They named him Frank. In a week his old life was a memory, a disturbed memory, though, such as sometimes lingers after a grotesque dream. He had awakened, as it were, into a new world, a new and glorious life. From the porch of the old homestead—it sat on a hill that commanded an extensive view—he saw in maplike demarcations fields and woods and bottoms, like those that had rushed past in the dream, lying still and silent beneath him in sunlit reality.
His bondage was over. He came and went at will. He had his place by the fire when the night was cold. The strained, restless look left his eyes, and there was peace in his heart. Earle saw and understood.
"You haven't always been this way, have you, old man?" he asked. "I guess this is Freedom Hill for you, all right."
Frank did not know—being only a dog—the story that lay back of the name: the story that Earle's great-grandfather on the morning the old columned house was completed had summoned the slaves to the porch and given each his freedom.
"There will be no bondage here," he had said.
Dog and master took long hunts through the fair country that stretched away in blue undulations to the mountains. They returned at dusk, Earle with bulging game pockets, gun stuck under his arm, the setter trotting at his heels. They learned to know each other intimately, to respect each other's ability.
"One in a million, that dog," was Earle's verdict.
A sense of power, of superabundant life, of fulfilment tingled in his nerves and bones during these hunts. What joy came with the knowledge that his nose was growing keener, his judgment more profound! What added joy that his master knew—his master, stern and unrelenting when he was careless, generous with praise when he did well.
He developed fine scorn for visiting huntsmen who missed frequent shots—old Squire Kirby and John Davis, neighbours; sportsmen from afar, drawn to Breton Junction by the field trials held every year. How his master towered above them! How well he knew the crack of his master's gun! How well he knew there was a bird to retrieve when it spoke. He welcomed competition with man and dog. His nose like his master's gun was peerless in the field.
But hunting did not fill his life—there were idle days when he sauntered about at will. There was his sunny spot near the big rock chimney on the southern side of the house. There was his box underneath the back porch, filled always with clean straw, into which he could crawl on bleak days and listen to the rain spouting from the gutters and to the wind mourning around the corners.