Picquet

“ Perhaps you will ask, "What is a picket?" The papers constantly speak of our pickets being "thrown out," or the enemy's being "driven in," but never tell what sort of creatures these pickets are. The pickets are sentinels beyond the camp guard, and toward the enemy. There may be a chain of pickets stretching over the country; and the picket guard may be very large, or it may consist of a sergeant and six men. These are divided into three "relieves," which constitute the "videttes," or "lookout," as we might translate it. ”

“ At the special request of Secretary Seward, who wrote six letters about it to the Governors of all the States, I have been appointed a picket of the army of the Upper Potomac. In your natural ignorance, my boy, you may not know why a man is called a picket. He is called a picket, my boy, because, if anybody drops a pocket-book or a watch anywhere, his natural gifts would cause him to pick-it up. ”

“ Weller, aside.
‘Then this garden,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick. ‘How am I to get into it?’
‘The wall is very low, sir, and your servant will give you a leg up.’ ‘My servant will give me a leg up,’ repeated Mr. Pickwick mechanically. ‘You will be sure to be near this door that you speak of?’
‘You cannot mistake it, Sir; it’s the only one that opens into the garden. Tap at it when you hear the clock strike, and I will open it instantly.’
‘I don’t like the plan,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but as I see no other, and as the happiness of this young lady’s whole life is at stake, I adopt it. ”

“ It lies in wait for its prey on the bottom, perfectly motionless like a waterlogged stick, watching everything that moves, with fierce, hungry eyes. Oftentimes when we were fishing for some other kinds over the edge of the boat, a pickerel that we had not noticed would come like a bolt of lightning and seize the fish we had caught before we could get it into the boat. The very first pickerel that I ever caught jumped into the air to seize a small fish dangling on my line, and, missing its aim, fell plump into the boat as if it had dropped from the sky. ”

“ Now I will tell you a story about a pike. We are apt to think fishes very stupid; that they have no feeling. A gentleman in England, a surgeon and a naturalist, told me of what he had himself seen. A pike had struck its head against a tenter hook on a post in the pond where he was swimming. His agony was so great that he darted backward and forward with the greatest rapidity, then buried his head in the mud, then whirled his tail round and round, and threw himself up into the air to the height of two or three feet, and, at last, he threw himself out of the pond upon the grass. ”

“ We saw the sunfishes making their nests in little openings in the rushes where the water was only a few feet deep, ploughing up and shoving away the soft gray mud with their noses, like pigs, forming round bowls five or six inches in depth and about two feet in diameter, in which their eggs were deposited. And with what beautiful, unweariable devotion they watched and hovered over them and chased away prowling spawn-eating enemies that ventured within a rod or two of the precious nest!
The pickerel is a savage fish endowed with marvelous strength and speed. ”

“ He always pushed himself forward, cried the loudest and longest, and so took the greater part of the food carried to the nest; and one day, while he was still quite awkward and uncertain, he climbed to the edge and reached so far that he fell. He rolled down the river bank, splash! into the water; and a hungry old pickerel, sunning in the weeds, finished him at a snap. He made a morsel so fat, sweet, and juicy that the pickerel lingered close for a week, waiting to see if there would be any more accidents. ”

“ They were lazy fellows, the pickerel. One might, if he were a lucky and persevering fisherman, take a trout in the swift waters of the brook; but for the pickerel, theirs was not the joy of such exertion. In the dark, silent places along Mill stream, where never a ripple disturbed their seclusion, you might see one, now and then, lying motionless in the shadow of an overhanging branch, at the surface of the water, as though asleep. ”

“ Every alley we pass adds some curly tail to the procession. Now he is ready to turn out of the town into that grove, and see what an army of piggies follows him! He never looks for any of them, but they hear the music of his pipe and start because they learned long ago that it leads them to good pastures. ”

“ But Piquette had not lived in the streets of Paris all these years for nothing. A few months of warfare would not change a man's soul. What was this strangeness? What had come over him? He had packed her home in a fiacre, just when she was becoming most interested in this extraordinary transformation. She had never before suffered from pique, and it annoyed her that he shouldn't have been more eager to resume their ancient fellowship. Who was this unshaven fellow with the slouch hat and worn clothing who had so great a claim upon his attention? ”

“ Then there was a great rushing sound in the sky, and from far and near there flew flocks of snow-white sea-gulls. As they reached the ledge their wings fell from them, and they turned into lovely little pixies, as light and transparent as gossamer. Joining hands, they stepped inside [148] the circle of flowers and danced a graceful, intricate measure, while the fairy bells rang out their sweetest tunes. On and on they danced, hour after hour; the moon rose slowly in the sky, but the pixies' feet seemed never to tire as they beat time to the enchanting music. ”

“ I amused myself one evening on Long Island in casting over a newly-made shallow pond with my ordinary trout cast of flies, and seeing the ferocity with which pickerel, varying from four to nine inches in length, would dart upon their anticipated prey.
All pickerel inhabit sluggish water, and abound among the long, grassy pickerel weed that thrives upon a muddy bottom. The St. Lawrence, where it winds amid the beautiful Thousand Isles and forms innumerable deep and quiet bays, is their favorite home. ”

“ The three figures, Pickwick, Wardle, and the postillion, are all altered for the better. In b Mr. Pickwick’s nervousness, as he is extricated from the chaise, is well shown. The postillion becomes a round spirited figure, instead of a mere sketch; Wardle, as in the text, instead of stooping down and merely showing his back, is tramping about gesticulating. A very spirited white horse is introduced with a postillion as spirited; the single chaise in the distance, the horses drawn back, and Jingle stretching out, is admirable. ”

“ You are sometimes astonished to see a pickerel far up some now shrunken rill, where it is a mere puddle by the roadside. I have stooped to drink at a clear spring no bigger than a bushel basket in a meadow, from which a rill was scarcely seen to dribble away, and seen lurking at its bottom two little pickerel not so big as my finger, sole monarchs of this their ocean, and who probably would never visit a larger water.
In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is only another name for tameness. ”

“ The Picket-pin is an interesting and picturesque creature in some ways, but it has one habit that I cannot quite condone. In this land of sun and bright blue air, this world of outdoor charm, it comes forth tardily in late spring, as late sometimes as the first of May, and promptly retires in mid-August, when blazing summer is on the face of the earth, and the land is a land of plenty. ”

“ Pickwick, in a storm of indignation. Mr. Winkle modestly repeated his suggestion.
“Hallo, you fellow!” said the angry Mr. Pickwick, “do you think we stole this horse?”
“I’m sure ye did,” replied the red-headed man, with a grin which agitated his countenance from one auricular organ to the other. Saying which he turned into the house, and banged the door after him.
“It’s like a dream,” ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, “a hideous dream. The idea of a man’s walking about, all day, with a dreadful horse that he can’t get rid of!” ”

“ But how much more when, on raising his eyes to the dark braids of her raven hair, he beheld a flower blooming there, his flower, the flower of Picciola! Involuntarily he extended his arms towards the beauteous apparition, when, lo! all grew confused and misty; and the distant music of the orchestra became once more audible, as the fair maiden and fair flower appeared to melt into each other. The fragrant corolla, expanding, enclosed with its delicate petals the loveliest of human faces, till all was hidden from his view. ”

“ The bait is dropped into the opening among the lily-pads, and sinking rapidly, by the weight of the shot, toward the bottom, is started up again by a twitch of the rod, and goes bobbing up and down till the pickerel, rendered frantic by such an absurd performance, can stand it no longer, and with one furious rush determines to end the gyrations of such a silly creature. Never wait for pickerel to gorge the bait, discard such old fogy notions, and by the aid of a strong rod and line, pull him out at once. ”

“ Pickwick.
“Fact, my dear sir, fact. Five-and-forty green parasols at seven and sixpence a-piece. All women like finery—extraordinary the effect of those parasols. Secured all their husbands, and half their brothers—beat stockings, and flannel, and all that sort of thing hollow. My idea, my dear sir, entirely. Hail, rain, or sunshine, you can’t walk half-a-dozen yards up the street without encountering half-a-dozen green parasols.” ”

“ The coloured stars and the silver bells had disappeared, the tropical flowers broke up their circle and changed once more into simple little sea-pinks, and the grass, where the pixies had danced, grew up fresher and greener than ever.
But one little pixie was left behind. She wandered round wringing her hands and seeking vainly for the sea-bird's wings that should have borne her away with the others. Tripping behind the great boulder of rock she came face to face with Nancy, who still crouched in its shadow. ”

“ Pickwick had leisure to examine his costume and appearance.
He was about the middle height, but the thinness of his body, and the length of his legs, gave him the appearance of being much taller. The green coat had been a smart dress garment in the days of swallow-tails, but had evidently in those times adorned a much shorter man than the stranger, for the soiled and faded sleeves scarcely reached to his wrists. ”

“ Pickwick, his countenance lighted up with smiles, which the heart of no man, woman, or child, could resist: himself the happiest of the group: shaking hands over and over again with the same people, and when his own hands were not so employed, rubbing them with pleasure; turning round in a different direction at every fresh expression of gratification or curiosity, and inspiring everybody with his looks of gladness and delight. ”

“ The long gamekeeper resolutely protested against the introduction into a shooting party, of a gentleman in a barrow, as a gross violation of all established rules and precedents.
It was a great objection, but not an insurmountable one. The gamekeeper having been coaxed and feed, and having, moreover, eased his mind by ‘punching’ the head of the inventive youth who had first suggested the use of the machine, Mr. Pickwick was placed in it, and off the party set; Wardle and the long gamekeeper leading the way, and Mr. Pickwick in the barrow, propelled by Sam, bringing up the rear. ”

“ Yes, the picket is exposed to danger constantly, and to various kinds of danger. He knows not what moment a lurking foe may spring upon him from the darkness, or a bullet from a scout or sharpshooter may reach him at any time. Then, too, he is exposed to the raging elements—heat and cold, rain and snow; no matter whether in the depths of the forest, or in the open plain, or in the rifle-pit standing in water knee deep, the poor picket must not heed the storm, but keep both eyes and ears open to catch the slightest sound. ”

“ But it is one of the unfortunate facts in a soldier’s life, that picket duty is not confined to quiet times or pleasant weather. The growlers usually maintained that it was always stormy when they were out on picket, and in three winters that we dwelt in tents within the boundaries of Virginia, there were many rough times on the picket lines when the rain poured down continuously, saturating the ground, clinging to the grass in the open, and to the undergrowth in the forests, and streaming down from the boughs—wet, wet—water, water, everywhere ”

“ Seeing that it was useless to argue with him further, I sort of resigned myself to my fate as his pickle partner.
“I have a hunch,” says I, “that it’s going to be a whole lot worse than that. A Pickle Parlor! We’ll be the laugh of the town.” ”

“ You will admit, at least, that seeing is believing! Picciola has now her part to play. The foresight of the insect is not greater than that with which Nature endows the plant towards the legacy bequeathed by the butterfly; at the return of spring we will verify the prodigy together. The moment the plant puts forth its leaves, the tiny eggs will break, and emit the larvæ they contain: a law of harmony regulates the vegetation of the plant in common with the vitality of the insect. ”

“ We find ourselves ever looking at the animal with interest—as he effects his trot, one leg bent. The porch, and horse above it, have a sort of sacred character. I confess when I saw it for the first time I looked at it with an almost absurd reverence and curiosity. The thing is so much in keeping, one would expect to see the coach laden with Pickwickians drive up.
Mr. Pickwick’s adventure, his losing his way in the passages, &c., might occur to anyone. ”