When I cleared up the land in question, which was not until the following year, I recalled the story Julius had told us, and looked in vain for a sunken grave or perhaps a few weather-bleached bones of some denizen of the forest.  I cannot say, of course, that some one had not been buried there; but if so, the hand of time had long since removed any evidence of the fact.  If some lone wolf, the last of his pack, had once made his den there, his bones had long since crumbled into dust and gone to fertilize the rank vegetation that formed the undergrowth of this wild spot.  I did find, however, a bee-tree in the woods, with an ample cavity in its trunk, and an opening through which convenient access could be had to the stores of honey within.  I have reason to believe that ever since I had bought the place, and for many years before, Julius had been getting honey from this tree.  The gray wolf’s haunt had doubtless proved useful in keeping off too inquisitive people, who might have interfered with his monopoly.

HOT-FOOT HANNIBAL

“I hate you and despise you!  I wish never to see you or speak to you again!”

“Very well; I will take care that henceforth you have no opportunity to do either.”

These words—­the first in the passionately vibrant tones of my sister-in-law, and the latter in the deeper and more restrained accents of an angry man—­startled me from my nap.  I had been dozing in my hammock on the front piazza, behind the honeysuckle vine.  I had been faintly aware of a buzz of conversation in the parlor, but had not at all awakened to its import until these sentences fell, or, I might rather say, were hurled upon my ear.  I presume the young people had either not seen me lying there,—­the Venetian blinds opening from the parlor windows upon the piazza were partly closed on account of the heat,—­or else in their excitement they had forgotten my proximity.

I felt somewhat concerned.  The young man, I had remarked, was proud, firm, jealous of the point of honor, and, from my observation of him, quite likely to resent to the bitter end what he deemed a slight or an injustice.  The girl, I knew, was quite as high-spirited as young Murchison.  I feared she was not so just, and hoped she would prove more yielding.  I knew that her affections were strong and enduring, but that her temperament was capricious, and her sunniest moods easily overcast by some small cloud of jealousy or pique.  I had never imagined, however, that she was capable of such intensity as was revealed by these few words of hers.  As I say, I felt concerned.  I had learned to like Malcolm Murchison, and had heartily consented to his marriage with my ward; for it was in that capacity that I had stood for a year or two to my wife’s younger sister, Mabel.  The match thus rudely broken off had promised to be another link binding me to the kindly Southern people among whom I had not long before taken up my residence.