ently, "Insie, you seem to know
this fine fellow. Where have you met him? And whose dog is he? Saracen!
Why, that is the name of the dog who is everybody's terror at Scargate."

"I gave him some water one day," said Insie, "when he was terribly
thirsty. But he seems to know you, father, better than me. He wants you
to do something, and he scorns me."

For Saracen, failing of articulate speech, was uttering volumes of
entreaty with his eyes, which were large, and brown, and full of clear
expression under eyebrows of rich tan; and then he ran to the door, put
up one heavy paw and shook it, and ran back, and pushed the master with
his nozzle, and then threw back his great head and long velvet ears, and
opening his enormous jaws, gave vent to a mighty howl which shook the
roof.

"Oh, put him out, put him out! open the door!" exclaimed Mrs. Bert, in
fresh terror. "If he is not a wolf, he is a great deal worse."

"His master is out in the snow," cried Bert; "perhaps buried in the
snow, and he is come to tell us. Give me my hat, child, and my thick
coat. See how delighted he is, poor fellow! Oh, here comes Maunder! Now
lead the way, my friend. Maunder, go and fetch the other shovel.
There is somebody lost in the snow, I believe. We must follow this dog
immediately."

"Not till you both have had much plenty food," the mother said: "out
upon the moors, this bad, bad night, and for leagues possibly to travel.
My son and my husband are much too good. You bad dog, why did you come,
pestilent? But you shall have food also. Insie, provide him. While I
make to eat your father and your brother."

Saracen would hardly wait, starving as he was; but seeing the men
prepare to start, he made the best of it, and cleared out a colander of
victuals in a minute.

"Put up what is needful for a starving traveller," Mr. Bert said to the
ladies. "We shall want no lantern; the snow gives light enough, and
the moon will soon be up. Keep a kettle boiling, and some warm clothes
ready. Perhaps we shall be hours away; but have no fear. Maunder is the
boy for snow-drifts."

The young man being of a dark and silent nature, quite unlike his
father's, made no reply, nor even deigned to give a smile, but seemed to
be wonderfully taken with the dog, who in many ways resembled him. Then
he cast both shovels on his shoulder at the door, and strode forth,
and stamped upon the path that he had cleared. His father took a stout
stick, the dog leaped past t