He had at first intended that the cabin should be constructed by his own hands alone, of rough, unhewn timber; that it should contain only one room, and that of the simplest. It was to be merely a trapper's log hut in the forest, and he was to live as a simple trapper, quite alone, forgetting that he was a wealthy English nobleman.
But gradually his ideals had developed, and he had decided to make the place comfortable and convenient as well as simple and solitary—to make it, as it were, his headquarters, where he could store his trophies of the chase and keep his guns and books and pictures.
If he wished to go away on hunting trips, he could leave the cabin in safety, and take his pony and his tent and knapsack and live as a lone trapper in the woods, moving from place to place, always having a home to come back to if he wished. What he had always to fight against was an inclination towards luxury and labour-saving convenience. He had bought a patent camp cooking-stove in New York. It was capable of cooking anything, from a sirloin to a savoury. But when he unpacked it he saw how incongruous such a thing was with the domestic economy of a shanty in the forest.
"What does a plain trapper want with fancy fixings like this, anyway?" he asked himself. "If he's hankerin' after delicacies an' dainty cookery, he'd best quit right back to London. My food's goin' ter be frizzled over an open wood fire, and that dinky, high-class kitchen range is goin' right away to the bottom of Sweetwater Pond."
He allowed himself to stain the outer planks of the dwelling, but not to use any decorative paints which an ordinary trapper or an Indian could not procure. A garden, with flowers as well as vegetables, and creepers for the veranda, he considered necessaries, just as frames for pictures, shelves for his books, racks for his guns, and cupboards for his crockery were necessary.
There were three rooms in the cabin—a large living-room, which was also kitchen, a workroom, and a bedroom; and they were all three very simply furnished. Not far behind the cabin were the sheds and outhouses, the stables, cow-house, and barns; and down at the lakeside was a boathouse, in which to keep his canoes and fishing materials.
This was the secluded home which Lord St. Olave was making for himself, in preference to a grand house in London and a great mansion on his vast estate in Norfolk, with innumerable servants to wait upon him, and crowds of fashionable friends to enjoy his hospitality. He was realizing his wish to abandon the social whirl of London and to return to his native wilds. But he was not yet wholly satisfied with his choice.
He entered the living-room one afternoon looking weary and untidy, and flung himself into an easy-chair, giving a curt nod of greeting to Gideon Birkenshaw, who had strolled down from the homestead to have tea with him.
"Tired, Kiddie?" Gideon inquired. "Bin workin' too hard?"
"No," returned Kiddie, "I ain't tired. I'm never tired."