 
Thane of Glanies by the apparition of Bauquo’s ghost. 
Yes, the door swung slowly open and a face showed it¬ 
self, a face more marked than the masked counte¬ 
nance of the veiled Prophet of Kobrassan; a huge face, 
as red as blood, a fla min g beard, shining, and as bright 
as the ever-burning lire of the Ghebers ; a wheelbarrow 
full of hair onliri head, as deeply, darkly, desperately red 
as a city belle’s promenade stockings ; his eyes shone like 
carbuncles. H i a form was clad in—but no matter about 
his dress ; no glance ever struck beneath his face. Once 
there, in startled amaze, your eyes rested, stayed, ling¬ 
ered, and remained. Yet he was a good-souled. Bad- 
hearted man, who believes inLavater nowadays ; honest 
and humble in spite of his glowing, fire like cast of fea¬ 
tures, which, to tell the truth, did look as tlioughit could 
set the world on fire. We were hungry, tired, aud 
wearied. He took us in and fed and feasted us in his 
homely way, and after our generous repast, aud when his 
spirits were raised from imbibing some of the mountain 
dew — that made his countenance more crimson and suf¬ 
fused, if possible—he became very communicative. His 
life was a burden to him, he said, and all because of his 
appearance. “ My neighbors send word to me,” he pa¬ 
thetically remarked, “ not to get up before day, for my 
face is mistaken for the sun rising over the top of the 
mountain, and then the cocks crow, the hens cackle, the 
dogs bark, the cattle low, and the good wife starts the 
fire often hours before the time. Yes,” he continued 
sadly, “if I walk in the hamlet after sunset the villagers 
halloo to me that lam trying to discount the moon. If I 
go there in the daytime, the girls begin to fan themselves, 
and the young men shuck off their jackets, just to devil 
me and nothing else, and things hasarroveatsuchapitch 
now that I can't even go to preaching.” 
' • Why not ? ” we asked. 
“ Because last year, one Sunday, I was a littlelate, and 
had to sit among the hoys at the back of the church. In 
a little while the sermon commenced, and a short spell 
after I saw the minister stop, look my way, and cough. 
He kept on, and then stopped and looked my way and 
soughed agin. Biiueby the folks turned around ami com¬ 
menced snickering : I thought it strange, but did’ut look 
around, but when the grins changed into hoarse laughs, 
I looked backward out of the corner of my eye, and as I 
am a living man I wv them boys—a whole parcel of ’em 
—all behind me. One little chap would poke his linger 
in my hair, turn it around and around as a blacksmith 
heals a bar of iron, place it on a Bible he held in his lap, 
and then keeping his finger revolving, a dozen fists wou Id 
hammer it; then they would all stop, and the little devil 
would put his linger in my hair again, while the other 
boys would wait, and puff and blow like they were roast¬ 
ing to death." 
“1 don't care much to live,” said the sad-faced man, 
wipiug a tear out of bis eye and elevating, in his absence 
of mind, the bottle to his lips ; “ the children Cry when 
they see me, and the dogs howl and run with their tails 
stuck between their legs, and I das’nt look in the water.” 
“ Why in the world don't you cut your hair aud beard 
off,” I asked. 
“ Stranger,” he replied, solemnly, “ my wife won’t let 
me ; she’s jealous, and keeps me at home to keep me from 
fooling around tiie gals, as she says, and a married man 
has got to obey orders or leave his ranche.” 
The dusk of evening was stealing over the scene when 
he left, and as I turned for a parting look I saw his flam¬ 
ing face through the gathering gloom, looking all the 
world like a pumpkin hollowed out, with a candle inside 
to illuminate it, such as bad little boys used to make on 
the plantations to frighten ignorant negroes with. 
Along these roads we travel there is not a spot, a valley, 
a defile, that lias not some bloody history, for hero have 
occurred skirmishes, forays and private feuds which have 
made these regions famous. Some Walter Scott will yet 
arise who will immortalize them in history. Along this 
road have often marched the dusty legions of Jackson : 
on that bridge was fought a contest between his rear 
guard and Fremont’s advance ; on that broad plateau is 
where Ashby made a stand to mask Jaebson's movement; 
and by the bend of the river in that mountain gorge 
Harry Gilmer held his ground until nightfall, with 
twenty-five troopers against Banks’ advance guard. The 
whole" land is one of memories. 
Sitting by a fire of blazing hickory logs were Jones, who 
is an ardent lowlander, and our host, who was born, 
raised and bred under the shadow of the loftiest cliff in 
the AUeghanies, and, of oouree, an enthusiastic high¬ 
lander. 
Said Jones : “Well, we live better than you. Where 
can you find such fish as the sheepshead, hog-fish and 
soft crab?” 
“ You may think so, hut I don’t,” returned the High¬ 
lander. giving the fire a vigorous poke with the tongs. 
“ I wouldn’t give our speckled mountain trout and our 
bass for all the salt water fish in the world ; it’s sweet, 
white and delicate, and the daintiest tasting fish that 
swims.” 
'* But where can you match our green turtle?” said Jones 
tri umphantly. 
“If there "is anything that can beat a haunch of our 
venison I have never seen it,” responded the host. “I 
make no exception of turtle, terrapin, or nothing.” 
“ But where can you show such game as we have in 
canvass-hack duok, the mallard aud the brant ?” 
“ 1 admit they are good eating,” said the Highlander 
earnestly, “but they can't discount our mountain pheas¬ 
ants, that are considered the greatest delicacy by all 
epicures.” 
“I have reserved my strongest argument for my last— 
where can you match our oysters ?” and Jones looked as 
though he had driven the nail of his argument up to the 
head, and clinched it on the other side. 
“I will set our mountain mutton against your oysters 
any day, and stand by the verdict,” answered the High¬ 
lander. “Besides, look at the difference in living, look 
at the health of the two sections. You people down in 
the lowlands shake your boots off before breakfast, with 
the chills, and can't’enjoy your good things. You have 
the ague fever half the year round,.while we up here 
never know what a malarial fever is, and keep our health 
until we die of old age, while you fight stomach aches aud 
dyspepsia all your lifelong.” 
Jones wouldn’t agree to this, and when we returned we 
left both of them in a heated argument that lasted, as 
I was informed later, way into midnight, neither party 
convincing the other. 
Hearing there was plenty of bass in the South Branch of 
the Potomac, some few miles below Franklin, a little 
town in West Virginia, we made our way down there, 
and opened the campaign. We had a plentiful supply of 
flies, grasshoppers, minnows, helgramites, and every kind 
of bug. In tlie deep pools along a granite cliff we could 
see the bass in dozens. The water was so clear and pure 
that ever little object was distinctly visible. For two 
days we tried them ; offered to their insatiable appetites 
flies, bugs and all; but they would smell them, and then 
give a contemptuous flirt of then’ tail and make off. Next 
we tried live bait, and Would drop a wriggling, lively 
minnow in the midst of a crowd of a dozen or so. They 
would float leisurely up, see what it was, aud then paddle 
off perfectly indifferent to all the trouble we had gone 
through for their benefit. I have enough of bass-fishing 
to satisfy me. 
While we stood patiently for hours and whipped the 
stream for bass, and never received a bite, a couple of 
country fishermen stood on the rocks with a long pole, to 
which was attached a noose made of wire, and, clapping 
it over the unsuspecting fish, they would get splendid 
strings of bass of several pounds weight. It don’t seem 
fair, but it’s true. 
Washington Irving tells of a couple of city sportsmen 
who fished in a stream for trout. They had fancy rods, 
silk lines, reels, artificial flies, bugs, minnows, helgram¬ 
ites, frogs and grasshoppers, and after an hour’s hard 
work did not have even one bite. While they were rest¬ 
ing after their desparing labors a freckled-faced farmer’s 
lad came along, his breeches held up by one suspender. 
He came fishing also. Hia outfit consisted of an old 
cedar pole, common cotton line, a pin hook and a few 
earth worms. In a few moments he caught a bucketful 
of prime perch. Well, that story can point a moral and 
adorn a tale, for that was just our luck. A long pole 
with a loop of wire did more execution in one hour than 
our complete outfit did in a week. 
I like sporting, not waiting and watching, as in deer 
and turkey shooting, for I love to hear the crack of my 
gun; it is sweet music to me, and I don’t care for the 
size of the game so much as the quantity—that, is unless I 
could make such a shot and do as much execution as old 
Captain Yan Felt did— but I will tell you that story, 
Q 
which is a tradition down in the lowlands of old Virginia, 
where I came from. 
Old Captain Van Peit, as his name indicated, was a 
Dutchman, and a sharp, shrewd, monej r -raalring man. 
The Captain commanded a schooner, and his crew con¬ 
sisted of an old darkey named Manuel. The business of 
the Fraulien (for that was the name of his craft) was to 
sail along the Potomac aud its tributaries and buy up 
fowls, eggs, fruits, vegetables, and all such articles, and 
then bear them back to the markets of Baltimore and 
Washington, when the Captain would dispose of his 
cargo at a heavy advance, and placing a balance in bank 
start down the river again, with Manuel at tire helm and 
the meditating Van Pelt at the bow, smoking his long 
pipe. 
One December day years ago, when you and I and the 
printer ,who Bets this up, were but boys or babies, the 
Fraulien dropped anchor in the tributary stream of Oe- 
caquan, It was a bright day, but there was a frost in the 
air which boded a freeze, and the Captain sent Manuel 
on shore to see an old woman who made the raising of 
fowls a specialty, and had more chickenB, ducks, aud 
geese than could be found anywhere elso for miles 
around. Manuel came back and "said that the old lady 
refused to give him her price and would only bargain 
with his master. 
“I'll go and see her and buy hemp tomorrow,” says 
Capt. Van Pelt. That night there came on a bitter freeze, 
aud as the sun rose it was reflected back by ice that was 
fully ten inches thick. 
“Mein Gott! Donner and Blitzen t” swore the Captain ; 
“ Vot shall I do? Christmas a-coming, and here I am 
stuck in the mud 1” 
All day the Captain watched for a thaw. Instead it 
grew colder and colder, and the next night it was so bit¬ 
ter that but for a jug of Holland gin and a roaring fire, 
the crew and the Captain would have been frozen, too. 
One, two, three, four days passed on, and as the frost 
came down heavier the Captain swore harder and puffed 
his pipe more savagely than did his countryman, the re¬ 
doubtable Wouter Van Twiller, of Nieuf Amsterdam, at 
the. British ship sailing up the Hudson. Adding to his 
woes, famine threatened, and at the end of the week the 
Captain went ashore to see the old lady and buy some 
fowls, Now this old lady, like Shelley's wicked old 
woman of Berkley, would do auytliing mean for money, 
and seeing tiie Fraulien frozen fast, she raised the price 
on her fowls just double what she asked before. The 
Captain tried argument, blandishments, cajolery, all to 
no pm-pose. The old woman had him where she termed 
liis hair was short, and was as firm as a mule, or a woman, 
can only be. Capt. Van Pelt finally lost Uis temper, aud 
retired on board the Fraulien, and paced his deck 
and declared that he would starve before lie would be 
cheated so. Then ensued a battle between his will and 
liis stomach, and those who have ever felt tiie pangs of 
hunger can't doubt which would be victor. The next 
day the Captain went back oouquered and paid the price 
of a half-dozen fowls—one bright silver shilling for eacii, 
when the full price was only a sixpence. As he picked 
them out from the vast flock he asked the old woman 
wliat she would let him shoot into the whole bunch for. 
The owner, always ready for a bargain in any shape, 
studied for a while, and then said : “If you will let me 
load the gun I'll let you shoot into the flock for a- dollar.” 
“ All right,” said the Captain, “ I'll go to tiie Fraulien 
and get him mine gun.” So he went on board the craft, 
dove down into his cabin, and brought out an old brass 
bull-mouth fowling piece that his father had made nearly 
a hundred years ago. It had a bore as large as a blun- 
derbus, and a touch-hole big enougli to run your fingers 
in. Into the gaping muzzle he poured afistfull of pow¬ 
der, rammed in a haudfull of tow, aud a double hand- 
full of shot ; theu he sawed off four fingers of the ramrod, 
and picked the flint carefully, aud started shoreward ac¬ 
companied by Manuel. The old lady was ready for him ; 
she carefully measured the gun with the ramrod aud 
found it (as she thought) unloaded, and put about a thiru- 
blefull of powder, aud about the same quantity of shot. 
Van Belt remonstrating with her on the smallness of tl.e 
load. “A contract is a contract,” said she, “you shall 
have all you kill, but I shall load the piece.” She then 
brought a basket of corn which the Captain sprinkled out 
in a straight line, and then lying down flat within a short 
distance, aud resting his guu on a log, lie told the 
ancient damsel to let the fowls out. The door of the fowl 
house was opened, and tiie clamorous brood, hearing the 
well known sound, flew cluttering, clucking, and quack¬ 
ing to their meal. I wish this was an illustrated paper, so 
that I could draw the picture just here, the fowls strung 
out in a long line, bolting their food; the Captain lying 
flat down, his fingers on tile trigger, saying a brief 
prayer — for the load he put in would strain if it did not 
burst the old weapon ; the ancient dame with a satisfied 
chuckle looking over her horn rimmed spectacles, and 
Manuel a good distance away, with his hands over both 
his ears, aud his eyes rolling fearfully. With ins heart 
standing still, the Captain sighted his piece and pulled 
trigger. A roar like that of thunder was heard, reverber¬ 
ating across the ice and echoing in a sullen roar from tiie 
woods far away, and there lay the Captain stunned, tbe 
fire-arm. ton feet off. The old woman as she witnessed the 
fearful slaughter, raised her arms aud her eyes to Heaven 
and shrieked, “My Lord, I am ruined, 1 am undone !” 
while Manuel counted the spoils. Seventeen chickens, 
eighteen guinea keets, nine turkeys, five geese, seven 
ducks, an old rooster, two tame pigeons, a pec house pig 
of the old lady’s, and her tabby cat, that had stole up in 
the crowd. 
“ Golly I ” says old Manuel, as he piled up tiie spoils, 
aud then helped up Captain Van Pelt, “ dis am de great¬ 
est shot on record 1 ” CfiASSKUk. 
—The most entertaining sight to be witnessed in New 
York City to-day is the Thanksgiving Day dinner of the 
children at the Five Points House of Industry, 155 Worth 
street. The annual appeal of the institution states that 
it is $8,000 behindhand. Contributions of food, money 
or clothing will be well disposed ol', and we invite our 
readers’ attention to this field of charity. All remittances 
and contributions should be sent to Hugh N.^Camp, 
treasurer, 155 Worth street, New.York. 
