Standing beneath the honey-locust tree at the lawn-gate, the sailor
beheld an extensive prospect of the river Nanticoke, bending in a
beautiful curve, like the rim of a silver salver, towards the south, the
blue perspective of the surrounding woods fading into the azure bluffs
on the farther shore, where, as he now identified it, the hamlet of
Sharptown assumed the mystery and similitude of a city by the
enchantment of distance. A large brig was riding up the river under the
afternoon breeze, carrying the English flag at her spanker. The
wild-fowl, flying in V-formed lines, like Hyads astray, flickered on the
salver of the river like house-flies. Some fishermen distantly appeared,
human, yet nearly stationary, as if to enliven a dream, and the bees in
a row of hives kept murmuring near by, increasing the restful sense in
the heart and the ears.
"Why cannot human natur be happy yer, pertickler with its gal--some one
like Ellenory?" Phoebus thought; "why must it git cruel an' desperate
for money, lookin' out on this dancin' water, an' want to turn this
trance into a Pangymonum?"
He crossed the lane to a squatty old structure of brick by the
water-side, and peeped in.
"A still, by smoke!" he said. "If it ain't apple brandy may I forgit my
compass! No, it's peach brandy. Well, anyway, it's hot enough; an' this,
I 'spect, is what started the Pangymonum."
He took a stout drink, and it revived his weakened system, and he bathed
his head in its strong alcohol.
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