und also, with a
sick feeling which I shall not soon forget, that it was bruised on
either side with deep prints of massive teeth.

The Barn on the Marsh.

It had not always stood on the marsh. When I was a little boy of seven,
it occupied the rear of our neighbor's yard, not a stone's throw from
the rectory gate, on one of the windy, sunshiny spurs of South Mountain.
A perpetual eyesore to the rector; but I cannot help thinking, as I view
it now in the concentrated light of memory, that it did artistic service
in the way of a foil to the loveliness of the rectory garden. This
garden was the rector's delight, but to my restless seven years it was a
sort of gay-colored and ever-threatening bugbear.

Weeding, and especially such thorough, radical weeding as alone would
satisfy the rector's conscience, was my detestation; and, moreover, just
at the time of being called upon to weed, there was sure to be something
else of engrossing importance which my nimble little wits had set
themselves upon doing.

But I never found courage to betray my lack of sympathy in all its
iciness. The sight of the rector's enthusiasm filled me ever with a
sense of guilt, and I used to weed quite diligently, at times.

One morning the rector had lured me out early, before breakfast, while
the sun yet hung low above the shining marshes. We were working
cheerfully together at the carrot-beds. The smell of the moist earth and
of the dewy young carrot-plants, bruised by my hasty fingers, comes
vividly upon my senses even now.

Suddenly I heard the rector cry, "Bother!" in a tone which spoke
volumes. I saw he had broken his hoe short off at the handle. I stopped
work with alacrity, and gazed with commiserating interest, while I began
wiping my muddy little fingers on my knickerbockers in bright
anticipation of some new departure which should put a pause to the
weeding.

In a moment or two the vexed wrinkles smoothed themselves out of the
rector's brow, and he turned to me with the proposal that we should go
over to our neighbor's and repair the damage.

One end of the barn, as we knew, was used for a workshop. We crossed the
road, let down the bars, put to flight a flock of pigeons that were
feeding among the scattered straw, and threw open the big barn doors.

There, just inside, hung the dead body of our neighbor, his face
distorted and purple. And, while I stood sobbing with horror, the rector
cut him down with the draw-knife wh