There was a blur that flashed past her knees and then Priscilla stood, looking down the road, watching the dog go steadily at a lope as if it knew it had a long, long way to go. So she lifted her hand. “Goodbye, Lassie,” she said, softly. “Goodbye and – good luck!

But the stream had now carried her down towards the village. The boys on the bridge saw the spectacle of a dog being whirled by the current. They shouted and hallooed. With the cruelty of the young that sometimes gets free rein, they picked stones from the roadbed and flung them at her. As her body was whirled under the bridge, they ran across to the downstream side and continued their senseless pelting.

She submitted patiently to all the handling of Hynes, as if she knew there were no use making any protest – but each day, just before four o’clock in the afternoon, something waked in her, and the training of a lifetime called her. She would tear against the wires of her pen or dash at the fence and try to leap it. She had not forgotten.

The collie heard the word “lass,” and barked at it. The pedlar shook his head. “Nay, that’s the pity of it. Ye can understand some o’ man’s language, but man isn’t bright enough to understand thine. And yet it’s us that’s supposed to be most intelligent!

Joe trotted beside his father, who walked quickly. He was thinking that he would never be able to understand why grown-ups were so hard-hearted just when you needed them most.

When human beings are ill, they often make a show of their injuries and parade them so that others may see and give them sympathy. It is just the reverse with an animal living in its natural state. Asking no sympathy, deeming rather that weakness of any kind is something to be ashamed of, it crawls away into some hidden corner and there, alone, it awaits the outcome – either recovery or death.

Lassie was so well known in the village. It was because, as the women said, “You can set your clock by her”.

The two of them stared at the dog behind the wire. Lassie stood, ignoring them as if she were a queen and they were beings so far beneath her that she could not see them.

He raced on down High Street, and now Lassie seemed to catch his enthusiasm. She ran beside him, leaping high in the air, barking that sharp cry of happiness that dogs often can achieve. Her mouth was stretched wide, as collies so frequently do in their glad moments, and in a way that makes collie owners swear that their dogs laugh when pleased.

So the dogs stood for a moment – the one prone under Lassie’s stiff paw, the other cleaning himself with an air that seemed to say: “I didn’t have anything to do with this whole affair at all!