It suited me so well, in prospect, that I sat down at Murchison's desk and wrote off my application then and there. Lennox's answer came promptly, dated from the small town in Pennsylvania where he had been settled for the past five years. Beyond a few details about the place, his letter told me very little. He was leaving for his health, to take a three months' holiday abroad, and he wanted a substitute as early as possible. The practice was that of the average country doctor in a not over-populous neighbourhood. It was a bracing district, not far from the mountains; there was good fishing, and some shooting in the fall, and with the arrangements he offered it fell in perfectly with my own plans. He was urgent that I should take over the work as soon as I could, and after a brief correspondence I settled up my affairs in the city--they were not many--packed my few belongings, and went down. It was a small and primitive station at which I was deposited, after a somewhat uninteresting train journey. The place struck me, even in those days, as a survival of an earlier age; one of those little backwaters left behind in the flow of progress. As I stood looking about me at the stretch of dusty road, the hotel, and the few clustered shops that marked the beginning of the village street, the station-master came up. "You're for Doctor Lennox, ain't you?" he began. "His buggy's there waitin'. I reckon Pete's over at the saloon, puttin' in time! I'll step over an' tell him." I put my valise in the solitary vehicle he indicated, with a smart roan mare in the shafts, and a moment later "Pete" appeared, drawing a furtive black hand over his mouth. I addressed him curtly; if he was to be my factotum during the next three months there would have to be less of these rather free-and-easy ways. He eyed me civilly, with some curiosity, muttering a darkie's invariable ready excuses; climbed to the buggy seat, tilting his straw hat over his eyes, and we set off. The village was not large. It seemed that Lennox's place was some mile and a half out, and our road led for the most part through woods. It was pretty country. The trees were tall and close-growing, hickory and oak, with young saplings pushing a sturdy growth between. There were boulders everywhere, the sullen granite that in this district crops out through the earth's scant surface, making the small farmer's life a perpetual harvest of stone picking. To me, fresh from the city pavements, it was picturesque enough. Once a hare loped across our path, and I saw Pete shift the reins to scrabble in his coat pocket. He cast a half-sheepish glance at me as he did so. "Have you lost something?" I asked. "No, sah! I jest recollected suthin'. Raikon dat hyar remin' me!" "Meeting a rabbit is supposed to be lucky, isn't it?" I remarked, lighting a cigarette. "It seems to me I've heard so."