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Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been
left as in the original. No typographical corrections have been made.
Words in italics in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. Words
in bold in the original are surrounded by =equal signs=. The words
"manoeuvres," "phoebe", and "phoebes" use an oe ligature in the
original.




    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                     Books by Mr. Torrey.                     |
    |                                                              |
    |                                                              |
    |               BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.                |
    |               A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.                |
    |                                                              |
    |                                                              |
    |                   HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.                    |
    |                     BOSTON AND NEW YORK.                     |
    |                                                              |
    +--------------------------------------------------------------+




                          A RAMBLER'S LEASE


                                  BY

                           BRADFORD TORREY


     I have known many laboring men that have got good estates in
     this valley.--BUNYAN

     Sunbeams, shadows, butterflies, and birds.--WORDSWORTH


                         BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
                    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
                                 1892




                           Copyright, 1889,
                         BY BRADFORD TORREY.

                        _All rights reserved._


          _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
           Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.




PREFATORY NOTE.


The writer of this little book has found so much pleasure in other men's
woods and fields that he has come to look upon himself as in some sort
the owner of them. Their lawful possessors will not begrudge him this
feeling, he believes, nor take it amiss if he assumes, even in this
public way, to hold _a rambler's lease_ of their property. Should it
please them to do so, they may accept the papers herein contained as a
kind of return, the best he knows how to offer, for the many favors,
alike unproffered and unasked, which he has received at their hands. His
private opinion is that the world belongs to those who enjoy it; and
taking this view of the matter, he cannot help thinking that some of
his more prosperous neighbors would do well, in legal phrase, to perfect
their titles. He would gladly be of service to them in this regard.




CONTENTS.


                                              PAGE
     MY REAL ESTATE                              1

     A WOODLAND INTIMATE                        22

     AN OLD ROAD                                45

     CONFESSIONS OF A BIRD'S-NEST HUNTER        70

     A GREEN MOUNTAIN CORN-FIELD                99

     BEHIND THE EYE                            114

     A NOVEMBER CHRONICLE                      121

     NEW ENGLAND WINTER                        140

     A MOUNTAIN-SIDE RAMBLE                    164

     A PITCH-PINE MEDITATION                   182

     ESOTERIC PERIPATETICISM                   189

     BUTTERFLY PSYCHOLOGY                      206

     BASHFUL DRUMMERS                          214




A RAMBLER'S LEASE.




MY REAL ESTATE.

     Yet some did think that he had little business here.--WORDSWORTH.


Every autumn the town of W---- sends me a tax-bill, a kindly remembrance
for which I never fail of feeling grateful. It is pleasant to know that
after all these years there still remains one man in the old town who
cherishes my memory,--though it be only "this publican." Besides, to
speak frankly, there is a measure of satisfaction in being reminded now
and then of my dignity as a landed proprietor. One may be never so rich
in stocks and bonds, government consols and what not, but, acceptable as
such "securities" are, they are after all not quite the same as a
section of the solid globe itself. True, this species of what we may
call astronomic or planetary property will sometimes prove
comparatively unremunerative. Here in New England (I know not what may
be true elsewhere) there is a class of people whom it is common to hear
gossiped about compassionately as "land poor." But, however scanty the
income to be derived from it, a landed investment is at least
substantial. It will never fail its possessor entirely. If it starve
him, it will offer him a grave. It has the prime quality of permanence.
At the very worst, it will last as long as it is needed. Railroads may
be "wrecked," banks be broken, governments become bankrupt, and we be
left to mourn; but when the earth departs we shall go with it. Yes, the
ancient form of speech is correct,--land is _real_; as the modern phrase
goes, translating Latin into Saxon, land is _the thing_; and though we
can scarcely reckon it among the necessaries of life, since so many do
without it, we may surely esteem it one of the least dispensable of
luxuries.

But I was beginning to speak of my tax-bill, and must not omit to
mention a further advantage of real estate over other forms of property.
It is certain not to be overlooked by the town assessors. Its
proprietor is never shut up to the necessity of either advertising his
own good fortune, or else submitting to pay less than his rightful share
of the public expenses,--a merciful deliverance, for in such a strait,
where either modesty or integrity must go to the wall, it is hard for
human nature to be sure of itself.

To my thinking there is no call upon a man's purse which should be
responded to with greater alacrity than this of the tax-gatherer. In
what cause ought we to spend freely, if not in that of home and country?
I have heard, indeed, of some who do not agree with me in this feeling.
Possibly tax-rates are now and then exorbitant. Possibly, too, my own
view of the subject might be different were my quota of the public levy
more considerable. This year, for instance, I am called upon for
seventy-three cents; if the demand were for as many dollars, who knows
whether I might not welcome it with less enthusiasm? On such a point it
would be unbecoming for me to speak. Enough that even with my fraction
of a dollar I am able to rejoice that I have a share in all the town's
multifarious outlay. If an additional fire-engine is bought, or a new
school-house built, or the public library replenished, it is done in
part out of my pocket.

Here, however, let me make a single exception. I seldom go home (such
language still escapes me involuntarily) without finding that one or
another of the old roads has been newly repaired. I hope that no mill of
my annual seventy or eighty cents goes into work of that sort. The
roads--such as I have in mind--are out of the way and little traveled,
and, in my opinion, were better left to take care of themselves. There
is no artist but will testify that a crooked road is more picturesque
than a straight one; while a natural border of alder bushes,
grape-vines, Roxbury wax-work, Virginia creeper, wild cherry, and such
like is an inexpensive decoration of the very best sort, such as the
Village Improvement Society ought never to allow any highway surveyor to
lay his hands on, unless in some downright exigency. What a
short-sighted policy it is that provides for the comfort of the feet,
but makes no account of those more intellectual and spiritual pleasures
which enter through the eye! It may be answered, I know, that in matters
of general concern it is necessary to consult the greatest good of the
greatest number; and that, while all the inhabitants of the town are
supplied with feet, comparatively few of them have eyes. There is force
in this, it must be admitted. Possibly the highway surveyor (the
highwayman, I was near to writing) is not so altogether wrong in his
"improvements." At all events, it is not worth while for me to make the
question one of conscience, and go to jail rather than pay my taxes, as
Thoreau did. Let it suffice to enter my protest. Whatever others may
desire, for myself, as often as I revisit W----, I wish to be able to
repeat with unction the words of W----'s only poet,[5:1]--

     "How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood!"

And how am I to do that, if the "scenes" have been modernized past
recognition?

My own landed possessions are happily remote from roads. Not till long
after my day will the "tide of progress" bring them "into the market,"
as the real-estate brokers are fond of saying. I have never yet been
troubled with the importunities of would-be purchasers. Indeed, it is a
principal recommendation of woodland property that one's sense of
proprietorship is so little liable to be disturbed. I often reflect how
altered the case would be were my fraction of an acre in some peculiarly
desirable location near the centre of the village. Then I could hardly
avoid knowing that the neighbors were given to speculating among
themselves about my probable selling price; once in a while I should be
confronted with a downright offer; and what assurance could I feel that
somebody would not finally tempt me beyond my strength, and actually buy
me out? As it is, my land is mine; and, unless extreme poverty overtakes
me, mine it is reasonably certain to remain, till death shall separate
us.

Whatever contributes to render life interesting and enjoyable goes so
far toward making difficult its final inevitable surrender; and it must
be confessed that the thought of my wood-lot increases my otherwise
natural regret at being already so well along on my journey. In a sense
I feel my own existence to be bound up with that of my pine-trees; or,
to speak more exactly, that their existence is bound up with mine. For
it is a sort of unwritten but inexorable law in W----, as in fact it
appears to be throughout New England, that no pine must ever be allowed
to reach more than half its normal growth; so that my trees are certain
to fall under the axe as soon as their present owner is out of the way.
I am not much given to superstition. There are no longer any dryads, it
is to be presumed; and if there were, it is not clear that they would be
likely to take up with pines; but for all that, I cherish an almost
affectionate regard for any trees with which I have become familiar. I
have mourned the untimely fate of many; and now, seeing that I have been
entrusted with the guardianship of these few, I hold myself under a kind
of sacred obligation to live as long as possible, for their sakes.

It is now a little less than a fortnight since I paid them a visit. The
path runs through the wood for perhaps half a mile; and, as I sauntered
along, I heard every few rods the thump of falling acorns, though there
was barely wind enough to sway the tree-tops. "Mother Earth has begun
her harvesting in good earnest," I thought. The present is what the
squirrels call a good year. They will laugh and grow fat. Their oak
orchards have seldom done better, the chestnut oaks in particular, the
handsome, rosy-tipped acorns of which are noticeably abundant.

This interesting tree, so like the chestnut itself in both bark and
leaf, is unfortunately not to be found in my own lot; at any rate, I
have never discovered it there, although it grows freely only a short
distance away. But I have never explored the ground with anything like
thoroughness, and, to tell the truth, am not at all certain that I know
just where the boundaries run. In this respect my real estate is not
unlike my intellectual possessions; concerning which