We had our supper, Nick and I, at twilight, in the children's dining
room. A little white room, unevenly panelled, the silver candlesticks
and yellow flames fantastically reflected in the mirrors between the deep
windows, and the moths and June-bugs tilting at the lights. We sat at a
little mahogany table eating porridge and cream from round blue bowls,
with Mammy to wait on us. Sometimes there floated in upon us the hum of
revelry from the great drawing-room where Madame had her company. Often
the good Mr. Mason would come in to us (he cared little for the parties),
and talk to us of our day's doings. Nick had his lessons from the
clergyman in the winter time.

Mr. Mason took occasion once to question me on what I knew. Some of my
answers, in especial those relating to my knowledge of the Bible,
surprised him. Others made him sad.

"David," said he, "you are an earnest lad, with a head to learn, and you
will. When your father comes, I shall talk with him." He paused--"I
knew him," said he, "I knew him ere you were born. A just man, and
upright, but with a great sorrow. We must never be hasty in our
judgments. But you will never be hasty, David," he added, smiling at me.
"You are a good companion for Nicholas."

Nicholas and I slept in the same bedroom, at a corner of the long house,
and far removed from his mother. She would not be disturbed by the noise
he made in the mornings. I remember that he had cut in the solid
shutters of that room, folded into the embrasures, "Nicholas Temple, His
Mark," and a long, flat sword. The first night in that room we slept but
little, near the whole of it being occupied with tales of my adventures
and of my life in the mountains. Over and over again I must tell him of
the "painters" and wildcats, of deer and bear and wolf. Nor was he ever
satisfied. And at length I came to speak of that land where I had often
lived in fancy--the land beyond the mountains of which Daniel Boone had
told. Of its forest and glade, its countless herds of elk and buffalo,
its salt-licks and Indians, until we fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.

"I will go there," he cried in the morning, as he hurried into his
clothes; "I will go to that land as sure as my name is Nick Temple. And
you shall go with me, David."

"Perchance I shall go before you," I answered, though I had small hopes
of persuading my father.

He would often make his exit by the window, climbing down into the garden
by the protruding bric