ON TOP AGAIN 141 



If the Hermit's unexpected sociability surprised 

 us, we were totally unprepared for his appearance 

 and demeanour. Eumour had painted him a fear- 

 some person. His reputed exploits were many and 

 terrible. He had come here thirty years ago, they 

 said, broken down in health and finances, had settled 

 on his inaccessible homestead and held it ever since 

 despite all manner of obstacles contrived both by 

 man and Nature, each year adding new land to that 

 already under cultivation, cutting deeper into the 

 surrounding forest and carving his domain inch by 

 inch from the stubborn wilderness about him. 



We thought to see a huge, half wild savage, but 

 Eeed was small, mild in appearance, easy and 

 gentle in manner and voice. He was essentially 

 commonplace. One could have imagined him sitting 

 on a cracker box in some New England village gro- 

 cery, discussing politics and local issues. Bert's 

 designation of him as a "Hilltop Beuben" seemed 

 appropriate. Yet from all accounts, others as well 

 as his own, his had been an adventurous existence, 

 replete with thrilling encounters and hairbreadth es- 

 capes from death. 



It struck me that his life nowadays must be tame 

 and rather lonely. But he quickly dispelled this 

 idea. 



"Lonesomeness is nothin' but a habit," he 

 averred in answer to a suggestion along this line. 

 "When I first came here I was too busy with the 

 yarmints and mebbe once in a while an Indian or 



