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The sound of water bickering down the winding way of a stream gave life and coolness to the warm silence. Thick among the tree-trunks on one side grew cornel bushes and sloes, making a solid mass of underbrush, while on the other side there was an opening through which one might catch sight of a long meadow, and arable fields beyond, and even of blue hills along the horizon.
It radiated upwards into their faces, and sent over half the plantation gigantic shadows of both man and woman, each dusky shape becoming distorted and mangled upon the tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing. He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them for a moment; Bathsheba looked down again, for his gaze was too strong to be received point-blank with her own.
Gilbert took the lantern and carefully went over the ground again. With the two boys close at his heels, he scrambled about, here and there, pushing through the cedars, clambering over rotten tree-trunks, and leaping pools of black water. They were soon deeper in the yielding swamp than was quite safe, and the leader was forced to suggest returning without their prize.
Winter also brings fascination. Strahov, its many windows severely closed and reflecting a sullen sky, seems to stand out more austerely from among the gaunt tree-trunks, their grey and sombre outlines broken by a fantasia of gnarled and twisted branches glittering under snow.
But it was his ears which told him at last of some one approaching. Some one was moving through the woods. The sound was faint and distant, but he heard it. There was no mistake. And he knew it was Nevil Steyne returning home. Clearing the brush he made his way into the midst of the aisles of leafless tree-trunks. Pausing in the shadow of one of the forest giants he waited.
Having learned all that it was possible to learn in this quarter, I next proceeded aft as far as the taffrail, where I found the deck encumbered on both sides by two big coils of mooring hawser, the other ends of which were secured, as I had noticed earlier in the day, to a couple of tree-trunks on shore.
We explored each nook and corner for miles around, and felt that everything that God had made and man had not put his mark upon was ours. The aged boughs heaped by the wind in wild confusion about the maimed and storm-beaten tree-trunks seemed to assume fantastic shapes and expressions as we approached from different directions, or viewed them under light and shadow of changing weather.
The half-breed Indian lumber-men, toiling anxiously to bring their huge tree-trunks through the twisting rapids, connected all thoughts of rest and plenty with the peaceful Haven Lake and the town where they received their wages; and, perhaps because they received their first ideas of religion at the same place, their tripping tongues to this day call it, not 'Haven, but 'Heaven.
"The thing is," said Evans, "what to do with these ingots. Shall we re-bury them over here, or take them across the strait in the canoe?" Hooker thought. His puzzled gaze wandered among the tall tree-trunks, and up into the remote sunlit greenery overhead. He shivered again as his eye rested upon the blue figure of the Chinaman. He stared searchingly among the grey depths between the trees.
When they had quite receded behind the tree-trunks and he stood alone, Uncle Benjy, to their surprise, set up a loud shout, altogether beyond the imagined power of his lungs. 'Man a-lost! man a-lost! he cried, repeating the exclamation several times; and then ran and hid himself behind a corner of the building. Soon the door opened, and Festus and his guests came tumbling out upon the green.
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