Hitch warmed to them both. He no longer felt the hurt to his pride. It could have happened to anyone and so he recovered himself without fuss or theatricals.
“Look the cement crumbles away easily enough now,” his rescuer remarked as he gently pulled it away and brushed off the last of the powdery crumbs. “No harm done. Wonder where he was going?”
“’eadin’ for the golf course or the model village I’d say, by the looks of ’is trail,” volunteered the other man. “’e’s still got to cross the main Nottin’ Cross road, then ’e’ll be down across the fields an’ along by the lake.”
Still holding Hitch in the sacking, his rescuer nodded agreement as he answered.
“Better put him across the road then, or like as not he’ll be hit by a car —reg’lar death trap that bit o’ road.”
Hitch was overjoyed to hear this; what unexpected luck. Across the clutter made by the road builders and the strip dividing the by-pass from the old road, they went. Over the macadam ribbon with its hooting, screeching, hurtling daymare of traffic to the safety of the roadside ditch he was carried. There he felt himself lowered to friendly sheltering scrub and bramble.
“There you are ol’ lad. Rest up a bit, you’re on the right side now. Just follow your snout an’ I reckon you’ll be O.K. Good luck,” and the man was gone.
Limping a little but light of heart, Hitch trundled along the ditch until he came to a spot where he could look down across the countryside. Leaning against a white painted post he looked about him. What he could only see hazily, his nose and ears brought into keen focus. This was hedgehog country. The sign above him left him in no doubt of that. Nodding ivy twining the post, reaching for sun and air, whispered the message it found on the board. WELCOME TO NOTTING CROSS. Supporting the ‘Noughts and Crosses’ badge of the town were two hedgehogs RAMPANT. Noughts and knots, crosses and ties, hitches and hogs; it was all quite plain to him.
The townsfolk were self-respecting people. Being so tidy in everything they took pride in their motto—KNOTOS PROPEROS TIARE—which means of course ‘Tie proper knots’. Anything more fitting would be hard to find you’d agree. However it must be confessed that some; those in fact who had played noughts and crosses during Latin lessons,