He came to the valley in times within the memories of many who would speak if they were asked, but long enough ago to have become a settled fact; and if any did not like him, neither did they like the Wyantenaug to flood the bottom-lands in spring. The pines and the cliffs belonged to the Sandersons, who cared little enough for either phenomenon.
We often met him on the Cattle Ridge, saw him pass glowering through the thicket with shaggy gray beard and streaming hair. Sometimes he wore a horse-blanket over his leathern vestment. He was apt to be there Sundays, wandering about, and maybe trying to make out in what respect he differed from Elijah the Tishbite; and although we knew this, and knew it was in him to cut up roughly if he found out about Baal, being a prophet himself both in his looks and his way of acting, still he went to and fro for the most part on the other side of the crest, where he had a trail of his own; and you could not see the altar-stone from the top of the cliff, but had to climb down till you came to a jam of bowlders directly over it.
We did not know how long he may have stood there, glowering down on us. The smoke of the sacrifice was beginning to curl up. Baal was backed against a stone, looking off into anywhere and taking things indifferently. Silvia sat aside, twirled her hat scornfully, and said we were “silly.” Aaron chewed a birch twig, and was very calm.
We got down on our hands and knees, and said, “O Baal!”
And the Hermit's voice broke over us in thunder and a sound as of falling mountains. It was Sunday, June 26, 1875.
He denounced us under the heads of “idolaters, gone after the abornination of the Assyrians; babes and sucklings, old in sin, setting up strange gods in secret places; idle mockers of holy things, like the little children of Bethel, whereby they were cursed of the prophet and swallowed of she-bears”; three headings with subdivisions.
Then he came down thumping on the left. Silvia shrieked and clung to Aaron, and we fled to the right and hid in the rocks. He fell upon Baal, cast him on the altar-fire, stamping both to extinction, and shouted:
“I know you, Aaron Bees and Silvia Kincard!”
“N-no, you don't,” stammered Aaron. “It's Mrs. Bees.”
The Hermit stood still and glared on them.