第95章

Boston) notwithstanding its partial destruction by fire, is still a good place to start from.When one meditates an excursion into an unknown and perhaps perilous land, where the flag will not protect him and the greenback will only partially support him, he likes to steady and tranquilize his mind by a peaceful halt and a serene start.So we--for the intelligent reader has already identified us with the two travelers resolved to spend the last night, before beginning our journey, in the quiet of a Boston hotel.Some people go into the country for quiet: we knew better.The country is no place for sleep.The general absence of sound which prevails at night is only a sort of background which brings out more vividly the special and unexpected disturbances which are suddenly sprung upon the restless listener.There are a thousand pokerish noises that no one can account for, which excite the nerves to acute watchfulness.

It is still early, and one is beginning to be lulled by the frogs and the crickets, when the faint rattle of a drum is heard,--just a few preliminary taps.But the soul takes alarm, and well it may, for a roll follows, and then a rub-a-dub-dub, and the farmer's boy who is handling the sticks and pounding the distended skin in a neighboring horse-shed begins to pour out his patriotism in that unending repetition of rub-a-dub-dub which is supposed to represent love of country in the young.When the boy is tired out and quits the field, the faithful watch-dog opens out upon the stilly night.He is the guardian of his master's slumbers.The howls of the faithful creature are answered by barks and yelps from all the farmhouses for a mile around, and exceedingly poor barking it usually is, until all the serenity of the night is torn to shreds.This is, however, only the opening of the orchestra.The cocks wake up if there is the faintest moonshine and begin an antiphonal service between responsive barn-yards.It is not the clear clarion of chanticleer that is heard in the morn of English poetry, but a harsh chorus of cracked voices, hoarse and abortive attempts, squawks of young experimenters, and some indescribable thing besides, for I believe even the hens crow in these days.Distracting as all this is, however, happy is the man who does not hear a goat lamenting in the night.The goat is the most exasperating of the animal creation.He cries like a deserted baby, but he does it without any regularity.One can accustom himself to any expression of suffering that is regular.The annoyance of the goat is in the dreadful waiting for the uncertain sound of the next wavering bleat.It is the fearful expectation of that, mingled with the faint hope that the last was the last, that ag-gravates the tossing listener until he has murder in his heart.

He longs for daylight, hoping that the voices of the night will then cease, and that sleep will come with the blessed morning.But he has forgotten the birds, who at the first streak of gray in the east have assembled in the trees near his chamber-window, and keep up for an hour the most rasping dissonance,--an orchestra in which each artist is tuning his instrument, setting it in a different key and to play a different tune: each bird recalls a different tune, and none sings "Annie Laurie,"--to pervert Bayard Taylor's song.

Give us the quiet of a city on the night before a journey.As we mounted skyward in our hotel, and went to bed in a serene altitude, we congratulated ourselves upon a reposeful night.It began well.

But as we sank into the first doze, we were startled by a sudden crash.Was it an earthquake, or another fire? Were the neighboring buildings all tumbling in upon us, or had a bomb fallen into the neighboring crockery-store? It was the suddenness of the onset that startled us, for we soon perceived that it began with the clash of cymbals, the pounding of drums, and the blaring of dreadful brass.

It was somebody's idea of music.It opened without warning.The men composing the band of brass must have stolen silently into the alley about the sleeping hotel, and burst into the clamor of a rattling quickstep, on purpose.The horrible sound thus suddenly let loose had no chance of escape; it bounded back from wall to wall, like the clapping of boards in a tunnel, rattling windows and stunning all cars, in a vain attempt to get out over the roofs.But such music does not go up.What could have been the intention of this assault we could not conjecture.It was a time of profound peace through the country; we had ordered no spontaneous serenade, if it was a serenade.Perhaps the Boston bands have that habit of going into an alley and disciplining their nerves by letting out a tune too big for the alley, and taking the shock of its reverberation.It may be well enough for the band, but many a poor sinner in the hotel that night must have thought the judgment day had sprung upon him.Perhaps the band had some remorse, for by and by it leaked out of the alley, in humble, apologetic retreat, as if somebody had thrown something at it from the sixth-story window, softly breathing as it retired the notes of "Fair Harvard."The band had scarcely departed for some other haunt of slumber and weariness, when the notes of singing floated up that prolific alley, like the sweet tenor voice of one bewailing the prohibitory movement;and for an hour or more a succession of young bacchanals, who were evidently wandering about in search of the Maine Law, lifted up their voices in song.Boston seems to be full of good singers; but they will ruin their voices by this night exercise, and so the city will cease to be attractive to travelers who would like to sleep there.

But this entertainment did not last the night out.