He would get supper here; they would be glad to have him at the house of Peter Heydrick, the manager of the Furnace.  Half turning, he could see the dwelling at his back—­a small, grey stone rectangle with a narrow portico on its solid face and a pale glimmer of candles in the lower windows.  The ground immediately about it was cleared of brush and little trees, affording Peter Heydrick a necessary, unobstructed view of the Furnace stack while sitting in his house or when aroused at night.  The dwelling was inviting, at once slipping into the dusk and emerging by reason of the warm glow within.  Mrs. Heydrick, too, was an excellent cook; there would be plenty of venison, roast partridge, okra soup.  Afterwards, under a late moon, he could go back to Myrtle Forge; or he might stay at the Heydricks all night, and to-morrow kill such a buck as he had lost.

The twilight darkened beneath the trees, the surrounding hills lost their forms, in the east the distance merged into the oncoming night, but the west was still translucent, green.  There was a faint movement in the leaves by the roadside, and a grey fox crossed, flattened on the ground, and disappeared.  Howat Penny could see the liquid gleam of its eyes as it watched him.  From the hill by the coal house came the heavy beating of wild turkeys’ wings.

He could go to Peter Heydrick’s, where the venison would be excellent, and Mrs. Heydrick was celebrated for her guinea pickle with cucumbers; but ... the Heydricks had no daughter, and the Gilkans had.  Thomas Gilkan was only a founderman; his house had one room below and a partition above; and Mrs. Gilkan’s casual fare could not be compared to Mrs. Heydrick’s inviting amplitude.  Yet there was Fanny Gilkan, erect and flaming haired, who could walk as far as he could himself, and carry her father’s clumsy gun all the way.

His thoughts, deflected by Fanny Gilkan, left the immediate present of supper, and rested upon the fact that his—­his appreciation of her was becoming known at the Furnace; while Dan Hesa must be circulating it, with biting comments, among the charcoal burners.  Dan Hesa, although younger than Howat, was already contracting for charcoal, a forward young German; and, Fanny had said with a giggle, he was paying her serious attention.  Howat Penny had lately seen a new moroseness among the charcoal burners that could only have come from the association of the son of Gilbert Penny and the potential owner of Myrtle Forge with the founderman’s daughter.  Charcoal burners were lawless men, fugitive in character, often escaped from terms of indenture; Dan Hesa was, he knew, well liked by them; and the hazard created by his attraction to Fanny Gilkan drew Howat Penny irresistibly away from the superior merits of the Heydrick table.