But his reflections on the General were in this case unmerited. What had happened was this. Roy, who had been incarcerated in a disused coach-house, finding that his master did not come to emancipate him at the usual time, had raised his voice in doleful protest, but when his subtle ears detected the sound of his master's receding footsteps, whose firm tread could mean nothing else than "gone for good," his piteous howls increased tenfold, emphasised by a series of frantic plunges against the large double doors. Now, it happened that Johnston, the head-gardener, who hated Roy's master with an undying hatred on account of more than one snubbing which his own impudent presumption had earned for him, and by an inverse rendering of the proverb, likewise hated Roy, thought it an excellent opportunity of wreaking his spite on the dog. So, arming himself with a broomstick, he proceeded to the scene of poor Roy's restraint. "Hold yer rouw, ye beast--wull ye!" said Johnston spitefully, just opening a crack in the door and raising the stick cunningly. But Roy was not quite such a fool. He had withdrawn from the door and crouched away at the back of the room, growling savagely. "Aha, ye cowardly beastie," jeered the man. "Iss-ss!" and he poked at him with the stick. Roy wae now walking to and fro, growling, and every time drawing nearer and nearer to the door, but keeping carefully out of reach of the blows which the biped brute every now and then aimed at him. Suddenly, with a terrific snarl, he made a rush. The trap-door let into the large ones flew open as he flung himself against it, and Johnston, knocked aside by the unexpected weight, rolled sprawling in the dust, and the dog was free. Pausing a moment to make his teeth meet in the thigh of his enemy as he lay, now thoroughly frightened, Roy darted off like an arrow on the track of his master, and came up with him, as we have seen. "My dear old beauty!" said Roland, passing his hand lovingly over the smooth head, and looking down into the soft, faithful eyes. "You're worth a regiment of mere human animals! And yet they call you only a dumb, soulless brute. Well, you won't be sorry to shake the Cranston dust off your paws, anyhow. Come along!" He turned into the footpath across the fields, which saved a mile of hot, shelterless high road, and his face never relaxed its hard frown as he went over that terrible interview again. "Well, the old man and I opened our minds to one another with a refreshing candour, at any rate," he said, half aloud.--"Hallo!" He stood staring blankly, not quite certain whether he was dreaming or not. For there, as if she had started out of the earth itself, was Olive--Roy meanwhile leaping around her and thrusting his importunate nose into her hand, and otherwise claiming his meed of attention.