that, I haven't capital enough to furnish my own farm, small as it is. No: I think, Mr. Jenkins, I have made you a very fair offer."
Just at this moment, Sambo announced their supper to be ready, and Ichabod was obliged to desist from the further prosecution of his project. But, extremely well satisfied with the progress already made, he began seriously to dream of the manufacturing firm of "Barton, Weston, Jenkins & Co."
CHAPTER IV
2d Fisherman. – "Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea."
1st Fisherman. – "Why, as men do on land – the great ones eat up the little ones." – PERICLES.
Ralph was now fairly installed as a member of the family of Mr. Barton. He had found an opportunity, in the course of the evening of his arrival, to exchange a few words of conversation with Ruth; and he was now satisfied that the partiality with which, in former days, she had regarded him, had not given place to indifference. The consciousness of this fact amply repaid him for long years of absence, and led him to look forward to such a future as only appears to the vision of those who reason from the heart. The future, cold, impassable, dark, and filled with mysterious dread, to him who has outlived the power of youthful passion – to the young and the hopeful, is the unattained but attainable region, where exist all the charms and raptures which can be bodied forth by an ardent imagination. So different are the views of life which can be made by a few active, busy years.
On the morning of the day after their arrival, Ralph and Ichabod, accompanied by Barton, examined the farm and the improvements which had been made by the energy of the latter. Some fifteen acres of forest had already been cleared, and Sambo, on this morning, was engaged in still farther invading the domains of the wilderness; and with his bare and muscular arms was wielding the axe like a redoubtable soldier among a multitude of enemies.
There is something pleasant to the eye in beholding the struggle of man with the wilderness; to see old, mossy trees, that had stood for ages, faithful guardians of the soil, whose long, leafy boughs and bushy crowns, seemed to belong as much to the sky in which they waved and nodded, as to the earth which sustained them, bow down their heavy heads with a crash, that to the imaginative mind, seems, with its echoes, like a mournful wail issuing from the surviving forest. As the tree falls, the golden sunlight darts into a new and unexplored region, and the melancholy forest abode recedes, as if pursued by an implacable enemy. But it is a rescue of the earth from the long slumber of past time, and an offering to the comforts and necessities of the future.
It is scarcely to be wondered at, that in earlier times, when the imaginations of men overruled their powers of reason, the sombre, melancholy forest abode was peopled with fanciful beings – children of the shadow and of the forest – Fairies, Dryads, and Satyrs, with Arcadian landscapes, and the good god Pan to preside over sylvan sports! But in these days of utility, the reed of the shepherd and the music of the sylvan gods are drowned in the clatter of saw-mills, and the hoarse song of the woodchopper.
Ichabod, who had not forgotten the conversation of the previous evening, endeavored, two or three times, to revive the project which on that occasion he had proposed to Barton; but he was unsuccessful in his attempts to renew the discussion. After a few hours thus spent, the party returned to the cottage. Barton proposed, for the afternoon, a fishing excursion upon the pond. "It is filled," said he, "with pickerel and perch – both very delicious fish, and they are taken with the utmost ease. This is just the season for them."
Ralph inquired if the streams contained any specimens of trout; and Barton answered, "that the river contained some very fine specimens, although they were not so numerous as in the smaller streams. Occasionally we take pike, but they do not come so far up the river in very large quantities. But," he continued, with a zeal that showed he was not a stranger to the gentle art, "our brooks are filled – absolutely filled – with trout. There is a stream, about a mile and a half west of us, which comes from the northwest, through a wilderness, with which I am almost wholly unacquainted, where they can be taken in great numbers. In an hour, we can catch as many as it will be convenient to carry. If you like, we will go over there to-morrow, or next day; but for to-day, I am anxious to show you sport nearer by."
It was arranged, that in the afternoon the suggestion of Barton should be followed; and hearing the latter giving some directions to Sambo, which it will be unnecessary here to repeat, Ralph and Ichabod proceeded leisurely towards the cottage.
"There is a charm, for me, about a life in the woods," said Ralph, "which I cannot explain. Mingled with the idea of a nearer approach to the Court of Nature, is that of separation from the passions and vices of men in the world. One feels to exclaim with the Bard of Avon,
"Is not this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?"
"I don't dispute the general idea," said Ichabod, "about the sweetness of a life in the woods. I have never tried it very much, but I always have a different sort of feeling from usual when I find myself in the forest; but I reckon that it can't be considered very patriotic for a Captain in the Revolutionary Army to be quoting Shakspeare, or any other British poet. What did he know about our woods? All the woods he ever saw were but a child's play-ground compared with the eternal, never-ending forests of America. As for me, if I've got any poetry to quote, I can find enough of our own manufacture. I believe in the home manufacture of that article, just as much as I do in that of the other kind we were talking about last night."
Ralph smiled at Ichabod's literary bigotry. He answered:
"I do not know any reasonable objection to our admiring the men of genius of a foreign or hostile nation, or their writings. Men of genius are the property of the world. Whatever they may think or say that may delight and instruct one people, may equally delight and instruct all others. We are yet in the infancy of the poetic art, and have produced no poets capable of winning a world-wide reputation."
"That's precisely what the British say, Captain; and if I didn't know that your heart was true as steel to the American cause, I should be a little jealous of you. No poets of reputation! Did you ever read Freneau, Captain? To my mind, he's got more poetry in his little finger than Shakspeare had in his whole body. Now, did Shakspeare ever write anything equal to Freneau's "Antiquity of America"?"
And Ichabod began reciting, in a loud voice —
"'America, to every climate known,
Spreads her broad bosom to the burning zone;
To either pole extends her vast domain,
Where varying suns in different summers reign.'"
"That's the way the poem begins, and it fully keeps up its pitch all the way through."
Ralph had some knowledge of the poetical compositions of Freneau, who had really produced some poems, full of a fine, poetic feeling, and who was much beyond the mass of his poetical contemporaries in this country; yet, although he entertained a feeling of respect for the ability and services of the revolutionary poet, he could not share the high degree of admiration which Ichabod entertained for him.
"I'll grant," said Ralph, scarcely knowing how to reply to the irritated Ichabod, "that Shakespeare never did write precisely such a poem; and I will admit that I do not believe he ever could have written such an one."
"I knew you were right at heart, Captain," exclaimed Ichabod, highly elated over his equivocal victory. "Some of his verses have done as much towards bringing down the British, as whole regiments of Continentals could have done. But then, Freneau is only one of a whole circle of poets. The British boast about their old ballads; now, I'll take an even bet, that I can show 'em ballads,
