repentance came over him, and
regret for what had happened.

"What a brute I must look!" he thought; and then, "How terribly I have
knocked him about!"

Then with the feelings of regret and compunction, he began to wonder
whether Pete was seriously hurt.

"Can't be," he thought the next minute; "he makes too much noise," and
he recalled the howlings when the explosion took place at the mill.

"He's thoroughly beaten," Tom said to himself, as he dabbed his bleeding
face and knuckles, growing more sore and stiff minute by minute.

"This is a rum way of trying to make friends, and to improve him," he
thought dismally, as he went on. "Oh dear, what a mess I'm in!"

Just then so dismally prolonged a howl came from Pete, that, without
looking round, Tom cried angrily in his pain--

"Don't make that row; I'm as bad as you. Come: get up."

He turned then to enforce his order with a little stirring up with his
foot, but a sharp snarl made him start back in wonder, for there, after
creeping quietly up among the furze, was Pete's thin cur seated upon his
master's chest, and ready to defend him now against any one's approach.

"Well done, dog!" thought Tom. "I never liked you before. Here then,
old fellow," he cried aloud, as he thought of the way in which the
master used the dog, brutally as a rule. "I'm not going to hurt him.
Let's get him to sit up."

But the dog barked fiercely as it rose on four legs, and showed its
teeth, while Tom pressed a hand over one eye, tried to keep the other
open, and burst out laughing at the sight before him.

"Oh dear! I mustn't laugh, it hurts so," he cried; and then he laughed
again. For there was Pete's distorted comically swollen face in the
bright sunshine, and in front of it the dog's, puffed up in the most
extraordinary one-sided manner, making the head look like some fancy
sketch of a horrible monster drawn by an artist in fun.

"It must be from the adder's bite," thought Tom, as a feeling of
compassion was extended now to the dog, who, in spite of his menaces,
looked giddy and half stupefied.

"Here, are you going to lie howling there all day?" cried Tom.

"Ow--ow--ow! I want a doctor," groaned the lad; and he threw out his
arms and legs again, nearly dislodging the dog from his chest.

"No, you don't," cried Tom. "Here then, old fellow, let's look at your
nose," he said softly, as he advanced closer, and the dog snarled again,
but not so fiercely.

"Get out!