She turned and, standing quietly, watched the scene he had left. Hynes was stirring angrily.

“Hi’ll pen ’er hup,” he muttered. “And if she hever gets away again, Hi’ll…”

He did not finish the sentence, for as he spoke he made as if to grasp Lassie’s mane. But he never reached the dog, for Sam Carraclough’s heavy, hobnailed boot trod on Hynes’s foot, pinning him to his position. The man spoke slowly.

“I brought my lad wi’ me to pen her up this time,” he said. “It’s him she runs home for, and so he’ll pen her up and bid her stay.”

Then the cumbrous Yorkshire voice lifted, as if Sam Carraclough had just noticed something.

“Eigh, now I’m sorry. I didn’t hardly notice I were standing on thy foot. Come along, Joe, lad. Unlatch the kennel for us, Hynes, and we’ll put her in.”

Priscilla, standing still beside the aged evergreens, saw the dog come through from the kennel to the run. As the boy came by the wire, she lifted her head and then walked to him. The collie pressed against the wire, and for a long moment the boy stood there, his fingers reaching through the mesh to touch the coolness of the dog’s nose. The man ended the silence.

“Come on, Joe, lad. Now get it over with. There’s no use stretching it out. Bid her stay—tell her we can’t have her coming home no more.”

Priscilla saw the boy by the kennels look up at his father and then glance around, as if there would be some help coming from somewhere.

But there was none. There was no help anywhere for Joe, and he swallowed and started to speak, his words coming slowly, in a low tone, but getting faster and faster as he spoke.

“Stay here and bide happy, Lassie,” he began, his voice hardly audible. “And—and don’t come home no more. Don’t run away no more. Don’t come to school for me no more. Stay here and let us be—because—ye don’t belong to us no more and we don’t want to see thee—ever, again. Because tha’s a bad dog—and we don’t love thee no more, and we don’t want to see thee. So don’t plague us and come running home—and stay here forever and leave us be. And—and don’t never come home again!”

The dog, as if it understood, walked to the far corner of the kennel and lay down. The boy turned savagely and started away. And because it was hard for him to see where he was going, he stumbled. But his father, who was walking beside him with his head very high and his gaze straight ahead, caught him by the shoulder and shook him and said roughly:

“Look where tha’s going!”

Joe trotted beside his father, who walked quickly. He was thinking that he would never be able to understand why grownups were so hard-hearted just when you needed them most.

He ran beside his father, thinking that, and not understanding that the man wanted to get away from the sound that followed them—the sound of a collie, barking bravely, calling to her master not to desert her. Joe did not understand that.

And there was another who found many things hard to understand. It was Priscilla, who came closer to the run where the collie now stood, her eyes fixed unmovingly to the spot where she had last seen her master turn the corner down the path, her head lifting with the signal bark.

Priscilla watched the dog until Hynes came from the front of the kennels. She called to him.

“Hynes!”

“Yes, Miss Priscilla?”

“Why does the dog run home to them? Isn’t she happy here?”

“Why, bless yer ’eart, Miss Priscilla, of course she’s ’appy—a fine kennel like she’s got.