But they had their strenuous working times as well, and enjoyed them equally. He developed his new-found capacity for carpentering. Made her more chairs and a table, added to the comfort of their house in many ways. And she kept it all in perfect order, and attended to the cooking, and proved herself a most admirable housewife and helpmate.
They were down almost to fundamentals. Their life—partaking as it did of the development of the ages, and so of the wider freedom of thought and feeling, was the life of the ancients and not far from idyllic.
The hunter went forth to the chase—though it was only rabbits—and the fisherman to the lake, and brought home his spoils to his waiting mate, and they ate of them and were content.
They enjoyed the most perfect health, and for society they had one another and desired no more—at all events, no outsiders.
They had storms and mists and spells of dull weather, but their house was proof against all assault from without, and warm and bright with their abounding love. They had fire and light and books and themselves, and always in time the sun shone out again, and they enjoyed it the more perhaps for its frequent defaults.
They had their trying times too. Stores had to be replenished from the pile, and, after that dreadful experience before they were married, she would not be left behind.
"I do not care what happens if we are together," she said. "The worst that could happen would be nothing compared with that other time," and he could not gainsay her.
So whenever he had to go she went also, and they chose their day with care and made a picnic of it, and came home laden with spoils.
Only once they got caught by one of those swift-travelling mists which seemed to spring from nowhere. It swept over them just as they were preparing to leave, and in the twinkling of an eye they were prisoners, bound clammily to the pile till it should pass. For in that close-clinging bank, as thick as wet cotton-wool, all sense of direction was gone in a moment. They could not see a foot before them, the pile was pitted with death-traps, a step might be fatal.
They had both come lightly clad, for the day had been warm and the wreckage claimed unhampered limbs.