Chapter 9 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."

* * *