"Lay down! blarm your body!" cried Tooler, shrinking back. "Here, yow Jim, kim here, bor, and take this 'ere devil of a dog out o' that."
Jim approached, and the growling was louder than before, while the gentleman in black implored Jim to take care that the animal didn't get hold of his hand.
"Here, yow Harry!" shouted Jim, "yare noot afeared o' doogs together,—darng un, I doont like un."
Accordingly Harry came, and then Sam, and then Bob, and then Bill; but as the dog could not be seen, and as the snarling continued, neither of them dared to put his hand in to drag the monster forth. Bob therefore ran off for Tom Titus the blacksmith, who was supposed to care for nothing, and in less than two minutes Tom Titus arrived with about three feet of rod-iron red hot.
"Darng un!" cried Tom, "this ere 'll maake un quit together!"
"Dear me! my good man," said the gentleman in black, "don't use that unchristian implement! don't put the dumb thing to such horrible torture!"
"It don't siggerfy a button," cried Tooler, "I marn't go to stop here all day. Out he must come."
Upon this Tom Titus introduced his professional weapon, and commenced poking about with considerable energy, while the snapping and growling increased with each poke.
"I'll tell you what it is," said Tom Titus, turning round and wiping the sweat off his brow with his naked arm, "this here cretur here's stark raavin' mad."
"I knew that he was," cried the gentleman in black, getting into an empty wagon which stood without horses just out of the road; "I felt perfectly sure that he was rabid."