Baddeck and That Sort of Thing | Page 5

nowhere buy a guide-book to help his wandering feet about the
reposeful city, or to show him how to get out of it. There was, to be
sure, a cheerful tinkle of horse-car bells in the air, and in the creeping
vehicles which created this levity of sound were a few lonesome

passengers on their way to Scollay's Square; but the two travelers, not
having well-regulated minds, had no desire to go there. What would
have become of Boston if the great fire had reached this sacred point of
pilg-rimage no merely human mind can imagine. Without it, I suppose
the horse-cars would go continually round and round, never stopping,
until the cars fell away piecemeal on the track, and the horses collapsed
into a mere mass of bones and harness, and the brown- covered books
from the Public Library, in the hands of the fading virgins who carried
them, had accumulated fines to an incalculable amount.
Boston, notwithstanding its partial destruction by fire, is still a good
place to start from. When one meditates an excursion into an unknown
and perhaps perilous land, where the flag will not protect him and the
greenback will only partially support him, he likes to steady and
tranquilize his mind by a peaceful halt and a serene start. So we--for the
intelligent reader has already identified us with the two travelers
resolved to spend the last night, before beginning our journey, in the
quiet of a Boston hotel. Some people go into the country for quiet: we
knew better. The country is no place for sleep. The general absence of
sound which prevails at night is only a sort of background which brings
out more vividly the special and unexpected disturbances which are
suddenly sprung upon the restless listener. There are a thousand
pokerish noises that no one can account for, which excite the nerves to
acute watchfulness.
It is still early, and one is beginning to be lulled by the frogs and the
crickets, when the faint rattle of a drum is heard,--just a few
preliminary taps. But the soul takes alarm, and well it may, for a roll
follows, and then a rub-a-dub-dub, and the farmer's boy who is
handling the sticks and pounding the distended skin in a neighboring
horse-shed begins to pour out his patriotism in that unending repetition
of rub-a-dub-dub which is supposed to represent love of country in the
young. When the boy is tired out and quits the field, the faithful
watch-dog opens out upon the stilly night. He is the guardian of his
master's slumbers. The howls of the faithful creature are answered by
barks and yelps from all the farmhouses for a mile around, and
exceedingly poor barking it usually is, until all the serenity of the night
is torn to shreds. This is, however, only the opening of the orchestra.
The cocks wake up if there is the faintest moonshine and begin an

antiphonal service between responsive barn-yards. It is not the clear
clarion of chanticleer that is heard in the morn of English poetry, but a
harsh chorus of cracked voices, hoarse and abortive attempts, squawks
of young experimenters, and some indescribable thing besides, for I
believe even the hens crow in these days. Distracting as all this is,
however, happy is the man who does not hear a goat lamenting in the
night. The goat is the most exasperating of the animal creation. He cries
like a deserted baby, but he does it without any regularity. One can
accustom himself to any expression of suffering that is regular. The
annoyance of the goat is in the dreadful waiting for the uncertain sound
of the next wavering bleat. It is the fearful expectation of that, mingled
with the faint hope that the last was the last, that ag-gravates the tossing
listener until he has murder in his heart. He longs for daylight, hoping
that the voices of the night will then cease, and that sleep will come
with the blessed morning. But he has forgotten the birds, who at the
first streak of gray in the east have assembled in the trees near his
chamber-window, and keep up for an hour the most rasping
dissonance,--an orchestra in which each artist is tuning his instrument,
setting it in a different key and to play a different tune: each bird recalls
a different tune, and none sings "Annie Laurie,"--to pervert Bayard
Taylor's song.
Give us the quiet of a city on the night before a journey. As we
mounted skyward in our hotel, and went to bed in a serene altitude, we
congratulated ourselves upon a reposeful night. It began well. But as
we sank into the first doze, we were startled by a sudden crash. Was it
an earthquake, or another fire? Were the neighboring