She thought he was in company with the two men; and they had been ill-treating him.
“I can’t get any work, ma’am, so I don’t want much to eat. Now I think of it, I believe it was the gladness of seeing an old friend again, and not the hunger, that made me feel so queer all at once.”
“Where’s your friend?” she asked, looking round the assembly.
“There he is!” answered Clare, putting up his hand, and stroking the big nose that was right over his face.
“Couldn’t you rise now?” said the woman, after a moment’s silent regard of him.
“I’ll try, ma’am; I don’t feel quite sure.”
“I want you to come into the house, and have a good square meal.”
“If you would be so kind, ma’am, as let me have a bit of bread here! Nimrod would not like me to leave him. He loves me, ma’am, and if I went away, he might be troublesome. Those men will never do anything with him: he doesn’t like them! They’ve been rough to him, I don’t doubt. Not that I wonder at that, for he is a terrible beast to most people. They used to say he never was good with anybody but me. I suppose he knew I cared for him!”
His eyes closed again. The woman made haste to get him something. In a few minutes she returned with a basin of broth. He took it eagerly, but with a look of gratitude that went to her heart. Before he tasted it, however, he set it on the ground, broke in half the great piece of bread she had brought with it, and gave the larger part to his dog. Then he ate the other with his broth, and felt better than for many a day. Some of the men said he could not be very hungry to give a cur like that so much of his dinner; but the evil thought did not enter the mind of the woman.
“You’d better be taking your beast away,” said the woman, who by this time understood the affair, to the two men.