Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/144

Rh earnestly besought me to take that dog away and let him down.

I made no answer, but, turning to Pomona, I asked her what this all meant.

"Why, sir, you see," said she, "I was in the kitchen bakin' pies, and this fellow must have got over the fence at the side of the house, for the dog didn't see him, and the first thing I know'd he was stickin' his head in the window, and he asked me to give him somethin' to eat. And when I said I'd see in a minute if there was anything for him, he says to me: 'Gimme a piece of one of them pies'—pies I'd just baked and was settin' to cool on the kitchen table! 'No, sir,' says I, 'I'm not goin' to cut one of them pies for you, or anyone like you.' 'All right!' says he. 'I'll come in and help myself.' He must have known there was no man about, and, comin' the way he did, he hadn't seen the dog. So he came round to the kitchen door, but I shot out before he got there and unchained Lord Edward. I guess he saw the dog when he got to the door, and at any rate he heard the chain clankin', and he didn't go in, but just put for the gate. But Lord Edward was after him so quick that he hadn't no time to go to no gates. It was all he could do to scoot up this tree, and if he'd been a millionth part of a minute later he'd 'a' been in another world by this time."

The man, who had not attempted to interrupt Pomona's speech, now began again to implore me to let him down, while Euphemia looked pitifully at him, and was about, I think, to intercede with me in his favour, but my attention was drawn off from her by the strange conduct of the dog. Believing, I suppose, that he might leave the tramp for a moment, now that I had arrived, he had dashed away to