The hind leg that Dud had pinched was terribly sore and wobbly, and at first seemed almost useless.
“None of that nonsense,” I said sternly to it. “You’ve got to be stood on.” So I propped myself on it as best I could, and began to clear the earth from that uncompromising bar.
It was a hard task. I can not deny that. All over the shed, the earth had been trodden on till it was apparently as firm as marble. But even marble can be penetrated, and I scratched and clawed, till I had a small hole dug. After that it was easier, the earth underneath was softer, but ah! me, how my paws began to ache.
I found the best way to manage was to dig till I dropped exhausted to the ground. Then I would close my eyes and rest my aching limbs for a few minutes. Just as soon as possible, I would get up, prop myself firmly on my one sound hind leg, rest the tender one gingerly on the earth, and start digging again.
When the first faint streaks of daylight came filtering through the broken boards of the roof, I had got the bar uprooted, and had begun to tunnel under the boards of the shed wall. My strength was almost gone. I had to take long times of resting, and short ones of digging. My claws were all worn off, and my paws were bleeding. I had to set my teeth, and think of master and mistress and all my beloved friend dogs, to enable me to keep to work.
Once I thought I was done for. One of the sleeping beauties in the room got off the bed, floundered about, and acted as if he were coming out to call on me.
My first thought was to spring up and try to cover the hole I had made with straw, but that would have been an impossibility, and I lay still, and wondered what was going to happen next.
Tike, for it was he that was stirring, had the will, but not the power to get to the shed, and falling in a heap on the floor, he went to snoring.
I tried to get up, and go on with my work, but it seemed as if I were paralysed. “Oh! for a stimulus,” I muttered, “my limbs are dead,” and just here something happened that was little short of miraculous.