ide a more
ancient ferry, now disused, to which it had formerly served as a tavern.
It rested on stout oaken piles driven deep into the river-mud; a notable
building, with a roof like the inverted hull of a galleon, pierced with
dormer windows and topped by a rusty vane. Its tenants were a childless
couple--a Mr. and Mrs. Strongtharm: he a taciturn man of fifty, a born
naturalist and great shooter of wildfowl; she a douce woman, with eyes
like beads of jet, and an incurable propensity for mothering and
spoiling her neighbours' children.

The couple received her kindly, asking few questions. Their dwelling
was by many sizes too large for them, and she might have taken her
choice among a dozen of the old guest-chambers. But Sir Oliver
had come and gone a month before and selected the best for her.
Its roof-timbers, shaped like the ribs of a ship, curved outwards and
downwards from a veritable keelson; and it was reached by way of a
zig-zagging corridor, lit by port-holes, and adorned in every niche and
corner with cases of stuffed wildfowl. Ruth supped well on game Mr.
Strongtharm's gun had provided, and slept soundly, lulled between her
dreams by the ripple of water swirling between the piles that supported,
far below her, the house's cellarage.

She awoke at daybreak to the humming of wind; and looked forth on a
leaden sky, on the river ruffled and clapping in small waves against a
shrill north-easter, and on countless birds in flocks rising from the
meadows and balancing their wings against it. Before breakfast-time the
weather had turned to heavy rain. But this mattered nothing; she had a
day's work indoors before her.

She spent the morning in unpacking the stores, which had arrived late
overnight from the ferry, and in putting a hundred small touches to her
bedroom and sitting-room, to make them more habitable. By noon she had
finished the unpacking, and dismissed the two grooms to make their way
back to Boston and report that all was well with her. It rained until
three in the afternoon; and then, the weather clearing, she saddled
Madcap with her own hands and rode to the edge of the forest.
Little light remained when she reached its outskirts, and she peered
curiously between the dim boles for a few minutes before turning for her
homeward ride. She had brought a beautiful scheme in her head, and the
forest was concerned in it; but for the moment, in this twilight, the
forest daunted her. She had--for