When he reached his home he was quite out of breath, and his mother was fearful something had happened to him. “Why, Geordie, Geordie, what is the matter with you; and what have you got under your arm?”
Geordie laid down the dog, and the sight of the poor creature, whose looks told the state of disease in which it was, made the good woman quite afraid to have it in the house; and, without hearing anything of the circumstances connected with the poor animal, or giving Geordie time to explain, she declared it should not set foot in the house, and drove Geordie and his purchase out of it together; telling the latter to take it from whence it came, and that the house was not to be converted into a hospital for sick dogs.
Geordie was more disconsolate than ever; he went into the fields, with the dog under his arm: now be laid it down, and patted it; then he talked to it, and, in his childish manner, tried to comfort it. The poor creature looked up to Geordie, and wagged its tail, and seemed quite glad to find somebody could feel for it.
“Ay, that is the way of these ladyfolks,” thought Geordie to himself; “they like their pets, and fondle them enough while they look pretty and frisk about, and play about; but, when they get sick, and ill, or old, then they hang and drown them. I wonder what makes them do it.”
What to do with the dog Geordie knew not. At last, however, he bethought himself that he would take him up into a little loft, over a small stable which his father had, and there make him a bed with some nice hay, and try and make him better.
So he mounted the ladder, and got into the loft. He soon made the poor thing a bed, and then he thought he would get him something to eat; but Geordie had no money. He had, however, a good many marbles, for Geordie was a capital hand at ring-taw; and so he took his marble-bag, and went into the green, where several boys were playing, and very soon sold his marbles. They produced four-pence, for there were more than fifty, at sixteen a penny.
He then bought some dog’s-meat at the butcher’s, and a halfpenny worth of milk, and a halfpenny worth of sulphur, to mix with the milk; for somebody once said, in his hearing, that sulphur and milk were good physic for dogs.
He then washed the animal, and fed him; and what with washing, and physicing, and comforting, in a few days the poor dog regained his strength; in a few days more he regained his coat; and it was not many days more before he was as well as ever.
Geordie then ventured to bring him in to his father and mother; who, seeing the animal quite changed in appearance, and a lively, handsome, little dog, and not very old, were quite pleased with him; and no less pleased with their son’s conduct, when it was all explained to them.
Some weeks after this, Lady Clover came through the village, in her carriage, as usual, and was astonished to behold her little dog sitting, with his fore paws out of Geordie’s mother’s parlor window, just as he used to sit out in her ladyship’s carriage.