strong. Perhaps this trait was a mark of that same mercifulness of nature that had sent him to the prompt rescue of the struggling young couple; perhaps it was his portion of the almost universal craving for companionship; or again, perhaps it was what Roger called it, just childishness. Whatever its reason, certainly he treated the smaller and gentler of the creatures about the farm (cows and horses were too big for him, puppies he found too boisterous) after a fashion that their master considered “clean ridic’lous,” and even loyal Mrs. Callender in secret thought most trying. For, like the majority of farm folk, these two looked upon animals as nothing at all but bodies, and bodies designed, moreover, for nothing else than to be of use to human owners; while the old doctor went to the other extreme, and gravely regarded them as real personalities, with lives and claims and interests of their own. Understanding, at any rate of the heart, they did undoubtedly possess, he pointed out to Mrs. Callender, when Lady, the cattle-dog, deposited one day a still-blind pup between his trusted feet; and he scandalised her severely, on another occasion, by asserting that, in his opinion, the claim of Mab the cat to a soul was as undeniable as her own. Mrs. Callender never feared that he was a Doctor of Divinity after that!
But in return, the animals adored their champion; it certainly seemed that there was some real bond between him and them. Mab, before long, had quite deserted the new kitchen of an evening for the old, and Lady, when off duty, would sit quiet by the hour with her nose against the old man’s knee, and shared his meals with a regularity that was a further
