mother, an' she' called to me in a fine takin' about a mad dog. I ran out
with a shovel and gave 'im one, and drove him out. I'm sorry if he
wasn't mad, he looked it right enough; you can't be too careful with
strange dogs.' Its next acquaintance was an old stone-breaker, a very
decent sort. 'Well! you see,' the old man explained to me, 'the dog came
smellin' round my stones, an' it wouldn' come near, an' it wouldn' go
away; it was all froth and blood about the jaw, and its eyes glared green
at me. I thought to meself, bein' the dog-days--I don't like the look o'
you, you look funny! So I took a stone, an' got it here, just on the
ear; an' it fell over. And I thought to meself: Well, you've got to
finish it, or it'll go bitin' somebody, for sure! But when I come to it
with my hammer, the dog it got up--an' you know how it is when there's
somethin' you've 'alf killed, and you feel sorry, and yet you feel you
must finish it, an' you hit at it blind, you hit at it agen an' agen.
The poor thing, it wriggled and snapped, an' I was terrified it'd bite
me, an' some'ow it got away."' Again our friend paused, and this time we
dared not look at him.

"The next hospitality it was shown," he went on presently, "was by a
farmer, who, seeing it all bloody, drove it off, thinking it had been
digging up a lamb that he'd just buried. The poor homeless beast came
sneaking back, so he told his men to get rid of it. Well, they got hold
of it somehow--there was a hole in its neck that looked as if they'd used
a pitchfork--and, mortally afraid of its biting them, but not liking, as
they told me, to drown it, for fear the owner might come on them, they
got a stake and a chain, and fastened it up, and left it in the water by
the hay-stack where I found it. I had some conversation with that
farmer. 'That's right,' he said, 'but who was to know? I couldn't have
my sheep worried. The brute had blood on his muzzle. These curs do a
lot of harm when they've once been blooded. You can't run risks."' Our