“That's a hermit-thrush down there, Silvy. He opens his mouth, and oh! Kingdom's comin'.”
“Yes.”
“Little brown chap with a scared eye. You don't ever see him hardly.”
“You don't want to, do you, Aaron?” after a long silence.
“Don't know as you do.”
There would be a tendency, at least, to look at things that way, and talk duskily as the dusk came on, and we would leave them on the altar-stone to take the trail below.
But early in the afternoon it would be lively enough, except that Silvia had a prejudice against Baal, which might have been dangerous if Baal had minded it; but he did her no harm. She referred to Elijah and those prophets of Baal, and we admitted he had been downed that time, for it took him when he was not ready, and generally he was low in his luck ever since. But we had chosen him first for an exiled dignity, who must needs have a deadly dislike for the other dignity who had once conquered him vaingloriously, and so must be in opposition to much that we opposed, such as Sunday-school lessons, sermons, and limitations of liberty. It might be that our reasonings were not so concrete and determined, but the sense of opposition was strong. We put it to Silvia that she ought to respect people's feelings, and she was reasonable enough.
Old Kincard, it seemed, was an interesting and opinionated heathen, and Silvia had not experienced sermons and Sunday-schools. That explained much. But she had read the Bible, which her mother had owned, before she died; and we could follow her there, knowing it to be a book of naturally strong points, as respects David for instance, Joseph, and parts of Revelation.
Aaron did not care for books, and had no prejudice toward any being or supposition that might find place in the woods. The altar-stone was common to many gods and councils, and we offered it to Silvia, to use as she liked. I judge she used it mostly to sit there with Aaron, and hear the hermit-thrush, or watch the thick moonlight pour down the scoop of the mountain.
That stretch of the Wyantenaug which is called the Haunted Water is quiet and of slow current, by reason of its depth, and dark in color, by reason of the steep fall of the Cattle Ridge and the pines which crowd from it to the water's edge. The Leather Hermit's hut stood up from the water in the dusk of the pines.