crossed, and although
the sun was rising and the voices of children mingled with the lowing of
cattle in the frosty air, I ran across the fields and gained a secure
hiding-place on the side of the mountain. It was a long, solitary day,
and glad was I when it grew sufficiently dark to turn the little
settlement and get into the main road up the mountain. It was six zigzag
miles to the top, the road turning on log abutments, well anchored with
stones, and not a habitation on the way until I should reach Bishop's
house, on the crest of the divide. Half-way up I paused before a big
summer hotel, looming up in the woods like the ghost of a deserted
factory, its broken windows and rotting gateways redoubling the solitude
of the bleak mountain-side. Shortly before reaching Bishop's, "wife's
shoes" became quite unmanageable. One had climbed up my leg half-way to
the knee, and I knocked at the door with the wreck of the other in my
hand. My visit had been preceded but a day by a squad of partizan
raiders, who had carried away the bedding and driven off the cattle of
my new friends, and for this reason the most generous hospitality could
offer no better couch than the hard floor. Stretched thereon in close
proximity to the dying fire, the cold air coming up through the wide
cracks between the hewn planks seemed to be cutting me in sections as
with icy saws, so that I was forced to establish myself lengthwise on a
broad puncheon at the side of the room and under the table.

In this family "the gray mare was the better horse," and poor Bishop, an
inoffensive man, and a cripple withal, was wedded to a regular Xantippe.
It was evident that unpleasant thoughts were dominant in the woman's
mind as she proceeded sullenly and vigorously with preparations for
breakfast. The bitter bread of charity was being prepared with a
vengeance for the unwelcome guest. Premonitions of the coming storm
flashed now and then in lightning cuffs on the ears of the children, or
crashed venomously among the pottery in the fireplace. At last the
repast was spread, the table still standing against the wall, as is the
custom among mountain housewives. The good-natured husband now advanced
cheerfully to lend a hand in removing it into the middle of the room. It
was when one of the table-legs overturned the swill-pail that the long
pent-up storm burst in a torrent of invective. The prospect of spending
several days here was a very gloomy outlook, and the relief