As the three soldiers turned back in the direction of their house, Bromley was in a rage, and Philip could no longer command himself. All three were worn and haggard with loss of sleep, and depressed by the outcome of the affair in the valley.
In fact, the disheartening effect of the experiences connected with this first Christmas continued to oppress our exiles well into the next year. If, in the narrow valley on which they were privileged to look down, three officers of the old armies had been thus hunted and dragged off before their eyes, they had reason to believe that fragments of those armies were receiving similar or worse treatment wherever they might be found. Time and their daily work gradually calmed their minds and helped them to forget the pain of what they had seen. They missed the company of the bear, too; for even before this great disturbance of their tranquillity that amusing companion of their solitude had burrowed himself away, to consume his own fat, where not even their telescope could discover him for several months.
Presently the winter snows became deeper on the mountain, and they were confined more and more to the house. The Slow-John was frozen up in the branch, and the fowls, which could no longer forage for their own living, hung about the door for the scraps from the table and an occasional handful of corn. They roosted in the cabin of the old man of the mountain, and now and then, in return for their keep, laid an egg, which was often frozen before it was found.
"THE FOWLS HUNG ABOUT THE DOOR."
The soft, clean husks of the corn, added to the pine boughs, made comfortable beds, and the tents spread over the blankets provided abundant covering. Great bunches of catnip and pennyroyal for tea hung from the rafters, and even the wild gentian, potent to cure all ailments, was not forgotten in the winter outfit.
The prayer-book and Army Regulations, which formed their library, were read and re-read, and discussed until theology and the art of clothing and feeding an army were worn threadbare. Philip, who was blessed with a vivid imagination and great originality, made up the most marvelous ghost-stories and the most heartrending and finally soul-satisfying romances, which were recited in the evenings before the fire, to the huge enjoyment of his companions. If it was romance, a fat pine-knot thrust between the logs illumined the interior and searched the farthest corners and crannies of the room with a flood of light; and in case it was a ghost-story, the logs were left to burn low and fall piecemeal into the red coals before the eyes of the three figures sitting half revealed in sympathetic obscurity.
