"Here is my riding-crop," said the Master. "Take it, please, and strike Lad with it just as you struck him—or the sheep-killing dog—with your stick. Just as hard. Lad has never been struck except once, unjustly, by me, years ago. He has never needed it. But if he would slink away like a whipped mongrel when a stranger hits him, the sooner he is beaten to death the better. Hit him exactly as you hit him this morning."
Judge Maclay half-opened his lips to protest. He knew the love of the people of The Place for Lad, and he wondered at this invitation to a farmhand to thrash the dog publicly. He glanced at the Mistress. Her face was calm, even a little amused. Evidently the Master's request did not horrify or surprise her.
Schwartz's stubby fingers gripped the crop the Master forced into his hand.
With true Teutonic relish for pain-inflicting, he swung the weapon aloft and took a step toward the lazily recumbent collie, striking with all his strength.
Then, with much-increased speed, Schwartz took three steps backward. For, at the menace, Lad had leaped to his feet with the speed of a fighting wolf, eluding the descending crop as it swished past him and launching himself straight for the wielder's throat. He did not growl; he did not pause. He merely sprang for his assailant with a deadly ferocity that brought a cry from Maclay.
The Master caught the huge dog midway in his throatward flight.
"Down, Lad!" he ordered, gently.
The collie, obedient to the word, stretched himself on the floor at the Mistress' feet. But he kept a watchful and right unloving eye on the man who had struck at him.
"It's a bit odd, isn't it," suggested the Master, "that he went for you, like that, just now; when, this morning, he slunk away from your blow, in cringing fear?"