A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers - Pennsylvania State ...

we missed the conciliatory influence of time on land and
water; but in the lapse of ages, Nature will recover and indemnify
herself, and gradually plant fit shrubs and flowers
along its borders. Already the kingfisher sat upon a pine over
the water, and the bream and pickerel swam below. Thus all
works pass directly out of the hands of the architect into the
hands of Nature, to be perfected.
It was a retired and pleasant route, without houses or travellers,
except some young men who were lounging upon a
bridge in Chelmsford, who leaned impudently over the rails
to pry into our concerns, but we caught the eye of the most
forward, and looked at him till he was visibly discomfited.
Not that there was any peculiar efficacy in our look, but
rather a sense of shame left in him which disarmed him.
It is a very true and expressive phrase, “He looked daggers
at me,” for the first pattern and prototype of all daggers must
have been a glance of the eye. First, there was the glance of
Jove’s eye, then his fiery bolt, then, the material gradually
hardening, tridents, spears, javelins, and finally, for the convenience
of private men, daggers, krisses, and so forth, were
invented. It is wonderful how we get about the streets with-
A <strong>Week</strong> on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
48
out being wounded by these delicate and glancing weapons,
a man can so nimbly whip out his rapier, or without being
noticed carry it unsheathed. Yet it is rare that one gets seriously
looked at.
As we passed under the last bridge over the canal, just before
reaching the Merrimack, the people coming out of
church paused to look at us from above, and apparently, so
strong is custom, indulged in some heathenish comparisons;
but we were the truest observers of this sunny day. According
to Hesiod,
“The seventh is a holy day,
For then Latona brought forth golden-rayed Apollo,”
and by our reckoning this was the seventh day of the week,
and not the first. I find among the papers of an old Justice of
the Peace and Deacon of the town of Concord, this singular
memorandum, which is worth preserving as a relic of an
ancient custom. After reforming the spelling and grammar,
it runs as follows: “Men that travelled with teams on the
Sabbath, Dec. 18th, 1803, were Jeremiah Richardson and