Antony loved nature, but he also loved a mystery, and here surely there was one.
The mystery was deepened when a remark that the young man made, or a phrase used, in good French led the conversation into that language. But when Antony made a somewhat awkward attempt to learn something of the old lady's history she adroitly turned the conversation.
Crona's creamy milk, those new-laid eggs, and the real Scottish scones with freshest of butter, made a supper that a prince would have enjoyed.
Crona now heaped more logs and peats on the hearth, for in these far northern regions the early autumn evenings are apt to be chill.
The peats blazed merrily but quietly, the logs flamed and fizzed and crackled, the jets of blazing gas therefrom lighting up every corner and cranny of the old-fashioned hut. Fir-logs were they, that had lain buried in moss or morass for thousands of years—had fallen, in fact, before the wintry blast ages before painted and club-armed men roamed the forests all around, fighting single-handed the boars and even bears in which these woods abounded.
Frank Antony really felt very happy to-night. The scene was quite to his taste, for he was a somewhat romantic youth, and everything strange and poetic appealed to him. With Lotty, beaming-eyed and rosy with the fire, sitting by Crona's knee listening to old-world tales and the crooning of old ballads, the fox and the cat curled up together in a corner, the curling smoke and cheerful fire, the young man was fascinated. Had London, he wondered, with its so-called life and society, anything to beat this?
'Some one's knocking at the door,' said Lotty, whose hearing was more acute than Crona's.
'It must be Joe,' said Crona. 'Poor Joe, he has been away in the woods all the evening, and must be damp and cauld!'
Lotty hastened to admit a splendid specimen of the raven—or he would have been splendid had not his wings and thigh-feathers been so draggled with dew. He advanced along the floor with a noisy flutter.
'Joe's cold, and Joe's cross,' croaked the bird, giving one impudent glance upwards at Antony, as much as to say, 'Who on earth are you next?' He was evidently in a temper. 'Joe's cold, and Joe's cross—cross—cross!' he shrieked.