stood still looking about him, his brown eyes full of wistful
anxiety.

He looked to the right, he looked to the left, he listened eagerly,
then he stepped back to the van again. This time he found something.
It was only a clue, but it sent his spirits up again, and with his
nose to the ground he came quickly back to the edge of the little
wood and beyond it; then, evidently satisfied, he took to his heels
and raced away with a joy which almost forced a yelp of triumph from
his throat.

The old horse raised his head and looked after the dog wistfully.
"If only I were as young and fleet, and able to get away as quietly!"
he thought longingly, and sighed a sigh which made his thin sides
heave painfully. 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