and the paler tints of feathery pines. Here and there, from damp, springy places, dark hemlocks rose out of the mass, tall and majestic, waving their plumy tops, giant sentinels of the wilderness.
Gradually his mood of brooding retrospect changed, and he knew himself to be glad to his heart's core. He could understand why, out of the turmoil of the Middle Ages, men chose to go to sequestered places and become hermits. No tragedies could be in this primeval spot, and here he would rest and build again for the future. He was pleased to sit thus musing, for the climb had taken more strength than he could well spare. His cabin was not yet habitable, for the simple things Doctor Hoyle had accumulated to serve his needs were still locked in well-built cupboards, as he had left them.
Thryng meant soon to go to work, to take out the bed covers and air them, and to find the canvas and nail it over the framework beside the cabin which was to serve as a sleeping apartment. All should be done in time. That was a good framework, strongly built, with the corner posts set deep in the ground to keep it firm on this windswept height, and with a door in the side of the cabin opening into the canvas room. Ah, yes, all that the old doctor did was well and thoroughly done.
His appetite sharpened by the climb and the bracing air, David investigated the contents of one of those melon-shaped baskets which Cassandra had given him when he started for his new home that morning, with little Hoyle as his guide.
Ah, what hospitable kindness they had shown to him, a