i that
ensues from absolute idleness, the consciousness that the light was
growing dimmer day by day, combined to plunge him into abysmal gloom.

He shrank from speaking to any one, he scowled at a suggestion of
sympathy, he treated Mr. Opp's friendly overtures with open discourtesy.
Conceiving himself on the rack of torture, he set his teeth and
determined to submit in silence, but without witnesses.

One endless day dragged in the wake of another, and between them lay the
black strips of night that were heavy with the suggestion of another
darkness pending. When sleep refused to come, he would go out into the
woods and walk for hours, moody, wretched, and sick to his innermost
soul with loneliness.

The one thing in the whole dreary round of existence that roused in him
a spark of interest was his hostess. She bestowed upon him the same
impersonal attention that she gave her fowls. She fed him and cared for
him and doctored him as she saw fit, and after these duties were
performed, she left him to himself, pursuing her own vigorous routine in
her own vigorous way.

Hinton soon discovered that Mrs. Gusty was temperamental. Her intensely
energetic nature demanded an emotional as well as a physical outlet.
Sometime during the course of each day she indulged in emotional
fireworks, bombs of anger, rockets of indignation, or set pieces of
sulks and pouts.

These periodic spells of anger acted upon her like wine: they warmed her
vitals and exhilarated her; they made her talk fluently and eloquently.
As a toper will accept any beverage that intoxicates, so Mrs. Gusty
accepted any cause that would rouse her. At stated intervals her
feelings demanded a stimulant, and obeying the call of nature, she went
forth and got angry.

Hinton came to consider these outbursts as the one diversion in a
succession of monotonous hours. He tabulated the causes, and made bets
with himself as to the strength and duration of each.

Meanwhile the sun and the wind and the silence were working their
miracle. Hinton was introduced to nature by a warlike old rooster whose
Hellenic cast of countenance had suggested the name of Menelaus. A
fierce combat with a brother-fowl had inevitably recalled the great
fight with Paris, and upon investigation Hinton found that the speckled
hen was Helen of Troy! This was but the beginning of a series of
discoveries, and the result was an animated and piquant version of Greek
history, which boldly set aside