William Freeland shrugged his shoulders. “It seems a dealer in the village told how this woman carried on like mad when Covey sold some girl off the place. I don’t know the details. But the man says he heard the woman say she’d kill her master.”
“Tck! Tck!” The little man shook his head.
“So you see, Doctor,” continued his host, judiciously, “that woman is at large and you’d never be able to cope with her.”
“Why, is she in the neighborhood?” Now Dr. Ross seemed interested.
“It would be very hard for her to get through the cordon they’ve laid around that neck of land. In your long tramps you might easily wander into the section without knowing it. So I wouldn’t get too far off the place if I were you.”
The little man nodded his head. Next evening, however, he did not return to the house until long after dark. He was bespattered with mud. He said he had stumbled and lost his specimens for the day. The mesh bag hung limp at his side.
But no harm had befallen him. There he was, looking like one of his own bugs, under the hedge. William Freeland swung off his horse and went into the house.
“Tell the Doctor breakfast is ready,” he said to Henry, who came forward.
“Dat dirty old man!” grumbled Henry, as he shuffled away on his errand. The master had to laugh.
No yellow canary sang in the alcove, but breakfast hour in the high-ceiled, paneled room passed very pleasantly. In the rare intervals when Dr. Ross was not squinting through his microscope or chasing through the woods, he was an interesting talker. This morning he compared the plant and insect life of this section of the Eastern Shore to a little strip of land in southern France on the Mediterranean.