“And into every room has he been like greased lightning before I could hinder, and covered with dust and dirt, and me that have enough to do to keep things clean as it is, with those two dirty beasts that Mistress Seer sets such store by. But it’s encouraging such things she is, caring for the brutes that perish more than for Christian men and women with mortal souls——”
Red of face, shrewish of tongue, but most excellent as a cook, Miss McCox paused for breath.
“She do be wonderful set on animals,” said the slow Sussex voice of the cowman. He settled his folded arms on the kitchen window-sill. A chat about the new mistress of Thorpe never failed in interest. “But ’tis all right so long as we understand one another.”
Ruth passed his broad back, politely blind to Miss McCox’s facial efforts to inform him of her appearance in the background.
The dog was now coming up the garden path between apple-trees still thickest with blossom. A drooping dejected dog, a dog sick at heart with disappointment, a dog who could not understand. A dusty forlorn thing wholly out of keeping with the jubilant spring world.
Ruth called to him, and he came, politely and patiently.
“Oh, my dear,” she said. “You have come to look for some one and he is not here, and I cannot help you.”
She did what she could. Fetched some water, which he drank eagerly, and food, which he would not look at. She bathed his sore feet and brushed the dust from his silky black and tan coat, until he stood revealed as a singularly beautiful dog. So beautiful that even Miss McCox expressed unwilling admiration.
Sarah and Selina behaved with the utmost decorum. This was unusual when a stranger entered their domain. Ruth wondered while she brushed. It seemed they acknowledged some greater right. Perhaps he had belonged to the man who had so loved and cared for Thorpe before she came. And he had left all—and the dog.
Presently the dog lay down in a chosen place from which he could command a view of both the front drive and the road from the station. He lay with his nose between his paws and watched.