It was another
degree nearer to the organized life in which he was entitled to a place.
Shielded by a shrubbery of sleeping goldenrod, he stole down the slope,
making his way to the lane along which the beasts went out to pasture and
came home. Following the trail, he passed a meadow, a potato-field, and a
patch of Indian corn, till the scent of flowers told him he was coming on
a garden. A minute later, low, velvety domes of clipped yew rose in the
foreground, and he knew himself to be in touch with the civilization that
clung, like a hardy vine, to the coves and promontories of the lake, while
its tendrils withered as soon as they were flung up toward the mountains.
Only a few steps more, and, between the yews, he saw the light streaming
from the open doors and windows of a house.
It was such a house as, during the two years he had spent up in the high
timber-lands, he had caught sight of only on the rare occasions when he
came within the precincts of a town--a house whose outward aspect, even at
night, suggested something of taste, means, and social position for its
occupants. Slipping nearer still, he saw curtains fluttering in the breeze
of the August evening, and Virginia creeper dropping in heavily massed
garlands from the roof of a columned veranda.
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