'
Maurice was caught up again, Lucy shrieked, and Sophy, tottering
against an apple-tree, faintly said, 'He has bitten you!'
'No, not he; it was only a stone,' said Ulick, as best he might, with
a fast bleeding upper lip. 'They were hunting the poor beast to
death--I believe he's no more mad than I am--only with the fright--
but best make sure.'
'Fetch some milk, Lucy,' said Albinia. 'Take Maurice with you. No,
don't take the poor thing down to the river, he'll only think you are
going to drown him. Go, Maurice dear.'
Maurice safe, Albinia was able to find ready expedients after Sir
Fowell Buxton's celebrated example. She brought Ulick the gardener's
thick gauntlets from the tool-house, and supplied him with her knife,
with which he set the poor creature free from the instrument of
torture, and then let him loose, with a pan of milk before him, in
the old-fashioned summer-house, through the window of which he could
observe his motions, and if he looked dangerous, shoot him.
Nothing could look less dangerous; the poor creature sank down on the
floor and moaned, licked its hind leg, and then dragged itself as if
famished to the milk, lapped a little eagerly, but lay down again
whining, as if in pain. Ulick and Albinia called to it, and it
looked up and tried to wag its tail, whining appealingly. 'My poor
brute!' he cried, 'they've treated you worse than a heathen. That's
all--let me see what I can do for you.
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