Nay,
Townships Are Granted To Deserters, And The General Court, As I
Am Sometimes Inclined To Regard It, Is But A Deserters' Camp
Itself.
As we rowed along near the shore of Wicasuck Island, which was
then covered with wood, in order to
Avoid the current, two men,
who looked as if they had just run out of Lowell, where they had
been waylaid by the Sabbath, meaning to go to Nashua, and who now
found themselves in the strange, natural, uncultivated, and
unsettled part of the globe which intervenes, full of walls and
barriers, a rough and uncivil place to them, seeing our boat
moving so smoothly up the stream, called out from the high bank
above our heads to know if we would take them as passengers, as
if this were the street they had missed; that they might sit and
chat and drive away the time, and so at last find themselves in
Nashua. This smooth way they much preferred. But our boat was
crowded with necessary furniture, and sunk low in the water, and
moreover required to be worked, for even _it_ did not progress
against the stream without effort; so we were obliged to deny
them passage. As we glided away with even sweeps, while the
fates scattered oil in our course, the sun now sinking behind the
alders on the distant shore, we could still see them far off over
the water, running along the shore and climbing over the rocks
and fallen trees like insects, - for they did not know any better
than we that they were on an island, - the unsympathizing river
ever flowing in an opposite direction; until, having reached the
entrance of the island brook, which they had probably crossed
upon the locks below, they found a more effectual barrier to
their progress.
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