When he came nearer, he found that Harry was carrying, wrapped up in a piece of an old sack, a little dog, which Geordie recognised as being one which he had before seen, with its two fore paws leaning over the ledge of the sash-pane in Lady Clover’s carriage, when she drove through the village.
One of the boys had got a couple of brick-bats, and a long piece of cord, and seemed very officious. He called out to Harry, “Harry, let me throw him in, will you?—there’s a good fellow. But wo’n’t you give him a knock on the head,—just one knock to dozzle him?”
“Why, they are going to drown that little pet-dog, that us children used to say, lived a great deal better than we did; and, when I have been very hungry, I have often wished I was Lady Clover’s lap-dog, for I heard say that she sometimes gave it rump-steak for its dinner, with oyster-sauce.” So thought little Geordie to himself; he did not, however, say anything.
“O! here is little Geordie,” said one of the boys. “Geordie, Geordie, come and have some sport!—we are going to drown a dog in the ditch.”
“What are you going to drown it for?” said Geordie.
“O! to have some fun, I suppose. No, it is not that; it is because my lady can’t bear the nasty thing—it has got the mange, or some disorder. There;—do not touch it. Don’t you smell it?”
The poor little dog looked at Geordie, and struggled to get out of the sacking, and gave a whine, as if it would be glad to get away from its enemies.
“Lay down, you beast,” said Harry, and gave it a severe blow on the head; “lay down; I’ll soon settle your business.”
By this time they had come to the fen brook, and the dog was placed on the ground, and taken from the sack-cloth in which it was wrapped. It was a deplorable looking creature, and its hair was off in several places; it yelped wofully as it looked around, while the boys began to prepare the noose and the brick-bats.
“O! do not drown him,” said Geordie; “pray, do not drown him. What are you going to drown him for?”