At mealtimes he was even admitted into the sacred dining-room, where he lay on the floor at the Master's left hand.

He had the run of the house, as fully as any human.
It was when Lad was eighteen months old that the mad-dog scare swept Hampton village; and reached its crawly tentacles out across the lake to the mile-distant Place.
Down the village street, one day, trotted an enormous black mongrel; full in the center of the roadway.

The mongrel's heavy head was low, and lolled from side to side with each lurching stride of the big body.
The eyes were bloodshot.

From the mouth and the hanging dewlaps, flecks of foam dropped now and then to the ground.
The big mongrel was sick of mind and of body.

He craved only to get out of that abode of men and to find solitude in the forests and hills beyond the village.
For this is the considerate way of dogs; and of cats as well.