The men looked surprised and frightened, and, like most frightened people, they lost their tempers.  “Hold in your dog, can’t you?” cried one.  “You’ve no right to keep a brute like that.”

At the sound of the man’s voice Huldah felt a shock of surprise, and Dick’s anger increased alarmingly.  Where had she heard that voice before?  She was sure it sounded familiar.

Without replying, she laid her hand on Dick’s collar, and held him close to her.

The other man grew more threatening.  “I’ll go to the p’lice, and tell ’em you’ve got a savage dog that ought to be shot, ’cause he isn’t safe!” he shouted out, furious with anger and fear.

“He isn’t savage, he’s good-tempered,” Huldah burst forth, at last.  “He won’t hurt anybody unless they was up to no good, and—­and deserved it.”  She was very near the verge of tears, but she felt she must not break down then.

“Call him good-tempered, do you?  We wasn’t doing anything but just standing here, and he come along ready to fly at our throats!”

Huldah could not deny the man’s statement, nor could she explain.  The men certainly seemed to be doing no harm, and Dick’s behaviour was very extraordinary.  All she could do was to clutch his collar with all her strength, and hurry away as fast as she could go.  All thoughts of the village people’s looks and remarks were gone from her mind now.  She was shaking with nervousness and excitement and fears for Dick, and could think of nothing else.

How she did her errands she never knew, for the scare had driven almost everything else out of her head, her one idea being to hurry home as quickly as possible, and get herself and Dick into safety.  The men were strangers to her, and she hoped they would never find out where she and Dick lived.

All the way back until she got past the gateway she still clutched Dick by the collar, much to his surprise and annoyance, for there was much to interest him on a walk like that, and he had quite forgotten his anger and the strangers who had aroused it.

When they had got safely past the dreaded gateway, Huldah’s fears calmed down a little.

The men had departed, and all the road ahead of them looked empty.

“You may run now, Dickie,” she said, with a sigh of relief, “and don’t go getting into any more rows, for I can’t bear it.”

Dick, with a joyous flick of his tail and a bark of delight, bounded forward delightedly, and Huldah, free at last to attend to other things, looked over her parcels anxiously, to see if she had forgotten anything, for she had really only had half her wits about her when she was in the shop.

“Tea, sugar, box of matches—­” A sharp yell made her look up quickly, her heart seeming to stand still with terror.  It was Dick’s voice, and Dick was in the middle of the road rolling about and crying out sharply, in evident pain.

“Dick!  Dick!  Come here, what has happened?  Oh, Dick!” she called frantically, as she flew to his side; but before she could reach him a big stone came whizzing from the hedge, and another sharp cry of pain showed that poor Dick had been struck again.