Then his head drooped again, even more sadly than
before, and he closed his eyes patiently once more. He loved the
lank yellow dog. Next to little Huldah he loved him better than
anything in the world. It hurt him as much or more to hear the stick
raining blows on them as it did to feel it on his own poor battered
body, for his poor skin was hardened, but his feelings were not.
On each side of the wide road which ran past the coppice and away
from it were sunk ditches and high hedges, separating it from a bit
of wild moorland, which stretched away on either side as far as eye
could see. Here and there in the hedges were gaps, through which a
person or an animal could pass from the road to the moor, and back
again. To Dick, who did not understand it, this was very
bewildering. Ahead of him a black shadow would flit for a moment,
dark against the dazzling white road, then it would disappear.
It moved so swiftly and so close to the ground, that if it had not
been for the scent he might have thought it was some animal dodging
about among the ditches and dry grasses. Dick could not know that
when it had slipped through a gap in the hedge it became, instead of
a shadow, a solid little dingy brown figure.
Dick was puzzled. He was sure that Huldah was on ahead of him
somewhere, and he was very sure that he wanted her, but he was not at
all sure where she was, or that she wanted him; and there are times
in the lives of caravan dogs when they are not wanted, and are made
to know it.
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