`` Yes , to Burlington , and far enough beyond , '' replied he . `` I meant to have been at Ethan Crawford 's to-night , but a pedestrian lingers along such a road as this . It is no matter ; for when I saw this good fire and all your cheerful faces , I felt as if you had kindled it on purpose for me and were waiting my arrival . So I shall sit down among you and make myself at home . '' The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire when something like a heavy footstep was heard without , rushing down the steep side of the mountain as with long and rapid strides , and taking such a leap in passing the cottage as to strike the opposite precipice . The family held their breath , because they knew the sound , and their guest held his by instinct . `` The old mountain has thrown a stone at us for fear we should forget him , '' said the landlord , recovering himself . `` He sometimes nods his head and threatens to come down , but we are old neighbors , and agree together pretty well , upon the whole . Besides , we have a sure place of refuge hard by if he should be coming in good earnest . '' Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of bear 's meat , and by his natural felicity of manner to have placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family ; so that they talked as freely together as if he belonged to their mountain-brood . He was of a proud yet gentle spirit , haughty and reserved among the rich and great , but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door and be like a brother or a son at the poor man 's fireside . In the household of the Notch he found warmth and simplicity of feeling , the pervading intelligence of New England , and a poetry of native growth which they had gathered when they little thought of it from the mountain-peaks and chasms , and at the very threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode . He had travelled far and alone ; his whole life , indeed , had been a solitary path , for , with the lofty caution of his nature , he had kept himself apart from those who might otherwise have been his companions . The family , too , though so kind and hospitable , had that consciousness of unity among themselves and separation from the world at large which in every domestic circle should still keep a holy place where no stranger may intrude . But this evening a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers , and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence . And thus it should have been . Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth ? The secret of the young man 's character was a high and abstracted ambition . He could have borne to live an undistinguished life , but not to be forgotten in the grave . Yearning desire had been transformed to hope , and hope , long cherished , had become like certainty that , obscurely as he journeyed now , a glory was to beam on all his pathway , though not , perhaps , while he was treading it .
But when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of what was now the present , they would trace the brightness of his footsteps , brightening XXXXX meaner glories faded , and confess that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb with none to recognize him .
Besides In as before beyond than to upon with without