“You can call it so if you like; but I have been working pretty hard this last year, and am tired. Besides, I have not had a really good chance to fish, hunt, and ride since I entered Yale, and I mean to improve my opportunity now to my heart’s content. By the way,” he continued, after a slight pause, “isn’t there a place called the ‘Hermitage’ somewhere in this vicinity, where a relative of ours, who was a sort of recluse, used to live? In some of my roamings I may like to visit it.” “Yes; Robert Dale, a distant cousin, built it and lived there for years. I suppose your mother has been telling you about him; she always invested him with a great deal of romance,” his father replied, with a slight smile of amusement. “He was a queer old codger, too, and lived a regular hermit’s life for nearly a quarter of a century. The house is still standing, about ten miles from here, in a lonely spot surrounded by a dense growth of pines. He kept one servant—Uncle Jake, he was called—who was housekeeper and steward all in one—cooking, washing, and ironing, taking care of their one horse and cow, and the chickens. He also attended to all the marketing and errands, and his master was rarely seen.” “How did Mr. Dale occupy his time?” Everet inquired. “With reading and writing. He had a choice library, the only luxury of which he was guilty; and he left piles of manuscripts, some of which were quite valuable, treating chiefly upon geology and ornithology. He had always been a great student of those subjects.” “What became of his library and manuscripts?” “One of the trustees of Richmond College claimed that they had been promised to that institution, and although there was no writing of any kind found after his death to verify that claim, the books and papers were all made over to the college.” “What of his servant, Uncle Jake?” “He died only a few months after his master. He lived on at the Hermitage in the same way, refusing to leave the place, and was found dead in his bed, one day, by some sportsmen, who stopped there to fill their canteens with water. He was buried there in the woods, the house was shut up, and has remained so ever since.” “This Robert Dale was a relative of yours, wasn’t he, father?” “Well, yes, I suppose he was, though the relationship is very distant. He was own cousin to my Uncle Jabez, who was my father’s half-brother, if you can make that out,” said Colonel Mapleson, laughing. “Humph! There was another family of Dales, who lived somewhere in this region, if I remember right, that is, I remember hearing something about them,” Everet remarked, after another pause. Colonel Mapleson bent a look of questioning surprise on his son. “It appears to me that you manifest an unusual interest in the Dales this morning,” Colonel Mapleson said. “What has aroused it? I did not suppose you were even aware of their existence.” “Mother related something of their history to me. But you have not answered my question.”