"Let me help you," cried Dick, hurrying forward, "I'd be so glad of a job!"
The worker looked sharply at him, and at once said, with a sigh of relief, "I don't mind if you do. Carry them into the woodshed there and stack them tidy, and I'll give you three-pence. You look honest, and that's a nice little dog you've got."
"Yes, isn't he? Sit up, Pat!"
The old woman laughed, as Pat stood up obediently on his tired little legs and begged, and Dick went on, "I don't beg myself, though I am tramping, but Pat learned to do it before we came."
And encouraged by this friendly notice Pat wagged his tail and immediately followed the old woman into her bright kitchen and stretched himself on the gay rag carpet before the fire.
Like her, he kept one eye on the little toiler outside, but Dick had set to work with a will. He plodded on, making a threefold stack in the woodshed, with the logs at one end and the blocks at the other, and all the chips in the middle.
"Must be Lionheart when there's threepence to be earned, even if you are tired all over," he murmured, as he trudged to and fro. Presently a cheerful sound of teacups and a delightful smell of toast came from the cottage, and then the old woman brought out a broom to sweep up the mess.
"That's right, my lad. Why, bless me, you have been quick! And you've stacked them a sight better than I could myself. You shall wash your hands and come in and have some tea before you go on. As to the little dog I should like to keep him, he's so pretty and peart. I s'pose you don't want to part with him?"
"Oh, no, thank you, ma'am," said Dick quickly, "but I should like some tea, I am so thirsty." And in five minutes Dick was sitting at the round table and telling Mrs. Grey a little bit of his story, while Pat finished a saucerful of sop and then looked up knowingly at his master, as if to say, "These are famous quarters—don't tramp any further to-night."
"Poor boy," said Mrs. Grey, as she wiped her spectacles, "it's a long way for you to go, and coming on dead of winter too. I don't see how you're going to manage it. But you shall have a shakedown on the old sofa here, for to-night. I am sure I can trust you, or rather trust Him who said 'Inasmuch.'"