His young life's story was indeed a strange one,
"Wherein he spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;
... of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven.
————
The while Weenah
"... gave him for his pains a world of sighs.
'T was strange, 't was passing strange,
'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful:
She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished
That heaven had made her such a man."
Then when Benee came down to that portion of his long story when first he found the children and their mighty wolf-hound lost in the forest, Weenah and her parents listened with greater interest and intensity than ever.
There was a fire on the rude, low hearth--a fire of wood, of peat, and of moss; for at the great elevation at which this cannibal land is situated the nights are chilly.
It was a fire that gave fitful light as well as heat. It fell on the faces of Benee's listeners, and cast shadows grotesque behind them. It beautified Weenah's face till Benee thought she looked like one of the angels that poor Peggy used to tell him about.
Then he related to them all his suspicions of Peter, but did not actually accuse him of bringing about the abduction of Peggy, to serve some vile and unknown purpose of his own. Next he spoke, yet spoke but lightly, of his long, long march, and the incidents and adventures therewith connected.
There was much, therefore, that Benee had to tell, but there was also much that he had to learn or to be told; and now that he had finished, it was Shooks-gee's turn to take up the story.