Patrasche lay, dead to all appearances, down
in the white powder of the summer dust. After a while, finding it
useless to assail his ribs with punishment and his ears with
maledictions, the Brabantois--deeming life gone in him, or going so
nearly that his carcass was forever useless, unless indeed some one
should strip it of the skin for gloves--cursed him fiercely in farewell,
struck off the leathern bands of the harness, kicked his body heavily
aside into the grass, and, groaning and muttering in savage wrath,
pushed the cart lazily along the road up hill, and left the dying dog
there for the ants to sting and for the crows to pick.
It was the last day before Kermesse away at Louvain, and the Brabantois
was in haste to reach the fair and get a good place for his truck of
brass wares. He was in fierce wrath, because Patrasche had been a strong
and much-enduring animal, and because he himself had now the hard task
of pushing his charette all the way to Louvain. But to stay to look
after Patrasche never entered his thoughts: the beast was dying and
useless, and he would steal, to replace him, the first large dog that he
found wandering alone out of sight of its master. Patrasche had cost him
nothing, or next to nothing, and for two long, cruel years he had made
him toil ceaselessly in his service from sunrise to sunset, through
summer and winter, in fair weather and foul.
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