Presently the jangle of a bell was heard in the distance, a pleasant musical tinkle in the midst of the green stillness of the forest.
“What on earth is that?” exclaimed Ruth, a little nervous now from the nearness of the robber.
“If I am not mistaken,” replied Stephen, “that is old Adam, the woodcutter. He has been living in these woods all his life, seventy years or more. He looks almost like a tree himself, he is so gnarled and weather-beaten and bent.”
In a few moments the woodman’s cart hove into sight, drawn by a bony old horse from whose collar jangled the little bell. The cart was loaded with bundles of wood, and Adam walked at the side holding the rope lines in one hand and flourishing a whip in the other, the lash of which he carefully kept away from his horse, which was ambling along at its pleasure.
“Good day, Adam,” said Stephen. “How are you, and how is the wood business?”
“Why, it’s Mr. Stephen!” cried the old man, touching his cap with one of his knotted hands. “The wood business is good, sir. We manage to live, my wife and I. Although I’m wishin’ t’was something else kept us going. I never fell a tree, sir, I don’t feel I’m killin’ something alive. They are fine old trees,” he went on, patting the bark of a silver birch affectionately. “I would not kill one of these white ladies, sir, if you was to pay me a hundred dollars!”
“It’s a shame, Adam,” replied Stephen. “It must be like cutting down your own family, you have lived among them for so many years. How is the hermit? Do you give him enough wood to keep him alive in the winter?”
“He’s not been himself of late,” answered Adam, lowering his voice. “He’s always strange at this time of the year.”
“Do you think he’ll see us if we go over?” asked Stephen.
“I think so, sir,” replied Adam. “No matter how bad off he is, he’s always kind. I never see him angry.”