“Where’s Zora?” someone yelled, with an oath. “Damn it! where is she? I haven’t seen her for a year, you old devil.”
The hag whimpered and snarled. Far down in the field of the Fleece, Zora lay curled beneath a tall dark tree asleep. All night there was coming and going in the cabin; the talk and laughter grew loud and boisterous, and the red fire glared in the night.
The days flew by and the moon darkened. In the swamp, the hidden island lay spaded and bedded, and Bles was throwing up a dyke around the edge; Zora helped him until he came to the black oak at the western edge. It was a large twisted thing with one low flying limb that curled out across another tree and made a mighty seat above the waters.
“Don’t throw the dirt too high there,” she begged; “it’ll bring my seat too near the earth.”
He looked up.
“Why, it’s a throne,” he laughed.
“It needs a roof,” he whimsically told her when his day’s work was done. Deftly twisting and intertwining the branches of tree and bush, he wove a canopy of living green that shadowed the curious nest and warded it snugly from wind and water.
Early next morning Bles slipped down and improved the nest; adding footrests to make the climbing easy, peepholes east and west, a bit of carpet over the bark, and on the rough main trunk, a little picture in blue and gold of Bougereau‚Äôs Madonna. Zora sat hidden and alone in silent ecstasy. Bles peeped in‚ÅÝ‚Äîthere was not room to enter: the girl was staring silently at the Madonna. She seemed to feel rather than hear his presence, and she inquired softly:
“Who’s it, Bles?”