an occasional pause for thought, he walked
towards me. When within half a dozen yards he stopped and took good
stock of me, with brown eyes overhung by thick grizzled eyebrows.
Then he offered a short, interrogative, authoritative bark, a mere
monosyllable of inquiry.

'A stranger,' I responded. 'An invalid stranger.' He seemed not only
satisfied, but, for some unknown reason, delighted. He wagged the
cropped stump of a gray tail, and writhed his whole body with a greeting
that had an almost slavish air of charmed propitiation; and then,
without a word on his side or on mine, he mounted the steps which led
to the great crucifix, sate down upon the topmost step beside me, and
nestled his grizzled head in my lap. I confess that he could have done
nothing which would have pleased me more. I have always thought the
unconditional and immediate confidence of a dog or a child a sort of
certificate to character, though I know well that there is a kind of dog
whose native friendliness altogether outruns his discretion, and who
is doomed from birth to fall into error, and to encounter consequent
rebuffs which must be grievous to be borne.

My new companion wore a collar, and had other signs that distinguished
him from the mere mongrel of the village street, but he was of no
particular breed. His coat was of a bluish gray, and though soft enough
to the touch, had a harsh and spiky aspect. He came nearer to being a
broken-haired terrier than anything else, but I seemed to discern half a
dozen crosses in him, and a lover of dogs who asked for breed would not
have offered sixpence for him.

II

Somewhere about the year 1560 this tranquil and beautiful country
was devastated by a plague which carried off hundreds of its sparse
inhabitants, and left many villages desolate. The legends of the
countryside tell of places in which no human life remained.

The people of Janenne, headed by the _doyen_, made a pilgrimage in
procession to the shrine of Our Lady of Lorette, and offered to strike a
bargain. They promised that if Janenne should be spared from the
plague they and their descendants for ever would each year repeat that
procession in honour of Our Lady of Lorette, and that once in seven
years they would appear under arms and fire a salvo. Whether in
consequence of this arrangement or not, Janenne escaped the plague, and
from that year to this the promised procession has never been forgotten.
In course of time it became l