Talking thus they reached the great pine-wood, and entered among the trees. In this silent forest-land there was not a morsel of undergrowth, only the withered needles that had fallen from the pines and larches and formed a thick soft carpet. And the great tree-stems went towering skywards, brown for the pines, gray for the larches, till they ended far above in a canopy of darkest green that would hardly admit a ray of sunshine without breaking it all up into little patches of gold and silver.
’Theena felt somewhat afraid now, and crept closer to Tom, who took her hand, and thus they wandered on and on. And very small the two of them looked among those giant timber trees.
“You’re not very much afraid, are you?” said Tom. “You needn’t be, you know, for I’m the Hermit Hunter of the Wilds, and could protect you against anything; and Connie here would protect us both.”
Connie was the long-haired collie dog, who followed his master everywhere like his shadow.
“You could shoot straight with your bow and arrow, couldn’t you, Tom, if any wild beast came upon us?”
“O, very straight.”
They were following a tiny beaten path that led them through the pine-wood. But it also led them up and up, and sometimes it was so steep that they had to scramble on their hands and knees.
By and by the pines gave place to silver-stemmed birch-trees, with shimmering, shivering leaves that reflected the sunshine in all directions. The perfume from these trees was delightful in the extreme.
They reached a clearing at last, where the heather grew green all round, and where there were lichen-clad stones to sit upon. Here one or two large and lovely lizards were basking, and a splendid green speckled snake went gliding away at their approach. Tom, being a Highland lad, was not afraid of either snakes or lizards. Neither was ’Theena; for though she was only seven years old she had been in strange countries with her papa, and had seen far bigger snakes and lizards too than any we have in Scotland.
Having rested for a short time, they resumed their upward journey, and soon came to a little table-land about an acre in extent, and near it, in the shelter of a tall gray rock, with drooping birch-trees, and broom, and whins, lo! the hermitage and woodland home of the Hermit Hunter.