"Well, I'll leap the ditch then, Blazer," they heard her cry; "if that is what you want." And stepping back a pace or two, she took a run, and jumped it clean and clear.
"That was a good leap, my lass," the Squire called approvingly. "Surely she's not town-bred, Bluff," added he, drawing in his head to look back towards the bed.
"She is, sir," answered Farmer Bluff; "and such a white-faced thing, too, when her mother brought her here."
"Well, come!" rejoined the Squire cheerily. "There's something to set off against your leaving the farm. If you hadn't had to come up here, I suppose she'd be white-faced yet. But what about this dog? I don't see how he's going to be got upon the chain again. The collar is broken too."
"There used to be another collar about the place," Farmer Bluff answered.
For the brute had always seemed so fierce, they had not dared to depend upon a single one; but where it was, he could not say—though Mrs. Rust might know when she came in—nor who would undertake to put it on.
"I shouldn't be afraid if I could manage it," said Hal, who had reluctantly obeyed his grandfather's desire that he would not go down. "But you see my crutches are so in the way."
The Squire shook his head.
"Better wait till old Dobson's home," suggested Farmer Bluff. "The dog knows him."
"Only," put in Hal, "just think how frightened Mrs. Rust will be when she comes in."