While engaged in this way, the eye of Ralph caught the look of Rivers, again fixed upon him from the doorway leading into the great hall; and without a moment’s hesitation, with impetuous step, he advanced towards him, determined on some explanation of that curious interest which had become offensive; but when he approached him with this object the latter hastily left the passage.

Taking Forrester’s arm, Ralph also left the house, in the hope to encounter this troublesome person again.  But failing in this, they proceeded to examine the village, or such portions of it as might be surveyed without too much fatigue to the wounded man—­whose hurts, though superficial, might by imprudence become troublesome.  They rambled till the sun went down, and at length returned to the tavern.

This building, as we have elsewhere said, was of the very humblest description, calculated, it would seem, rather for a temporary and occasional than a lasting shelter.  Its architecture, compared with that even of the surrounding log-houses of the country generally, was excessively rude; its parts were out of all proportion, fitted seemingly by an eye the most indifferent, and certainly without any, the most distant regard, to square and compass.  It consisted of two stories, the upper being assigned to the sleeping apartments.  Each floor contained four rooms, accessible all, independently of one another, by entrances from a great passage, running both above and below, through the centre of the structure.  In addition to the main building, a shed in the rear of the main work afforded four other apartments, rather more closely constructed, and in somewhat better finish than the rest of the structure:  these were in the occupation of the family exclusively.  The logs, in this work, were barbarously uneven, and hewn only to a degree barely sufficient to permit of a tolerable level when placed one upon the other.  Morticed together at the ends, so very loosely had the work been done, that a timid observer, and one not accustomed to the survey of such fabrics, might entertain many misgivings of its security during one of those severe hurricanes which, in some seasons of the year, so dreadfully desolate the southern and southwestern country.  Chimneys of clay and stone intermixed, of the rudest fashion, projected from the two ends of the building, threatening, with the toppling aspect which they wore, the careless wayfarer, and leaving it something more than doubtful whether the oblique and outward direction which they took, was not the result of a wise precaution against a degree of contiguity with the fabric they were meant to warm, which, from the liberal fires of the pine woods, might have proved unfavorable to the protracted existence of either.