ON TOP AGAIN 141 
If. the Hermit’s unexpected sociability surprised 
us, we were totally unprepared for his appearance 
and demeanour. Rumour 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 
Reed 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 Reuben’’ 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 
varmints and mebbe once in a while an Indian or 
