"That goes to redeem your character. Fling those away, or give them to the landlord; I have plenty of better ones. But a pipe is the best thing at a place like this, and especially at camp, in the woods." "So I have often heard you say." "Mine, though, made a sensation, not long ago." "How was that?" "The whole brood of the Stubbs, bag and baggage, passed here this afternoon." "Thank Heaven they did not stop." "They came in their private carriage. I nodded to Ben, and touched my hat to Mrs. S. You should have seen their faces. They thought there must be something out of joint in the mechanism of the universe, when a person of their acquaintance could be seen smoking a pipe at a tavern door, like a bog-trotting Irishman." "You should have asked Ben to go with us." "It would be the worst martyrdom the poor devil ever had to pass through. Ben seemed displeased with the scenery. He says that the White Mountains are nothing to any one who, like himself, has seen the Alps." "Pray when did Stubb see the Alps?" "O, the whole family have seen the Alps,--the Alps, Italy, the Rhine, the nobility and gentry, and every thing else that Europe affords. They all swear by Europe, and hold the soil of America dirt cheap. You can see with half an eye what they are--an uncommonly bad imitation of an indifferent model." "Let them pass for what they are worth. Have you come armed and equipped--rifle, blanket, hatchet, and so forth?" "Yes, and I have brought an oil cloth tent." "So much the better; it is more convenient than a birch bark shanty." "I give you notice that I mean to take my ease in that tent." "I hope you will." "One can be comfortable in the woods, as well as elsewhere. Remember, colonel, that we are out for amusement, and not after scalps. Last summer, you drove ahead, rain or shine, through thickets, and swamps, and ponds, as if you were on some errand of life and death. For this once, have mercy on frail humanity, and moderate your ardor." Morton gave the pledge required. They passed the evening in arranging the details of their journey, set forth and spent three or four weeks in the forest between the settled districts of Canada and Maine, poling their canoe up lonely streams, meeting no human face, but smoking their pipes in great contentment by their evening camp fire. They chased a bear, and lost him in a _windfall_; killed two moose, six deer, and trout without number; and underwent, with exemplary patience, a martyrdom of midges, black flies, and mosquitoes. And when, at last, they turned their faces homeward, they wiled the way with plans of longer journeyings,--more bear, more moose, more deer, more trout, more midges, black flies, and mosquitoes. CHAPTER V. Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.--_Gray_.