He stared at her in wonder, but too wistfully. The cat-briers hung
across the opening, and grapevines, like cables of sunken ships, fell
many a fathom through the crystal waves of night; but the North Star
seemed to find a way to peep through everything, and Virgie heard the
words from Hudson, once, of--
"Jess over this branch a bit we is in Delaware!"
Then the crickets and tree-frogs, the bullfrogs and the whippoorwills,
the owls and everything, seemed to drown his voice and halloo for hours,
"We is in Delaware! we is, we is! we is in Del-a-a-ware!"
A little warming, kindly light at length began to blaze their trail
along, as if some gentle predecessor, with a golden adze, had chipped
the funereal trees and made them smile a welcome. Small fires were
burning in the vegetable mould or surface brush, and the opacity of the
forest yielded to the pretty flame which danced and almost sang in a
household crackle, like a young girl in love humming tunes as she
kindles a fire.
The mighty swamp now grew distinct, yet more inaccessible, as its inner
edges seemed transparent in the line of fires, like curtains of lace
against the midnight window-panes. The Virginia creeper, light as the
flounces of a lady, went whirling upward, as if in a dance; the fallen
giant trees were rich in hanging moss; laurel and jasmine appeared
beyond the bubbling surface of long, green morass, where life of some
kind seemed to turn over comfortably in the rising warmth, like sleepers
in bed.
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