'After him, Hal!' yelled his father. 'Don't let the villain escape! Send a shot through his leg if he's gaining on you! Has the brute hurt you, Miss Vaughan?'—looking Peggy tenderly over to see that no damage was done.
Peggy shook her head, for speech seemed almost impossible at that moment, and she broke away from the keeper's eager inquiries to kneel down by Rollo's side, trying vainly to staunch the crimson stream that was draining his life away. But Rollo was beyond the reach of help now. The poor beast made a feeble effort to raise himself up to greet his loved little mistress; he whined, licked her hand, and with one last affectionate glance from his rapidly-glazing eyes, rolled over on his side—quite dead.
'He was a faithful friend, Peggy, for he laid down his life for you,' said Father later on in the day, when poor Rollo's body had been carried home to the stable, and the tramp safely lodged by Mr. Adams and Harry in Warford Gaol, to await his trial for attempted highway robbery and assault.
Peggy had cried till her cheeks were purple and swollen and her eyes were only two aching slits. She took her troubles hardly, and just at present it seemed to her as if life could never be quite the same again. Bobby, almost equally afflicted, had the added trial of trying to conceal his grief, for he regarded tears as unmanly, and the result was a peculiar shortness and roughness of manner, with frequent rushings away to the barn when his feelings overcame him. Joe, whose sympathy could not have been more genuine if Peggy had lost a parent, hovered about all day, trying to console the bereaved pair, with small success, till towards evening a sudden flash of genius inspired him to suggest a funeral, perhaps his village experience teaching him that the bustle and preparation necessary for such a ceremony was the best safety-valve to work off sorrow.
'We might bury him among the ruins, Miss Peggy. There's a fine place round by the old abbot's house, where the ground is soft, and we could dig easy; and I've a cousin in the slate-quarries at Bethogwen as has promised many a time to cut me a little tombstone as a present, if ever I was wantin' one, so I'll ask him to bring it next time he comes, and put Rollo's name on it, and the day, and as how he died defendin' you; and we'll fix it up nice, and plant flowers round, just as if it was the churchyard.'
Peggy sat up, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her damp pocket-handkerchief.
'He ought to be in the real churchyard,' she said chokily. 'If ever a dog deserved the Victoria Cross and a military funeral, it's Rollo!'
'Do you think he'll go to heaven?' asked Bobby, with a suspicious gulp.
'Of course he will! I wonder you can ask such a question! Heaven wouldn't be heaven unless we found Rollo there! We'll wrap his body in the Union Jack, and pick all our best flowers to strew round him; and you might fire off your old pistol over his grave, if Father will let you have any gunpowder—a parting salute, you know, like they do for officers,' said Peggy, cheering up a little at the thought of arranging the obsequies.