Moreton found himself in a place whose features at once interested him. Glancing around the room he saw two low beds, a few plain split-bottomed chairs, an old queer "bureau," or chest of drawers, with glass knobs, some rude shelves with ironstone dishes on them, a long flint-lock rifle, hanging in buck-horn forks over the door, one of which forks also held a coon-skin bullet-pouch and curiously carved powder-horn. The fire-place before which he sat was broad and deep, roughly lined with jagged stones picturesquely black with fleecy accumulations of soot from pine smoke; it was crossed by a heavy charred wooden crane and on its broad jambs rested a curious collection of cob-pipes, clay-pipes, wooden pipes and soft-stone pipes, along with sundry ragged twists of brown home-raised tobacco. There was a low, wide window on one side of the room, and beside it Moreton's eyes rested for a moment on a slim girl's form in a half-cowering position. She was so turned from him that he could see no more of her face than a rounded line of one cheek. There was a heavy brush of long, bright, yellowish flaxen hair, a very delicate ear and a glimpse of a brown throat and neck. One hand, rather large but shapely, lay along her lap, on the scant folds of a homespun cotton dress, the skirt of which could not quite hide her coarsely-shod feet. There was something curiously striking in this crumpled little figure that held Moreton's gaze for a time. Through an open door that gave into a smaller room, the intermittent hum of a spinning-wheel made itself heard, distinct from the clash and swash of the storm, and a tall angular woman walked back and forth, drawing out and reeling up the coarse thread she was twisting. The man had soon fetched wood and pine knots for the fire, and presently a liberal flame wavered up to the mouth of the great old chimney. He turned to Moreton and said:
"Lay off yer coat, strenger, an' git yer shirt dry; hit's outdacious onagreeable fur to hev on a wet shirt."
"Thank you, I will," he said, rising and stripping off the stiff jacket. "You are very kind. I am covering your floor with water."
"Shaw, that's nothin'," replied the man, in a tone of gentle contempt; "ef ye'd see hit sometimes when I come in ye mought talk. Them little puddles haint nothin' 'tall. The Colonel an' me jest floods the whole house when we gits wet."