The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862, page 109 by Various Authors
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d with the bear--the hero of many a dramatic fable--would, in the forests of the Old World, and in prolific Old World fancies, have been wrought into pretty legends or traditions for after-ages. I might have figured as the
'Forsaken, woful, solitary maid, In wilderness and wasteful deserts strayed,'
set on by the 'ramping beast;' and for the knight? why, it would be easy to convert the wanderer I descried on the summit of Mount Washington, into a lover and deliverer, whose 'allegiance and fast fealty' had bound him to my trail. But, alas! there is no leisure in this material age for fancy-weaving; and all our way was as bare of tradition or fable as if no human footstep had impressed it, till we came to a brawling stream near Davis's, crossing the way, which we were told was called 'Nancy's Brook.' We heard various renderings of the origin of the name, but all ended in one source--man's perjury and woman's trust. A poor girl, some said, had come with a woodsman, a collier, or tree-feller, and lived with him in the mountains, toiling for him, and 'singing to him,' no doubt, 'when she his evening food did dress,' till he grew tired, and one day went forth and did not come back; and day after day she waited, but her Theseus did not return, and she was starved to death on the brink of the little brook that henceforward was to murmur her tragic tale.
The sun was set to us behind the ridge of Mount Willard, when we reached the 'Willey Slide,' and Alice and I walked the last two miles to the 'Mountain Notch.' Just after we alighted from the wagon, and while we were yet close to it, at a turn in the road I perceived a pedestrian traveler before us, who, seeming startled by the sound of our wheels, sprang lightly over the fence. I involuntarily withdrew my arm from Alice's, and stood still, gazing after him for the half-instant that passed before he disappeared in the forest.
'Are you frightened?' said Alice; 'this is a lonely road; shall I hail the wagon?'
'Oh! no,' I replied.
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