have proved; and in the meantime this intellectual
effervescence added immensely to the pleasure of my country life, and my
long, rambling walks in that wild, beautiful neighborhood.

I remember at this moment, by the by, a curious companionship we had in
those walks. A fine, big Newfoundland dog and small terrier were
generally of the party; and, nothing daunted by their presence, an
extremely tame and affectionate cat, who was a member of the family,
invariably joined the procession, and would accompany us in our longest
walks, trotting demurely along by herself, a little apart from the rest,
though evidently considering herself a member of the party.

The dogs, fully occupied with each other, and with discursive raids
right and left of the road, and parenthetical rushes in various
directions for their own special delectation, would sometimes, returning
to us at full gallop, tumble over poor puss and roll her unceremoniously
down in their headlong career. She never, however, turned back for this,
but, recovering her feet, with her back arched all but in two, and every
hair of her tail standing on end with insulted dignity, vented in a
series of spittings and swearings her opinion of dogs in general and
those dogs in particular, and then resumed her own decently demure gait
and deportment; thanking Heaven, I have no doubt, in her cat's soul,
that she was not that disgustingly violent and ill-mannered beast--a
dog.

My brothers shared with us our fishing excursions and these walks, when
at home from school; besides, I was promoted to their nobler
companionship by occasionally acting as long-stop or short-stop (stop of
some sort was undoubtedly my title) in insufficiently manned or boyed
games of cricket: once, while nervously discharging this onerous duty, I
received a blow on my instep from a cricket ball which I did not stop,
that seemed to me a severe price for the honor of sharing my brothers'
manly pastimes. A sport of theirs in which I joined with more
satisfaction was pistol-shooting at a mark: I had not a quick eye, but a
very steady hand, so that with a deliberate aim I contrived to hit the
mark pretty frequently. I liked this quiet exercise of skill better than
that dreadful watching and catching of cannon-balls at cricket; though
the noise of the discharge of fire-arms was always rather trying to me,
and I especially resented my pistol missing fire when I had braced my
courage for the report. My brother Jo