The family held their breath, because they knew the
sound, and their guest held his by instinct.
"The old mountain has thrown a stone at us, for fear we should
forget him," said the landlord, recovering himself. "He sometimes nods
his head and threatens to come down; but we are old neighbors, and
agree together pretty well upon the whole. Besides we have a sure
place of refuge hard by if he should be coming in good earnest."
Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of
bear's meat; and, by his natural felicity of manner, to have placed
himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family, so that they
talked as freely together as if he belonged to their mountain brood.
He was of a proud, yet gentle spirit- haughty and reserved among the
rich and great; but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly
cottage door, and be like a brother or a son at the poor man's
fireside. In the household of the Notch he found warmth and simplicity
of feeling, the pervading intelligence of New England, and a poetry of
native growth, which they had gathered when they little thought of
it from the mountain peaks and chasms, and at the very threshold of
their romantic and dangerous abode. He had travelled far and alone;
his whole life, indeed, had been a solitary path; for, with the
lofty caution of his nature, he had kept himself apart from those
who might otherwise have been his companions.
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