He fell into a little pool of clear brown water: he spluttered
and paddled there for a second, then he got his footing and scrambled
across the stones up to the opposite bank, where he began shaking the
water from his coat among the long grass.
"Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?" she said, with her face
full of indignation.
"And how could you be so imprudent?"' he said quite as vehemently.
"Why, whose is the dog?"
"I don't know."
"And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of the
highway--He might have been mad."
"I knew he wasn't mad," she said: "it was only a fit; and how could
you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?"
"Oh," said the young man, coolly, "a clash of cold water is the best
thing for a dog that has a fit. Besides, I don't care what he had or
what I did with him, so long as you are safe. Your little finger is of
more consequence than the necks of all the curs in the country."
"Oh, it is mean of you to say that," she retorted warmly. "You have no
pity for those wretched little things that are at every one's mercy.
If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, now, you would care for that,
or if it were a dog that was skilled in getting game for you, you
would care for that."
"Yes, certainly," he said: "these are dogs that have something to
recommend them."
"Yes, and every one is good to them: they are not in need of your
favor. But you don't think of the wretched little brutes that have
nothing to recommend them, that only live on sufferance, that every
one kicks and despises and starves.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243