winds cannot reach her, for she lies warm and well covered, deep down in
her grave." And so he would sit muttering and swaying his body in the
chair, as the winds blew stormily out of the east, and the boom of the
waves rolled up from the bluff, as they pounded heavily against the
rocks and the shore.

Why did I not make him settle down? Because he wouldn't. I tried time
and again to persuade him to it, but he never would consent. Perhaps he
was right in his impulse to roam, and loved the careless freedom of it,
and the solitude it gave him. For if a man would hide himself from man
he must keep on the move. If he stops he becomes known. But in travel he
loses his identity, and passes from place to place unknown and unnoted.

But it seemed pitiful to me that one so old and feeble should have no
home, and so I persuaded him to settle down for one winter, at least,
and hired him a little house in a pleasant street and started him in
his housekeeping experiment. But alas! evil came of it, and I never did
a deed I more profoundly regretted, for it led to the calamity I am
about to tell you of, and brought upon the poor man the greatest grief
that might befall him, even the death of his dog, and in a most cruel
and painful fashion at that. Ah, me! could we but see the end of things
from their beginning, how little of our doing would be done at times;
for the benevolent blundering of our lives is as often fruitful of harm
as the evil we do in our malice and passion.

It all happened in this way, and I will tell you as it was told me,
partly by the old man himself, and partly by those who had knowledge of
the dreadful event at the time, for I was out of the city the morning
the occurrence took place, or it never would have happened. I don't
think anything of the kind ever before made so much talk, or excited so