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The back and the jambs are built up of great stones, not always smoothly laid, with jutting ledges upon which ashes are apt to lie. The hearthstone is an enormous block of trap rock, with a surface not perfectly even, but a capital place to crack butternuts on. Over the fire swings an iron crane, with a row of pot-hooks of all lengths hanging from it.
Nevertheless, by four o'clock the work was completed, and the last helper had departed homeward. The cabin was, of course, not yet fit for occupancy; the walls were not chinked, nor the hearthstone laid.
Older than history, more ancient than civilisation, are these familiar tones which unite the low-lying meadows and the upland pastures with the fire on the hearthstone and the nightly care of the fold. When the shadows deepen over the country-side, the oldest memories are revived and the oldest habits recalled by the scenes about the farm-house.
Slowly Elspeth, with quivering hands, unwound the black and snake-like object that always guarded her breast. Without a word, he took it, and again his hands flew heavenward. With a low and fearful moan the old woman lurched sideways, then crashed, like a fallen pine, upon the hearthstone. She lay still dead. Three times the man passed his hands, wave-like, above the dead.
Then came a night when the air was sharp, and they kindled the first fire in the wide chimney mouth. It leaped exultant, revealing the mud-filled cracks, playing on the pans, and licking the bosses of the old tankard. The hearthstone shone red with its light, and they sat drawn back on the seats of pine looking into its roaring depths housed, sheltered, cozily content.
I pulled myself up quite suddenly, my feet resting on a ledge which, as I shook the soot off and recovered my wits, turned out to be the upper sill of a grate. Then, growing suddenly cautious when the need for caution was over, I descended the next foot or two back foremost, as one goes down a ladder, and jumped out into the room clear of the hearthstone.
That return is the day dream of her heart; in it she sees her future brightening. Such are the cherished thoughts of a pure mind. Poverty may gnaw away at the hearthstone, cares and sorrow may fall thick in your path, the rich may frown upon you, and the vicious sport with your misfortunes, but virtue gives you power to overcome them all.
"By the old hearthstone a Spirit dwells, The child of bygone years He lieth hid the stones amid, And liveth on smiles and tears. "But when the night is drawing on, And the fire burns clear and bright, He cometh out and walketh about In the pleasant grave twilight. "He goeth round on tiptoe soft, And scanneth close each face; If one in the room be sunk in gloom, By him he taketh his place.
"You have been there and know what the place is, but no one but myself can ever realize what it was for me, still loving, still clinging to a wild inconsequent belief in my wife, to grope in that mouth of hell for the spring she had chattered about in her sleep, to find it, press it, and then to hear, down in the dark of the fearsome recess, the sound of something deadly strike against what I took to be the cushions of the old settle standing at the edge of the library hearthstone.
There was a decision in her tones which caused Victor to experience a chill not devoid of dread. If only he could read the face behind the mask! Anne followed Maître le Borgne upstairs. Victor and madame were alone. He waited patiently for her to speak. She devoted some moments absently to crushing with her boot the stray pieces of charred wood which littered the broad hearthstone.
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