The land on the other side belonged to Doctor Prescott.

He went through the grove of pine-trees and reached the pond--the end called the Dead Hole.

He stood there looking and listening.

It was a small sheet of water; the other shore, swampy and skirted with white-flowering bushes and young trees, looked very near; a cloying, honey sweetness came across, and a silvery smoke of mist was beginning to curl up from it.

The frogs were clamorous, and every now and then came the bass boom of a bull-frog.