Just
Before It Reaches The Falls In Billerica, It Is Contracted, And
Becomes Swifter And Shallower, With A Yellow Pebbly Bottom,
Hardly Passable For A Canal-Boat, Leaving The Broader And More
Stagnant Portion Above Like A Lake Among The Hills.
All through
the Concord, Bedford, and Billerica meadows we had heard no
murmur from its stream, except where some tributary runnel
tumbled in, -
Some tumultuous little rill,
Purling round its storied pebble,
Tinkling to the selfsame tune,
From September until June,
Which no drought doth e'er enfeeble.
Silent flows the parent stream,
And if rocks do lie below,
Smothers with her waves the din,
As it were a youthful sin,
Just as still, and just as slow.
But now at length we heard this staid and primitive river rushing
to her fall, like any rill. We here left its channel, just above
the Billerica Falls, and entered the canal, which runs, or rather
is conducted, six miles through the woods to the Merrimack, at
Middlesex, and as we did not care to loiter in this part of our
voyage, while one ran along the tow-path drawing the boat by a
cord, the other kept it off the shore with a pole, so that we
accomplished the whole distance in little more than an hour.
This canal, which is the oldest in the country, and has even an
antique look beside the more modern railroads, is fed by the
Concord, so that we were still floating on its familiar waters.
It is so much water which the river _lets_ for the advantage of
commerce. There appeared some want of harmony in its scenery,
since it was not of equal date with the woods and meadows through
which it is led, and we missed the conciliatory influence of time
on land and water; but in the lapse of ages, Nature will recover
and indemnify herself, and gradually plant fit shrubs and flowers
along its borders. Already the kingfisher sat upon a pine over
the water, and the bream and pickerel swam below. Thus all works
pass directly out of the hands of the architect into the hands of
Nature, to be perfected.
It was a retired and pleasant route, without houses or
travellers, except some young men who were lounging upon a bridge
in Chelmsford, who leaned impudently over the rails to pry into
our concerns, but we caught the eye of the most forward, and
looked at him till he was visibly discomfited. Not that there
was any peculiar efficacy in our look, but rather a sense of
shame left in him which disarmed him.
It is a very true and expressive phrase, "He looked daggers at
me," for the first pattern and prototype of all daggers must have
been a glance of the eye. First, there was the glance of Jove's
eye, then his fiery bolt, then, the material gradually hardening,
tridents, spears, javelins, and finally, for the convenience of
private men, daggers, krisses, and so forth, were invented.
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