A SHELTER IN THE FOREST
Certainly the house of the hermit, for such he undoubtedly was, proved a
remarkable place. There was no regular form to the room in which Frank
and Constance found themselves, nor could they judge as to its size. Its
outlines blended into vague shadows, evidently conforming to the
position of the growing trees which constituted its supports. The walls
were composed of logs of varying lengths, adjusted to the spaces between
the trees, intermingled with stones and smaller branches, the whole
cemented or mud-plastered together in a concrete mass. At the corner of
the fireplace, and used as one end of it, was a larger flat stone, which
became not only a part of the wall but served as a wide shelf or table
within, and this, covered with skins, supported a large wooden bowl of
nuts, a stone hammer somewhat resembling a tomahawk, a few well-worn
books, also a field glass in a leather case, such as tourists use. On a
heavy rustic mantel were numerous bits and tokens of the forest, and
suspended above it, on wooden hooks, was a handsome rifle. On the
hearth below was a welcome blaze, with a heavy wooden settle, wide of
seat, upon which skins were thrown, drawn up comfortably before the
fire. The other furniture in the room consisted of a high-backed
armchair, a wooden table, and what might have been a bench, outlined in
the dimness of a far corner where the ceiling seemed to descend almost
to the ground, and did, in fact, join the top of a low mound which
formed the wall on that side. But what seemed most remarkable in this
singular dwelling-place were the living trees which here and there like
columns supported the roof. The heavy riven shingles and a thatching of
twisted grass had been fitted closely about them above, and the hewn or
puncheon floor was carefully joined around them below. Lower limbs had
been converted into convenient hooks, while attached here and there near
the ceiling were several rustic, nest-like receptacles, showing a fringe
of grass and leaves. As Frank and Constance entered this strange shelter
there had been a light scurrying of shadowy forms, a whisking into these
safe retreats, and now, as the strangers stood in the cheerful glow of
the fire and the sputtering pine-knot, they were regarded not only by
the hermit, but by a score or more of other half-curious, half-timid
eyes that shone bright out of the vague dimness behind. The ghostly
scampering, the shadowy flitting, and a small, subdued chatter from the
dusk enhanced in the minds of the visitors a certain weird impression of
the place and constrained their speech. There was no sensation of fear.
It was only a vague uneasiness, or rather that they felt themselves
harsh and unwarranted intruders upon a habitation and a life in which
they had no part. Their host broke the silence.
"You must needs pardon the demeanor of my little friends," he said.
"They are unaccustomed to strangers." He indicated the settle, and
added: "Be seated. You are weary, without doubt, and your clothes seem
damp." Then he noticed the basket and the large fish at Frank's belt. "A
fine trout," he said; "I have not seen so large a one for years."
Frank nodded with an anxious interest.
"Would you like it?" he asked. "I have a basketful besides, and would it
be possible--could we, I mean, manage to cook a few of them? I am very
hungry, and I am sure my companion, Miss Deane, would like a bite
also."
Constance had dropped down on the settle, and was leaning toward the
fire--her hands outspread before it.
"I am famished," she confessed, and added, "oh, and will you let me cook
the fish? I can do it quite well."
The hermit did not immediately reply to the question.
"Miss Deane," he mused; "that is your name, then?"
"Yes, Constance Deane, and this is Mr. Frank Weatherby. We have been
lost on the mountain all day without food. We shall be so thankful if
you will let us prepare something, and will then put us on the trail
that leads to Spruce Lodge."
The hermit stirred the fire to a brighter blaze and laid on a fresh
piece of wood.
"That will I do right gladly," he said, "if you will accept my humble
ways. Let me take the basket; I will set about the matter."
Gladly enough Frank unloosed his burden, and surrendered the big trout
and the basket to his host. As the latter turned away from the fire a
dozen little forms frisked out of the shadows behind and ran over him
lightly, climbing to his shoulders, into his pockets, clinging on to
his curious dress wherever possible--chattering, and still regarding
the strange intruders with bright, inquisitive eyes. They were tiny red
squirrels, it seemed, and their home was here in this nondescript
dwelling with this eccentric man. Suddenly the hermit spoke to them--an
unknown word with queer intonation. In an instant the little bevy of
chatterers leaped away from him, scampering back to their retreats.
Frank, who stood watching, saw a number of them go racing to a tree of
goodly size and disappear into a hole near the floor.
The hermit turned, smiling a little, and the firelight fell on his face.
For the first time Frank noticed the refinement and delicacy of the
meager features. The hermit said:
"That is their outlet. The tree is hollow, and there is another opening
above the roof. In winter the birds use it, too."
He disappeared now into what seemed to be another apartment, shutting a
door behind. Frank dropped down on the settle by Constance, thoroughly
tired, stretched out his legs, and gave himself up to the comfort of the
warm glow.
"Isn't it all wonderful?" murmured Constance. "It is just a dream, of
course. We are not really here, and I shall wake up presently. I had
just such fancies when I was a child. Perhaps I am still wandering in
that awful mist, and this is the delirium. Oh, are you sure we are
really here?"
"Quite sure," said Frank. "And it seems just a matter of course to me. I
have known all along that this wood was full of mysteries--enchantments,
and hermits, and the like. Probably there are many such things if we
knew where to look for them."
The girl's voice dropped still lower.
"How quaintly he talks. It is as if he had stepped out of some old
book."
Frank nodded toward the stone shelf by the fire.
"He lives chiefly in books, I fancy, having had but one other visitor."
The young man lifted one of the worn volumes and held it to the light.
It was a copy of Shakespeare's works--a thick book, being a complete
edition of the plays. He laid it back tenderly.
"He dwells with the men and women of the master," he said, softly.
There followed a little period of silence, during which they drank in
the cheer and comfort of the blazing hearth. Outside, the thunder
rolled heavily now and then, and the rain beat against the door. What
did it matter? They were safe and sheltered, and together. Constance
asked presently: "What time is it?" And, looking at his watch, Frank
replied:
"A little after three. An hour ago we were wandering up there in the
mist. It seems a year since then, and a lifetime since I took that big
trout."
"It is ages since I started this morning," mused Constance. "Yet we
divide each day into the same measurements, and by the clock it is only
a little more than six hours."
"It is nine since I left the Lodge," reflected Frank, "after a very
light and informal breakfast at the kitchen door. Yes, I am willing to
confess that such time should not be measured in the ordinary way."
There was a sharper crash of thunder and a heavier gust of rain. Then a
fierce downpour that came to them in a steady, muffled roar.
"When shall we get home?" Constance asked, anxiously.
"We won't worry, now. Likely this is only a shower. It will not take
long to get down the mountain, once we're in the trail, and it's light,
you know, until seven."
The door behind was pushed open and the hermit re-entered. He bore a
flat stone and a wooden bowl, and knelt down with them before the fire.
The glowing embers he heaped together and with the aid of a large pebble
set the flat stone at an angle before them. Then from the wooden bowl he
emptied a thick paste of coarse meal upon the baking stone, and smoothed
it with a wooden paddle.
Rising he said:
"I fear my rude ways will not appetize you, but I can only offer you
what cheer I have."
The aroma of the cooking meal began to fill the room.
"Please don't apologize," pleaded Constance. "My only hope is that I can
restrain myself until the food is ready."
"I'll ask you to watch the bread for a moment," the hermit said, turning
the stone a little.
"And if I let it burn you may punish me as the goodwife did King
Alfred," answered Constance. Then a glow came into her cheeks that was
not all of the fire, for the man's eyes--they were deep, burning
eyes--were fixed upon her, and he seemed to hang on her every word. Yet
he smiled without replying, and again disappeared.
"Conny," admonished Frank, "if you let anything happen to that cake I'll
eat the stone."
So they watched the pone carefully, turning it now and then, though the
embers glowed very hot and a certain skill was necessary.
The hermit returned presently with a number of the trout dressed, and
these were in a frying-pan that had a long wooden handle, which
Constance and Frank held between them, while their host installed two
large potatoes in the hot ashes. Then he went away for a little and
placed some things on the table in the middle of the room, returning now
and then to superintend matters. And presently the fish and the cakes
and the potatoes were ready, and the ravenous wanderers did not wait to
be invited twice to partake of them. The thunder still rolled at
intervals and the rain still beat at the door, but they did not heed.
Within, the cheer, if not luxurious, was plenteous and grateful. The
table furnishings were rude and chiefly of home make. But the guests
were young, strong of health and appetite, and no king's table could
have supplied goodlier food. Oh, never were there such trout as those,
never such baked potatoes, nor never such hot, delicious hoecake. And
beside each plate stood a bowl of fruit--berries--delicious fresh
raspberries of the hills.
Presently their host poured a steaming liquid into each of the empty
cups by their plates.
"Perhaps you will not relish my tea," he said, "but it is soothing and
not harmful. It is drawn from certain roots and herbs I have gathered,
and it is not ill-tasting. Here is sweet, also; made from the maple
tree."
An aromatic odor arose from the cups, and, when Constance tasted the
beverage and added a lump of the sugar, she declared the result
delicious--a decision in which Frank willingly concurred.
The host himself did not join the feast, and presently fell to cooking
another pan of trout. It was a marvel how they disappeared. Even the
squirrels came out of their hiding places to witness this wonderful
feasting, a few bolder ones leaping upon the table, as was their wont,
to help themselves from a large bowl of cracked nuts. And all this
delighted the visitors. Everything was so extraordinary, so simple and
near to nature, so savoring of the romance of the old days. This wide,
rambling room with its recesses lost in the shadows; the low, dim roof
supported by its living columns; the glowing fireplace and the blazing
knot; the wild pelts scattered here and there, and the curious skin-clad
figure in the firelight--certainly these were things to stir
delightfully the heart of youth, to set curious fancies flitting through
the brain.
"Oh," murmured Constance, "I wish we might stay in a place like this
forever!" Then, reddening, added hastily, "I mean--I mean----"
"Yes," agreed Frank, "I mean that, too--and I wish just the same. We
could have fish every day, and such hoecake, and this nice tea, and I
would pick berries like these, and you could gather mushrooms. And we
would have squirrels to amuse us, and you would read to me, and perhaps
I should write poems of the hills and the storms and the haunted woods,
and we could live so close to nature and drink so deeply of its ever
renewing youth that old age could not find us, and we should live on and
on and be always happy--happy ever after."
The girl's hand lay upon the table, and when his heavier palm closed
over it she did not draw it away.
"I can almost love you when you are like this," she whispered.
"And if I am always like this----?"
They spoke very low, and the hermit sat in the high-back chair, bowed
and staring into the blaze. Yet perhaps something of what they said
drifted to his ear--perhaps it was only old and troubling memories
stirring within him that caused him to rise and walk back and forth
before the fire.
His guests had finished now, and they came back presently to the big,
deep settle, happy in the comfort of plenteous food, the warmth and the
cosy seat, and the wild unconvention of it all. The beat of the rain did
not trouble them. Secretly they were glad of any excuse for remaining by
the hermit's hearth.
Their host did not appear to notice them at first, but paced a turn up
and down, then seated himself in the high-backed chair and gazed into
the embers. A bevy of the little squirrels crept up and scaled his knees
and shoulders, but with that curious note of warning he sent them
scampering. The pine knot sputtered low and he tossed it among the
coals, where it renewed its blaze. For a time there was silence, with
only the rain sobbing at the door. Then by and by--very, very softly,
as one who muses aloud--he spoke: "I, too, have had my dreams--dreams
which were ever of happiness for me--and for another; happiness that
would not end, yet which was to have no more than its rare beginning.
"That was a long time ago--as many as thirty years, maybe. I have kept
but a poor account of time, for what did it matter here?"
He turned a little to Constance.
"Your face and voice, young lady, bring it all back now, and stir me to
speak of it again--the things of which I have spoken to no one
before--not even to Robin."
"To Robin!" The words came involuntarily from Constance.
"Yes, Robin Farnham, now of the Lodge. He found his way here once, just
as you did. It was in his early days on the mountains, and he came to me
out of a white mist, just as you came, and I knew him for her son."
Constance started, but the words on her lips were not uttered.
"I knew him for her son," the hermit continued, "even before he told me
his name, for he was her very picture, and his voice--the voice of a
boy--was her voice. He brought her back to me--he made her live
again--here, in this isolated spot, even as she had lived in my
dreams--even as a look in your face and a tone in your voice have made
her live for me again to-day."
There was something in the intensity of the man's low speech, almost
more than in what he said, to make the listener hang upon his words.
Frank, who had drawn near Constance, felt that she was trembling, and he
laid his hand firmly over hers, where it rested on the seat beside him.
"Yet I never told him," the voice went on, "I never told Robin that I
knew him--I never spoke his mother's name. For I had a fear that it
might sadden him--that the story might send him away from me. And I
could have told nothing unless I told it all, and there was no need. So
I spoke to him no word of her, and I pledged him to speak to no one of
me. For if men knew, the curious would come and I would never have my
life the same again. So I made him promise, and after that first time he
came as he chose. And when he is here she who was a part of my happy
dream lives again in him. And to you I may speak of her, for to you it
does not matter, and it is in my heart now, when my days are not many,
to recall old dreams."