This moment of calm Roland took advantage of to apprise her of the necessity of recruiting her spirits with a few hours' asleep; for which purpose he began to look about him for some suitable place in which to strew her a bed of fern and leaves.
"Why, here is one strewn for me already," she cried, with an affected laugh, pointing to a corner, in which lay a mass of leaves so green and fresh that they looked as if plucked but a day or two before: "truly, Nathan has not invited me to his hiding-place to lodge me meanly (Heaven forgive me for laughing at the poor man; for we owe him our lives!) nay, nor to send me supperless to bed.

See!" she added, pointing to a small brazen kettle, which her quick eye detected among the leaves, and which was soon followed by a second that Emperor stirred up from its concealment, and both of them, as was soon perceived, still retaining the odour of a recent savoury stew: "Look well, Emperor: where the kitchen is, the larder cannot be far distant.

I warrant we shall find that Nathan has provided us a good supper." "Such, perhaps, as a woodman only can eat," said Roland, who, somewhat surprised at the superfluous number of Nathan's valuables (for to Nathan, he doubted not, they belonged), had begun stirring the leaves, and succeeded in raking up with his rifle, which he had not laid aside, a little earthen pouch, well stored with parched corn.

"A strange fellow, this Nathan," he muttered: "he really spoke as if he had not visited the ruin for a considerable period; whereas it is evident he must have slept here last night.

But he seems to affect mystery in all that concerns his own private movements--it is the character of his persuasion." While Roland, with the females, was thus laying hands, and speculating, upon the supposed chattels of their conductor, Nathan himself entered the apartment, betraying some degree of agitation in his countenance; whilst the faithful Peter, who followed at his side, manifested equal uneasiness, by snuffing the air, whining, and rubbing himself frequently against his master's legs.
"Friends," he cried, abruptly, "Peter talks too plainly to be mistaken: there is mischief nigh at hand, though where, or how it can be, sinner and weak foolish man that I am, I know not: we must leave warm fires and soft beds, and take refuge again in the woods." This unexpected announcement again banished the blood from Edith's cheeks.