It
Was Too Much For Him To Carry Any Extra Armor Then, Who Could Not
Easily Dispose Of His Natural Arms.
And for his legs, they were
like heavy artillery in boggy places; better to cut the traces
and forsake them.
His greaves chafed and wrestled one with
another for want of other foes. But he did get by and get off
with all his munitions, and lived to fight another day; and I do
not record this as casting any suspicion on his honor and real
bravery in the field.
Wandering on through notches which the streams had made, by the
side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains, across the
stumpy, rocky, forested, and bepastured country, we at length
crossed on prostrate trees over the Amonoosuck, and breathed the
free air of Unappropriated Land. Thus, in fair days as well as
foul, we had traced up the river to which our native stream is a
tributary, until from Merrimack it became the Pemigewasset that
leaped by our side, and when we had passed its fountain-head, the
Wild Amonoosuck, whose puny channel was crossed at a stride,
guiding us toward its distant source among the mountains, and at
length, without its guidance, we were enabled to reach the summit
of ^Agiocochook^.
- - - - - - - -
"Sweet days, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die."
^Herbert^.
When we returned to Hooksett, a week afterward, the melon man, in
whose corn-barn we had hung our tent and buffaloes and other
things to dry, was already picking his hops, with many women and
children to help him. We bought one watermelon, the largest in
his patch, to carry with us for ballast. It was Nathan's, which
he might sell if he wished, having been conveyed to him in the
green state, and owned daily by his eyes. After due consultation
with "Father," the bargain was concluded, - we to buy it at a
venture on the vine, green or ripe, our risk, and pay "what the
gentlemen pleased." It proved to be ripe; for we had had honest
experience in selecting this fruit.
Finding our boat safe in its harbor, under Uncannunuc Mountain,
with a fair wind and the current in our favor, we commenced our
return voyage at noon, sitting at our ease and conversing, or in
silence watching for the last trace of each reach in the river as
a bend concealed it from our view. As the season was further
advanced, the wind now blew steadily from the north, and with our
sail set we could occasionally lie on our oars without loss of
time. The lumbermen throwing down wood from the top of the high
bank, thirty or forty feet above the water, that it might be sent
down stream, paused in their work to watch our retreating sail.
By this time, indeed, we were well known to the boatmen, and were
hailed as the Revenue Cutter of the stream.
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