Black Bartlemys Treasure

"Why must you shout so loud?" says she reprovingly.

"I feared you lost!" says I, like any fool.

"Would it matter so much? And you so angry with me and no reason?"

"Howbeit, supper is ready!"

"I am not hungry, I thank you, sir."

"But I am!"

"Then go eat!"

"Not alone!" says I; and then very humbly, "Prithee, comrade, come to supper, indeed you should be hungry!"

"And indeed, Martin," says she, rising and giving me her hand, "I do think I am vastly hungry after all." So back we went together and, reaching the fire, found the accursed bird burned black as any coal, whereupon I stood mighty downcast and abashed the while she laughed and laughed until she needs must lean against a tree; and I, seeing her thus merry at my expense, presently laughed also. Hereupon she falls on her knees, and taking the thing from the fire sets it upon a great leaf for dish, and turns it this way and that.

"Good lack, Martin!" says she, "'Tis burned as black e'en as I wished! This cometh of your usurpation of my duties, sir! And yet methinks 'tis not utterly spoiled!" And drawing her knife she scrapes and trims it, cutting away the burned parts until there little enough remained, but that mighty delectable judging by the smell of it.

So down we sat to supper forthwith and mighty amicable, nay indeed methought her kinder than ordinary and our friendship only the stronger, which did comfort me mightily.

But our supper done we spake little, for night was come upon us very still and dark save for a glitter of stars, by whose unearthly light all things took on strange shapes, and our solitude seemed but the more profound and awesome.

Above us a purple sky be-gemmed by a myriad stars, a countless host whose distant splendour throbbed upon the night; round about us a gloom of woods and thickets that hemmed us in like a dark and sombre tide, whence stole a sweet air fraught with spicy odours; and over all a deep and brooding quietude. But little by little upon this silence crept sounds near and far, leafy rustlings, a stirring in the undergrowth, the whimper of some animal, the croak of a bird, and the faint, never-ceasing murmur of the surge.

And I, gazing thus upon this measureless immensity, felt myself humbled thereby, and with this came a knowledge of the futility of my life hitherto. And now (as often she had done, ere this) my companion voiced the thought I had no words for.

"Martin," says she, softly, "what pitiful things are we, lost thus in God's infinity."