In
another moment, Geordie was lying gored and senseless on the heather.
Elsie had reached the stepping-stones, and stood there transfixed like a
marble statue. Blackie might follow her now if he had a mind to, but he
had not. After a glance at Geordie, he plunged away with his heels in
the air through the heather, having an uneasy consciousness that he had
lost his temper, and treated a good friend rather roughly.
As for little Jean, she had fortunately happened to be beyond Blackie's
range of observation; for it was on Elsie that his sole gaze had been
fixed, and he only vented his baulked fury on Geordie when the vision of
bright colours slipped away. Gowrie's ploughman happened to be passing
near, and had been a witness of the scene, though it was impossible for
him to give timely help. Elsie Gray, he noticed, was now safe on the
stepping-stones, and Geordie lying on the heather, with all the mischief
done to him that Blackie was likely to do. But the enraged animal might
attack somebody else presently, and the man thought the best service he
could render was to secure Blackie against doing further injury. Never
did repentant criminal receive handcuffs with more submission than the
guilt-stricken Blackie the badge of punishment. There was a subdued
pathetic look of almost human remorse and woe in the eye of the brute,
as he was led past the place where Geordie lay low among the heather.
The hands that had so often fed him and made a clean soft bed for him at
night, often stroking his great knotted neck, and never raised in unjust
punishment, lying helpless and shattered now, and the fair locks hung
across his face, all dabbled with blood.
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