The dog slunk here and slunk there for a time, till his keen senses led him towards where, some fifty yards away, one of the brickmakers' dinners lay within his reach. Giving a sharp glance round, he had already opened his sharp jaws to snatch up the knotted handkerchief which held a basin, when a well-aimed, half-dried brick struck him in the ribs, which emitted a cavernous drummy sound, and with a sharp yelp the brute bounded off. But he was too hungry to be driven right away, and before long he stopped short, screwed himself round, and soothed the injured spot with half a dozen licks. Then, wild of eye and wolfish of aspect, he turned once more towards the sheds to seek for food. He whined a little, either from pain or from an injured feeling--his _amour propre_ telling him that dogs must live as well as the savages round whose camp he prowled. Then, forgetting one pain external in a greater one within, he set off once more, but this time displaying a caution worthy of a wolf as he neared the shed where father, mother, and the clayey children were all so busily at work making their summer harvest--too busy to mind the wretched foster-child, which, after feebly appealing against the neglect, and turning its little face to and fro in search of something warm, had gone off fast asleep. Prologue--Chapter IV. INOCULATED FOR A WOLF. Suddenly in the midst of the work there was the sound of a whip cracking, accompanied by loud oaths, many of them very red, shouts, and the jerking noise of chain harness. It was nothing new, but being a diversion from the monotony of their work, half the brickmakers stopped to look on. The remnant of a fine horse was in the shafts of a heavily-laden sand cart, which he had dragged for some distance through the tenacious mud of the deeply-cut ruts, till, coming to a softer place than usual, one wheel had gone down nearly to the nave in the mire, tilting the cart sideways, and every frantic struggle made by the poor beast only seemed to set it more fast. Its hoofs, which sank deeply, churned up the mud and water, and it stood still at last with heaving flanks, its great earnest eyes staring appealingly at its masters, while the blindfolded skeleton in the clay mill went round and round, then stopped short, and gave its head a jerk, as if saying once more, "It doesn't matter; it will not be for long." _Click, clack, clack_ went the whip, and the skeleton in the mill started energetically once more, while the horse in the cart struggled spasmodically to move the load, much of its strength being, however, exhausted by extricating its hoofs from the clayey, sticky mud. _Click, clack, clack_ went the whip once more, and as Jane Glyne came along panting and perspiring with the weight of her bundle, a little crowd of clayey savages began to collect.