The attempt
could not possibly be made till the following evening; till then, Nevil
promised to do his best to make Falcon and me comfortable.
I shall not easily forget my night in the log hut; it consisted of a
single room, about sixteen feet by ten; in this lived and slept the
entire family--numbering the farmer, his wife, mother, and two children.
When they spoke, confidently, of finding me a bed, I fell into a great
tremor and perplexity; the problem seemed to me not more easy to solve
than that of the ferryman, who had to carry over a fox, a goose, and a
cabbage; it was physically impossible that the large-limbed Nevil and
myself should be packed into the narrow non-nuptial couch; the only
practicable arrangement involved my sharing its pillow with the two
infants or with the ancient dame; and at the bare thought of either
alternative, I shivered from head to heel. At last, with infinite
difficulty, I obtained permission to sleep on my horse-rug spread on the
floor, with my saddle for a bolster; when this point was once settled, I
spent the evening very contentedly, basking in the blaze of the huge
oaken logs; if stinted in all else, the mountaineer has always large
luxury of fuel. I was curious to find out if my host knew anything of
his own lineage; but he could tell me nothing further, than that his
grandfather was the first colonist of the family; oddly enough, though,
in his library of three or four books, was an ancient work on heraldry;
his father had been much addicted to studying this, and was said to have
been learned in the science.
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