"Ain't got none o' the stuff," said the youth sullenly, "nor can't afford to buy it. Besides, who's to wash him first off, and him in a temper like that?"
"Come over with me to Oaklands and I'll get you some ointment. I'll wash him myself in a minute."
"That's a good 'un," he said, "likely thing me to go to Oaklands!"
"And why?" said Cissy; "it's my father's place. I've just come from there."
"Then your father's a beak, and I ain't going a foot--not if I know it," said the lad.
"A what--oh! you mean a magistrate--so he is. Well, then, if you feel like that about it I'll run over by myself, and sneak some ointment from the stables."
And with a careless wave of the hand, a pat on the head and a "Poo' fellow then" to the white fox-terrier, she was off.
The youth cast his voice over his shoulders to a dozen companions who were hiding in the broom behind. His face and tone were both full of surprise and admiration.
[Illustration: "'LET ME LOOK AT HIM,' SHE SAID."]
"Say, chaps, did you hear her? She said she'd 'sneak' the ointment from the stables. I tell 'ee what, she'll be a rare good plucked one that. And her a beak's daughter! Her mother mun ha' been a piece!"
It was half-an-hour before Cissy got back with the pot of boracic dressing and some lint.
"I had to wait till the coachman had gone to his tea," she explained, "and then send the stable boy with a message to the village to get him out of the way."
The youth on the stone heap secretly signalled his delight to the appreciative audience hiding in the broom bushes.
Then Cissy ordered him to get her some warm water, which he brought from one of the kettles swinging on the birchen tripods scattered here and there about the encampment.
Whereupon, taking the fox-terrier firmly on her knee and turning up the skirt of her dress, she washed away all the dirt and matted hair, cleansing the wound thoroughly.
The poor beast only made a faint whining sound at intervals. Then she applied the antiseptic dressing, and bound the lint tightly down with a cincture about the animal. She fitted his neck with a neat collar of her own invention, made out of the wicker covering of a Chianti wine flask which she brought with her from Oaklands.
"There," she said, "that will keep him from biting at it, and you must see that he doesn't scratch off the bandage. I'll be passing to-morrow and will drop in. Here's the pot of ointment. Put some more on in the morning and some again at night, and he will be all right in a day or two."