CHAPTER IX.
I never could like that boy Norman; I thought him both cowardly and conceited. I could not forget that he had killed my friend, the poor dog, Jenny. One day, when he came to my mistress’s house on a visit, he insisted on riding on my back. “Now,” thought I to myself, “I’ll have my revenge.”
Just beyond the garden there was a wood, and beyond the wood there was a very deep and dirty ditch, generally full to the brim with mud. Norman had been boasting what an excellent rider he was, and invited the others to come with him through the wood to see him jump the ditch. They all came, though they did not believe he could do it.
Scarcely had they started, Norman on my back, and the others running by my side along the path through the wood, when I threw up my heels and dashed aside from the path into the bushes. “All right,” shouted Norman, “you run on by the path as far as the ditch, and see whether I don’t jump it before you get there.”
“Oh, you will?” I said to myself. I went quietly along for a little way, where the bushes were thin and fairly far apart, and then, without any warning, I plunged right into a thicket of brambles. My skin is tough, so I didn’t mind them, but Norman’s face and hands and stockinged legs were scratched, and the thorns stuck into his clothes from head to foot. He was a nice object by the time we got to the ditch: he had quite given up his boastful idea of jumping over it, and did all he could to make me stop and let him get off my back.
“Not if I know it,” thought I. “I shall never get such a chance again of punishing you for shooting Jenny;” so I galloped along the edge of the ditch, and when I had reached a very steep and slippery place, I suddenly stopped short, and jerked Norman off my back. He was unable to gain his footing, and pitched headlong into the thick, black mud.
Just then the other children came racing down the path; but what was their surprise and alarm to find me looking into the ditch, and Norman nowhere to be seen.
“Norman! Norman!” they shouted, “where are you?”