Dick and Brownie | Page 2

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. Dick had learnt that fact, but he wanted Huldah, and he could not help feeling that she wanted him. It was very seldom that she did not.
So he followed along slowly, keeping at a safe distance, his eyes and his senses all on the alert to find out if that shadow ahead of him was really his little mistress, or what it was--and if she would be angry if he ran after her and joined her.
For a mile, for two miles, they went on like this, then the moor ended, and roads and fields and houses came in sight. The black shadow, which was really a little brown girl, stood for a moment under the shelter of the hedge and looked hurriedly about her. "Which'll be the safest way to go?" she gasped to herself, and wished her heart would not thump so hard, for it made her tremble so that she could hardly stand or move. She shaded her eyes with her little sun-burnt hand and looked about her anxiously.
"They'd be certain sure to take the van along the main road," she said to herself; "and anyway somebody might see me, and tell _'im_. He's sure to ask everybody if they've seen me." A sob caught in her throat, and tears came very near her eyes. She had often and often thought of running away, but had never before had the courage and the opportunity at the same time, and now that she had got both, and had seized them, she was horribly frightened.
She was not so frightened by the prospect of want and loneliness and uncertainty which lay before her, as she was by the thought of being caught, and taken back again. The risk of capture after this bold step of hers, and what would follow, were so terrible that the mere thought of them made her turn off the high road at a run, and dash into the nearest lane she came to. She had the sense to choose one on the opposite side of the road, lest she should find herself back on the moor again. A moor was so treacherous, there was no shelter, and one never knew when one would be pounced on. There was no shelter either, no food, no house, no safe hiding-place, and of course there was no chance of finding a friend there, who might take pity on her.
The lane she dashed into so blindly was a steep one, it led up, and up, and up, but the hedges were so high she could not see anything beyond them. They shut out all the air too, and the heat was quite stifling, her poor thin little face grew scarlet, the perspiration ran off her brow in heavy drops. She picked up her apron at last, to wipe them away, and then it was she found the bundle of raffia and the two or three baskets she had brought out to sell, when the thought had come to her that she would never go back any more--that here was the chance she had longed for. Now, when she noticed the baskets for the first time, her heart beat faster than ever, for she could well picture the rage there would be, when it was discovered that not only had she run away, but had taken with her two baskets ready for sale!
"They are mine! I made them," she gasped, nervously, "and I left some behind!"