ducted a party to the summit of Mount Marcy by the way he had "bushed
out." This was his mountain, and he had a peculiar sense of ownership in
it. In a way, it was holy ground; and he would rather no one should
go on it who did not feel its sanctity. Perhaps it was a sense of some
divine relation in it that made him always speak of it as "Mercy." To
him this ridiculously dubbed Mount Marcy was always "Mount Mercy." By a
like effort to soften the personal offensiveness of the nomenclature
of this region, he invariably spoke of Dix's Peak, one of the southern
peaks of the range, as "Dixie." It was some time since Phelps himself
had visited his mountain; and, as he pushed on through the miles of
forest, we noticed a kind of eagerness in the old man, as of a lover
going to a rendezvous. Along the foot of the mountain flows a clear
trout stream, secluded and undisturbed in those awful solitudes, which
is the "Mercy Brook" of the old woodsman. That day when he crossed it,
in advance of his company, he was heard to say in a low voice, as if
greeting some object of which he was shyly fond, "So, little brook, do I
meet you once more?" and when we were well up the mountain, and emerged
from the last stunted fringe of vegetation upon the rock-bound slope,
I saw Old Phelps, who was still foremost, cast himself upon the ground,
and heard him cry, with an enthusiasm that was intended for no mortal
ear, "I'm with you once again!" His great passion very rarely found
expression in any such theatrical burst. The bare summit that day was
swept by a fierce, cold wind, and lost in an occasional chilling cloud.
Some of the party, exhausted by the climb, and shivering in the rude
wind, wanted a fire kindled and a cup of tea made, and thought this the
guide's business. Fire and tea were far enough from his thought. He had
withdrawn himself quite apart, and wrapped in a ragged blanket, still
and silent as the rock he stood on, was gazing out upon the wilderness
of peaks. The view from Marcy is peculiar. It is without softness or
relief. The narrow valleys are only dark shadows; the lakes are bits
of broken mirror. From horizon to horizon there is a tumultuous sea of
billows turned to stone. You stand upon the highest billow; you command
the situation; you have surprised Nature in a high creative act; the
mighty primal energy has only just become repose. This was a supreme
hour to Old Phelps. Tea! I believe the boys succeeded in kindling a
fire; b