e rude foresters, who gain their livelihood partly by hunting, and
partly by burning charcoal, for the purpose of smelting the ore from the
neighbouring mines; it was distant about two miles from any other
habitation. I can call to mind the whole landscape now: the tall pines
which rose up on the mountain above us, and the wide expanse of forest
beneath, on the topmost boughs and heads of whose trees we looked down
from our cottage, as the mountain below us rapidly descended into the
distant valley. In summer-time the prospect was beautiful: but during
the severe winter, a more desolate scene could not well be imagined.

"I said that, in the winter, my father occupied himself with the chase;
every day he left us, and often would he lock the door, that we might
not leave the cottage. He had no one to assist him, or to take care of
us--indeed, it was not easy to find a female servant who would live in
such a solitude; but could he have found one, my father would nut have
received her, for he had imbibed a horror of the sex, as the difference
of his conduct towards us, his two boys, and my poor little sister,
Marcella evidently proved. You may suppose we were sadly neglected;
indeed, we suffered much, for my father, fearful that we might come to
some harm, would not allow us fuel, when he left the cottage; and we
were obliged, therefore, to creep under the heaps of bears' skins, and
there to keep ourselves as warm as we could until he returned in the
evening, when a blazing fire was our delight. That my father chose this
restless sort of life may appear strange, but the fact was, that he
could not remain quiet; whether from the remorse for having committed
murder, or from the misery consequent on his change of situation, or
from both combined, he was never happy unless he was in a state of
activity. Children, however, when left much to themselves, acquire a
thoughtfulness not common to their age. So it was with us; and during
the short cold days of winter, we would sit silent, longing for the
happy hours when the snow would melt and the leaves would burst out, and
the birds begin their songs, and when we should again be set at liberty.

"Such was our peculiar and savage sort of life until my brother Caesar
was nine, myself seven, and my sister five years old, when the
circumstances occurred on which is based the extraordinary narrative
which I am about to relate.

"One evening my father returned home rather later t