|
Fishermans Luck and Some... |
|
Side 79 av 112
The river welcomes me like an old friend. The tune that it sings is
the same that the flowing water repeats all around the world. Not
otherwise do the lively rapids carry the familiar air, and the
larger falls drone out a burly bass, along the west branch of the
Penobscot, or down the valley of the Bouquet. But here there are no
forests to conceal the course of the stream. It lies as free to the
view as a child's thought. As I follow on from pool to pool,
picking out a good trout here and there, now from a rocky corner
edged with foam, now from a swift gravelly run, now from a snug
hiding-place that the current has hollowed out beneath the bank, all
the way I can see the fortress far above me on the hillside.
I am as sure that it has already surrendered to Graygown as if I
could discern her white banner of crochet-work floating from the
battlements.
Just before dark, I climb the hill with a heavy basket of fish. The
castle gate is open. The scent of chicken and pancakes salutes the
weary pilgrim. In a cosy little parlour, adorned with fluffy mats
and pictures framed in pine-cones, lit by a hanging lamp with glass
pendants, sits the mistress of the occasion, calmly triumphant and
plying her crochet-needle.
There is something mysterious about a woman's fancy-work. It seems
to have all the soothing charm of the tobacco-plant, without its
inconveniences. Just to see her tranquillity, while she relaxes her
mind and busies her fingers with a bit of tatting or embroidery or
crochet, gives me a sense of being domesticated, a "homey" feeling,
anywhere in the wide world.
|
