It would be well to get on, and not to stand there gaping into the darkness, listening to what you were never meant to hear. The truth of the old saying generally holds good; and sometimes words accidentally overheard in such ways are fixed in the mind for life. These last were like a stab.
“Don’t seem to have much else?” What did the fellow mean? How invariably lookers-on misjudged! What a mistake it was to pass judgment at all—on anything or anybody!
“... Much else ... much else...?”
The road was less deeply covered here. The dog was heavy: a few yards more and he was put down. As the journey was resumed, he took to playing in the darkness, and, in his winning and affectionate way, with the fingers of his master’s hand, as much as to say, “Thank you: we are together; the rest matters little.”
“Him and his dog ... much else ... much else...?” The words kept time with the footfall.
How dark it was!
And cold—the thermometer marked minus 1°.