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Butterflies, yellow and white, fluttered around moist places in the ditch, and slender striped water snakes glided across the stagnant pools at sound o~ footsteps. But the mind of the man was far away on his claim, building a new house, with a woman's advice and presence. It was a windless night.
When the site was selected and the work commenced, the whole area, with the exception of the Croton Reservoirs in the upper part, was a barren waste. It was a succession of rocky elevations, stagnant pools, and sandy plains. It was covered with a coarse undergrowth, which simply disfigured it, and was occupied by the miserable shanties of a number of Irish families, known as "squatters."
He had some reason too, though at the time I could not discover it. Now, looking back, I can see into what a stagnant calm I had run. My boyhood should have been over; in body I had shot up to a great awkward height; but for the while the man within me drowsed and hung fire. I lived in the passing day and was content with it.
The Déshima Dutchman was a kindly adviser, helper, guide and friend, the one means of communication with the world, a handful of salt in the stagnant mass. Long before the United States, or Commodore Perry, the Hollanders advised the Yodo government in favor of international intercourse.
It was as clearly reflected as in a looking-glass a little darker, a little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing coolness upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the steep, damp bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded with gold, above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden that could be felt, over our heads.
Look at yonder prematurely old man, doubled up with work, and leaning on a rude stick more crooked than himself, slowly trudging to the club-house, in a shapeless hat like an Italian harlequin's, or an old brown- paper bag, leathern leggings, and dull green smock-frock, looking as though duck-weed had accumulated on it the result of its stagnant life or as if it were a vegetable production, originally meant to blow into something better, but stopped somehow.
It appeared as if no rain had fallen here lately; the water in all these holes was greenish and stagnant, or stagning as Gibson and Jimmy called it. The grass, such as there was, was old, white, and dry.
This was the rocky wall of the deep excavation of a marl-pit, long since abandoned. The arbutus-trees of fantastic shape which covered the summit of these rocks, the pendant vines, the sombre ivy which carpeted the cliffs, the gleaming white stones, the vague reflections in the stagnant pool at the bottom of the pit, the mysterious light of the moon, made a scene of wild beauty.
I made a few remarks about the weather. I commented on the stagnant condition of the war at the moment. The things I said were banal and foolish no doubt, yet I meant well and scarcely deserved the reply which came at last. A man who was playing billiards dropped the butt of his cue on the ground with a bang, surveyed me with a hostile stare and said: "We don't want no parsons here."
Hazel was very sad; borrowed all the books in the ship and read them, and took notes; and when he had done this he was at leisure to read men, and so began to study Hiram Hudson, Joseph Wylie, and others, and take a few notes about them. From these we select some that are better worth the reader's attention than anything we could relate in our own persons at this stagnant part of the story.
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