Then, when
supper was done and we had written the journal of our voyage, we
wrapped our buffaloes about us and lay down with our heads
pillowed on our arms listening awhile to the distant baying of a
dog, or the murmurs of the river, or to the wind, which had not
gone to rest: -
The western wind came lumbering in,
Bearing a faint Pacific din,
Our evening mail, swift at the call
Of its Postmaster General;
Laden with news from Californ',
Whate'er transpired hath since morn,
How wags the world by brier and brake
From hence to Athabasca Lake; -
or half awake and half asleep, dreaming of a star which glimmered
through our cotton roof. Perhaps at midnight one was awakened by
a cricket shrilly singing on his shoulder, or by a hunting spider
in his eye, and was lulled asleep again by some streamlet purling
its way along at the bottom of a wooded and rocky ravine in our
neighborhood. It was pleasant to lie with our heads so low in
the grass, and hear what a tinkling ever-busy laboratory it was.
A thousand little artisans beat on their anvils all night long.
Far in the night as we were falling asleep on the bank of the
Merrimack, we heard some tyro beating a drum incessantly, in
preparation for a country muster, as we learned, and we thought
of the line, -
"When the drum beat at dead of night."
We could have assured him that his beat would be answered, and
the forces be mustered.
