, punctuated by contemptuous "huhs"
and sniffs from Amos, until day before yesterday. On this day David went
on a hunting trip extending from five o'clock in the afternoon until the
next morning, during which his voice, blending with two immature cries,
told that he was ranging miles of country in company with a pair of
thoroughbred fox-hound pups, owned by the postmaster, the training of
which Amos Opie was superintending, and owing to an attack of rheumatism
had delegated to David, whose reliability for this purpose could not be
overestimated according to his master's way of thinking. For a place in
some ways so near to civilization, the hills beyond the river woods
abound in fox holes, and David has conducted some good runs on his own
account, it seems; but this time alack! alack! he came limping slowly
home, footsore and bedraggled, followed by his pupils and bearing a huge
dead cat of the half-wild tribe that, born in a barn and having no
owner, takes to a prowling life in the woods.

I cannot quite appreciate the enormity of the offence, but doubtless Dr.
Russell and your husband can, as they live in a fox-hunting country. It
seems that a rabbit would have been bad enough, something however, to
be condoned,--but not a cat! Instantly Amos fixed upon Larry as the
responsible cause of the calamity,--Larry, who is so soaked in a species
of folk-lore, blended of tradition, imagination, and high spirits that,
after hearing him talk, it is easy to believe that he deals in magic by
the aid of a black cat, and unfortunately the cat brought in by David
was of this colour!

Then Amos spoke, for David's honour was as his own, and Larry heard a
pronounced Yankee's opinion, not only of all the inhabitants of the
Emerald Isle, but of one in particular! After freeing his mind, he
threatened to free his house of Larry as a lodger, this being
particularly unfortunate considering the near approach of one of that
gentleman's times of retirement.

Last night I thought the sky had again cleared, for Amos discovered that
the postmaster did not suspect the cat episode, and as Larry had no
friends in the village through which it might leak out, the old man
seemed much relieved; also, Larry apparently is not a harbourer of
grievances. Within an hour, however, a second episode has further
strained the relationship of lodger and host, and it has snapped.

Though still quite stiff in the joints, Amos came over this morning to
do some litt