Close to the south wall, so close that he could almost touch it, stood a stone church, with so many gables that there seemed to be one for every pigeon from the stable, and on certain days of the week someone came there to practise on the organ. At times the music was exquisite, and in his rambles about the place he always went down by the south wall to listen for the organ, and if he heard it he remained there until the music ceased. The music pleased him so much, and was such a comfort in his loneliness, that he did not care to see the player, having in his mind a spectacled and disagreeable person whose appearance would rob the spell of its charm; therefore he kept out of his way, though, on the days when the music could be expected, Dorris was always in his place, impatiently waiting for it to commence. There was something in the playing with which he seemed to have been acquainted all his life; it may have been only the expression of weariness and sad melancholy that belongs to all these instruments, but, however it was, he regarded the organ as an old acquaintance, and took much pleasure in its company even when it was silent, for it occupied a great stone house like himself, and had nothing to do. Between the stable and the house was the residence of Mrs. Wedge, the housekeeper--a building that had originally been a detached kitchen, but the cunning of woman had transformed the two rooms into a pleasant and cozy place. This looked home-like and attractive, as there were vines over it and flowers about the door; and here Allan Dorris found himself lingering from day to day, for he seemed to crave companionship, though he was ashamed to own it and go out and seek it. Instead of dining in the stone house, he usually sat down at Mrs. Wedge's table, which he supplied with a lavish hand, and lingered about until he thought it necessary to go away, when he tried to amuse himself in the yard by various exercises, which were probably recollections of his younger days; but he failed at it, and soon came back to ask the motherly old housekeeper odd questions, and laugh good-naturedly at her odd answers. A highly respectable old lady was Mrs. Wedge, in her black cloth dress and snowy white cap, and no one was more generally respected in Davy's Bend. During his life Mr. Wedge had been a strolling agent, never stopping in a town more than a week; and thus she lived and travelled about, always hoping for a quiet home, until her good-natured but shiftless husband took to his bed one day, and never got up again, leaving as her inheritance his blessing and a wild son of thirteen, who knew all about the ways of the world, but nothing of industry. Hearing of Davy's Bend soon after as a growing place,--which was a long time ago, for Davy's Bend was not a growing place now,--she apprenticed her son to a farmer, and entered the service of the owner of The Locks, under whose roof she had since lived.