All at once he heard a yelp, and turning, there was Pete Warboys’ dog racing toward him as hard as it could come. As it drew nearer, tearing along the sandy road, it began to bark furiously, and looked so vicious that Tom stooped and picked up a big stone.
That was sufficient; the dog yelped aloud, turned, leaped over a hedge, and ran for its life.
“Awful coward, after all,” muttered Tom, throwing down the stone and returning to the house, where he set to work and helped David for the rest of the day.
Three times had David charged out after the dog, which kept coming and howling close at hand, and each time the gardener came back grumbling about some one having been “chucking that there dog bones.”
“Cook says she arn’t, sir, and t’other says she arn’t; but I put it to you, sir, would that there dog come a-yowling here if he warn’t hungry?”
“Perhaps that’s why he has come, David,” said Tom.
“No, sir, not athout he expected to get something. I wish him and Pete Warboys had been jolly well blowed out o’ the parish last night, that I do.”
That night at intervals the dog came howling about the place, and kept Tom awake for a while, but the exertions of the past night and the work of the day had told so upon him that he fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep, but only to be awakened just after sunrise by the mournful howl.