"If we wish to keep him with us,
we must systematically commit at least one crime apiece! Mere
peccadillos will not satisfy him."
Zenobia turned, sidelong, a strange kind of a glance upon me; but,
before I could make out what it meant, we had entered the kitchen,
where, in accordance with the rustic simplicity of our new life, the
supper-table was spread.
IV. THE SUPPER-TABLE
The pleasant firelight! I must still keep harping on it. The
kitchen hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, depth, and spaciousness,
far within which lay what seemed the butt of a good-sized oak-tree,
with the moisture bubbling merrily out at both ends. It was now half
an hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful of substantial sticks,
rendered more combustible by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully
on the smoke-blackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we
cared not what inclemency might rage and roar on the other side of
our illuminated windows. A yet sultrier warmth was bestowed by a
goodly quantity of peat, which was crumbling to white ashes among the
burning brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful
fragrance. The exuberance of this household fire would alone have
sufficed to bespeak us no true farmers; for the New England yeoman,
if he have the misfortune to dwell within practicable distance of a
wood-market, is as niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar of
California gold.
But it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our untried life,
to enjoy the warm and radiant luxury of a somewhat too abundant fire.
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