THIRD YEAR

305

eagerness, like candidates climbing a hickery-pole, all wrapping, and interlacing, and interweaving trunks, boughs, branches, arms, roots and shoots, till no eye could tell whether, for instance, the creeper produced the thorn, or the thorn the creeper, or the vine the scrub-oak, or the oak the grapes   and till the shaking, or pulling, or touching, of a single branch, vine, root, or briar shook a thousand!   ay! like the casting of a pebble into a lake, till it disturbed in some degree the whole immensity of the thicket! And so all, in sheer rage, malice, and vexation, sent forth all manners, kinds and sorts of prickers and scratchers, and thorns, and scarifiers; and began to bear all manners and kinds and sorts of flowers, and poisonous berries, and grapes!

In places, a black walnut, or hackberry, or sycamore, having like a Pelagian, an intrinsic virtue had got the start of nature by a few hours at the beginning of the swamp; and had ever since kept a head so elevated as now to be overlooking miles around of the mazy world below, and presenting a trunk and boughs so wrapped in vines and parasites as to form a thicket within a thicket, an intiperium in imperio; while coiled and wreathed there into fantastic twistings, immense serpentine grape vines seemed like boas and anacondas, ready to enfold and crush their victims! Nay, in every labyrinth were concealed worlds of insects, reptiles, and winged creatures; and some, judging from their hisses, and growls, and mutterings, as they darted from one concealment to another at the strange invasion of their dens and lairs, were doubtless formidable in aspect, and not innoxious in bites and stings.

Through this apparently impervious wilderness of the woven world twist, however, we did   onward, as Uncle John said. I thought it was a vain struggle, like striving to free one's self from the meshes of a giant's net! Yet I kept close in the rear of his horse; for Mr. Seymour insisted on being pilot, and politeness yields to elders even in wriggling through a swamp. But what need be told our contrivances to work through? Never in words can be painted the drawing up of our legs!   the shrinking of our bodies   the condensation of our arms!   the bowings down of our heads, with compressed lips and shut eyes! But still we talked thus: