Tom’s face darkened now, for his over-strained imagination had painted a fresh picture—that of the miserable-looking cur somewhere close at hand, settled down in a hollow to deliberately gnaw the sandy bone. For it was too much to expect of a dog that, after perhaps starving for eight-and-forty hours, it would leave the meal for which it hungered, and go and deliver such a message as that upon which it was sent.
“Oh, how long! how long!” he groaned. “I could have gone there and back half-a-dozen times.”
It was a moderate computation according to Tom’s feelings, for it seemed to him half the day must have glided by in the agony he was suffering.
But it had not. Time had been going steadily on at its customary rate, in spite of the way in which the lad in his excitement had pushed on the hands of his mental clock.
“I must go,” he cried at last, “or no help will come. That brute is somewhere close by, I’m sure. Here, hi!” he shouted; but there was no reply—no dog came bounding up; and after listening for a few minutes he began to whistle loudly, when his heart seemed suddenly to stop its beating as he leaned forward listening, for, faint and distant but quite clear, there came an answering whistle.
He whistled again, and he pressed his hand upon his breast, feeling half choked with emotion.
The signal was answered, and directly after there was a distant hail, followed by a joyous barking, and the dog came bounding up, to rush down into the hollow, thrust its sharp nose into the burrow, take it out, begin barking again, and then dash off once more among the clustering pine-trunks.
Tom whistled again, then hailed, was answered, hailed again, and sank down half choked by the emotion he felt, and hard pressed to keep back a burst of feeling which tried to unman him.
“This way! ahoy!” he yelled, as he leaped up out of the hole, himself once more. “Quick! help! ahoy!”
Then the dog tore up barking furiously, half wild with excitement, and directly after Tom caught sight of the Vicar, closely followed by his uncle; and then came David with a bundle of tools over his shoulder, followed at a short distance by the village bricklayer, the carpenter, and two more men.