ship is like
the first taste of bitter food--it seems for a moment unbearable; yet,
if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger, we take another bite
and find it possible to go on. When Hetty recovered from her burst of
weeping, she rallied her fainting courage: it was raining, and she
must try to get on to a village where she might find rest and shelter.
Presently, as she walked on wearily, she heard the rumbling of heavy
wheels behind her; a covered waggon was coming, creeping slowly along
with a slouching driver cracking his whip beside the horses. She waited
for it, thinking that if the waggoner were not a very sour-looking man,
she would ask him to take her up. As the waggon approached her, the
driver had fallen behind, but there was something in the front of the
big vehicle which encouraged her. At any previous moment in her life
she would not have noticed it, but now, the new susceptibility that
suffering had awakened in her caused this object to impress her
strongly. It was only a small white-and-liver-coloured spaniel which
sat on the front ledge of the waggon, with large timid eyes, and an
incessant trembling in the body, such as you may have seen in some of
these small creatures. Hetty cared little for animals, as you know,
but at this moment she felt as if the helpless timid creature had some
fellowship with her, and without being quite aware of the reason, she
was less doubtful about speaking to the driver, who now came forward--a
large ruddy man, with a sack over his shoulders, by way of scarf or
mantle.

"Could you take me up in your waggon, if you're going towards Ashby?"
said Hetty. "I'll pay you for it."

"Aw," said the big fellow, with that slowly dawning smile which belongs
to heavy faces, "I can take y' up fawst enough wi'out bein' paid for't
if you dooant mind lyin' a bit closish a-top o' the wool-packs. Where do
you coom from? And what do you want at Ashby?"

"I come from Stoniton. I'm going a long way--to Windsor."

"What! Arter some service, or what?"

"Going to my brother--he's a soldier there."

"Well, I'm going no furder nor Leicester--and fur enough too--but I'll
take you, if you dooant mind being a bit long on the road. Th' hosses
wooant feel YOUR weight no more nor they feel the little doog there, as
I puck up on the road a fortni't agoo. He war lost, I b'lieve, an's been
all of a tremble iver sin'. Come, gi' us your basket an' come behind and
let me put y' in."

To lie on the