. The hunter and the trapper in North America ; or, Romantic adventures in field and forest. From the French of Bénédict Révoil . , when the tide THE ISLAND-HUT. 23 flowed in, the tumult and fury of the great billows waslike a seething chaos. In this wild solitude, remote from all civilization, andhaving no contact with the rest of American society, rosea small rude hut; and in this hut, in 1846, abode ayoung woman oftwenty-two, a mascu-line creature, of anaspect severe and yetgentle, and possess-ing a peculiar sympa-thetic voice, which re-minded me of thebabbling of the Ame-rican thrush whenw
. The hunter and the trapper in North America ; or, Romantic adventures in field and forest. From the French of Bénédict Révoil . , when the tide THE ISLAND-HUT. 23 flowed in, the tumult and fury of the great billows waslike a seething chaos. In this wild solitude, remote from all civilization, andhaving no contact with the rest of American society, rosea small rude hut; and in this hut, in 1846, abode ayoung woman oftwenty-two, a mascu-line creature, of anaspect severe and yetgentle, and possess-ing a peculiar sympa-thetic voice, which re-minded me of thebabbling of the Ame-rican thrush whenwatching over herbrood. Jessie — for suchwas the name of thelonely inhabitant ofthis sea-side hut—hadlost her mother; whileher father, an agedinvalid, dragged outthe last sands of life,crouching before thefire, smoking his pipe, and wrapped in a dismal had unsettled his mind; the strings of the brainwere loosened; he was almost imbecile. Jessie hadbravely taken charge of her four brothers; and thanksto the abundance of fish, to the sea-birds nests, andthe stags which she caught in snares, good and plentiful. OF AN ASPECT SEVERE, YET GENTLE. 24 A WAIF OF THE SEA-SHORE. food was never wanting in the hut. The eldest ofthe lads was about twenty years old, and the youngest,in giving birth to whom his mother had lost her life, wasabout fourteen. This little fellow—he was so little thatyou would have thought him about eight years old—wasthe favourite of the family ; and if ever the father smiledupon any one, it was upon him. Ben neither knew howto manage a net, to cultivate the ground, or assist in thehousehold work; his principal occupation consisted inweaving garlands of sea-weeds, in fabricating rush mats,and in gathering shells for his sisters collars and brace-lets. Often they would find him prone on a greatlevel crag, behind which their hut was sheltered; andthere, his eyes fixed upon the ocean, he followed withwistful gaze the white sails of the distant
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectg, booksubjecthunting
