In a white, roomy home down by the sea I met with one who busied my
thoughts for a little time. I do not always think of her now; not any
more. No; I have forgotten her. But I think of all the other things: the
cry of the sea-birds, my hunting in the woods, my nights, and all the
warm hours of that summer. After all, it was only by the merest accident
I happened to meet her; save for that, she would never have been in my
thoughts for a day.

From the hut where I lived, I could see a confusion of rocks and reefs
and islets, and a little of the sea, and a bluish mountain peak or so;
behind the hut was the forest. A huge forest it was; and I was glad and
grateful beyond measure for the scent of roots and leaves, the thick
smell of the fir-sap, that is like the smell of marrow. Only the forest
could bring all things to calm within me; my mind was strong and at
ease. Day after day I tramped over the wooded hills with Asop at my
side, and asked no more than leave to keep on going there day after day,
though most of the ground was covered still with snow and soft slush. I
had no company but Asop; now it is Cora, but at that time it was Asop,
my dog that I afterwards shot.

Often in the evening, when I came back to the hut after being out
shooting all day, I could feel that kindly, homely feeling trickling
through me from head to foot--a pleasant little inward shivering. And I
would talk to Asop about it, saying how comfortable we were. "There, now
we'll get a fire going, and roast a bird on the hearth," I would say;
"what do you say to that?" And when it was done, and we had both fed,
Asop would slip away to his place behind the hearth, while I lit a pipe
and lay down on the bench for a while, listening to the dead soughing of
the trees. There was a slight breeze bearing down towards the hut, and I