Wooden shelves, which bore
a few books, some bundles of dried herbs, and one or two wooden cups and
platters, were on one side of the fire; on the other were placed some
ordinary tools of field-labour, mingled with those used by mechanics.
Where the bed should have been, there was a wooden frame, strewed with
withered moss and rushes, the couch of the ascetic. The whole space of
the cottage did not exceed ten feet by six within the walls; and its
only furniture, besides what we have mentioned, was a table and two
stools formed of rough deals.
Within these narrow precincts Isabella now found herself enclosed with
a being, whose history had nothing to reassure her, and the fearful
conformation of whose hideous countenance inspired an almost
superstitious terror. He occupied the seat opposite to her, and dropping
his huge and shaggy eyebrows over his piercing black eyes, gazed at her
in silence, as if agitated by a variety of contending feelings. On the
other side sate Isabella, pale as death, her long hair uncurled by the
evening damps, and falling over her shoulders and breast, as the wet
streamers droop from the mast when the storm has passed away, and left
the vessel stranded on the beach.
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