Dick and Brownie | Page 2

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 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