Chapter XV: The Hermit

"Do you know," exclaimed Ruth, "I feel as if I were in an enchanted forest, and these strange people were witches and wizards! The robber might have been a wood-elf, and now here comes the old witch. Perhaps she will turn us into trees and animals."

"Oh, that is old Jennie, who gathers herbs and sells them at all the drugstores in the towns around here," replied Stephen, as a strange figure came into view.

The gatherer of herbs and roots was not, however, very witchlike in appearance. She was tall and erect, and walked with long strides like a grenadier. What was most remarkable about her were her wide, staring blue eyes, like patches of sky, that looked far beyond the young people who had grouped themselves at the side of the path almost timidly, waiting for her to come up. She carried with her a staff, and as she walked she poked the bushes and grasses with it as if it had been a long finger feeling for trophies. The other hand grasped the end of an apron made of an old sack, stuffed full of herbs still green, and fragrant from having been bruised as she crushed them into the bag.

"She is blind," whispered Stephen, "but in a minute she will perceive that some one is near. She has a scent as keen as a hunting dog's."

A few yards away from them old Jennie paused and sniffed the air like an animal. Reaching out with her stick she felt around her. Presently the staff pointed in the direction of the boys and girls, and she came toward them as straight as a hunter after his quarry. The girls, a little frightened, started to draw back.

"She won't hurt you," whispered Stephen. "Why, Jennie," he said in a louder voice, "don't you know your old friend and playmate?"

A smile broke out on Jennie's handsome face, which, in spite of her age, was as smooth and placid as a child's.

"It's Master Stephen!" she cried, in a strange voice that sounded rusty from lack of use. "I be glad to hear you, sir. It's a long time since we've had a frolic in the woods. You don't hunt birds' nests in the summer now, or go wading in the streams. I found a wasps' nest for you, perhaps it was a month, perhaps a year ago, I cannot remember. But I saved it for you. And how is young Master Martin? He was a little fellow to climb so high for the nests."

"We are both well, Jennie, and you must come over to the hall and see us. We may have something nice for you, there, that will keep you warm when the snow comes."

"Ah, you're a good boy, Master Stephen, and I'll bid ye good day now, and good day to your friends. There be four with you I think," she added in a lower voice, sniffing the air again. "I'll be over on my next trip to the village." Old Jennie moved off as swiftly as she had come, tapping the path with her long stick, her head thrown back as if to see with her nostrils, since her eyes were without sight.

"What a strange old woman!" cried Stephen's companions in one voice.

"And the strangest thing about her," replied Stephen, "is that she has no sense of time. She can't remember whether a thing happened a year ago or month ago, and she thinks Martin and I are still little boys. We haven't hunted birds' nests with her for six years. I have not even seen her for two or three years, but she sniffed me out as quickly as if I always used triple extract of tuberose."

"Where does she live?" asked Bab.

"She lives in a little cabin off in the forest somewhere. Her father and mother were woodcutters. She was born and brought up right here. She doesn't know anything but herbs and roots, and night and day are the same to her. She knows every square foot of this country, and never gets lost. Martin and I used to go about with her when we were little boys, and she was as faithful a nurse as you could possibly find."

"No wonder you love these woods, Stephen," said Bab. "There is so much to do and see in them. I wish we had something better than scrub oak around Kingsbridge."

"Wait until you see the chief treasure of the woods, Barbara, and you'll have even more respect for them."

"Meaning the hermit?" asked Jimmie.

"But he won't tell anything, will he?" demanded Ruth. "Didn't you say he was a mystery?"

"The greatest mystery of the countryside," replied Stephen. "Nobody knows where he came from, nor why he has been living here all these years--it's about fifty, they say. You see, he is not ignorant, like the other wood people. He is a gentleman. His manners are as fine as uncle's, and the people who live in the woods all love him. They come to him when they are sick or in trouble."

"How does he live?" asked Alfred.

"He must have some money hidden away somewhere, for he always has enough to eat, and even to give when others need help. But nobody knows where he keeps it. In a hole in the ground somewhere, I suppose."

While they were talking they had approached a clearing on the side of a hill. Most of the big trees had been cut away, and only the silver birch, "the white ladies," as old Adam had christened them, and the dogwood, mingled their shade over the smooth turf. The grass was as thick and well kept as on the major's lawn, only somewhat browned now for lack of water. All the bushes and undergrowth had been cleared away years before, and the place had a lived-in, homelike look in contrast to the great black forest that seemed to be crouching at its feet like a monster guarding it from the enemy. And indeed, that must have been what the mysterious man had intended when he built his little house at the top of the hill, for five miles of woods intervened between him and the outer world on one side, while on the other, was a high precipice that marked the end of the forest.

The house, a log cabin with a big stone chimney at one end, commanded a view, from the back, of a long stretch of valley. The portico in front was shaded by honeysuckle vines. Here, in an old-fashioned armchair, sat the master smoking a meerschaum pipe.

Stephen approached somewhat diffidently, taking off his cap.

"May we rest here a little, sir?" he asked. "We have walked a long way this morning."

"You are most welcome," said the old man in a deep, musical voice that gave the young people a thrill of pleasure. They looked at him curiously. He was tall and erect, with a beak-nose and black eyes that still had some of their youthful fire in them, despite the man's great age and his snow white hair.

"Come in, and we will bring some chairs out for the young ladies."

Stephen followed their host into the house while, through the open door, the others caught a glimpse of an enormous open fireplace and walls lined with books. The girls took the proffered chairs and sat down rather stiffly, while the old man reappeared, carrying a bucket and a gourd.

"Perhaps you are thirsty. Will you draw some water from the well?" he asked, turning to Stephen. He stopped abruptly and looked closely at the boy. "Why, it's little Stephen," he exclaimed, and with an expression half of pain, half pleasure, he added, "grown to be a man and how like"----But he paused and turned hastily away.

"I am glad to see you, sir," replied Stephen, politely. He never knew exactly how to address the hermit, and he found not knowing his name somewhat awkward. "May I introduce my friends? Miss Ruth Stuart, Miss Barbara Thurston, Alfred Marsdale and Jimmie Butler."

The old man bowed to the company as gracefully as if he had been receiving guests in a fine mansion.

"The names are," he repeated gently, "Miss Ruth Stuart and--did I hear you aright--Miss----?"

"Barbara Thurston," finished Stephen.

"Barbara Thurston?" repeated the old man under his breath. "Barbara Thurston! Come here, my child, and let me look at you," he added, in an agitated voice.

Barbara obediently came forward and stood before the hermit, who had covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, as if he were afraid to see her face.

"Barbara Thurston!" he exclaimed again. "Little Barbara!" And drawing from his pocket a pair of horn spectacles, he put them on and examined her features. He seemed to have forgotten the others. Suddenly he removed the spectacles and looked up in a dazed way.

"On the very day! The very day!" he cried, and waving his arms over his head in a wild appeal to heaven, he turned and rushed down the hillside. In another moment the forest had swallowed him up, while the five young people stood staring after him in amazement.

"Well, of all the rummy old chaps!" exclaimed Alfred.

"Oh, he's touched of course," said Stephen, tapping his head. "He must be. You know old Adam said he's always pretty bad at this time of the year. I suppose it is the anniversary of something. But, Barbara, what do you mean by going and stirring up memories?"

"It wasn't I; it was my name," replied Barbara. "Once there was a girl named Barbara, but the rest of the story can never be written, because he won't tell what it is."

"Let's have a peep at the house before we go," said Jimmie, "and then let's eat. I'm starving."

"All right," said Stephen. "Step right in and have a look for yourselves, but hurry up before the old gentleman comes back."

The place was certainly comfortable and cosy-looking, in spite of the wooden walls and bare floors. It was spick and span and clean, kept that way by Adam's wife, Stephen explained. There were a great many books, some of them in foreign languages, two big easy-chairs near the open fireplace, and on an old mahogany table, the only other piece of furniture in the room, a brown earthenware jar filled with honeysuckle. Only one picture hung on the wall, a small miniature suspended from a nail just over the pot of flowers. Ruth examined the picture closely. Besides his books, she thought, this little miniature was perhaps the only link with the outer world that the old man had permitted himself to keep.

"Come here, everybody, quick," she called, "and look at this miniature. As I live, it's enough like Bab to be a picture of her, except for the old-fashioned dress and long ringlets."

They looked at the picture carefully, taking it down from its nail in order to see it in the light.

"My word!" exclaimed Jimmie. "It's as good a likeness as you could wish to find. It must have been the resemblance that gave the old man the fit, then, and not the name."

The miniature showed the face of a young girl, somewhat older than Barbara, but certainly very like her in features and expression. She had the same laughing mouth and frank, brown eyes, the same chestnut hair curling in crisp ringlets around the forehead, but caught up loosely in the back in a net and tied with a velvet snood. She wore a bodice of rose-colored taffeta cut low in the neck, and fastened coquettishly among the curls was a pink flower.

"Who is it, Barbara?" asked Stephen. "Have you any idea?"

"I can't imagine," replied Bab. "Perhaps it's just a coincidence. I am not an uncommon type and may have lots of doubles. There are many people in this world who have brown eyes and brown hair. You meet them at every turn."

"Yes," said Ruth, "but all of them haven't regular features and little crisp curls, and just that particular expression. However, we must go. We shouldn't like the hermit to come back and find us prying into his affairs. And that is why he is here, evidently--to hide from pryers."

"Yes," agreed Stephen, "I really do think we had better be going. I know a pretty little dell where we can eat lunch if Jimmie can restrain his appetite until we get there."

"Well, cut along, then," ordered Jimmie, "and let us hasten to the banquet hall."

Closing the door carefully behind them the young folks hurried toward the woodcutters' road.