silver in the moonlight; far away, like a 

 vague shadow, a handful of little gray houses «- — ? ru*j in ir> 

 clung like barnacles to the base of a great jr% ff # 

 bare hill whose foot was in the sea and whose ,.^t-A v_3> 

 head wavered among the clouds of heaven. 

 Not a light shone, not a sound or a sign 

 of life came from these little houses, whose 

 shells close daily at twilight over the life 

 within, weary with the day's work. Only 

 the dogs were restless — those strange crea- 

 tures that shelter in our houses and share 

 our bread, yet live in another world, a dumb, 

 silent, lonely world shut out from ours by 

 impassable barriers. 



For hours these uncanny dogs had puzzled 

 me, a score of vicious, hungry brutes that 

 drew the sledges in winter and that picked 

 up a vagabond living in the idle summer by 

 hunting rabbits and raiding the fishermen's 

 flakes and pig-pens and by catching flounders 

 in the sea as the tide ebbed. Venture among 

 them with fear in your 

 heart and they would 

 fly at your legs and 

 throat like wild beasts; 



