It was too late—the yard gate was opened, and Jock, after sniffing and turning about came slowly out.
"Poor old Jockie," said Annette, always fearless, stooping to stroke him.
He turned upon her with a dreadful growl, he was not yet quite mad, but the poison was in him. And in another instant the deadly fangs would have been in the baby's tender flesh, but for the well-aimed blow which flung the dog back, though only for a moment. It was Betty, dashing at him with her bundle of "pigs," the only weapon at hand—the poor pigs smashing and crashing; but they only diverted Jock's attack. When Sandy and the dog-doctor came rushing up, she was on the ground, and Jock had already bitten her in two or three places. But all she said was, "My wee leddy, haud him aff my wee leddy."
And they were able to secure him, so that no one else was bitten.
No, Betty did not die of hydrophobia. She lived for a few months, not longer, her old nerves and feeble frame had got their death blow. But she was tenderly cared for in a peaceful corner of the hospital at the neighbouring town. Uncle James and the children's parents took care that she should want for nothing, and as her bodily strength failed her mind seemed to clear. When little Annette was taken to say good-bye to the brave old woman, poor Pig-Betty was able to whisper a word or two of loving hope that she and her "wee leddy" might meet again—in the Better Land.
THE DORMOUSE'S MISTAKE.
They lived at the corner of the common. Papa, Mamma, Fuzz and Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy, their four children. It was a lovely place to live at, but as they had never seen any other part of the world, I am not sure that they thought it quite so delightful as they might otherwise have done. The children, that is to say—Papa and Mamma of course were wiser. They had heard of very different sorts of places where some poor dormice had to live; small cooped-up nests called cages, out of which they were never allowed to run about, or to enjoy the delightful summer sunshine, and go foraging for hazel nuts and haws, and other delicacies, for themselves. For an ancestor of theirs had once been taken prisoner and shut up in a cage, whence, wonderful to say, he had escaped and got back to the woods again, where he became a great personage among dormice, and was even occasionally requested to give lectures in public to the squirrels and water-rats, and moles and rabbits, and other forest-folk, describing the strange and marvellous things he had seen and heard during his captivity. He had learnt to understand human talk for one thing, and had taught it to his children; and his great-grandson, the Papa of Fuzz and Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy, had begun to give them lessons in this foreign language in their turn, for, as he wisely remarked, there was no saying if it might not turn out useful some day.