# The Knickerbocker/Volume 1/Number 1/A Ramble in the Woods

Layout 2
A RAMBLE IN THE WOODS ON SUNDAY, AND WHAT THE WRITER SAW AND HEARD THERE.
[BY J. K. PAULDING.]
I frequently spend a sabbath morning in the country, rambling alone in the melancholy woods, sometimes resting myself against the rough bark of a time worn tree; sometimes lingering on the woody heights looking far over the surrounding world; and at others reclining listlessly by the side of some clear brook, over whose rippling way the branches meet, and form nature's choicest canopy. Here I indulge my memory and imagination in a thousand devious wanderings; I recall the distant shadows of departed time that have by degrees faded almost into oblivion, and send my mind on errands to the future; a thousand recollections melancholy, yet exquisitely touching, throng about my heart, and a thousand anticipations beckon me onward in the path I am pursuing through this wayward world. At times I become so completely abstracted from the scenes around, as to forget where I am, and to lose almost the consciousness of being. I ruminate, I ponder, and I dream.
On one of these occasions, about the middle of the sultry month of August, when the dog-star rages, and all nature sinks into a sort of luxurious repose, I had become somewhat tired with a ramble longer than usual, and laid myself listlessly along the margin of a little twittering stream that stole its winding way among the deep obscurities of the wood, diffusing coolness, and inviting to repose. It was Sunday, and it seemed as if nature partook in its holy abstraction from worldly thoughts and worldly occupations. The voice of the plough-man cheering or chiding his team; the rattling of the sonorous wagon over the rough mountain road; the echoes of the wood-man's axe; the explosion of the hunter's gun, and all the customary sounds that give life and animation to rural sports and rural occupations, had ceased. Nay, even the tinkling cowbell, which broke at intervals on the hallowed quiet of the day, seemed to come over me with a softened, mellowed tone, as if fearful of disturbing its repose, and awed by the solemnity of universal silence. Through the arched canopy of foliage that overhung the little stream, I could see it coursing its way on either hand among mossy rocks, glittering as if by moonlight, and disappearing after a thousand meanderings. It is impossible—at least with me it is impossible to resist the influence ​of such a scene. Reflecting beings like ourselves, sink into a sort of melancholy reverie, and even the sprightliness of childhood is repressed, by the hallowed quiet that reigns all around. Guilt awakes from its long oblivion, and innocence becomes saddened with the stillness of nature.
As thus I lay, stretched in languid listlessness along the stream, as quiet as the leaves that breathed not a whisper above me, and gradually sinking into almost unconsciousness of the world and all it holds—the little birds sported about careless of my presence, and the insects pursued that incessant turmoil, which seems never to cense, until winter lays his icy fetters on all nature, and drives them into their inscrutable hiding places. There is a lapse in the recollection of the current of my thoughts at that moment; a short period of forgetfulness, from which I was roused by a hoarse croaking voice, exclaiming:
"Cruel, savage monster, what does he here?"
I looked all around, and could see only a hawk seated on the limb of a dry tree, eyeing me as I fancied with a peculiar expression of hostility. In a few moments I again relapsed into a profound reverie, from which I was awakened once more by a small squeaking whisper:
"I dare say the blood thirsty villain has been setting traps for us."
I looked again, and at first could see nothing from which I supposed the voice might proceed, but at the same time imagined I distinguished a sort of confused whisper, in which many little voices seemed commingled. My curiosity was awakened, and peering about quietly, I found it proceeded from a collection of animals, birds, and insects, gathered together for some unaccountable purpose. They seemed very much excited, and withal in a great passion about something, all talking at once. Listening attentively, I could distinguish one from the other.
"Let us pounce upon the tyrant, and kill him in his sleep," cried a bald eagle, "for he grudges me a miserable little lamb now and then, though I don't require one above once a week. See! where he wounded me in the wing, so that I can hardly get an honest living, by prey."
"Let me scratch his eyes out," screamed a hawk, "for he will not allow me peaceably to carry off a chicken from his barn yard, though I am dying of hunger, and come in open day to claim my natural, indefensible right."
​"Aye, aye," barked a fox; "he interferes in the same base manner with my privileges, though I visit his hen-roost in the night that I may not disturb him."
"Agreed," hissed a rattle-snake, "for he wont let me bite him, though he knows it is my nature, and kills me according to scripture" and thereupon he rattled his tail, curled himself in spiral volumes, and darted his tongue at me in a most fearful manner."
"Agreed," said a great fat spider, who sat in his net, surrounded by the dead bodies of half a dozen insects—"agreed, for the bloody-minded savage takes delight in destroying the fruits of my honest labors, on all occasions."
"By all means," buzzed a great blue-bottle-fly," for he will not let me tickle his nose of a hot summer day, though he must see with half an eye, that it gives me infinite satisfaction."
"Kill him," cried a little ant, who ran fuming and fretting about at a furious rate, "kill him without mercy, for he don't mind treading me into a million of atoms, a bit more than you do killing a fly," addressing himself to the spider.
"The less you say about that the better," whispered the spider.
"Odds fish!" exclaimed a beautiful trout, that I should like very much to have caught, popping his head out of the brook, "odds fish! kill the monster by all means—hook him, I say, for he entices me with worms, and devours me to gratify his insatiable appetite."
"To be sure," said a worm, "kill him as he sleeps, and I'll eat him afterwards; for though I am acknowledged on all hands to be his brother, he impales me alive on a hook, only for his amusement."
"I consent," cooed the dove, "for he has deprived me of my beloved mate, and made me a disconsolate widow." Upon which she began to moan so piteously, that the whole assembly deeply sympathized in her forlorn condition.
"He has committed a million of murders," cried the spider.
"He drowns all my kittens," mewed the cat.
"He tramples upon me without mercy," whispered the toad, "only because I'm no beauty."
"He is a treacherous cunning villain," barked the fox.
"He has no more bowels than a wolf," screamed the hawk.
"He is a bloody tyrant," croaked the eagle.
​"He is the common enemy of all nature, and deserves a hundred and fifty thousand deaths," exclaimed they all with one voice.
I began to be heartily ashamed of myself, and was casting about how I might slip away, from hearing these pleasant reproaches; but curiosity and listlessness together, kept me quiet, while they continued to discuss the best mode of destroying the tyrant. There was as usual in such cases, great diversity of opinion.
"I'll bury my talons in his brain," said the eagle.
"I'll tear out his eyes," screamed the hawk.
"I'll whip him to death with my tail," barked the fox.
"I'll sting him home," hissed the rattle-snake.
"I'll poison him," said the spider.
"I'll fly-blow him," buzzed the fly.
"I'll drown him, if he'll only come into the brook, so I will," quoth the trout.
"I'll drag him into my hole, and do his business there, I warrant," said the ant; and thereupon there was a giggle among the whole set.
And I'll—I'll"—said the worm.
"What will you do, you poor d—l," exelaimed the rest in a titter.
"What will I do? why I'll eat him after he's dead," replied sir worm; and then he strutted about, until he unwarily came so near that he slipt into the brook, and was snapt up in a moment by the trout. The example was contagious.
"Oho! are you for that sport," mewed the cat, and clawed the trout before he could get his head under water.
"Tit for tat," barked Reynard, and snatching pussy up in his teeth, was off like a shot.
"Since 'tis the fashion," said the spider, "I'll have a crack at that same blue-bottle;" and thereupon he nabbed the poor fly in a twinkling.
"By your leave," said the toad, and snapt up the spider in less than no time.
"You ugly thief of the world," hissed the rattle-snake, in great wrath, and indignantly laying hold of the toad, managed to swallow him about half way, where he lay in all his glory.
"What a nice morsel for my poor fatherless little ones," cooed the dove, and peeking at the ant, was just flying away with it in quite a sentimental style, when the hawk seeing this, screamed out—
​"What a pretty plump dove for a dinner! Providence hath ordained I should eat her."
He was carrying her off, when the eagle darted upon him, and soaring to his ærie on the summit of an inaccessible rock, composedly made a meal of both hawk and dove. Then picking his teeth with his claws, he exclaimed with great complacency, "what a glorious thing it is to be king of the birds!"
"Humph," exclaimed I, rubbing my eyes, for it seemed I had been half asleep, "humph, a man is not so much worse than his neighbors after all;" and shaking off the spell that was over me, bent my steps homewards, wondering why it was, that it seemed as if all living things were created for the sole purpose of preying on each other. The only solution which offered itself to my mind was, that the pleasure arising from eating, is much greater than the pain of being and that this propensity to devouring each other, on the whole, conduces to the general happiness.