- That beauty in the beast - died.
I wanted to read the funeral service over her, but the captain
interfered - the brute! - and threatened to throw me into the sea
along with the dead bitch, as the unmannerly ruffian persisted in
calling my canine friend. I never spoke to him again during the
rest of the voyage. Nothing happened worth relating until I got to
this place, where I chanced to meet a friend who knew your brother,
and I went up with him to the woods. Most of the wise men of Gotham
we met on the road were bound to the woods; so I felt happy that I
was, at least, in the fashion. Mr. - - was very kind, and spoke in
raptures of the woods, which formed the theme of conversation
during our journey - their beauty, their vastness, the comfort and
independence enjoyed by those who had settled in them; and he so
inspired me with the subject that I did nothing all day but sing as
we rode along -
'A life in the woods for me;'
until we came to the woods, and then I soon learned to sing that
same, as the Irishman says, on the other side of my mouth."
Here succeeded a long pause, during which friend Tom seemed
mightily tickled with his reminiscences, for he leaned back in his
chair, and from time to time gave way to loud, hollow bursts of
laughter.
"Tom, Tom! are you going mad?" said my husband, shaking him.
"I never was sane, that I know of," returned he. "You know that it
runs in the family. But do let me have my laugh out. The woods! Ha!
ha! When I used to be roaming through those woods, shooting - though
not a thing could I ever find to shoot, for birds and beasts are
not such fools as our English emigrants - and I chanced to think of
you coming to spend the rest of your lives in the woods - I used to
stop, and hold my sides, and laugh until the woods rang again. It
was the only consolation I had."
"Good Heavens!" said I, "let us never go to the woods."
"You will repent if you do," continued Tom. "But let me proceed
on my journey. My bones were well-nigh dislocated before we got
to D - -. The roads for the last twelve miles were nothing but a
succession of mud-holes, covered with the most ingenious invention
ever thought of for racking the limbs, called corduroy bridges;
not breeches, mind you, - for I thought, whilst jolting up and down
over them, that I should arrive at my destination minus that
indispensable covering. It was night when we got to Mr. - -'s
place. I was tired and hungry, my face disfigured and blistered by
the unremitting attentions of the blackflies that rose in swarms
from the river.
