Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox. A Romance онлайн

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Then, too, he took the responsibility of beginning the day’s work upon his shaggy shoulders. At six o’clock in winter, changing to five on May day, he left his rug in the outer kitchen, and going to Miss Keith’s bedroom, nosed open the door, wedged from jarring by a mat, and after lifting her stout slippers to the bed edge, carefully, one by one, with many false starts and droppings, if she did not waken, he would sit down, and with thrown back head give quick, short barks until he had response.

How did he know hours and dates? How do we know that of which we are most sure, yet cannot prove by mathematical problems? He did know—that was sufficient.

As all these things surged through Miss Keith’s brain, the First Cause on the mantel-shelf grew more remote, and folding her strong lean arms about the pleading dog, she rested her face against his head and began to cry softly, a thing unheard of.

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It was while mistress and dog were thus absorbed that Dr. Russell, gun on shoulder, and grouse dangling from his fingers, came up the side road on the south that separated house and garden plot from the barn and outbuildings, that stood close to the lane edge, facing it, like a row of precise soldiers drawn up to give salute.