Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861




And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

It was twelve by the village-clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village-clock,
When he rode into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village-clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning-breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British regulars fired and fled,--
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,--
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,--
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.




A NIGHT UNDER GROUND.


My dear Laura Matilda, have you ever worked your way under ground, like
the ghost Hamlet, Senior? On the contrary, you confess, but a dim idea
of that peculiar mode of progression abides in the well-ordered mansion
of your mind?

Well, I do not wonder at it; you are civilized beyond the common herd;
your mamma, careful of her own comfort and the beauty of her child,
guards both. Your sunny summer-times go by in the shade of sylvan
groves, or amid the whirl of Saratoga or Newport ball-rooms. I accept
your ignorance; it is a pretty blossom in your maiden chaplet. For
myself, I blush for my own familiarity with rough scenes chanced upon in
wayward wanderings.

Let me tell you of a path among the "untrodden ways." Transport yourself
with me.

Fancy a low, level, drowsy point of land, stretching out into the
unbroken emerald green of Lake Superior, at the point where a narrow,
yellowish river offers its tribute. The King of Lakes is exclusive; he
disdains to blend his brilliant waters with those of the muddy river; a
wavy line, distinctly and clearly defined, but seeming as if drawn by
a trembling hand, undulates at their junction,--no democratic,
union-seeking boundary, but the arbitrary line of division that
separates the Sultan from the slave, the peer from the peasant.

Along this shore are scattered various buildings that seem to nod in the
indolent sunshine of the bright, clear, quiet air of midsummer. One of
these, differing from the rest in its more modern construction, is a
spacious hotel that holds itself proudly erect, and from its summit the
gay flag of my country floats flauntingly.

We must pass this by, and go down a plank-covered walk to reach the
sandy-golden beach where the green waves dash with silent dignity,
in these long calms of July. Before the hotel the river flows also
sleepily; but both shores are vocal with ladies' laughter and
the singing of young girls, the lively chatter of a party of
pleasure-tourists.

The fine steamer that brought us to this point has gone,

"Sailing out into the west,
Out into the west, as the sun went down";

but no "weeping and wringing of hands" was there; we knew it must "come
back to the town,"--that we are merely transient waifs cast upon this
quiet beach, flitting birds of passage who have alighted in the porticos
of the "Bigelow House," Ontonagon, Michigan.

A long, low flat-boat, without visible sails, steam-pipes, or oars,--a
narrow river-craft, with a box-like cabin at one end, the whole rude
in its _ensemble_, and uncivilized in its details,--is the object that
meets the gaze of those who would curiously inspect the means by which
the adventurous novelty-seeking portion of our party are to be conveyed
up this Ontonagon river to the great copper-mines that form the
inestimable wealth of that region. For the metallic attraction has
proved magnetic to the fancies of a few. A mine is a mystery; and
mysteries, to the female mind, are delights.

What is the boat to us but a means? If it seem prosaic, what care we?
Have we escaped the French fashions of _a-la-mode_ watering-places, to
be fastidious amid wigwams and unpeopled shores?

We all know what it is to embark for a day's travel, but we do not all
understand the charm of being stowed away like freight in a boat such as
the one here faintly sketched; how seats are improvised; how umbrellas
are converted into stationary screens, and awnings grow out of
inspiration; how baskets are hidden carefully among carpet-bags, and
camp-stools, and water-jugs, and stowed-in-shavings ice; how the
long-suffering, patient ladies shelter themselves in the tiny, stifling
cabin, while those of the merry, complexion-careless sort lounge in
the daylight's glare, and one couple, fond of seclusion and sentiment,
discover a good place for both, at the rudder-end.

There is an oar or two on board, it appears, as we push off in the early
dawn; and these are employed for a mile or so at the mouth of the river;
then the current begins to quicken in a narrower bed, and a group of
sinewy men betake themselves to their poles, lazily at first, until----

But you do not know exactly what these implements are?

They are heavy, wooden, sharp-pointed poles, ten or twelve feet long. On
either side of the boat runs a "walk," arranged as if a ladder were laid
horizontally; but in reality the bars or rungs are firmly fastened to
the walk, to be used as rests for the feet. Here the men, five on a
side, march like a chain-gang, backward and forward; placing one end of
the pole in the bed of the stream, resting the other in the hollow of
the shoulder near the arm-pit, and bracing themselves by their feet
against these bars, they pry the boat along.

Progression by such means is unavoidably slow; but no steamboat-race
on our Western rivers, blind and reckless, boiler-defying and
life-despising, ever produced more excitement than this same poling.

Wait till the current runs rapidly, fretting and seething in its angry
haste, when for a moment's delay the boat must lose ground; when the
poles are plunged into the rocky bed like harpoons into the back of an
escaping whale; when the athletic forms of the men are bent forward
until each prostrates himself in the exertion of his full powers; when
not a false step--each step a run--can be hazarded; when that monotonous
unanimity of labor is at its height, in which each boatman becomes
possessed as if by a devil of strife; when their faces lose every gentle
semblance of humanity, and become distorted to a simple expression
of stubborn brute force; when the muscles of their arms are knitted,
rope-like, and every nerve stretched to its utmost;--wait till you have
seen all this, and you will confess that a woman's lazy life can know no
harder toil than that of the mind's sympathetic coexertion,--that is, if
she be excitable or impressible.

The stream is tortuous, erratic, shallow, and narrow. Sometimes, as we
glide, always noiselessly, beneath the overhanging foliage and tangled
vines along shore, what myriads of gayly winged insects--brilliant
dragon-flies, mammoth gnats, preposterous mosquitoes--swarm about our
heads, disturbed from their gambols by the laughter and songs aboard our
moving craft!

Only one halt in our journey, and that to dine. Just above this point we
pass the swiftest rapids on the route, where the river widens, and each
side of the bank is beautiful in its wooded picturesqueness, while the
waters rush, in foaming, surging, tumbling confusion, over the rugged
rocks, or dart between them like a merry band of water-sprites chasing
each other in gleesome frolic.

It seems a desecration of these rapids thus to subdue and triumph over
them. They are as if placed there by Nature as a sportive check to man's
further intrusion; and as the waters come hurrying down, led, as it
were, by some Undine jealous for her realm, their murmurings seem to
say, in playful, yet earnest remonstrance,--"Let our gambols divert
you; we will hasten to you; but approach no nearer! Permit us to guard
the sanctuary of our hidden sources, our beloved and holy solitudes!"

But vain appeal! Our men pole frantically onward, and so the day passes.
By mid-afternoon their labors cease, and we come to anchor at the bank,
having achieved seventeen miles in nine hours! Let those of us to whom
lightning-express-trains have been slow grumble hereafter at their fifty
miles an hour!

A country-wagon receives most of the ladies; the majority of their
attendant cavaliers walk; of two horses, the side-saddled one has about
one hundred pounds avoirdupois for his share, and, in spite of the lack
of habit and equestrian "pomp and circumstance" generally, I cannot term
it the most unpleasant three miles I ever travelled. The road is a wild,
rugged ascent up a well-wooded hill-side. There is a tonic vigor in
the atmosphere, which communicates itself irresistibly to one's mental
state; the gladdened lungs inhale it eagerly, as a luxury. When one
walks in this air, one seems to gain wings; to ride is to float at will.

Presently, at the top, a low village comes in sight; yelping curs start
from wayside cabins; coarse, dull-featured women gape at half-opened
doors or sit idly on rude steps; and the men we chance to meet wear that
cadaverous pallor inseparable from the mere idea of a miner. We do not
regret that the pert dogs have imparted speed to our horses' heels;--a
swift, exhilarating gallop brings us in sight of a large, comfortable
house, perched like a bird-box in the hills; then others are discerned;
and in a few more bounds, we are at the gate. Here, where all visitors
to the Minnesota Mines are received and entertained, we prove
_avant-couriers_ of the slowly advancing wagon-load,--"the largest party
of ladies ever met there," they tell us, as we forewarn our hosts of the
band so boldly invading their copper-bound country.

Very soon we are rambling over the hills,--those of Nature's rearing,
and others formed by the accumulation of refuse brought up from the
mine. We discover and secure some fine specimens of the metal; sundry
of the knowing ones, after mysterious interviews with rascally-looking
miners, appear with curious bits of pure silver ore mingled with
crystals of quartz and tinted with tiny specks of copper. These, being
the most valuable curiosities of the region, are usually secreted by the
miners for the purpose of private speculation.

We feel a reverence for this ground, so teeming with metallic
wealth,--and yet a certain timorousness, as we remember that we walk on
a crust, that beneath us are great caves and subterranean galleries.

This outer shell, this surface-knowledge of what lies below, does not
content me. I have also a brave friend who shares my feeling. We agree,
that, despite the interest of this crust, to know of the fruit beneath
and not taste it is worse than aggravating; we grow reckless in our
thirst for the forbidden knowledge.

We have entertained a little plot in our headstrong minds all the way,
which we have hardly dared to name before. It is surely not feminine to
look longingly on those ladders made for the descent of hardy miners
only; visitors beneath the surface are rare; only gentlemen interested
in seeing for themselves the richness of these vaunted mines have
essayed the tour; even many of these failing to penetrate farther than
the first level, and bravely owning their faint-heartedness. In spite of
this, we feel our way cautiously. A descent is to be made this night,
when the Captain of the Mine goes his nightly round of inspection; a
gentleman, the head and front of our expedition, whom we shall call the
"Colonel," proposes to accompany him.

Why may we not form an harmonious quartette? We have nerve; has it not
been tested throughout the somewhat arduous journey of the preceding
weeks? We have presence of mind; we are passable _gymnastes_.

In fact, viewing _Mon Amie_ and me from our own point of view, than
ourselves never did there exist two mortals more manifestly fashioned
straight from the hand of Nature, and educated by previous physical
culture and mental discipline for the performance of a feat at once
perilous and daring, one unknown to the members of "our set," and which
might have been thought impracticable by all who had known us only in
the gas-light glare of Society, and the circumspection of crinoline's
confining circle.

Does it matter by what cunning wiles of pretty pleading and downright
demonstrations of the project's reasonableness we succeeded (for we did
succeed) in being allowed to take our fates in our own hands or trust
them to our own sure-footedness? I think not.

"For when a woman will, she will, you may
depend on't."

But you should have seen the robing! We are to start at ten, P.M.
Previously we betake ourselves to our chambers, and, entertaining a
vague notion that Fashion's expanse may prove inconvenient, we are
looping up our trailing robes in fantastic folds, when a tap at the
door.

_Voila!_ a servant with two full suits of new, but coarse, miners'
clothes,--with a modest intimation from our companions of their
advisability,--in fact, their absolute necessity. We pause aghast! Ah!
the renewed shouts of laughter from those merry, but more timorous
damsels, who, from their secure surroundings,--those becoming barriers
adopted at the dictate of Parisian caprice and retained with feminine
pertinacity,--had poked fun at our forlorn limpness!

This climax of costume is startling, but the laughter rouses our
courage. We stand on the brink of our Rubicon. Shall trousers deter us
from the passage? Shall a coat be synonymous with cowardice? No,--we
rise superior to the occasion; we pant to be free; we in-breathe the
spirit of liberty, as we don our blouses. We loop our long tresses under
such head-coverings as would drive any artist hatter to despair; to us
they prove a weighty argument against hats in general, as we feel their
heavy rims press on our tender brain-roofs. However, when the saucy eyes
of _Mon Amie_ look out sparkling from under her begrimed helmet, the
effect is not bad; on the contrary, the masquerade is piquant. No need
to mention the ribbons that we knot under our wide, square collars for
becomingness, our coquetry "under difficulties," nor the gauntleted
gloves wherewith we protect our hands, nor the daintiness of the little
boots that peep from the loose trousers, which have something Turkish
in their cut. _Mon Amie_, with her rosy blushes, reminds me of a jocund
miller's boy;--as for myself, well, I do not think the Bloomer dress so
very bad, after all!

A torch-bearing band have stationed themselves at the doors to bid us
god-speed,--to make merry at our droll masquerade,--to quiz our odd
head-gear,--to criticize us from head to foot, in short,--but between
all, to offer words of caution. Then we go out into the starlit, but not
over-bright night,--such a one as is friendly to lovers and to thieves,
friendly to religion and to thought, the beloved of sentimentalists, and
the adored of this particular group of adventurous miners. In Indian
file, lantern-led, we traverse the narrow, beaten path that leads to
one of the openings of the mine. These are covered by a rough-plank
house,--too much like a shed to merit that pretentious term, which
implies something fit to live in; in the centre of this shelter is
an open space, perhaps a yard square, and similar in appearance to a
trap-door in a roof. Here we wait a few moments, while the Captain of
the Mine and the Agent of the Mining Company,--who has joined our party
at the last moment, to afford us the undivided services of the Captain
as guide,--are engaged in some mysterious process of moulding; an odor,
not attar of rose, nor yet Frangipanni, salutes our nostrils; then our
companions approach. Both the Colonel and the Agent are "lit up,"--in
fact, all-luminous with the radiance of tallow "dips"; one of these,
stuck in a lump of soft clay, adheres to the front of each hat, and in
their hands they have others.

We also are to wear a starry flame on our brows; and, not content with
this, are invested with several short unlighted candles, which are to
dangle gracefully by their wicks from a buttonhole of our becoming
blouses. Thus our costume is complete; and I doubt if Buckingham sported
the diamond tags of Anne of Austria with more satisfaction than do we
our novel and odorous decoration: we dub ourselves the Light Guard on
the instant.

In the delay before starting, we observe several miners descend through
the black and most suggestive trap-door, each bearing a tin can in his
mouth, as a good dog carries a basket at the bidding of his master.

The flame of the candle, bright in the density of the pit's darkness, as
its bearer descends step by step with the rapidity which custom has
made easy, becomes in a few seconds like the tiniest glow-worm: one can
follow the spark only; the man disappears within the moment.

I cannot describe, nor, indeed, convey the least idea of this peculiar
effect. We feel our hearts tremble at the thought that whither that
light has gone we must follow. For the first time I realize that we
are about to go _into_ the earth,--that we shall presently crawl like
insects, burrow like underground vermin, beneath the surface, man's
proper place. But such thoughts are not for long indulgence.

"Now let us descend!" says the Colonel.

Grasping the round of the ladder where it rose slightly above the floor,
the Captain, our guide, with that air of assurance which practice
bestows, swings himself from sight. To him succeeds the Colonel. Next
comes my own turn. This is not the first time my feet have tried
ladder-bars; in the country-spent vacations of my school-days, how
many times have I alertly scaled the highest leading to granaries, to
barn-lofts, to bird-houses, to all quasi-inaccessible places, whither my
daring ignorance--reckless, because unconscious of danger--had tempted
me! But mounting a clean, strong, wide ladder, in the full flood of day,
light below, above, around, promising you security by its very fulness
of effulgence, is a far different thing from groping your way, step by
step, down a slimy, muddy frame which hangs in a straight line from the
very start. I shake off a first tremor, draw a full breath, and with
fortitude follow my leader carefully. As I look above, after fairly
getting committed, I can behold _Mon Amie's_ feet, whose arched in-steps
cling round each bar with a pretty dependence that is in the highest
degree appealing. Above her I hear the deep voice of the Agent.

And so the quintette, in grim harmony of enterprise, go down, down,
down, like so many human buckets, into a bottomless well.

Alas, and alas! our own arms, with their as yet untried muscles, must be
our only windlass to bring us to the surface again! Down, down, down,
deeper, deeper, deeper! Will this first ladder never end?

Ah, at last! At the foot, on either side, stand the Captain and the
Colonel, like sentries. We have reached a shelf of rock, and we may
rest. Here we perch ourselves, like sea-birds on a precipice that
overlooks the sea.

By the light of our flickering candles we behold each other's faces,
and we can talk together. We are but two hundred feet under ground. A
desolate stillness reigns here; no sound reaches us, either of labor or
the steps of passing workmen. A cold stream of water trickles from a
cleft rock behind us; we bathe our foreheads in it, and betake ourselves
to the ladder again.

From our next resting-place we proceed through a gallery, an exhausted
vein, kept open as a passage from one shaft to another. As we turn a
corner, we seem to plunge into a rocky cavern; our feet tread on
roughly imbedded rocks; the sides of the cave jut out in refuse
boulders,--harsh, dark-colored, ashen; overhead are beams of hard wood,
bracing and strengthening the excavation. We traverse this gallery
hastily.

Now that we are here, we are conscious of excitement. _Mon Amie_
manifests hers by her steady, deliberate tones, a sort of exaltation
foreign to her usually vibrating voice, her tremulous cadences; she
seems borne along, despite and above herself. For my own part, as my
lungs inflate themselves with this pure, dry, bracing air, exquisitely
redolent of health, and testifying at once to a total exemption
from noxious exhalations or mephitic vapors, I grow _tete-montee_,
rattle-brained; my laugh echoes through these stony chambers, wild
snatches of song hover on my lips, odd conceits flit through my brain,
I joke, I dash forward with haste; my excitement endows me with a
superfeminine self-possession.

But now we hear an ominous rattle, a clanking of chains, a rumbling as
of distant thunder; we are approaching a shaft. The shafts in this
mine are not sunk perpendicularly, but are slightly inclined: the huge
buckets, lowered and raised by means of powerful machinery, are but
ancient caldrons, counterparts of those in which the weird witches in
"Macbeth" might have brewed their unholy decoctions, or such as the
dreadful giants that formed the nightmare of my childhood might have
used in preparing those Brobdignagian repasts among the ingredients of
which a plump child held the same rank as a crab in ours.

The sounds grow nearer; presently our guide disappears; then I behold
the Colonel, in whose steps I follow, faithful as his shadow, crouch
sidewise: we must pass behind this inclined plane, which rests on
roughly hewn rocks, that protrude till it appears impossible that any
living thing, except a lizard, can find a passage. I am sure we must
shrink from the original rotundity with which Nature blessed us. I
feel as the frog in the fable might have felt, if, after successfully
inflating himself to the much-envied dimensions of the ox, he had
suddenly found himself reduced to his proper proportions. Edging
sidewise, accommodating the inequalities of the damp surfaces to the
undulations of our forms, deafened, crazed by the roar of the caldrons
that dash madly from side to side, we fairly _ooze_ through.

More ladders! This time they are not hung quite perpendicularly, are
shorter, and some lean, a little, which affords rest; others have one
side higher than the other: to these my already aching palms cling with
desperation. So have I seen insects adhere, through sheer force of fear,
to a shaken stem, or a perilous branch beaten by a storm-wind.

The voices of my companions come to me from above, though I cannot see
the soles of _Mon Amie's_ friendly feet, which at first preserved an
amiable companionship with my own hands; but, looking far upward, I
behold a tiny, star-like spark. When I was a child, I used to think that
fire-flies were the crowns of the fairies, which shone despite their
wearers' invisibility: this idea was recalled to me.

Hark! booming from unthought-of depths, a roar rolls up in majestic
waves of echoing thunder. At this resonant burst, I tremble,--I think a
prayer.

"They are blasting below us," cries the Colonel, _de profundis_.

Then up rushes a volume of thick, white smoke, and we are enveloped as
in shrouds. I have no more fear,--but the odor, ah! that sulphureous,
sickening, deathly odor! Faintness seizes me,--the ladder swims before
my eyes,--I am paralyzed,--Death has me, I think!

But the very excess of the danger has in it something of reviving power.
I remember, that, just as I left my room,--whose quiet safety never
before appeared so heavenly,--prompted by some instinctive impulse, I
had placed a small vial of ammonia in the breast-pocket of my coat.

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