Towpath

“ We had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley, along the grassy bank of a rushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no end of wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins. These crucifixes, etc., are set up in memory of departed friends, by survivors, and are almost as frequent as telegraph-poles are in other lands.
We followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck; we traveled under a beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady places before we could get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike a piece of road at its time for being shady. ”

“ A foot-path leads directly upwards, cutting off at least a mile, and we perceived one of our young fellow-travellers climbing up it, but could not summon the courage to follow him, and took the circuit of Buonaparte's road. The bed of the river, far below [Pg 245] to our left (wide and broken up by torrents) , is crossed by a long wooden bridge from which a foot-path, almost perpendicular, ascends to a hamlet at a great height upon the side of the steep. A female crossing the bridge gave life and spirit to a scene characterised, in comparison with other scenes, more by wildness than grandeur ”

“ The whole brook seems as busy as a loom: it is a woof and warp of ripples; fairy fingers are throwing the shuttle at every step, and the long, waving brook is the fine product. The water is wonderfully clear.
To have a hut here, and a footpath to the brook! For roads, I think that a poet cannot tolerate more than a footpath through the fields; that is wide enough, and for purposes of winged poesy suffices. It is not for the muse to speak of cart-paths. I would fain travel by a footpath round the world. [342] I do not ask the railroads of commerce, not even the cart-paths of the farmer. ”

“ What fun it would be to ride for hours without a dismount; what time I could make. This and a great deal more I had thought about, read of, and talked over. The great tow-path, the bicyclers’ paradise! Now I was there. Well, to state facts, it is no path at all, it is a common highway, and a very common one too, for everybody uses it. The soil is a mixture of clay and coarse, very coarse, gravel. Round, loose stones [20] filled the ruts and every part of the road. The inside edge of the bank is cobbled and the outside edge full of little cross ditches. ”

“ We followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right, now to the left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded by going and coming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a single instance, tied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution, for in many places the road was not two yards wide, and often the lower side of it sloped away in slanting precipices eight and even nine feet deep. I had to encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving way to their unmanly fears. ”

“ Just then, however, a man came down the tow-path, leading a gray horse.
The man was short and stout, with legs that were so bowed that it was a marvel that they held him up at all. Captain Bill’s face lighted up as he caught sight of him. He leaped from the boat to the tow-path, and went ahead to meet the stranger.
“Well, Callipers,” he inquired, “got a hoss for me?”
“You bet,” replied the man, “an’ a powerful good un, too.”
Captain Bill went close to the bow-legged [62] man, bent down to him, and said something in an undertone. The man listened and nodded. ”

“ We propped ourselves on our elbows at once, to gaze, for we had never seen a mountain railway yet. Presently we could make out the train. It seemed incredible that that thing should creep straight up a sharp slant like the roof of a house—but there it was, and it was doing that very miracle.
In the course of a couple hours we reached a fine breezy altitude where the little shepherd huts had big stones all over their roofs to hold them down to the earth when the great storms rage. The country was wild and rocky about here, but there were plenty of trees, plenty of moss, and grass. ”

“ It was a miserable morning; the noisy thoroughfares full of mist and wet and mud; drifts of sleet swooping round corners; the air raw and cold. The river was scarcely visible when he crossed London Bridge; the steamers and ships were like ghosts in the fog. He made his way as quickly as he could through the crowded streets, until he reached Tower Hill; then he passed up into the Minories; there he paused in front of one or two shops, in the windows of which were the most miscellaneous objects—old clothes, waterproof leggings, tin cans, and what not. ”

“ They also spoke of the romantic nature of the road over the pass, and how in one place it had been cut through a flank of the solid rock, in such a way that the mountain overhung the tourist as he passed by; and they furthermore said that the sharp turns in the road and the abruptness of the descent would afford us a thrilling experience, for we should go down in a flying gallop and seem to be spinning around the rings of a whirlwind, like a drop of whiskey descending the spirals of a corkscrew. ”

“ Oh, no man, however may try, can hold himself aloof!
I came home deeply stirred from my visit with Old Toombs and lost no time in making further inquiries. I learned, speedily, that there was indeed something in the old man's dread of a road being built through his farm. The case was already in the courts. His farm was a very old one and extensive, and of recent years a large settlement of small farmers had been developing the rougher lands in the upper part of the townships called the Swan Hill district. ”

“ The cattlegates and rocky road made going slow, and as Venus, frosty and brilliant, came out, we were imprisoned in this weirdly gloomy spot, on the top of the world. A quaver in Toby’s usually stalwart voice made me wonder if she were remembering her mother’s last words,—“Don’t drive at night.” This is no reflection on Toby’s staunchness; the immensity of the West, after dark, when first it looms above one used to the coziness of ordered streets, must always seem portentous and awful. We hastened on, winding down through one enchanting glade after another, till we met the highway again. ”

“ Immediately beneath, the expansive vale of Towey appears in the fullest display of its charms; a hue of the richest green marks the luxuriance of the soil through the course of the valley, which, continually intersected with dusky hedge-rows, boasts all the elegance of garden parterres. The translucid Towey here wantons in perpetual variety among gay meadows and embowering plantations, where the eye with pleasure traces its fantastic meanders until they disappear behind projecting groves. ”

“ I know the art of searching for a trail, and I know the stale track from the fresh. I can keep a trail all by myself, with Buffalo Bill asleep in the saddle; ask him—he will tell you so. Many a time, when he has ridden all night, he has said to me at dawn, “Take the watch, Boy; if the trail freshens, call me.” Then he goes to sleep. He knows he can trust me, because I have a reputation. A scout horse that has a reputation does not play with it. ”

“ The ascent is made by rail, or horseback, or on foot, as one may prefer. I and my agent panoplied ourselves in walking-costume, one bright morning, and started down the lake on the steamboat; we got ashore at the village of Waeggis; three-quarters of an hour distant from Lucerne. This village is at the foot of the mountain.
We were soon tramping leisurely up the leafy mule-path, and then the talk began to flow, as usual. It was twelve o'clock noon, and a breezy, cloudless day ”

“ When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a towhead in a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches with the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like there had been a cave-in in the bank there. A tow-head is a sandbar that has cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.
We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we warn't afraid of anybody running across us. ”

“ The end of the village was soon reached; then the travellers struck into a crooked, narrow road, walled in with tall hedges, and hurried briskly along it for a half mile, then passed into a vast flower garden through an imposing gateway whose huge stone pillars bore sculptured armorial devices. ”

“ We found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right one, though we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was the wrong one. If it was the wrong one there could be no use in hurrying; therefore we did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the soft moss and enjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes. There had been distractions in the carriage-road—school-children, peasants, wagons, troops of pedestrianizing students from all over Germany—but we had the old road to ourselves.
Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work. ”

“ The elevated land begins to rise about a quarter of a mile on the north side of Saxton village, from which a public road proceeds from thence in a northwardly direction, and continues to rise until within little more than half a mile to the southward of the village of Towton, where there is a considerable depression or descent in the road, and in the ground on each side of it. ”

“ In our ascent, p. 135delightful views were obtained of the upper vale of Towey, stretching from Llandilo bridge to the vicinage of Llandovery. The distant groves of Taliaris and Abermarle parks adorned this view, which was only inferior to that from Dinevawr-castle. As we advanced further, the rich prospect withdrew, and we found ourselves entering upon the dreary wilds of the Black Mountains; our track then became indistinct, wandering among rocks, floods, and up-rooted trees, unenlivened by a single habitation or human face. ”

“ I also learnt, on my visit to Towton Field in 1854, that on the recent occasion of making excavations for the York and North Midland Railway, close to Towton, some human bones were discovered; the spot was near the old road before described, and in the line of the retreat of the Lancastrians, from the field of battle, towards Tadcaster. ”

“ The road now kept to the left obliquely, and much of my ride was made musical by the stream. Darkness closed solemnly about me, with seven miles of the journey yet to accomplish, and as, at eight o'clock, I turned from the turnpike into a lonesome by-road, full of ruts, pools, and quicksands, a feeling of delicious uneasiness for the first time possessed me. Some owls hooted in the depth of the woods, and wild pigs, darting across the road, went crashing into the bushes. ”

“ Toby says he can drive all right, but we'll keep near by to lend him a hand if necessary. The road is some rough in places until we get on the pike."
Half an hour later the wagon moved away from the camp under the hemlocks. Uncle Toby looked back and grinned amiably as he noted his ladder of protection, and his friendly tree of refuge.
Each boy in turn started his machine by walking, then vaulted into the saddle, and began to move along the trail that led down to the lumber camps at the head of the lake. ”

“ Up, up, up, it goes, like a train on a scenic railway. Every peak is covered with sharp trees, and amazing white villages are crowded on ledges. There is always a white tower on the very summit, flat red-frilled roofs, and a sheer drop beneath. It is not a country in which one walks after tea. For one thing there is no grass. A whole hillside will be ruled with olive trees. ”

“ The solitude of the tow-path after dark is enhanced at the point where it passes opposite the gasworks by the appearance of life across the water, and the impossibility of reaching that life, touching the human hands that labour there, receiving aid from kindly men if aid were needed. The tow-path at this point is narrow and full of fathomless shadows, in which outcasts, thieves, and murderers might lurk ”

“ We descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly, rocky road to Nazareth—distant two hours. All distances in the East are measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk three miles an hour over nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an hour, here, always stands for three miles. ”

“ The Tweed is such a storied stream that as you walk along, sometimes across sheep-cropped meadows, sometimes under the fragant rustling bough and athwart the shifting shadows of oak, ash, and thorn—Puck of Pook's hill must have known the Border country in its most embroidered days—you cannot tell whether or not the deep quiet river is the noblest you have seen, or the storied hills about are less than the Delectable mountains. ”

“ The toboggan is to the hurlie what the sled is to the carriage; it is a hurlie upon runners; and if for a grating road you substitute a long declivity of beaten snow, you can imagine the giddy career of the tobogganist. The correct position is to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit hind-foremost, or dare the descent upon their belly or their back. ”

“ They had traveled far on their journey below ground; it was even a longer route where he and Towahg had circled about. But it was the only route he knew; he could take no chances on a short-cut and a possible long-drawn search for the little valley.
He followed the trail. The quick dusk was near; but in an hour's slow flying, while his eyes searched the hills and hollows, the valley was in sight.
He came down slowly in a black sky, with only the soft, muffled roar of the lower exhausts. It was growing dark, and he leaned from an open door to see more clearly his position. ”