That was all I could take, save a sack of ground corn mixed with maple sugar, a flask of rum, and a bag of dry meat.
These articles, with our fur robes and blankets, a fish-spear, and a spontoon which I discovered, were all I dared attempt to save.
I stood in the pretty house, gazing desperately about me, sad to leave this place to flames, furious to realize that this little lodge must perish, which once was endeared to me because Sir William loved it, and now had become doubly dear because I had given it to a young girl whom I loved—and tenderly—yet desired not to become enamoured with.
Sunshine fell through the glazed windows, where chintz curtains stirred in the wind.
I looked around at the Windsor chairs, the table where we had supped together so often. I went into Penelope's room and looked at her maple bed, so white and fresh.
There was a skein of wool yarn on the table. I took it; gazed at it with new and strange emotions a-fiddling at my throat and twitching eyes and lips; and placed it in the breast of my hunting shirt.
Then I listened; but my Indian overhead remained silent. So I went on through the house, and then down to the kitchen, where I saw all sweetly in order, and pan and china bright; and soupaan still simmering where Penelope had left it.
There was a bowl of milk there, and the cream thick on it. And she had set a dozen red apples handy, with flour and spices and a crock of lard for to fashion a pie, I think.
Slowly I went up stairs and then out the kitchen door, across the grass. The Saguenay saw me from above and made a sign that all was still quiet on the Drowned Lands.
So I went to the manger again, and thence to the barn and around the house.