53 ° 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 6, 1906. 
the shadow of overhanging alders big and small 
trout, with gold-dappled sides, lie stemming the 
current and awaiting the first delicacy that 
comes along. I am acquainted with one moun¬ 
tain stream in particular whose course fre¬ 
quently sinks into dark, cold pools that gen¬ 
erally teem with fish and cause the angler many 
moments of rapture and suspense, for if he 
chances to hook a pound trout it is no easy 
matter to swing him to a place of safety, and 
more often he is landed high and dry in a 
spruce top. I remember some one remarking 
that once, under similar circumstances, where 
there was little room to bring a fish in. grace-' 
fully, that the neighboring trees looked as if 
they had been decorated for a Christmas festival 
with trout, hooks and tangled fishing line dang¬ 
ling from their branches. Nothing, moreover, 
is so delectable and tempting to the eye as one 
of these smoky, yellow pools, flooded with 
morning light and held in the clasp of alder 
bushes and grass tussocks. Further down the 
same stream of which I speak broadens out 
and becomes a splendid hunting as well as fish¬ 
ing ground, being easily navigated and winding 
for miles in a northeasterly direction through 
remote ideal country. For the first three miles 
or so the water is comparatively shallow and 
thickly matted with a mossy growth that might 
be the floating tresses of water nymphs. No 
doubt at midnight or some spirit-waking, hour 
when the mild, cold moonlight curls over the 
limpid surface, bearing on its lunar beams a 
mystery which sets in motion all the faculties 
of idealism—primal and innate—their delicate 
faces may be seen lifted above the current, gaz¬ 
ing with serene shadowy eyes into the starlit 
heavens. Every bend reveals a fresh scene of 
beauty and solitude, sometimes a wooded hill 
rising in the distance and again level vistas of 
wild marshland. One feels as though he were 
journeying further and further away from com¬ 
monplace influences and all the disagreeable 
ruts of civilization; his very soul goes out and 
drifts ahead into mystic gardens; his feet are 
fitted with Talaria. When the sun westers and 
its red-bronze shafts pierce the woods and fall 
over the water where dragon flies dart back 
and forth through a blue haze, when the air, 
cooled by evening, transpires with a moist aro¬ 
matic fragrance and the tamaracks cease sway¬ 
ing in the afternoon breeze, we unconsciously 
turn our faces westward and listen to those 
songless raptures that emanate from an un¬ 
blemished wilderness. Over our thoughts a 
spell descends like a thin, magic veil, through 
which we see all things differently. What is it? 
Who shall say, except perchance that the hand 
of mysticism reaches out and touches us with 
gentle fleeting fingers. 
It is quite natural. I think that we become 
even more eager as time goes on to write of 
places long endeared to the past and present. 
A life acquaintance with certain regions gives 
rise to a bond and sentiment that may never be 
acquired otherwise. These mountains, these 
lakes and streams and rivers and fields, all have 
their living semblance in many a human breast, 
unchanging and everlasting. Among those 
whose ancestors were the original Adirondack 
settlers, there exists a like sentiment, indelibly 
engraved upon the life of each. They cherish 
their native soil; they revere the wilderness; 
beauty seldom escapes them. Let it be under¬ 
stood, however, that I do not speak of an 
element which unfortunately has worked its way 
down from Canada and different parts of the 
state into these solitudes, but of the rightful 
descendants of the men who first entered the 
forest and established their homes in the face 
of many obstacles. 
“Well,” as one of them said, a woodsman 
whose reputation is widely known, “if they 
lumber this piece” (referring to an unusually 
beautiful area of virgin wilderness), “I’ll just 
have to scratch a nest for myself and lie down.” 
After the first frost we are wont to believe 
that summer at length has closed, and the ad¬ 
vance guard of autumnal hosts arrived; but 
gradually the crisp unclouded skies melt into 
softer and vaguer tints and a south wind blows 
a film across the stars as we relapse once again, 
into a noonday rectitude. It is memorable after 
a cold snap to observe the transition and to feel 
the breath of summer returning. Often it comes 
at night accompanied by a mild southerly breeze 
so laden with mingled fragrances and mystery 
that it seems wafted from some serene, path¬ 
less dream, which suspires in the wilderness. 
1 recall such a transformation quite recently 
when, succeeding a brisk clarified day, there 
came a distinct change, shortly after the moon 
rose. It was the waning harvest moon, and one 
could observe clearly the serrated edge of the 
shadow, while the orb itself had the appearance 
of wrinkled silver fabric or shimmering damask. 
Troops and islands of cloud passed slowly over 
its face, and the air exhaled a cold elixir that 
foretold of coming frost. Moonlit distances 
appeared to float and glide through an unter¬ 
restrial ether, while vapors soaked with ethereal 
light spread like slender arms over the moun¬ 
tains. But half an hour later little remained to 
suggest the previous conditions. The whole 
landscape lay shrouded in a soft haze, and the 
heavens grew dim and misty as the wind rippled 
over and dissipated the being of autumn. 
There are times when we would not read 
the heavens from an astronomical standpoint, 
but from some divine depth within us. Let 
Antares glow in the constellation of our virtue 
and equanimity; let Octurus gleam upon the 
horizon of our faith and meditation. I doubt if 
there is any place in the world where they are 
so vividly serene, luminous and transcendant as 
in the Adirondacks, not only during the day, 
but at night as well. These few thousand feet 
above sea level appear to bring us infinitely 
closer to the magnitude and expanse of the 
latter. The galaxy streams like foam across a 
blue-black ocean, and the planets and constella¬ 
tions shake with silver fire, shining like eyes of 
eternity through the treetops, or reflecting pale 
ephemeral images on unbroken floods. They 
translate for us something which we feel in the 
wilderness yet do not see. Why, on beholding 
the northern lights, does every man fall into a 
natural, reverent silence, except that he un¬ 
consciously worships the beautiful, the unknown, 
the profound? Again and again, under vary¬ 
ing conditions, I have noticed this wordless 
spell seal the lips of one person after another. 
I remember once, just before the aftermath of 
twilight, a party of us were sitting on an old 
log bridge which spanned a mountain stream. 
The stream’s course wound into a maze of low, 
marshy country, backed by a high virgin-clad 
mountain spur, which arose darkly against a 
reflected glow in the east. From afar came the 
faint lute-like strains of hermit thrushes, but 
aside from these the hand of silence lay quietly 
on the hour. Nobody spoke. An invisible 
enthrallment sat by each. Presently some one 
made a whispered remark, and at the same 
moment on a grassy point not more than 
seventy-five yards distant, there stepped into full 
view a large buck. He walked slowly to the 
water’s edge, then turned and instantly his head 
went up with a jerk and he made several steps 
in advance, stamping and sniffing the air. It 
was a picture not to be forgotten., and we held 
our breath. '“Punkies” and other insects 
crawled leisurely over our faces, until at length 
some one, unable to bear these onsets longer, 
made a slight motion. This was enough! With 
a crash the deer turned and fled, his shrill, harsh 
snorts resounding weirdly as he plunged on 
through the marsh, until at last they died away 
and silence fell again. 
By the first of September the drone of locusts 
is no longer heard, but the air is still vibrant 
with harvest singers. Blue cloud _ shadows 
sweep over the vernal swells of clearings, and 
oat fields assume a bronze-like sheen. Here 
is the high country of a harvest loving deity. 
He gathers sunlight and shadow to his breast, 
and his brow is wreathed with wild fruits and 
flowers; but in the night Boreas (the north 
wind) kisses his cheek and he is at once trans¬ 
formed. A serene maturity dwells in his eye 
and the mobility of his features have no longer 
the delicacy of youth, but the force and tran¬ 
quility of manhood. The gold, crisp leaves fall 
under his feet, and like Janus, he appears to be 
looking toward the past and future. We meet 
him not only in fields, but in the forest, and 
realize at length that his transfiguration signals 
the passing of summer, whose faded lineaments 
are worn on his glorious breast. 
“We heard the sigh of the first autumnal 
wind, and even the water had acquired a grayer 
hue. The sumac, grape and maple were al¬ 
ready changed, and the milkweed had turned to 
a deep, rich yellow. In all woods the leaves 
were fast ripening for their fall; for their full 
veins and lively gloss mark the ripe leaf and 
not the seared one of the poets; and we knew 
that the maples, stripped of their leaves among 
the earliest, would soon stand like a wreath of 
smoke along the edge of the meadow. Already 
the cattle were heard to low wildly in the 
pastures and along the highways, restlessly run¬ 
ning to and fro, as if in apprehension of the 
withering of the grass and of the approach of 
winter. Our thoughts, too, began to rustle.” 
Now, when the westering light grows faint and gold 
And mystic nocturnes through the air unfold. 
Those hours that wakened o’er a summer sea, 
Sleep on the brow of dim futurity. 
Paulina Brandreth. 
An Emperor’s Sporting Chronicle. 
From the Monthly Review. 
Our knowledge of what the chase was like in 
the middle ages would be of a far more frag¬ 
mentary nature than it actually is, had not three 
fine old sportsmen left us records that take 
foremost rank in the literature of venery. Of 
the two seniors of this triumvirate it is only 
necessary to recall to the reader’s memory the 
names of their famous sporting chronicles, “Le 
Roi Modus,” or to give it its full title as found 
in the oldest of the thirty existing manuscripts: 
“Li livres du roi Modus et de la reine Racio 
qui parle des deduiz et de pestilence” is the 
name of the most ancient French prose work on 
the chase. Recent researches show that itSf, 
author was probably the very same Count de 
Tancarville, at one time chamberlain of the 
Regent Philippe, whose famous judgment upon 
the respective merits of hunting versus hawk¬ 
ing formed one of the most discussed topics 
among mediaeval sportsmen. In the fashion of 
the time the author of this classic not only in¬ 
dulged in quaint mysticism of a religious nature, 
but tried to prove that the good sportsman had 
special facilities of reaching paradise by the 
shortest cut, for no other man, he maintained, 
could so easily withstand the seven deadly sins, 
the bete noir of mediaeval times. The first part 
of the work is devoted to the chase, hawking 
and the various forms of fowling to which 
sportsmen of the fourteenth century were so 
much addicted, but the latter portion is an un¬ 
readable discussion of the pestilence, full of 
absurd allegorical mysticism. 
Very much more interesting is the work of 
the famous Gaston de Foix (nicknamed 
Phoebus), “Deduiz de la Chasse,” written more 
than half a century later, A.D. 1387, which with¬ 
out question is the most celebrated fountain¬ 
head of all lore connected with mediaeval venery. 
About the personality of its author, the famous 
veneur Count de Foix, lord of those much be- 
warred “buffer-states” between France and 
Spain, the counties of Foix and Bearn, good old 
Froissart, as every one will remember, has left 
us a most romantic account. 
In the terse chapters of the “Deduiz” we have 
model accounts not only of the chase, but also 
of the natural history, or as observant Gaston 
terms it, “the nature of the animal.” These 
eighty-five chapters, while betraying the extra¬ 
ordinary ignorance still prevailing in matters 
appertaining to zoology, prove to one how in¬ 
finitely more intimate was the old sportsmen’s 
acquaintance with the habits of their game than 
that possessed by the average modern repre¬ 
sentative. The “Deduiz” is singularly free from 
all self-advertising accounts of personal ad¬ 
venture, and did we not know on good evi¬ 
dence what a great sportsman this modest old 
author was, his pages would leave us without 
the slightest indication of his prowess. Very 
different in this respect is the man with whose 
writings these pages have specially to deal: 
