When at last I got out, I was a shadow. But everybody was full
of attentions and kindnesses, and these brought cheer back into
my life, and were the right medicine to help a convalescent swiftly
up toward health and strength again; so I gained fast.
Sandy was worn out with nursing; so I made up my mind to turn out
and go a cruise alone, leaving her at the nunnery to rest up.
My idea was to disguise myself as a freeman of peasant degree
and wander through the country a week or two on foot. This would
give me a chance to eat and lodge with the lowliest and poorest
class of free citizens on equal terms. There was no other way
to inform myself perfectly of their everyday life and the operation
of the laws upon it. If I went among them as a gentleman, there
would be restraints and conventionalities which would shut me out
from their private joys and troubles, and I should get no further
than the outside shell.
One morning I was out on a long walk to get up muscle for my trip,
and had climbed the ridge which bordered the northern extremity
of the valley, when I came upon an artificial opening in the face
of a low precipice, and recognized it by its location as a hermitage
which had often been pointed out to me from a distance as the den
of a hermit of high renown for dirt and austerity. I knew he had
lately been offered a situation in the Great Sahara, where lions
and sandflies made the hermit-life peculiarly attractive and
difficult, and had gone to Africa to take possession, so I thought
I would look in and see how the atmosphere of this den agreed
with its reputation.
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