m.
The poor brute's in agony now. Look at his eyes!'

'Nothin' ye can do,' repeated the owner in a dull voice, his eyes
almost as full of distress as those of his injured helpmate. 'An'
Jimmy were the best donkey as iver pulled a cart.'

'Nothin' at all,' said the keeper, ''cept a charge o' No. 6,' and he
tapped the breech of his gun significantly.

'Shoot him?' cried old Thatcher.

'It's that or let him die slowly in misery,' replied the keeper. 'If
ye like I'll put him out of his pain before I go on, but I can't stay
long, for I've got to meet someone in Hayton Spinney, and I ought to be
there now.'

'You're quite sure nothing can be done?' said Dick to the keeper.

'Perfectly sure, sir,' replied the man; 'the shoulder bone's clean
gone. If it wor' a hunter worth three hundred guineas nothing could be
done to save the creature's life.'

Jimmy was not worth three guineas, let alone three hundred, but when
the keeper had mercifully ended the poor brute's sufferings with a
cartridge, and hurried on to his appointment, he left old Thatcher
heart-broken beside the body of his faithful servant.

'I dunno what I'm goin' to do now!' cried the poor old fellow to the
scouts, who remained at his side to see what help they could render.
'Ye see, wi' Jimmy to help me I've med a few shillin's a week, doin' a
bit o' higgling an' odd jobs in carryin' light things. That's kept me
out o' the Work'us. But I'm a lost man now. There's nowt but the
Union for me, I doubt. An' I've fowt hard to keep out o' that.'

The scouts tried to console him, but the loss of his donkey was a heavy
blow to the old higgler.

'Where am I goin' to get another?' he said. 'I'm a bit short-handed
now wi' my rent, for I've been ill a good bit on an' off last winter.
Eight-an'-twenty shillin' I gave for Jimmy; an' I ain't got
eight-an'-twenty fardens to spare.'

He heaved a bitter sigh, and began to strip the harness off the
companion of his daily journeys. The scouts helped, and the harness
was tossed into the little cart. That had escaped very well in the
overset: one shaft was cracked, and that was all.

'Joseph Thatcher, Little Eston,' read Dick, from the side of the cart.

'Ay, that's me,' said the higgler. 'Joe Thatcher: lived in Little
Eston all my life.'

'And you were on your road home?' went on Dick.

'Just comin' back from town,' replied the old man. 'I'd been wi' a
load of butter an' fowls an' what-not for two or three