Before us lay a four-mile ride over a devious track among trees which my
companion knows by heart. Paths diverge into the forest on either side,
running north and south, east and west, straight and crooked, narrow
and broad; but B. follows unerringly the right, though undistinguished
trail. This knowledge of woodcraft,--how it appalls and wonder-strikes
the unlearned metropolitan, accustomed as he is to numbered houses and
name-boarded streets! No omnibus-driver threading the confusion of a
great thoroughfare could shape his course with greater assurance and
lack of hesitation than does B. through these endless avenues of
heavy-foliaged pines, broken only now and then by some tangled,
impenetrable brake of cedars, or by a charred and blackened clearing,
where the coaler has been at work. I gradually grew to believe that he
could call every tree by its name, as generals have been said to know
every soldier in their armies.
At length we reached a clearing of one or two acres in extent, the site
of Cranberry Lodge, and the terminus of our ride. In the centre of the
lone expanse two unusually tall pines were left standing, at the base of
which a curious structure nestled, which had been for several weeks the
occasional hermitage of my companion.
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