she saw the dunghill
just behind her, and with some encouragement, made one more vigorous
scramble to reach it. She succeeded; and Roger whipped up the pitcher,
and was certainly trying to milk her. She could not, however, be
prevented from lying down. Oliver was more angry than he had almost
ever been in his life, when he saw Roger kick her repeatedly, in
different parts of her body, pull her by the tail, and haul up her head
with a rope he had found in the stable. The poor cow never attempted to
rise; and it was clear that she wanted comfort, and not ill-usage.
Oliver determined that, when Roger came back, he would not speak a word
to him.

Roger set about returning presently, when he found that nothing could be
got from the cow. He took his boiler on board, and pulled himself in by
the line, without troubling himself to paddle.

When he came in at the window, he threw down the pitcher, swearing at
himself for the trouble he had taken about a good-for-nothing beast that
had been standing starving in the water till she had not a drop of milk
to give. He looked at Oliver, as if rather surprised that he did not
speak; but Oliver took no notice of him.

It was a hare that Roger had in his boiler,--a hare that had, no doubt,
leaped into the boiler when pressed by a still more urgent danger than
sailing down the stream in such a boat. Roger had cut her throat with
his pocket-knife; and there she lay in her own blood.

"Don't you touch that," said Roger, as he landed his booty upon the
window-sill. "If you lay a finger on that, it will be the worse for
you. They are mine--both puss and the boiler."

Still Oliver did not speak. He wondered what Roger meant to do with
these things, if nobody else was to touch them.

Roger soon made it clear what his intentions were. He whistled to his
dog, which scampered down-stairs to him from the top of the house; put
dog, puss, and boiler into the clothes' basket, and pulled himself over
with them to the Red-hill, taking care to carry the tinder-box with him.
There he made a fire, skinned and cooked his hare, and, with his dog,
made a feast of it, under a tree.

Nobody grudged him his feast; though the children were sorry to find
that any one could be so selfish. Ailwin was glad to be rid of him, on
any terms; and, as soon as Oliver was sure that he was occupied for some
time to come, so that he would not be returning to make mischief, he
resolved to go over to the cow