Meanwhile, Regulas Rothsay had climbed the rugged mountain path that led to Scythia's hut. On the back of the broad shelf of rock on which the hut stood was a hollow in the side of the precipice. Scythia had cleared out this hollow of all its natural litter. Before this apartment she had built another room, with no better material than fragments of rock found on the spot, and filled in with earth, moss and twigs. She had roofed this over with branches of evergreens piled thick and high, to keep off rain and sun. A heavy buffalo robe, fastened with large wooden pins at its top to the roof of the hut, served for a door. There was no window. In the inner or cavernous apartment she had built a rude fire-place and chimney going up through a hole in the rock. A pallet of rough furs and coarse blankets lay in one corner of this room, and a few rude cooking utensils occupied another. In the outer room there was a rough oak table and two chairs.
Up before the edge of this natural shelf on which the hut stood appeared the tops of a thicket of pine trees that grew on the mountain side fifty feet below. Up behind this shelf arose other pines, height above height, until their highest tops seemed to pierce the clouds.
When Rule reached this shelf, he found the tops of the pine trees, the ground, and the hut all covered with snow.
"Good morning, mother! A merry Christmas to you!" said Rule, gayly.
"I hope you have made yourself as comfortable as possible in this place," said the youth, anxiously.
"Yes, Rule! always as happy and as much at ease as my past will permit."
"Oh! what is--what was this terrible past?" inquired the youth--not for the first time.
"It was, it is, and it ever will be! This past will be present and future so long as I live on this earth. And some day, when time and strife and woe have made you strong and hard and stern, I will lift the veil and show you its horrible face! But not now, my boy! not now! Come in."
As the weird woman said this she led the way into the hut, where the rude table stood covered with a coarse white cloth and adorned with two white plates and two pairs of steel knives and forks. Here the Christmas dinner was eaten, and afterward the two began a close conversation.