“Where’s Cap?” asked the vicar, drawing up his horse, for Cap was a very capable and trusted sheep-dog.
“T’ boys have been throwing stones at ‘n and they’ve broken t’ poor chap’s leg. Won’t ever be any good no more, a’m thinkin’. Best put him out of ‘s misery.”
“O Roger!” exclaimed a clear young voice, “poor Cap’s leg broken? Can’t we do anything for him?”
“Where is he?” added Florence eagerly, for the voice was that of the future “Queen of Nurses.” “Oh, we can’t leave him all alone in his pain. Just think how cruel!”
“Us can’t do no good, miss, nor you nayther. I’se just take a cord to him to-night; ’tis the only way to ease his pain.”
But Florence turned to plead with the vicar, and to beg that some further effort should be made.
The vicar, urged by the compassion in the young face looking up to his, turned his horse’s head in the right direction for a visit to Cap. In a moment Florence’s pony was put to the gallop, and she was the first to arrive at the shed where the poor dog was lying.
Cap’s faithful brown eyes were soon lifted to hers, as she tenderly tried to make him understand her loving sympathy, caressing him with her little hand and speaking soothingly with her own lips and eyes; till, like the suffering men whose wounds would in the far-off years be eased through her skill, the dog looked up at her in dumb and worshipping gratitude.
The vicar was equal to the occasion, and soon discovered that the leg was not broken at all, but badly bruised and swollen, and perhaps an even greater source of danger and pain than if there had merely been a broken bone.
When he suggested a “compress,” his child-companion was puzzled for a moment. She thought she knew all about poultices and bandages, and I daresay she had often given her dolls a mustard plaster; but a “compress” sounded like something new and mysterious. It was, of course, a great relief when she learned that she only needed to keep soaking cloths in hot water, wringing them out, and folding them over Cap’s injured leg, renewing them as quickly as they cooled. She was a nimble little person, and, with the help of the shepherd boy, soon got a fire of sticks kindled in a neighbouring cottage and the kettle singing on it with the necessary boiling water. But now what to do for cloths? Time is of importance in sick-nursing when every moment of delay means added pain to the sufferer. To ride home would have meant the loss of an hour or two, and thrifty cottagers are not always ready to tear up scant and cherished house-linen for the nursing of dogs. But Florence was not to be baffled. To her great delight she espied the shepherd’s smock hanging up behind the door. She was a fearless soul, and felt no doubt whatever that her mother would pay for a new smock. “This will just do,” she said, and, since that delightful vicar gave a nod of entire approval, she promptly tore it into strips.