breast for the future on my country rambles lest I should meet again
with such rudeness as I had met to-day and have nothing with which to
defend myself.

I was so engaged in my thoughts as I walked along that I had not noticed
how far ahead of me Dido had run. But suddenly she was brought to my
mind by the most horrible yelping which made me run as fast as ever I
ran in my life.

I came up with her in a little glade away from the main path, a mere
gamekeepers' passage, now much overgrown and choked up, for it was long
since we had kept gamekeepers. I had to creep on my hands and knees
through the briars and undergrowth to reach the place where she was,
which was a clear space in the midst of the tangle.

As soon as she saw me she left off yelping and waited for me with an air
of expectancy, as though she knew that I would soon put an end to her
discomfort.

But alas for the poor thing's faith in me, I saw when I came up to her
that her foot was caught in a trap, a horrible iron-toothed thing, the
like of which I had never seen before. It must have rusted there from
the old days till my poor dog by some accident had released it. I saw
that there were bones by it--the bones of some poor wild creature,
doubtless, who had perished in it, and the bones had no doubt acted as
a warning to the others.

As I knelt down Dido licked my face frantically, being quite sure I was
going to release her. But that was not so easy. Pull as I would I could
not bring the teeth of the trap apart.