By daylight the Settlement was hardly so apparent to the casual eye as at night, when each red light was the exponent of a fireside. The houses, some of them a quarter of a mile apart, nestling amidst their orchards, were quite invisible while the foliage lasted. The inequalities of the ground further masked the extent of the hamlet; occasionally a blue curl of smoke from beyond a jagged hill gave the only intimation that its further slopes were preëmpted as a home. The blacksmith’s shop was on the extreme outskirts, beyond the fields and the abandoned spaces where the broomsedge grew. The massive wooded mountain rose close behind it; the gorge narrowed just beyond it, and between the cliffs a stream, with a swift arrowy motion, and now and then a white flash, shot down the steeps. The smith made it useful in his simple art, and its song was a solace to his idle hours. But this was not the only chant flung forth upon the air. Loud and long were the sounds of revelry often issuing from the forge, and in a diminuendo reaching even the ears of the far-away neighbors, who thanked their stars that they were no nearer. The elders, constrained alike by dignity and religion, were wont to shake their heads, and sourly marvel what could be going on at the forge; and the younger men frequently found themselves obliged to go over at once and investigate. The forge was the resort of certain hilarious spirits, among whom the smith himself was chief. Concerning these roisterers grim reports were bruited abroad. It was averred that a greasy pack of “playin’-kyerds” was cherished there, and that a “streak o’luck” seemed to be more desired than light on salvation. A jug of a portly grace had been descried, one day, lurking behind the elevated hearth of the forge,—quite empty, it is true, but an aroma lingered about its corn-cob stopper that was fresh and strong and unmistakable. They often sang; the blacksmith’s burly bass voice could be heard with the supplementing echoes over many a furlong of his native wilds. They pitched horse-shoes in lieu of “quates,” and wrestled and measured their strength in many good-humored combats. When the great barn-like doors were open and the forge fire flickered out into the night, the place under the overhanging ledge of the mountain was like the mouth of some vast cavern. To those chancing to look in from the glooms without, while the white light fell here and there in a brilliant gleam upon the faces within, and anon fluctuated, and then sank to a red glow, and so to darkness, the hearty mortal fellows at their turbulent sports were vaguely unfamiliar, and as uncanny as goblins, or gnomes, or troglodytes. And the Settlement seemed wise in wishing them no nearer. It was a weird and isolated place, and with these impressions astir about it, there was little wonder that a wilder fantasy should presently gain a circulation.