"I wasn't a vagabond them times," retorted Shamus, quickly, yet with entire good humor, "and sorry for it I am that the name could ever belong to me since. And please, Mr. Sachem, don't be after interruptin' again. Some people wonder why the dogs bark at the new moon an' howl under the windows afore a death. In the one matter, your honors, they see the witches on a broomstick, ridin' roun' the sky, an' gatherin' ripe moon-beams for their death-mixtures an' brain blights. Many a man in our grandfathers' time--yes, an' now-a-days too--sleepin' under the full moon, has had his brains addled by the unwholesome powder falling from the witches' aprons. Wise men call it comet dust. And why shouldn't a dog that has grown up to mind his duty of watchin' the family, howl when he sees Death sittin' on the window sill, a starin' within, and preparin' to snatch some darlint away? Ah, but their second sight is a wonderful gift though! "The name of my dog, your honors, was Goblin, an' he came to us in a queer sort of way, just like a goblin should. There was a hard storm along the coast, an' the next mornin' a broken yawl drifted in, half full of water, with a dead man washin' about in it, an' a half-drowned pup squattin' on the back seat. Me an' my cousin buried the man, an' the other beast I brought up. May be there was somethin' in this distress that he got into so young that he couldn't outgrow. Even the priest used to notice it, and say the poor creature had a sort of touch of the melancholy; an' sure, he never was a joyful dog. Smart an' true he was, but, faith, he wasn't never happy; yez might pat him to pieces, an' get never a wag of the tail for it. He delighted in wakes and buryins, an' when a neighborin' gamekeeper died, he howled for a whole day an' a night, though the man had shot at him twenty times. Mighty few men, your honors, with a dozen slugs in their skin, would have stood on the edge of a man's grave that shot them, an' mourned when the earth rattled on the box the way Goblin, poor beast, did then. Ah, nobody knows what dogs can see with their wonderful second sight. That beast thought an' studied out things better than half the men ye'll find; an' it's my belief that dogs did so before, an' they have done it since, an' they always will."