May she draw a husband
while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old!--Hold out your vessel,
my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at
your sweet image in the pitcher as you go, and forget not in a glass
of my own liquor to drink "SUCCESS TO THE TOWN-PUMP."
THE GREAT CARBUNCLE.[1]
A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
At nightfall once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of the
Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing themselves after
a toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had come
thither, not as friends nor partners in the enterprise, but each, save
one youthful pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing
for this wondrous gem. Their feeling of brotherhood, however, was
strong enough to induce them to contribute a mutual aid in building a
rude hut of branches and kindling a great fire of shattered pines that
had drifted down the headlong current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower
bank of which they were to pass the night. There was but one of their
number, perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural sympathies
by the absorbing spell of the pursuit as to acknowledge no
satisfaction at the sight of human faces in the remote and solitary
region whither they had ascended. A vast extent of wilderness lay
between them and the nearest settlement, while scant a mile above
their heads was that bleak verge where the hills throw off their
shaggy mantle of forest-trees and either robe themselves in clouds or
tower naked into the sky.
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