Then, with the assistance of his son, a strong,
full-grown young man, he rebuilt the cottage, though upon a scale not
much larger or much more commodious than his wife's old hut.
Like other groups of mountains, the highest and largest are those near
the centre, and from them the land descends in lower and lower levels,
with smaller hills and smoother valleys, until at length it sinks into
the plain. Then they are almost like children's hills and valleys; the
slopes are not too steep for very little feet to climb, and the rippling
brooks are not in so much hurry to rush on to the distant river, but that
boys and girls at play can stop them for a little time with slight banks
of mud and stones. In just such a smooth, sloping dell, down in a soft
green basin, called Fern's Hollow, was the hiding-place where the
convict's sad wife had found an unmolested shelter.
This dwelling, the second one raised by the returned convict and his son,
is built just below the brow of the hill, so that the back of the hut is
formed of the hill itself, and only the sides and front are real walls.
These walls are made of rubble, or loose, unhewn stones, piled together
with a kind of mortar, which is little more than clay baked hard in the
heat of the sun.
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