And I thought to meself: Well, you've got to
finish it, or it'll go bitin' somebody, for sure! But when I come to it
with my hammer, the dog it got up--an' you know how it is when there's
somethin' you've 'alf killed, and you feel sorry, and yet you feel you
must finish it, an' you hit at it blind, you hit at it agen an' agen.
The poor thing, it wriggled and snapped, an' I was terrified it'd bite
me, an' some'ow it got away."' Again our friend paused, and this time we
dared not look at him.
"The next hospitality it was shown," he went on presently, "was by a
farmer, who, seeing it all bloody, drove it off, thinking it had been
digging up a lamb that he'd just buried. The poor homeless beast came
sneaking back, so he told his men to get rid of it. Well, they got hold
of it somehow--there was a hole in its neck that looked as if they'd used
a pitchfork--and, mortally afraid of its biting them, but not liking, as
they told me, to drown it, for fear the owner might come on them, they
got a stake and a chain, and fastened it up, and left it in the water by
the hay-stack where I found it. I had some conversation with that
farmer. 'That's right,' he said, 'but who was to know? I couldn't have
my sheep worried. The brute had blood on his muzzle. These curs do a
lot of harm when they've once been blooded. You can't run risks."' Our
friend cut viciously at a dandelion with his stick.
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