The The men turn and resalt their fish, stowed in broad troughs of hemlock bark. smell attracts small animals, and sometimes there is an alarm in camp that a bear has snuffed them out, and running out with the gun in the chilly night air, you catch sight of a lynx making off with one in his mouth. The sport is still fine; the fish, though not quite of the size of those earlier, rising and running with a dash. But the stores are dwindling, the canoes get leaky in spite of pitching, and the weather turns windy and changeable. The dull boom of the fog-gun from the light-house island-thirty miles off on the south shore of the great river-rolls oftener up the valley with a warning that autumn mists are gathering, and autumn storms brewing. There steals on a sense of having been a month without telegrams or letters, and suddenly some morning you say "enough," and order the flotilla down. to the chaloupe with everything not needed for one day more. Next day, after an early breakfast, we strike tents, pitch the table and chairs into the bushes to save them from spring floods, pack the canoes with what remains to make an ample load, and cast one longing, lingering fly behind before pushing into the current. The catch is always very good on the way down in point of numbers, but is apt to reduce the score as to average of weight. It is not always possible to fish, or even to pause. seasons ago the river was very full on entering it, and after a week's difficult fishing, it rose steadily, with heavy showers, till its olive surface turned café au lait color, and rolled bank-full, effacing rocks and rapids alike. Down the middle, it tossed in waves over the sunk bowlders. A canoe would quickly have foundered there, and we were forced to drift along the margin, with the aid of branches, fairly washed out of the valley by the torrent. The kingfisher screams along the sands as we pass; perhaps a beaver pokes his nose cautiously out among alder roots; or a disturbed owl floats silently off into the woods. At length, after leisurely and regretfully dropping down for hours, the chaloupe's thin mast points above the next turn, and the quickened paddles cut the tide-water, driving the canoes alongside to take possession if she is found all right. She may be found in quite a different condition. Some seasons ago the men had left her the previous night hauled out into a little bay, and anchored on so bad a bottom that when she grounded with the falling tide a rock started one of the planks below her quarter, and she lay stern under, half full of water, when we boarded her. Fishing out her cargo, and drying on the rocks what remained unspoiled, was a tedious waste of time; but when lightened and pumped out her planking sprang into place Two A LOUP-CERVIER. and was easily secured. The voyage back | little difference be- Bay. The summer birds have flown from the | The usual charge for canoe-men is a dollar and a half a day, in gold, and for the chaloupe, with its owner's services, two dollars. A liberal rule for calculation in laying in supplies at Quebec is to allow thirty cents for each ration, on the basis of two served to every man of the party each day for ordinary stores, with an addition for wine and spirits shipped, and for what the Germans call delicatessen, from which a quart of lime juice should by no means be omitted. The average cost of the month's excursion in each of four years-once with three in the party, once with two, and twice, alone has been from three hundred and seventy to four hundred dollars, including the sum paid for license to use the stream, as for salmon-fishing. It results, therefore, that with respect to region, route, equipment, and expense, as to all things indeed excepting season, tackle, and size of fish,-there is WRECKED. gler who can choose his month will of course prefer the former. If forced to content himself with the minor sport, he will find that health and experience are no less essential to its enjoyment, and that the charms of Nature, impartially kind to all enthusiastic wooers who seek her wilderness shrine, will more than compensate for its comparative tameness. The following instances may prove that his record, if modest, is not likely to be insignificant; even though it might not provoke Mistress Quickly's comment "I'll warrant you, he's an infinitive thing on the score." Years. Rods. Days. No. of fish. I IO When the angler, recounting these captives of his steel, pictures again each bright scene and hour of his summer's recreation, it will not be the least of his pleasures to remember that its fruits are aiding to make the cheerless life of his guides more endurable, in the long winter while those dark forests bow beneath the weight of snows, and the stiffening river shivers through all its depths under the blasts storming down those stern Laurentian valleys. AGAMEMNON'S TOMB. UPLIFT the ponderous, golden mask of death, We gaze in awe at these huge-modeled limbs, While all our art but crudely apes their grace. We gather all the precious relics up, The golden buttons chased with wondrous craft, The sculptured trinkets and the crystal cup, The sheathed, bronze sword, the knife with brazen haft. Fain would we wrest with curious eyes from these Unnumbered long-forgotten histories, The deeds heroic of this mighty man, On whom once more the living daylight beams, Yet could we rouse him from his blind repose, Since his great day whom men call King of Kings, What should he find within a world grown cold, "THE NEXT MOMENT IT WAS IN THE YOUNG, STRONG ARMS." CHAPTER XIII. IF Nicholas Minturn had undertaken to account to himself, or had been called upon to account to others, for the reasons which had induced him to take up his residence in New York for the winter, he would have been puzzled for his answer. To be near Miss Larkin was, undoubtedly, a first consideration. He had a hunger of heart that could only be fed by breathing the atmosphere in which she lived; but this he hardly understood himself, and this, certainly, he could not betray to others. He had had a taste, too, of society; and as Ottercliff could give him no opportunity for its repetition, his life in the ancestral mansion had become tame and tasteless to him. All this was true, but there was something beyond this. He was interested in himself. His interrupted voyage upon the Atlantic had been a voyage of discovery, pursued but half across his own nature. Of independ He ent action he had had so little, that he was He was entirely conscious of his ignorance of the ways of men. He was aware that he had no scheme of life and action, based upon a knowledge of the world. All that he had done, thus far, had been accomplished through the motive of the hour. He had seen, in moments of emergency, the right thing to do, and he had done it. He knew that other men had a policy which had come to them with a knowledge [Copyright, Scribner & Co., 1877.] Mr. Jonas Cavendish came in, holding before him, as if he expected Nicholas to take it, an old and carefully brushed hat. The weather was cold, but he wore no overcoat. There was a cheerful—almost a gleeful-look on the man's face, a dandyish air about his buttoned-up figure, and a general expression of buoyancy in his manner, that gave Nicholas the impression that he had suddenly fallen heir to a vast fortune, and had come to tell a stranger the news before visiting his tailor. Nicholas rose to receive him, and Mr. Cavendish extended his blue hand, with which he shook that of the young man very long and very heartily. of motives,-which had come with the experience of human selfishness,—which had come with a keen apprehension of ends and a careful study of means. He very plainly saw this; and he was acute enough to apprehend the fact, not only that he would be obliged to rely on his instincts and his quick and unsophisticated moral and intellectual perceptions for maintaining his power and poise, but that he had a certain advantage in this. The game that policy would be obliged to take at long range, with careful calculations of deflections, distances, and resistances, a quick and pure perception could clap its hands upon. A mind that knew too much-a mind that was loaded with precedents, gathered in the path of conventionality and custom-would be slow to see a new way, while one to which all things were new would be hindered by nothing. All that education and association could does-not-seem-possible!" said Mr. Cavdo to give Nicholas a woman's mind and a woman's purity, had been done; but behind this mind, and pervaded with this purity, there sat a man's executive power. Of this, he had become conscious in his occasional contact with men whose life was a scheme and a policy. What wonder, then, that he was curious about himself? What wonder that the discovery of himself should have been esteemed by him an enterprise quite worthy of his undertaking? He had been installed in his apartments but a few days, when his presence in New York seemed to have been discovered in quarters most unlikely to acquire the knowledge. College friends who were having a hard time of it in the city found it convenient to borrow small sums of money of him. He was invited to dinners and receptions; and he learned that the flavor of his heroism still hung about him, and that he was still an object of curious interest. Then, various claims to his beneficence were presented by the regular benevolent societies. To all these he turned a willing ear, and lent a generous hand. It was a matter of wonder to him, for a good many days, how so many people, of such different grades, should know just where to look for him. One morning, as he had completed some business of his own that had cost him an hour at his desk, Pont appeared with the card of " Mr. Jonas Cavendish." Who Mr. Jonas Cavendish was, he had not the remotest apprehension; but he told Pont to show him up. VOL. XIV.-4 "I suppose I ought to know you," said Nicholas, doubtfully. "Be seated, sir." Mr. Cavendish sat down, and gave Nicholas a long and interested examination. "Well, it doesn't seem possible! It endish. "To think that the little lad that I used to see at Ottercliff has come to this! Ah! time flies!" Nicholas was so much embarrassed that he took up the man's card, and looked at it again, to see if it would not touch the spring in his memory that seemed so slow in its responses. "I see that you are puzzled," said the man, "and I ought to say, in justice toto all concerned, that, in one sense, you ought to know me, and in another sense that you ought not to know me. Now, let me try to assist you. Flat Head? Flat Head? Does it help you any? Don't you catch a glimpse of a pale and enthusiastic young man, bending over you, and playing with your curls? Flat Head, now!" "No, I must beg your pardon. I cannot recall you." "Don't feel badly about it, I beg of you. I'll tell you who I am in a moment; but psychology has always been a favorite study with me, and I want to make a little experiment. I have a theory that every event in a man's life makes an impression upon the memory, and can be recalled, if we touch the chords,-if we touch the right chord, you know. Now, don't you remember hearing old Tom say to your mother: 'Here's that plug of Cavendish turned up again?' Don't that start it?" |