Last evening we (Mr., Mrs., and Miss Thaxter) sat and talked of ghosts
and kindred subjects; and they told me of the appearance of a little old
woman in a striped gown, that had come into that house a few months ago.
She was seen by nobody but an Irish nurse, who spoke to her, but received
no answer. The little woman drew her chair up towards the fire, and
stretched out her feet to warm them. By and by the nurse, who suspected
nothing of her ghostly character, went to get a pail of water; and, when
she came back, the little woman was not there. It being known precisely
how many and what people were on the island, and that no such little
woman was among them, the fact of her being a ghost is incontestable. I
taught them how to discover the hidden sentiments of letters by
suspending a gold ring over them. Ordinarily, since I have been here, we
have spent the evening under the piazza, where Mr. Laighton sits to take
the air. He seems to avoid the within-doors whenever he can. So there
he sits in the sea-breezes, when inland people are probably drawing their
chairs to the fireside; and there I sit with him,--not keeping up a
continual flow of talk, but each speaking as any wisdom happens to come
into his mind.
The wind, this morning, is from the northwestward, rather brisk, but not
very strong. There is a scattering of clouds about the sky; but the
atmosphere is singularly clear, and we can see several hills of the
interior, the cloud-like White Mountains, and, along the shore, the long
white beaches and the dotted dwellings, with great distinctness. Many
small vessels spread their wings, and go seaward.
I have been rambling over the southern part of the island, and looking at
the traces of habitations there. There are several enclosures,--the
largest perhaps thirty yards square,--surrounded with a rough stonewall
of very mossy antiquity, built originally broad and strong, two or three
large stones in width, and piled up breast-high or more, and taking
advantage of the extending ledge to make it higher. Within this
enclosure there is almost a clear space of soil, which was formerly, no
doubt, cultivated as a garden, but is now close cropt by the sheep and
cattle, except where it produces thistles, or the poisonous weed called
mercury, which seems to love these old walls, and to root itself in or
near them. These walls are truly venerable, gray, and mossy; and you see
at once that the hands that piled the stones must have been long ago
turned to dust. Close by the enclosure is the hollow of an old cellar,
with rocks tumbled into it, but the layers of stone at the side still to
be traced, and bricks, broken or with rounded edges, scattered about, and
perhaps pieces of lime; and weeds and grass growing about the whole.
Several such sites of former human homes may be seen there, none of which
can possibly be later than the Revolution, and probably they are as old
as the settlement of the island. The site has Smutty Nose and Star
opposite, with a road (that is, a water-road) between, varying from half
a mile to a mile. Duck Island is also seen on the left; and, on the
right, the shore of the mainland. Behind, the rising ground intercepts
the view. Smith's monument is visible. I do not see where the
inhabitants could have kept their boats, unless in the chasms worn by the
sea into the rocks.
One of these chasms has a spring of fresh water in the gravelly base,
down to which the sea has worn out. The chasm has perpendicular, though
irregular, sides, which the waves have chiselled out very square. Its
width varies from ten to twenty feet, widest towards the sea; and on the
shelves, up and down the sides, some soil has been here and there
accumulated, on which grow grass and wild-flowers,--such as golden-rod,
now in bloom, and raspberry-bushes, the fruit of which I found ripe,--the
whole making large parts of the sides of the chasm green, its verdure
overhanging the strip of sea that dashes and foams into the hollow.
Sea-weed, besides what grows upon and shags the submerged rocks, is
tossed into the harbor, together with stray pieces of wood, chips,
barrel-staves, or (as to-day) an entire barrel, or whatever else the sea
happens to have on hand. The water rakes to and fro over the pebbles at
the bottom of the chasm, drawing back, and leaving much of it bare, then
rushing up, with more or less of foam and fury, according to the force
and direction of the wind; though, owing to the protection of the
adjacent islands, it can never have a gale blowing right into its mouth.
The spring is situated so far down the chasm, that, at half or two-thirds
tide, it is covered by the sea. Twenty minutes after the retiring of the
tide suffices to restore to it its wonted freshness.
In another chasm, very much like the one here described, I saw a niche in
the rock, about tall enough for a person of moderate stature to stand
upright. It had a triangular floor and a top, and was just the place to
hold the rudest statue that ever a savage made.
Many of the ledges on the island have yellow moss or lichens spread on
them in large patches. The moss of those stone walls does really look
very old.
"Old Bab," the ghost, has a ring round his neck, and is supposed either
to have been hung or to have had his throat cut, but he steadfastly
declines telling the mode of his death. There is a luminous appearance
about him as he walks, and his face is pale and very dreadful.
The Fanny arrived this forenoon, and sailed again before dinner. She
brought, as passenger, a Mr. Balch, brother to the country trader who has
been spending a few days here. On her return, she has swept the islands
of all the non-residents except myself. The wind being ahead, and pretty
strong, she will have to beat up, and the voyage will be anything but
agreeable. The spray flew before her bows, and doubtless gave the
passengers all a thorough wetting within the first half-hour.
The view of Star Island or Gosport from the north is picturesque,--the
village, or group of houses, being gathered pretty closely together in
the centre of the island, with some green about them; and above all the
other edifices, wholly displayed, stands the little stone church, with
its tower and belfry. On the right is White Island, with the lighthouse;
to the right of that, and a little to the northward, Londoner's Rock,
where, perhaps, of old, some London ship was wrecked. To the left of
Star Island, and nearer Hog, or Appledore, is Smutty Nose. Pour the blue
sea about these islets, and let the surf whiten and steal up from their
points, and from the reefs about them (which latter whiten for an
instant, and then are lost in the whelming and eddying depths), the
northwest-wind the while raising thousands of white-caps, and the evening
sun shining solemnly over the expanse,--and it is a stern and lovely
scene.
The valleys that intersect, or partially intersect, the island are a
remarkable feature. They appear to be of the same formation as the
fissures in the rocks, but, as they extend farther from the sea, they
accumulate a little soil along the irregular sides, and so become green
and shagged with bushes, though with the rock everywhere thrusting itself
through. The old people of the isles say that their fathers could
remember when the sea, at high tide, flowed quite through the valley in
which the hotel stands, and that boats used to pass. Afterwards it was a
standing pond; then a morass, with cat-tail flags growing in it. It has
filled up, so far as it is filled, by the soil being washed down from the
higher ground on each side. The storms, meanwhile, have tossed up the
shingle and paving-stones at each end of the valley, so as to form a
barrier against the passage of any but such mighty waves as that which
thundered through a year or two ago.
The old inhabitants lived in the centre or towards the south of the
island, and avoided the north and east because the latter were so much
bleaker in winter. They could moor their boats in the road, between
Smutty Nose and Hog, but could not draw them up. Mr. Laighton found
traces of old dwellings in the vicinity of the hotel, and it is supposed
that the principal part of the population was on this island. I spent
the evening at Mr. Thaxter's, and we drank a glass of his 1820 Scheidam.
The northwest-wind was high at ten o'clock, when I came home, the tide
full, and the murmur of the waves broad and deep.
September 14th.--Another of the brightest of sunny mornings. The wind is
not nearly so high as last night, but it is apparently still from the
northwest, and serves to make the sea look very blue and cold. The
atmosphere is so transparent that objects seem perfectly distinct along
the mainland. To-day I must be in Portsmouth; to-morrow, at home. A
brisk west, or northwest wind, making the sea so blue, gives a very
distinct outline in its junction with the sky.
September 16th.--On Tuesday, the 14th, there was no opportunity to get to
the mainland. Yesterday morning opened with a southeast rain, which
continued all day. The Fanny arrived in the forenoon, with some coal for
Mr. Laighton, and sailed again before dinner, taking two of the maids of
the house; but as it rained pouring, and as I could not, at any rate,
have got home to-night, there would have been no sense in my going. It
began to clear up in the decline of the day; the sun shot forth some
golden arrows a little before his setting; and the sky was perfectly
clear when I went to bed, after spending the evening at Mr. Thaxter's.
This morning is clear and bright; but the wind is northwest, making the
sea look blue and cold, with little breaks of white foam. It is
unfavorable for a trip to the mainland; but doubtless I shall find an
opportunity of getting ashore before night.
The highest part of Appledore is about eighty feet above the sea. Mr.
Laighton has seen whales off the island,--both on the eastern side and
between it and the mainland; once a great crowd of them, as many as
fifty. They were drawn in by pursuing their food,--a small fish called
herring-bait, which came ashore in such abundance that Mr. Laighton
dipped up basketfuls of them. No attempt was made to take the whales.
There are vague traditions of trees on these islands. One of them, Cedar
Island, is said to have been named from the trees that grew on it. The
matter appears improbable, though, Mr. Thaxter says, large quantities of
soil are annually washed into the sea; so that the islands may have been
better clad with earth and its productions than now.
Mrs. Thaxter tells me that there are several burial-places on this
island; but nobody has been buried here since the Revolution. Her own
marriage was the first one since that epoch, and her little Karl, now
three months old, the first-born child in all those eighty years.
[Then follow extracts from the Church Records of Gosport.]
This book of the church records of Gosport is a small folio, well bound
in dark calf, and about an inch thick; the paper very stout, with a
water-mark of an armed man in a sitting posture, holding a spear . . . .
over a lion, who brandishes a sword; on alternate pages the Crown, and
beneath it the letters G. R. The motto of the former device Pro Patria.
The book is written in a very legible hand, probably by the Rev. Mr.
Tucke. The ink is not much faded.
Concord, March 9th, 1853.--Finished, this day, the last story of
Tanglewood Tales. They were written in the following order.
The Pomegranate Seeds.
The Minotaur.
The Golden Fleece.
The Dragons' Teeth.
Circe's Palace.
The Pygmies.
The introduction is yet to be written. Wrote it 13th March. I went to
Washington (my first visit) on 14th April.
Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life
of the affections, as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are
wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.
June 9th.--Cleaning the attic to-day, here at the Wayside, the woman
found an immense snake, flat and outrageously fierce, thrusting out its
tongue. Ellen, the cook, killed it. She called it an adder, but it
appears to have been a striped snake. It seems a fiend, haunting the
house. On further inquiry, the snake is described as plaided with brown
and black.
Cupid in these latter times has probably laid aside his bow and arrows,
and uses fire-arms,--a pistol,--perhaps a revolver.
I burned great heaps of old letters and other papers, a little while ago,
preparatory to going to England. Among them were hundreds of ------'s
letters. The world has no more such, and now they are all dust and
ashes. What a trustful guardian of secret matters is fire! What should
we do without fire and death?
END OF VOL. II
