Caleb's Lark

“BUT, doctor, what shall we do for hims ? He laughs at medicine, dieting, and rest, and, like the late lamented Confederacy, only desires to be let alone, —a treatment likely to be as fatal in this case as in that. What can I do for him ? ”

“Try a lark,” sententiously replied the family physician, with a twinkle of his honest eyes.

“ A lark ! ” dubiously echoed Miselle. “ But where is one to be found ? How would a robin answer ?”

“ Pho, child ! not a lark to eat, but a lark to do, to be, and to suffer. Recreation,” said the doctor; and Miselle put on her considering-cap.

“ I have it! ” exclaimed she, presently. “ Not a cent for himself, millions for some one else, — that’s Caleb ! Doctor, tell him confidentially that my health is suffering for want of rest and change. Advise him to take me somewhere directly, and leave the rest of the case to me.”

The doctor nodded, smiled, and took his leave.

That evening Caleb casually remarked to the wife of his bosom : “Miselle, I have been thinking that I should enjoy a little trip to the mountains or the sea-shore. What do you say to the idea ? ”

“ Anything that pleases you, my dear,” meekly replied Miselle. “When would you like to go ? I have just been reading a glowing account of Mount Desert, a little island off the coast of Maine, which seems to combine everything desirable in a holiday-ground,— lofty mountains, deep ravines, forests, precipices, gorges, echoes, fresh mackerel, and no end of blueberries; in fact, all the delicacies of the season, including the prettiest women in the Union, who arc there collected.”

“ What magnificent combinations ! ” exclaimed Caleb, in enthusiasm.— “ Mackerel and sunset skies, blueberries and ocean, alike unlimited, pretty women and nature ! The antitheses are irresistible. Miselle, go pack your trunk.” Which command was obeyed with such zeal, that at 6 p. M. upon the succeeding evening the pleasure-seekers left Boston by rail for Portland, there to take boat for Mount Desert ; preferring this mode of transit to making the entire passage by water, as some persons choose to do. Reaching Portland at 10 P. M., travellers and luggage were quietly transferred to the steamer Lewiston, a pretty and commodious boat under admirable management.

“Sit here while I look for our stateroom,” directed Caleb, leaving Miselle planté before a divan divided by arms into sections like a pie. Most of these sections were occupied by persons wearing the preternaturally solemn expression of incipient sea-sickness, and Miselle, leaving her satchel and sunshade to keep them company, made her independent way to the forward deck, when a sudden tornado snatched and bore away her hat, whisked her drapery into undignified and ungraceful festoons, and made of her own hair a veil to cover her confusion, as she hastily retreated from the group of smokers among whom she had plunged, and penitently sought countenance and protection among her discreeter sisters upon the divan, n@w in the rigid condition preceding the final agony of maladie-du-mer.

Here Caleb presently found, wondered at, mildly rebuked, and finally bore away, the hatless and dishevelled aspirant for fresh air, for onee quite subdued and silent.

After leaving Rockland, — a thriving town at the mouth of the Penobscot River, where the passengers coming from Boston by boat are received on board the Lewiston, — the route lies among the myriad islands of the coast of Maine, and every curve of the sinuous course opens a new vista of combined land and ocean view positively startling in its wild beauty. Many of these islands, as well as various points upon the main-land, perpetuate in their names the memory of French discovery and occupation,—as Castine, where an old French fort still towers above an earthwork not yet live years old; the islands of Grand and Petit Menan, Terre Haute, Belle Isle, Isle au Haut, Rosier ; and Mount Desert itself, originally Mont Desart, although some antiquarians choose to derive the name from that of Captain Dessertes, one of the first navigators of Frenchman’s Bay.

But resolutely closing ears and eyes to the bewildering and bewitching traditions so artfully mingled with the history of this island that one knows not whether to visit first Gold-Digger’s Glen, where several enthusiastic speculators are to-day searching for Captain Kyd’s buried treasure, or to search at Fernald’s Point for the still more apocryphal site of the old Jesuit settlement established under the patronage of the fair and discreet Madame cle Guerchville about 1613, and so cruelly destroyed by an English governor of Virginia named Argall, some years later, — Miselle returns to her simple narrative of personal experience, leaving the glory of research and compilation to more industrious historians.

Come and see Mount Desert. We are just going into Southwest Harbor,” said Caleb, and Miselle, closing her book, followed to the bows of the steamer to look upon a view wonderful in its savage beauty ; for the great mountains standing sentry at either side the port were clothed in dense evergreen forest, and the valleys between them seemed wells of darkness. Black thunderclouds, gathering upon the crests of the hills, spread rapidly over the sky, until now so smiling; so that at last the whole island lay in frowning shadow, while the sea far to southward still glittered in summer sunshine, and the Lewiston, with her freight, seemed a veritable Charon’s boat bringing hapless souls from the warmth and light of life to some dim, horribly beautiful purgatory, beyond which might lie heaven or hell.

“ Only, six dollars is a good deal more than an obolus,” remarked Miselle, the nineteenth century pressing hard upon her.

“ What is that ? Why, it is raining, as sure as I’m a sinner ! ” responded Caleb.

“ Don’t speak of it now, if you are,” murmured Miselle, following him across the gangway plank to a wharf surrounded by lobster-canning factories, and redolent of fish. Here stood sundry remarkable vehicles, into one of which Miselle found herself hastily packed, in company with a jolly cripple, two limp and despairing women, and a driver ; while Caleb, who had four times secured a seat and relinquished it to whoever would accept it, plodded cheerfully along in the rain, and stood waiting, like an aqueous angel, to receive his charge upon the steps of Deacon Clark’s Hotel. Beside him was the Deacon himself, grave, benevolent, and patriarchal, while behind them appeared the cheery faces of the Friend from Philadelphia, and the Count all the way from Germany; for — again like Plades — Mount Desert collects its visitors from all the world.

“Very glad to see you. Dinner is ready,” said the Deacon with a nice adaptation of the topic to the mood of his guests ; and the rest of the day was devoted to a blazing fire, conversation, both merry and grave, tea-time, and plans for the morrow. But Miselle closed her weary eyes to the lullaby of the rain upon the roof, and awoke to the same melody. A breakfast, graced by the freshest of mackerel and the sweetest of blueberries, mitigated, but could not conceal, the fact that the rainy morning was likely to continue into a rainy day. From the table the party adjourned to the piazza.

“ What a pity that we must lose the walk to Big Pond this morning!” said the Friend, mildly appealing to the uncompromising clouds.

“I am going,” announced Miselle; “ I shall be ready in fifteen minutes.”

“ But it rains,” remonstrated the Count.

“ So I see.”

“ You will get awfully wet,” suggested Caleb.

“Far up the height” of the steep stairs Miselle’s voice replied, “In fifteen minutes.”

But “fortune favors the brave,” and when, in less than the prescribed quarter of an hour, the party set forth, equipped with rubber bootsand overcoats, water-proof cloaks and umbrellas, while Caleb paid unusual deference to the elements by fastening one button of his coat, the clouds had broken and the rain, had ceased. Three miles of bush and brake, woodland road, and wood without road, brought the explorers to Big Pond, or Long Lake, the indigenous and imported names of a lovely sheet of water shut in by Beechill Mountain on the right and Western on the left, while the southern end is finished by the little sandy beach to be found, as the Friend asserts, at the southern end of every lake upon the island.

Upon this beach sat down the four, breathless, draggled, and happy. Beside them crisped and murmured a little woodland brook, tumbling across the sands toward the lake ; above them floated the clouds, now breaking to show a watery sun, now gathering stern and dark upon the mountain summits. The evergreen forests clothing the hillsides were full of mystery and gloom ; but creeping out from their shadow, and holding the middle ground between forest and beach, rioted the wild convolvulus, the brilliant scarlet bunch-berry, the sweet blue harebells, and clusters of the loveliest wild roses that ever bloomed on earth. Upon the beach lay scattered the bleached trunks of trees far larger than the present growth of the hills ; and the Count argued, with much show of reason, that they were the metamorphosed remains of Titanic heroes who had fought and died upon these shores, upheaving hills and hollowing lake-basins in the ardor of their mighty struggle.

“ I should say, rather,” gravely suggested Caleb, “ that these smaller trunks are the remains of the heroes, while the larger ones represent the hippogriffs, sylants, or other battle-, chargers which they bestrode. Tins upon which we sit would, for instance, have served as steed for Hengist himself.”

“Yes, it is without doubt the Streit hengst of that renowned warrior,” replied the Count, examining the relic from which the party reverently arose.

“ The theory is a good one, but does not the Streit hengst of Hengist sound rather tautological ? ” mildly inquired the Friend.

“Never mind tautology, let us roll the Streit hengst into the lake! Let us hasten his resolution into the elements ! Let us offer him a sacrifice to Odin and to Thor ! Above all, let us amuse ourselves ! ” shouted the Count, throwing off his coat, and picking up a small stick.

The ribs of heroes make excellent levers, their mighty vertebra; serve capitally as fulcrums; and in a few moments the whole party, Miselle included, were laboring at their task with might and main, regardless of the clouds mustering yet more darkly upon Beechill, "and even of the rain-drops dimpling the bosom of the lake like the bullets of sharp-shooters.

“There!” cried Caleb, giving the Streit hengst a final impetus, and flinging after him the rib of Hengist which had effected it, “ we have fulfilled our duty to the past, now let us think of the present. Miselle, child, assert your femininity, and be afraid of the rain directly.”

Such a merry race homeward ! such scrambling toilets ! such Homeric appetites for so nice a dinner, not yet ended when Deacon Clark announced that a return carriage was about to start for Bar Harbor, and would be glad of passengers ! The opportunity was a good one, so, after brief consultation, the travellers abandoned for the time the remaining lions of Southwest Harbor, bundled their wet clothes into the trunks with their dry ones, paid the Deacon’s bill, silently wondering to what use so guileless a patriarch could put so much money, and set forth upon their drive.

The road from Southwest Harbor to Bar Harbor is set down as sixteen miles in length. To this may be added some five or six miles of perpendicular ascent and precipitous descent; the latter remarkably exhilarating for strong nerves, but rather trying to weak ones, especially as the horses arc encouraged to make the descents at full speed, and the pitch of the carriage and clatter of rolling stones become something really awful.

Upon the brink of one of these precipices the driver checked his horses, and looked back into the carriage with an expectant grin.

“ Oh ! ” remarked the Friend, “ hal!o-o-o-o-o*o! ”

“ Has he gone mad ? ” whispered Miselle, clinging ■ to Caleb; but the Count held up his finger, imploring silence, while back from the broad breast of Bcechill Mountain, and over * the placid lake at its foot, came the re-sponse, clear, sweet, and powerful.

Having thus summoned the nymph, the Friend gracefully introduced his friends, and withdrew, leaving them to continue the conversation, which they did with great satisfaction ; Echo sweetly replying to every appeal, whether it were an operatic refrain in Caleb’s mellow tones, a thunderous German apostrophe from the Count, a bit of sisterly badinage in Miselle’s treble, or the bovine bellow of the driver.

About half-way from Southwest to Bar Harbor lies the village of Somesville, or, as the post-office will have it, the town of Mount Desert, and Miselle here pauses to give the travelling public a hint in the matter of mail addresses upon this island. A letter intended for Southwest Harbor should be superscribed Tremont, Maine: one for Somesville, Mount Desert, Maine; and one for Bar Harbor, East Eden, Maine, — these being the names of the three towns, while the others are mere local sobriquets, to be added or omitted at pleasure. The name of Mount Desert, however, should never be added unless it is desired that the letters should arrive at Somesville. But with all or any of these precautions the subject of postal communication is enveloped in the same romantic cloud shrouding the rest of Mount Desert matters, and refuses to be reduced to arbitrary rules or certainties.

The principal feature of Somesville is Somes’s Sound, an arm of the sea some seven miles in length by one in width, nearly cutting the island in halves, and so straight that from its head one may look down its shining path to the sea-horizon leagues beyond. Besides the sound, Somesville boasts mountain scenery so fine that the little inn is always filled with artists, thenportfolios crammed with “studies” for next winter’s pictures, and their faces beaming with wonder and delight. More than all, Somesville boasts the aristocrat of the island in the person of Captain Somes, who with his pretty daughters keeps the village inn, and reigns patriarchally to-day over the acres his fathers possessed and named two centuries before the Shoddies, the Gunnybags, and the McFlimsies ever heard of Mount Desert. Also, may Somesville boast a variety store, — where hats can be procured for such unfortunates as have lost their own, — a town-pump, and a very promising and observant crop of future presidents and presidentesses.

Leaving Somesville, the travellers were presently called upon to admire the prospect from the Saddle, — a name bestowed upon the highest point of land crossed by the road, and from whence may be obtained a fine view of nearly the entire island, embracing Marsh, Western, Beechill, Dog, Sargent’s, Wasgott, and Sharp Mountains at the western extremity, and Green, Dry, Bubble, and Newport at the eastern, not to mention various lovely waterglimpses of ocean, sound, lake, and brooklet, and some of the finest forest scenery imaginable ; for in the woods of Maine grow and thrive in lusty beauty the arbor-vitas, the fir-balsam, the hemlock, the hop-hornbeam, moosewood, and many another sylvan treasure only found with us of the more southern latitudes in nurseries or upon carefully tended lawns.

After the Saddle came a hurried visit to Eagle Lake, — a beautiful sheet of water lying at the foot of Green Mountain, and reflecting the great hill in its placid waters.

“ The little sandy beach at the southern end still, you remark,” said the Friend, as the party returned to their carriage.

Another half-hour, and the travellers, cold, weary, wet, and hungry, arrived in Bar Harbor, and stiffly dismounted at the door of Captain Hamor’s hospitable house, whereat stood the gallant Captain himself, who, after brief survey, led his guests to the only fire in the house, albeit it blazed in the kitchen stove, and, seating them thereby, commanded, “ Some warm supper for these folks right away.”

An epicurean writer advises : “ If you would eat beefsteak, sit beside the fire with a warm plate, and let the cook toss the meat from the gridiron into it.”

To which Miselle appends : “ If you would eat fish, travel all day in a northeasterly storm, and sit beside the stove to see it fried, listening, meanwhile, to the story of its capture within the hour.”

Supper over,—for no such aesthetic title as “ tea” describes the banquet of fish, meat, corn-bread, white biscuit, toast, blueberries, cake, doughnuts, and cheese, spread before Caleb and his friends, — the Captain announced, with some hesitation, that the accommodations of his house being limited, a large number of his guests were obliged to lodge out; and that for this particular party had been secured rooms in a certain cottage just along shore, where it was hoped they might be comfortable.

“ ‘ A cottage by the sea,’ ” murmured Miselle, quite ready to be charmed with the proposed abode, and not the less so for finding it was to be shared by some old friends, — the General and his wife, just from Washington.

“The first thing to do is to visit Schooner Head and Great Head, ’ announced the Friend next morning at breakfast ; and the party, electing him cicerone, were presently packed in a big wagon in company with Chibiabos the sweet singer, and Atalanta his wife, who for once condescended to employ horse’s feet instead of her own active members.

Caleb assumed the reins, and the roan was already in motion when a hail from the artist arrested them.

“Beg pardon, but they say you are going to Schooner Head.”

“Yes.”

“ Then let me tell you the road is absolutely impassable. There is one gully a hundred feet long, three or four deep, and extending from one side of the road to the other. There is no getting through, by, or over it-"’

The parly looked at each other.

“ I suppose, then, we must give it up,” said the men.

“ Wliat fun ! Let us go on ! ” exclaimed the women ; to which Miselle added in an aside, “This is where the ‘ lark ’ comes in, Caleb.”

The stronger minds prevailed, as they should ; and, with thanks to the artist, the party drove merrily out of the gate and along a road as full of picturesque beauty as of holes, and presenting as startling a variety of scenery as of impediment. Like some of the young gentlemen who finish their education abroad, the farther it went the worse it grew, until all minor atrocities ended at the mouth of the gully, which in appearance quite justified the character bestowed upon it by the artist.

A council of war was held, resulting in the roan’s being slipped from the shafts, and prevailed upon to scramble down and through the gully to its farther termination, where he was intrusted to Atalanta and Miselle, with strictest orders to all three to remain precisely where they were left, and attempt no ambitious operations whatever,— orders minutely obeyed by both roan and his keepers until the controlling element was out of sight, when they at once followed to a point commanding the field of action, which they contemplated with gleeful satisfaction.

“Just fancy those men laboring in that style from necessity instead of for fun,” suggested Atalanta,as she watched Chibiabos, the Friend, the Count, and Caleb, who, literally putting their shoulders to the wheel, pushed, pulled, lifted, and hoisted the heavy wagon along, conclusively proving that four men are almost equal to one horse.

The gully, however, was passed ; the picket-guard, duly chidden for disobedience and insubordinate mirth, was relieved of its charge ; die roan reharnessed ; the party repacked ; and the journey continued over a road still very bad, but leading through a region of such wild beauty that its faults were all forgiven. The last part of its course lay under the eastern side of Newport Mountain, which, like nearly every other mountain upon the island, slopes gradually and greenly to the west, and toward the east presents a precipitous and frowning face of naked granite. Another curious feature in this formation is the fact that several of these precipitous mountain-faces terminate in water, — either lake, sound, or ocean. On a sudden the broken road disappeared altogether, and we came upon a grassy plateau, with a fisherman’s cottage at its farther extremity and a land-locked harbor beyond, beautiful enough to have sheltered Cleopatra’s galleys, instead of the unsavoi . fishing-craft riding at anchor there.

“ Do you see that sheer precipit a near the crest of Newport ? ” asked the f riend, helping Miselle from the wagon.

“ Yes. Has it a story ? ”

£‘ Some years ago two girls were scrambling along its edge, — looking for berries, I believe, — when one fell over, dragging her comrade after her. The first crashed straight down upon the rocks, two hundred feet below, and never stirred again. The other fell upon her, and escaped with broken limbs and terrible bruises. Her shrieks were heard at this house, and some men went immediately to the rescue; but such was the difficulty at first of reaching, and afterward of removing her, that it was eight hours before she was raised to the edge of the cliff. Fancy those eight hours ! ”

“ But did she live ? ”

“O yes, and is to-day landlady of one of the Bar Harbor hotels. Humanity is so absurdly tenacious of life.—But the roan is safely stabled in the fencecorner, and Atalanta leads the way to Schooner Head.”

So through the great gate, and over the oozy meadow path, gay with harebells and wild roses, up a sharp ascent, and along a slippery crag-path, trooped the merry party, until, reaching the brow a mighty cliff, they found the ocean at their feet, filling the far horizon with his splendor. Beside them lay the Spouting Horn, — a mighty caldron, a hundred feet or more in depth, into which the sea has worn an entrance through a layer of softer rock near the base of the dividing cliff, and where, having gained admittance, it fights and rages, like any trapped wild thing, to regain its liberty. To the roar of the rising wave succeeds the moan and swirl ot the retreating one, and then the wild struggle between the incoming and outgoing forces, until one closing his eyes might fancy himself lying beside the veritable mouth of the pit, as described by Bunyan.

“ Raineses, as you call him,” said the Friend, “clambered down the inside of the Horn at low tide, until he could look through the arch out to the open sea.”

“ I should like to have heard his next sermon,” commented Miselle, graciously allowing Caleb to make of his knee a step in the somewhat perilous descent from the Horn to the cliff whence one may see the outer entrance of the cave. Here, seated upon a convenient shelf, with the waters now swelling to their feet, now lapsing until the dripping cliffs lay bare and black beneath, the friends spent a happy hour before they thought of time, just over the surface of the gulf, where the waves flew back from the face of the cliff in showers of spray, appeared and vanished at every moment the ghost of a rainbow. High overhead rose the cliffs, whose resemblance, as viewed from seaward, to a schooner with all sail set, has given the place its name. High in the blue zenith sailed an eagle, his broad vans motionless, while far below him whirled and screamed a flock of snow-white gulls. The bright waters of the bay were studded with sails, “ and the stately ships went on ” to some fair unknown haven, when —

“ Suppose we get a lunch at Norris’s, and take the whole afternoon for Great Head ?” suggested the poet of the party. The proposition was hailed as a brilliant one, and, the spell being broken, everyone found himself ready to return to the little house at the head of the bay, where the lunch was ordered ; and during its preparation a part of the company found time to visit a curious cave upon the shore, known as the Devil’s Oven, and celebrated for the number and variety of its sea-anemones and other marine treasures ; while their more indolent or weary companions chose rather to sit beside the open fire, watch the manufacture and baking of cakes and pies in a “ tin reflector,” and listen to anecdotes and reminiscences from the elders of the family who have lived, married, come into and gone out of the world in this secluded spot for many a year before the world came to surprise them with the news that it was famous.

The cakes baked, and the wanderers returned, the lunch, or rather dinner, since salted fish formed one of its elements, was served, and eaten with a relish not always conceded to Blot’s or Soycr’s most successful efforts. The roan, having also dined, was favored with a draught of water from Atalanta’s botanical specimen box ; and the party, resuming their places, drove merrily on through a pretty wood-road, in the direction of Great Head. Another isolated house, seated at the head of a lovely little golden beach, marks the end of the carriage-road ; and while the gentlemen once more unharnessed and stabled the roan, Atalanta and Miselle entered, and made acquaintance with the hospitable dame, while Capitoliana, Britomarte, Hatty Louise, Wilfred, and Conins tumbled about the floor, or peered in at the guests with wide eyes of wonder glowing beneath a thatch of sunburned hair.

“Your children have quite romantic names; where did you find them?” inquired Miselle, mildly resisting Hatty Louise’s efforts to wrench open her watch-case.

“Out of the New York Ledger, ma’am,” replied the complacent mother - “Me and my sister and another ladyclub together and take it; and I think it’s most a beautiful paper, —don’t you, ma’am ? ”

“Much better than nothing,” sensibly replied Atalanta, while Miselle hesitated ; and then, as Caleb’s head appeared at the open window, they took leave, and followed the Friend, who acted as guide, through about a mile of flowery woodland path, coming at last upon the black crags of Great Head, the answering promontory to Schooner Head, and yet more massive and imposing in its structure. The party scattered over the surface of the cliff, and Miselle, finding a little nook close at the water’s edge, sat watching in silent delight the grand march of the waves, as sweeping up, battalion after battalion, they fearlessly dashed themselves to foam against the gray old rocks which for ages have borne the assault as unflinchingly as now, and shall endure in primeval strength and majesty when we who marvel have passed on to meet yet greater marvels.

One noticeable point in this view is its primitive character. Seated low in the amphitheatre of the cliff, nothing is visible but sea, sky, and rock ; not one flower, one blade of grass, or even the brown earth, is to be seen. It is a glimpse of the era before the lichens had turned to moss, or the parvenu man had yet been dreamed of. Near the crest of the cliff is a profile rock nearly as good as the famous Franconian one ; but, when one goes so far to escape' the constant sight of real profiles, why waste time or enthusiasm upon an imperfect imitation?

“ Half past five, and a bad seven miles between us and the tea-table,:” announced Caleb ; and with many a backward look the friends departed, leaving the gray old cliff smiling rosily in the light of a glorious sunset, while all the east was filled with the silver and azure of moonrise.

With the morning came the sisters, fresh, sparkling, and energetic as morning itself.

“ Gouldsboro’ ! It is the very day for it,—a favorable tide, a promising wind, and Captain Royal Higgins disengaged,” said Roma, while Avoca quietly put Miselle’s bow straight, adding, “and we will dine at Captain Hill’s, and drive to Sullivan.”

“ O, sailing i How can any one speak of sailing at Mount Desert after that dreadful, dreadful accident last summer ! Did you hear of it ? ” cried Dame Partlett with an anxious glance toward her own ducklings.

“ But we are going with Captain Higgins,” said Roma, in a sufficing sort of way; and while the dame proceeded with the melancholy tale of the wreck and loss of every life but one out of a party of eleven, Roma supplemented the story of Captain Higgins’s prompt and courageous action in the matter, resulting in the saving of that one life, and establishing an enviable reputation as man and sailor for himself.

So the voyage to Gouldsboro’ was arranged, and a party made up, including the four friends, the General, his wife, and Dick, the sisters, the ambassador, the two English ladies, the fiancee and Mephistopheles. A party selected as it should be, with every one capable of contributing something to the general enjoyment; “ for even I can serve as ballast,” remarked Caleb, seating himself with much satisfaction between Roma and Avoca, while Miselle, with Captain Higgins’s quiet connivance, established herself in the little skiff towing behind the Petrel and enjoyed the atom of danger and full draught of exhilaration incident to her position hugely.

Gouldsboro’ upon the map means a town some twelve miles east of Mount Desert, occupying a peninsula between Frenchman’s and Gouldsboro’ Bays. But Gouldsboro’ in the annals of Caleb’s Lark means a quaint old-fashioned farm-house, buried in riotous woodbine, and framed in a border of lilac and syringa bushes, sweet-peas and marigolds, hollyhocks, sunflowers, poppies, southernwood, Ragged Robin, Lovelies-bleeding, and Johnny-jump-up-andkiss-me, while from house and garden slopes to the water’s edge a green and blossomy lawn. Seated in the porch cf this old house, and feeding your senses with the perfumeof the flowers, the songs of birds, and hum of bees, and wash of waves upon the shore, you may satisfy your soul with such a glorious view as hundreds of miles of travel cannot rival. Description could but do it injustice ; and Miselle leaves to some future Murray the catalogue of islands studding the blue bay,— some dark with evergreens, some bright with birch and alder growths,—-the mountain peaks crowding the horizon, the sails of every variety of craft, the soft pastoral beauty of the foreground. Or, pending the Murray, she introduces with pleasure ' to an appreciative public the genius of the spot, Captain Barney Hill, who “man and boy, has lived here and hereabouts this sixty year,” and knows its story thoroughly.

From this feast Miselle was summoned to the less satisfying, but yet essential, banquet of fish and lamb, inevitable at the sea-shore, and here met with a delightful surprise in the person ot her charming kinswoman, whose talk of the last book, the last music, the last idea of the thinkers, and last whim of the fashionists, added the same fanciful charm to the scene that her dainty gloves and handkerchief and fan did to the moss-grown and rough-hewn step upon which they lay.

The drive to Sullivan, along the shores of the bay, and giving a fine view of Mount Desert and the other islands upon the one hand and the inland country with the Schoodic Mountains upon the other, is described as something wonderful ; but C aptain Hill’s horses having already gone in another direction, the party were obliged to content themselves with a pretty walk, a row upon the pond, and a harvest ol water-lilies. Then came good-by to Gouldsboro' and the fair cousin, who remained like Ariadne alone upon the shore, while the Petrel, sailing out into the sunset, carried its happy crew upon a voyage as full of romance and beauty as theirs who in the unremembered years sought for the Fortunate Isles.

Deep in the moonlit night the Petrel dropped anchor at her usual berth ; and her passengers, full of content and peace, went each to his own abode.

The next day was devoted' to the ascent of Green Mountain, the highest peak upon the island, — measuring very nearly two thousand feet by actual survey, and the one spot of all others which a tourist may not omit visiting. After this, he may, if strong of limb and energy, scramble up Newport, and get a view much extolled by those who have seen it; or, like Atalanta, cross half a dozen mountains and valleys to Jordan’s Pond, —a spot whose beauty • and inaccessibility are matters not to be put in words.

For pedestrians of moderate powers, however, the road up Green Mountain offers sufficient exertion to satisfy either conscience or spinal system. It can be accomplished by horse-power, if one is neither timid nor sympathetic with the brute creation ; but the wisest course is to drive along the southwest harbor road about two miles to the beginning of the mountain road, where stands a guide-board to inform the public with suspicious exactness that the “ Summit House ” is distant two miles and an eighth, — the eighth being a trope, or poetical figure, expressive of unknown and illimitable distance, capable of mitigation, however, by frequent rests upon mossy logs or shaded rocks, draughts from a clear cold spring, handsl’ul of bunch-berries and bluebells, and mouthsful of blueberries and mountain cranberries.

The Summit House, reached at length, proved to be a very comfortable cottage of primitive construction, but furnishing tolerable beds and a very good dinner.

‘And now, Caleb, you may show me the view,” graciously announced Miselle ; and Caleb, who had employed the hour devoted by that young woman to repose in getting himself up as cicerone, proceeded, spy-glass in hand, to do the honors of Green Mountain.

“In the first place you notice that we seem to be in the hollow of a great basin, with the sea rising in a blue slope upon every side until the horizon line is on a level, with our eyes. This is on account of our great elevation above the sea-level and is an effect often mentioned by aeronauts — ”

“ Caleb ! did I come to the top of Green Mountain to imbibe Learningmade-easy ? You will be attempting next to teach me the multiplicationtabic.”

“Excuse me, my dear, I never should attempt that ; and I will now confine myself to obvious facts, leaving their attendant theories to you. Do you see that black beetle with a plume upon his head, crawling up the blue slope toward the horizon ? ”

“ Yes, I see the beetle.”

“ Well, his, or rather her. name is Lewiston ; and she is a steamer of no matter how many tons, proceeding from Southwest Harbor toward Machias. Through the spy-glass you can distinguish the people upon her decks.”

“ Then I won’t look through the spyglass, for I much prefer the black-beetle idea to the steamer idea. But where are all the ships gone to-day ? ”

“ There are two ships and a good many other vessels in sight,” replied Caleb with mild accuracy, “although I dare say you look them for boats, or even sea-fowl; all those flashing white specks are sails. Now look at the islands. This, with a great bay eating the heart out of it, and leaving only a circle of earth, is called—”

“ The Doge’s Ring,— is it not ?”

“No more than Frenchman’s Bay is called Adriatic. That is Great Cranberry,— pronounced Crarmb'ry Island, — and the nearer ones are Little Cranberries. Beyond is Long Island, and just above, if your eyes are very sharp, you can make out a speck called Mount Desert Rock. Stay, look through the glass at it. There is no danger of seeing any of your fellow-creatures, although two of them inhabit it.”

“ A light-house ? O yes ; I make out a solitary shaft with a pedestal of rock and the foam dashing over it. Do you say two men live there ? why, it is worse than Minot Light.”

“More lonely, certainly; for it is twenty-five miles from land, and must be frequently quite shut in by fog and storm. Now come to the other side of the house, and I will show you Katahdin, one hundred and thirty miles away, and perhaps Mount Washington, at a distance of one hundred and seventy. I saw it just now.”

So Miselle obediently went, saw all the lions, and then wandered away with the sweet-faced Quakeress to a little nook, where, with the world before them, they enjoyed themselves in a desultory feminine fashion, careless of names or distances, but vividly conscious of every point of beauty in sky or sea or land.

“ I think this will do us good for the whole year, —don’t thee ? ” asked Micelle’s companion ; and out of a full heart she could answer only “ Yes.”

Then came “ the world’s people,” joyous and noisy, and Miselle retraced the few steps she had reverently taken into the pure, sweet chambers of that saintly life, and joined in Chibiabos’s merry chorus, and emulated Atalanta’s daring leaps from point to point of the rocky path leading to the brow of the ravine, — a precipitous cleft between Green Mountain and its easterly spur sometimes called Dry Mountain. Beyond this again lies Newport Mountain, and then the sea. The Green Mountain, or eastern face of this ravine, is composed of bare, storm-scattered rock, and so precipitous that a stone launched from the summit drops a thousand feet to the valley below, striking fire from a dozen salient points of the precipice as it goes, and announcing the end of its journey by a taint and distant crash, while a curious double echo repeats the sound of its fall, — first4 from Otter Creek to the west; and some seconds later from some point far to the east, apparently the open sea.

“ Probably our friends the Titans came here to repose in the ‘lap of Nature,’ ” suggested the Count. “Fancy one of them resting his head upon the breast of Dry Mountain, and his body in the wooded valley below, while his feet dabbled luxuriously in the waters of Otter Creek.”

Here Caleb launched a fragment of rock so large that its thunderous descent aroused the eagles who inhabit Newport, and who now rose, screaming angrily, from their eyrie.

“Nine of them, as I’m a sinner!” exclaimed Caleb, in great excitement.

And Miselle remarked to Atatonta, “ How fortunate we are not chickens, or even lambs ! ”

“ Don’t be afraid, those gentlemen have, or soon will have, other fish than you to fry,” remarked Caleb ; while the Ambassador, always practical, proclaimed his discovery of a nook filled with the largest blueberries ever seen.

“ There is a lively sympathy between us and the lower animals after all. They are always grubbing round for something to eat, and so are we,” suggested Atalanta, meditatively plucking the blueberries.

And so home again.

The next day the gentlemen, headed by the General, devoted to a fishing excursion; and their disconsolate relicts, left to themselves, also hired a roomy row-boat with the two sturdy mariners appertaining, and' set forth upon a voyage to the Ovens, — an unromantic name given to certain curious caves worn by action of the tide in the base of certain picturesque crags upon the shore of Saulsbury Cove.

“ Ovens !” exclaimed Mrs. General, indignantly, as the party strolled along the beach, looking up at the bold cliffs toppling above their heads, their wide seams green with ferns and blue with harebells, while from the crest nodded birch and larch, and many another graceful growth,—“ovens indeed! This place is henceforth to be called Saulsbury Crags.”

“ It is a vote,” announced the Speaker; and Miselle “ resp’y submits ” the idea.

The day was charming, so was the company, so was the lunch, eaten in the largest “oven,” so was the row homeward, so was the evening, when the fishermen returned wet and dirty beyond belief, hungry, boastful, and happy beyond expression.

The next day was devoted to “ the long drive,” a tour embracing the village of Seal Cove, Northeast Harbor, and Somesville, a curious sea-wall or natural causeway composed of pebbles, thrown up by the ocean, but not equal to a similar formation at the other side of Somes’s Sound, near Southwest Harbor.

But the limits of a magazine paper are peremptory, and by no means admit narrations of all the wonderful adventures that befell the party in this expedition, — of how they lost their way, and were fain to send out an exploring expedition ; of how they sought shelter and advice in Rhoda Wasgott’s Variety Store at Seal Cove, and were referred to a friendly farm-house close at hand, where they received kindest hospitality, much new milk, bread, butter, doughnuts, and apple-pie, and where, to Miselle’s rapturous delight, she found a woman spinning real bona fide yarn to be knitted into stockings, and learned, furthermore, that the dwellers in this primitive region still spin and weave and wear the wool of their own sheep, precisely as all our grandmothers once did.

From these scanty “ specimen bricks ” let the reader build up for himself the story of a long and charming day, ending in a rattling drive homeward, and an impromptu concert at “ the other house.”

The following morning was devoted to a scramble up a perpendicular mountain for the purpose of obtaining what Atalanta recommended as a “ tidy little view” ; and Miselle, mentally adjusting the price of candles to the pleasure of such a game, declined accompanying her friends farther than a cottage at the foot of the mountain, where she begged hospitality until their return. It was granted with ready kindness ; and while the hostess continued her washing, Miselle devoted herself to a large rocking-chair, a little girl named Aqua, and a new field of observation.

“You don’t feel the storms here as they do on the coast, — do you ? ” asked sh. looking out at the surrounding mountains.

“ No, it "s an awful sight lee-er here under the hills than right out on shore, you sec ; but then it’s dretful lonesome come to die here in the winter, and a man have to go eight mile a-liorseback through the mountains 'fore he can fetch a doctor, and you mebbe gone 'fore he gets back.”

It was a handful out of her inmost heart that the woman thus gave, and Miselle glanced with sudden appreciation at her hollow cheeks and overbright eyes.

Presently the hostess wiping her arms, and, sending Anselm for “ kin'lin’s,” busied herself over the stove for a few minutes, and returned with a steaming cup of tea and a cup of milk.

“ Thought mebbe you’d take a dish o’ tea along o’ me,” said she : “you don’t look so dretful rugged ; and it’ll kind o’ rest ye.”

And Miselle, sipping the tea, thought of certain holy words : “For all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.”

Before the lunch was ended, the mountaineers returned, as footsore, ragged, tired, and cross as they deserved to be, and Miselle bid good by to her new friend with real regret

“We are all invited to a bal masque at the Bayview House this evening,” announced Atalanta at dinner; “and we are all going, which is more.”

So the afternoon was devoted to finery and contrivance: the early evening to dressing a Benedictine monk, a Calcutta baboo, and a gypsy fortune-teller ; and the first hours of the night to dancing and nonsense.

“ The moon knows better than to go to masquerades ; she stays out of doors, and enjoys herself like a rational creature,” said Miselle, between two yawns, as she walked home.

“You should have been a monk and shrived pretty penitents,” said Caleb, laughing with much apparent satisfaction.

But, Halte-la! cries the editorial voice, and Miselle pauses, saying, with the wily Scheherezade, “ However curious these things may be, what I have yet to tell will divert you infinitely more.”

“ Pooh ! ” growls the philosopher. “ Because you like a thing, why expect all the world to like it also ? How many unfortunate tourists now may be beguiled into visiting it only to find that your swans are geese, and to come away railing at your rose-colored delusions.”

“ The swans may be geese, and the eagles carrion crows,” serenely replied Miselle; “but the larks of Mount Desert are not to be doubted, for Caleb found one there, and it did him a world of good.”