|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 46
A man of forty, judging him fairly, with long hair curling at the
ends, dramatic eyes, and a forked brown beard like those that were
imposed upon the West some years ago by self-appointed "divine
healers" who succeeded the grasshopper crop. His outward vesture
appeared to be kind of gunny-sacking cut and made into a garment that
would have made the fortune of a London tailor. His long, well-shaped
fingers, delicate nose, and poise of manner raised him high above the
class of hermits who fear water and bury money in oyster-cans in their
caves in spots indicated by rude crosses chipped in the stone wall
above.
The hermit's home was not altogether a cave. The cave was an addition
to the hermitage, which was a rude hut made of poles daubed with clay
and covered with the best quality of rust-proof zinc roofing.
In the house proper there were stone slabs for seats, a rustic
bookcase made of unplaned poplar planks, and a table formed of a
wooden slab laid across two upright pieces of granite--something
between the furniture of a Druid temple and that of a Broadway
beefsteak dungeon. Hung against the walls were skins of wild animals
purchased in the vicinity of Eighth Street and University Place, New
York.
The rear of the cabin merged into the cave. There the hermit cooked
his meals on a rude stone hearth. With infinite patience and an old
axe he had chopped natural shelves in the rocky walls. On them stood
his stores of flour, bacon, lard, talcum-powder, kerosene, baking-
powder, soda-mint tablets, pepper, salt, and Olivo-Cremo Emulsion for
chaps and roughness of the hands and face.
The hermit had hermited there for ten years. He was an asset of the
Viewpoint Inn. To its guests he was second in interest only to the
Mysterious Echo in the Haunted Glen. And the Lover's Leap beat him
only a few inches, flat-footed. He was known far (but not very wide,
on account of the topography) as a. scholar of brilliant intellect
who had forsworn the world because he had been jilted in a love
affair. Every Saturday night the Viewpoint Inn sent to him
surreptitiously a basket of provisions. He never left the immediate
outskirts of his hermitage. Guests of the inn who visited him said
his store of knowledge, wit, and scintillating philosophy were simply
wonderful, you know.
That summer the Viewpoint Inn was crowded with guests. So, on
Saturday nights, there were extra cans of tomatoes, and sirloin steak,
instead of "rounds," in the hermit's basket.
Now you have the material allegations in the case. So, make way for
Romance.
Evidently the hermit expected a visitor. He carefully combed his long
hair and parted his apostolic beard. When the ninety-eight-cent
alarm-clock on a stone shelf announced the hour of five he picked up
his gunny-sacking skirts, brushed them carefully, gathered an oaken
staff, and strolled slowly into the thick woods that surrounded the
hermitage.
He had not long to wait. Up the faint pathway, slippery with its
carpet of pine-needles, toiled Beatrix, youngest and fairest of the
famous Trenholme sisters. She was all in blue from hat to canvas
pumps, varying in tint from the shade of the tinkle of a bluebell at
daybreak on a spring Saturday to the deep hue of a Monday morning at
nine when the washer-woman has failed to show up.
Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles and
sighed. The hermit, on the q. t., removed a grass burr from the
ankle of one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one.
She blued--and almost starched and ironed him--with her cobalt eyes.
"It must be so nice," she said in little, tremulous gasps, "to be a
hermit, and have ladies climb mountains to talk to you."
The hermit folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix, with a
sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like a bluebird upon
her nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feet rather awkwardly
under his gunny-sacking.
"It must be nice to be a mountain," said he, with ponderous lightness,
"and have angels in blue climb up you instead of flying over you."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|