By way of parodying this, in the case of another dog, it was suggested by one who was flippant that his epitaph might run—“And may our lives have fewer faults than thine.” But while it is true that this one had run up quite a heavy bill in cats and committed many other enormities, the lineDe mortuis nil nisi bonumwas kept in view, and, if nothing could be said, it was judged better to say nothing. Moreover, as Murphy duly remarked, while we talked over the wonderful doings of many and many a dog now lying in this sacred corner, “What could you possibly have expected in such a case, and from one of Us that you had wilfully named Scamp?”
There was, of course, something in that, and many of Scamp’s acts deserved to be recorded, though this is no place for doing so. At one time he was in London. Residence there naturally put alimit to the exercise of his sporting instincts, but he developed others to replace them. He was sometimes absent all day, to be found at the door at night; and on one occasion he met his master at a City railway station, when thought to have been lost for good and all—was indeed seen by his master to be making his way thither as he drove into the station yard in question.
To have done anything so clever as that might have been thought to have earned the right to headstone and epitaph in full. Yet his resting-place remains unmarked, and his name apparently dogged him to the end, and past it.
“What was that aboutDe mortuis?” came the question from Murphy.
“Nil nisi bonum.”
“That never should have been raised, in his case. What aboutDe vivis?” There was indignation in the tone; perhaps justly.
IX
“What I does is this—what I does is, I gets ’em quite close to me, and then I talks to ’em.”
This is what Mrs. Pinnix invariably replied, when asked how it was that her children were of such good behaviour and gave so little trouble. And Mrs. Pinnix knew, for she had been the careful mother of thirteen, and had developed this happy, good-natured method of dealing with each in turn, boys and girls alike. No doubt she was a remarkable woman in many ways, for she won the last event on the card at the time of the Jubilee sports, being then the mother of ten—“Skipping: open to mothers only.” But the point here, in this remark of hers, is that a long experience with dogs showsthe talking treatment to be as applicable to them as it was to Mrs. Pinnix’s children.
Nor will this be found to be the fanciful idea of the few, if inquiry be made. To live largely, for instance, among those whose labours lie far from cities, and who, of long habit, have come to note many things concerning which the less fortunate townsman knows nothing, is to learn many things oneself. To hazard the remark in such quarters, that a good many people have no belief in the theory that talking to a dog does him good, is to receive for answer, “Ah, but I knows as it does.” Others go further, and in reply to the question whether they think dogs—that is, the best dogs—really understand what is said to them, never fail to assert with emphasis, “Well, they does; I be sure as they does: ’tisn’t a mossel o’ use to tell folks the like o’ we different.”Shepherds, stockmen, farm labourers, old villagers who have had many experiences though living in a narrow circle, and who look back over a long life, constantly make use of such remarks. And probably dog-lovers of all classes will re-echo the same.
It was certainly the method adopted in the further training and education of Murphy. As already related, he had been taught to stop when his master stopped, and to come in when he sat or lay down. Thus, though he was generally allowed to range at will over the open lands and be sometimes far distant, in the event of the one he spent his life with lying down to rest for a while, very few minutes would elapse ere the dog would be found making use of shoulder, back, or arm as comfortable things to rest against. Tucked closely in in this way, his face was level with that other’s, as,with ears cocked and those human eyes of his, he took stock of everything passing in the valley, or that moved on the edges of the great woods clothing the hill-tops.
That was the time to get hold of him; to train him not to run a hare that might come lolloping stupidly along, down wind, into the very jaws of danger; to take no notice of a rabbit that offered insult by drumming with his hind legs on the ground only a few yards off; to tell him strange stories of what he might expect in the years to come when he grew as old as his master, and had learnt to try to take many knocks, to face many problems, to bear and suffer much that might come from strange quarters—had learnt also how to live, and to reap his share of the happiness that the mere fact of living rarely fails to give to all who are not weak-kneed or chicken-hearted.
Of course experience, in some ways,tended to undermine confidence. Did he not know all about that himself? Had he not at one time come to doubt all things human? Had not happiness and trust and faith gone by the board, because of the hardness and injustice meted out to him? But what now? By some miraculous process there had come a change. Doubt had not altogether vanished; confidence had not altogether returned; faith and trust in the giants that stalked over the world, and who seemed to rule it, were not as yet quite re-established: perhaps they never could, or would be. To some natures recovery in such directions is impossible. The fire has seared, the cicatrice remains—though to be hidden away, of course. To show feelings—above all, to show you are hurt—to sing out, in fact—is to exhibit a poor spirit, to fall short in proper doggedness. Suffer in silence, if you can—that mustbe the rule; just as this dog, with his keen, eager face, loves in silence—loves all the more deeply, perchance, because he loves in silence, and because that silence is so much more eloquent than words.
Did Murphy understand? According to Job Nutt, the shepherd, who was a philosopher in his way, “of course he did—he know’d he did: his’n did; for why not your’n?” In the face of such definite assertion there was no room for doubt.
Nutt had had his lambing-pens, that year, down in the hollow where there was “burra” from the winds. It was snowing when the hurdles and the straw were carted out, and all hands had set to work building the sides of the great square, with their thick, straw walls, their straw roofs, the snug divisions into which the sides were divided, the whole sloping to the south to catch what might be of the pale, wintry sun. Every one knew thatsheep lambed quicker and earlier when the snow fell. There had been no time to lose therefore. The first lambs would be heard a fortnight before Christmas. And, as a matter of fact, by mid January, Job Nutt’s family already numbered sixty-three. That was of course nothing. Why, one January, his father had had one hundred and fifty-one lambs born between a Saturday morning at light and Monday, no fewer than forty-two being doubles—and snow falling all the time. Ay, and when he moved his hurdles—that is, those that were straw-wattled—they were caked so hard with snow that they stood upright of themselves. His father “had had to worksomethat day and them two night.” And Job always grinned a merry grin when he told the story.
But now, to-day, when the two who were always together dropped down fromthe hill to pay a visit to this shepherd, it was the last week of February, when the mornings are as brilliant and full of hope as any in the year. The rooks were busy building in the great elms by the river; the wattles just below the lambing-pens were already turning red. Spring was coming: the colour of the sky, the voices of the larks, the bleat of the lambs, all told the same story. Of course winter would return: it always did. But, for the moment, there was a passing exhibition of beauties in store, a reflection of things that should be. By the afternoon the grey blinds would be down again. But that did not matter in the least: this glimpse had been permitted, and in the brilliant sunlight and the stillness the happiness of full confidence had welled up, and seemed to fill the whole world.
Murphy certainly appeared to feel it. As he and his master sunk the hill, hestretched himself out as he ran; he jumped into the air for joy. His doings, in some mysterious way, frequently reflected the colour of the day; and his spirits varied with those of his master. The sympathy of dogs is no modern discovery, but as old as their comradeship with man; and thus this one varied his ways according as times were good or bad, or trials, mental or bodily, chanced to be the same. On this brilliant morning man and dog had caught the light of the sun and the gladness thereof, and the young dog played with his master’s hand as he swung along, and barked and jumped for very love of life.
He was often like this now when they were alone together, though, with others, he would sometimes lapse again into uncertainty and hesitation. Nevertheless, there was no longer doubt that he was on the right road: happiness had in a largemeasure returned; confidence was following. The man and the dog were drawing very close to one another, and in more ways than one.
The pens were only tenanted now by some thirty ewes, still to lamb, and by those “in hospital,” as Job spoke of them. Four hundred tegs, ewes, and lambs were in fold on the hill, on a clover stubble, or what remained of it, being given crushed swedes and other things, for keep was scarce so early in the year. The shepherd’s boy and his dog were up there with them: only Job and Scot were in the pens. Murphy knew this last, savage though he was; and had duly delivered to him, on many a previous occasion, that strange message of his that compelled the most savage to let him pass free.
“Oh! he can come: I likes that dog o’ your’n,” called Job, ordering Scot to his place beneath the bleached and weather-wornhut on wheels, in which all the miscellaneous articles of a shepherd’s craft lay stored. “I be just about to find that mother yonder a new child,” he added, with his usual grin. He was busy tying the skin of a dead lamb on to the back of another—dressing him up, in fact, in another suit, even as Rebecca once did Jacob.
“When a yo do lose her lamb, we’s careful to leave the dead un next its mother, for they’ve got hearts same as we. If us was to go for to take the lamb, they ’ould pine. ’Tis nat’ral, ain’t it? Well, you see, ’tis like this. After a bit we takes a lamb from a yo as has a double, like this un here; skins the dead lamb; and ties the skin round t’other’s neck, same as this—see? She’ll let this un suck then; but she ’ouldn’t afore—no fear! They do know their own childern, same as we; just as they knows them as tends’em. By-and-by I’ll cut this skin away, bit by bit, when I judges this un has got to smell same as her own child: it’ll be all right then. Ah! ’tis like this with sheep—there’s something to be learnt about they every time in the day as one comes nigh ’em.”
So the two men rested against the hurdles in the sun, and Murphy sat solemnly between them: he had become very particular in his manners when with sheep. The disguised lamb was already sucking the ewe; and Job lit his short clay pipe and smiled: he had been up all night.
“I’d never have a lamb killed, if it was my way; no’r I wouldn’t. Do you minds last season, when you and yer dog was along? I wus a-going across the Dene with a bottle o’ warm milk, with a bit of a tube stuck in it, if you minds. ’Twas warm milk I’d taken from the cow. Ah,well, ’twas for a lamb as had lost its mother: udder wrong; I could find of it when the master brought the lot in. And I goes for to say as any un as ’ud serve a yo that way should be crucified. Well, ’tis that very lamb as was as is now the yo a-suckling the one we dressed up. See how things do work round, don’t ’em?”
But the talk was not always about sheep, when the folds or the pens were visited, or “Him and his dog” walked with Nutt and other shepherds over the open lands, in the wind and the weather.
One day Job had been busy sheepwashing, and the talk turned on dogs, as it often did.
“’Tis wonderful what they knows. What don’t ’em know? I says. See that Scot I had—the one afore this un. Well, I was down a-sheepwashing, same as I’ve been just. One o’ the full-mouthed sheep as we had then broke away, andwent straight over river, and it ain’t very narrow there, as you minds. She got up on the further bank and stud. And Scot, he looks at me, and across at the sheep, and then at me again. I know’d, right enough, what he wanted. He wanted to go over and fetch that sheep back. But I ’ouldn’t let un, for a bit. And he kept a-looking and a-looking, same as any one might speak. So I just moved my head, like; there was no call to do no more. And off he set in the water, and swam river, ketched the sheep by the throat—oh, no, he didn’t hurt un, no fear!—dragged un to the bank, and brought un over, right enough: he did, though.”
“Well, ’twas like this,” he continued, after a laugh. “A gen’leman was a-rowing by in a boat at the time. And he comes across to our side, when he sees what Scot ‘a’ done, and he says, ‘Shepherd,’he says, ‘I’ll have that dog off you, if you’ve a mind.’ And with that he puts three golden sovereigns on the bank at my feet, where we was busy a-sheepwashing. So I looks at the sovereigns, and then at he, and says to un, with a laugh—I says, ‘No Sir.’ Lord, how he did pray me to let un have that dog!
“Then it come about this way. That evening we was a-coming down through the village, and passed ‘The Crown’—that was, Scot and me—and there stood the same gen’leman at the door. So he comes across the road, seeing me, and he says, ‘Well, shepherd,’ he says, ‘will you part with the dog now, for, if so be as you will, I’ll make it five instead of three?’ he says. And that’s truth. And I just looked he between the eyes, like, and says, ‘Part with my dog, Sir?’ I says. ‘Why, Sir, if I wus to part with he, I’ll tell ye what he’d do—he’d pine and die—he’djust pine away and die.’ And with that I passed on, and left un. Dogs—well, sheep, if you do please to understand, is sheep; but dogs is dogs, and God Almighty do know as they be wonderful.”
“It’s not all dogs, though, that are as shepherds’ dogs, Nutt—or capable of being.”
Nutt shook his head. The two men and their dogs were on the hillside, with two hundred and fifty tegs moving before them. The sheep were walking with a wide front, but in single files, following those parallel tracks that had marked this steep hillside for centuries, to puzzle strangers.
“You can’t make a shepherd’s dog out of every dog, can you?”
“Perhaps not, in your meaning. But I do know I could train a’most any dog, if as I’d be so minded.”
Scot was on ahead, where he should be. Murphy was close to heel.
“Do you mean to say you could train this one to fold sheep?”
Job Nutt took a deep draw at his pipe, and turned and looked down at Murphy, now just over three years old.
“I likes that dog; well, I’ve allus liked un. Train un to sheep? I believe as I could, were I to be so minded: I do believe as I could.”
The two had to part then. It was dusk, and looked like wet; moreover, some wether sheep in the fold, far down in the valley, were “howling” for rain: they were true weather-prophets always.
So he might be trained to sheep. Job Nutt’s words kept repeating themselves in the mind—“I believe as I could; I do believe as I could.” What the shepherd had said was a testimony to this dog’s marvellous intelligence; but then everyone had come to testify to that and to remark upon it. He was of course nervous and shy, and no doubt would always be so. Perhaps it was these characteristics that gave him the further one of extraordinary gentleness, that won all hearts. Many had already said, with a laugh, that he was “born good”; but latterly some had come to add that he was incapable of harm or ill.
And yet with these characteristics, amounting as they did to a certain softness, there was never any question of his pluck and spirit. Nor was there any limit to it. He had the spirit and “go” of any dozen of his countrymen: what more could possibly be said? At the same time he had the gentleness of a child. He recalled to mind one of those characters that some of us have met, and in strange situations—situations and hours when men’s spirits were on fire, andwhen the air was filled with sounds that once to hear is never to forget. One such is recalled by memory now—a vision of a lithe and active figure that had come its longest marches, and borne the many hardships of the many nights and days, though looking frail as a girl in her teens, and with manner always gentle as a child. For one like that to be amidst such doings as these seemed incongruous. Yet had the estimate proved in the end quite false. Breeding and pluck—nervous energy—had carried through, when others had gone down. And the pluck and the breeding showed itself still, when the blood dripped, and ebbed away, and the face was white as a stone.
Nor is such a parallel as far fetched as might at first appear. Given the two, the dog and the man, this dog was to show before the end characteristics equally striking and of scarcely less charm. Tobear pain is not easy. There is no longer doubt that men feel pain in varying degrees, and that sufferings that might be considered identical are multiplied tenfold in the case of a highly developed organisation. With the high intelligence and nervous development of this dog, it might have been thought that pain would terrify. If so, he never showed it.
It is unnecessary here to refer to the many instances when his dash and high spirit brought about an accident, for all our dogs get into trouble and meet with accidents at times—at least, those of any worth. But it was this dog’s further habit to avoid, when in pain, the company of the one he loved best, and to go invariably to a woman for aid. It was as much as to say that he knew that many men were in such cases worse than useless: a thrust in this instance not without its truth. Thus he came home two milesone night in snow, with both fore-feet cut right across with glass—due to a dash at a rat in some rushes on the frozen riverbank. To his master’s eternal shame he never found it out. But, on arriving home, this dog went straight off for attention, of his own accord, and bore what he had to bear, not only without a flinch, but showing his gratitude by licking the hand that was tending him. So again, when he was once badly stubbed, he went to the same quarter, showed his foot, and then lay down, staying perfectly quiet while a spike was looked for, at last found, and then pulled out with a pair of iron pincers.
These are trivialities, no doubt; but they would not be trivialities to some of Us. It is by such that character shows itself—is moulded and made up—for others to estimate and take due note of. And thus it is that whether they are exhibitedby man or animal, we admit their charm and pay our tribute to them, just as Theron’s faithfulness to Roderick drew these words from the lips of the aged Severian:
“Hast thou some charm, which draws about thee thus
The hearts of all our house—even to the beast
That lacks discourse of reason, but too oft,
With uncorrupted feeling and dumb faith,
Puts lordly man to shame?”
X
The hay harvest had been a light one, owing to the weather in the spring and the absence of wet. It was hardly off the ground before the corn harvest had begun and the long arms of the self-binder were to be seen waving in the air above the standing oats, the first of all, this season, to go down. “The moon had come in on dry earth,” as the harvesters expressed it; and with implicit faith in the moon, there would therefore be no rain. For once in a way faith was not misplaced: there was great heat, which ripened wheat and oats and barley too quickly, left the straw short, and covered the turnips with fly.
It was too hot in the day to go far—that is, for those in life who can choosetheir own time. So the dog and the man took their walks late, and prolonged them to the hour when the ruddy moon rose solemnly into the sky over the woods and set out on its low, summer curve to the west. Daylight lasted long after the sun went down: a hot glow spread gradually northward, and what with the light in this direction and the moon at full, only those two other worlds, Jupiter and Venus, were visible in the cloudless vault above. This was the time of day to be abroad, but, oddly enough, the hour when many were indoors. There was some excuse for the harvesters. They had been up with the sun: by half-past seven it was time to put the self-binder to bed in the field; by eight, or soon after, many were in bed themselves. Men and horses had sweated much, and had had a long day.
It was on an evening such as this thatMurphy had his first lesson in working to the hand, for Job’s remark had given rise to a train of thought. Education was of course everything. Those who lived on the land should be educated in the things of the land; should learn, if not its deeper wonders and mysteries, at least its simple lessons and what lay at the back of these. It was in these fields and over these breezy downs that thews and sinews were to be braced, health and strength gathered, souls cleansed, if so be that the ways of the man were straight and true.
Here was God’s work always visible, from the wonders of the growth of the seeds to the coming of the music of the rains that washed the air and made the land sing with life. Here was always visible the infinite power of small things, beauty unstained, Nature’s laws always in full operation—the triumph of good work, the smothering of that which wasill. Here in these very fields had been gathered the strength of arm that had stood the country in good stead, when the drums beat and true men were wanted beyond seas. That seemed to be more as it should be. And so it may be yet—that is, when the craze of a day has passed, and the men of the land come back.
Education would do it. Some hearts would be bitten with the old love, and learn to forget the new. But the education must be true and not false, in tune with the life that shall be; not cramped and with little connection between it and the field of labour that lies ahead. Uniformity is often but to bring down to one dead level, to crush true liberty and freedom, to force unnatural growth, and to give this a trend untrue. Education on such lines seems curiously false to many minds, as well as stultifying.
Scot, who had no appearance of asheep-dog—that is, as his class are generally portrayed in coloured prints—might possibly have been brought up as a water-spaniel, or he might have been the darling of a semi-detached villa and have learnt to walk drab, unlovely streets without endangering his life: it is all a matter of education, fortified by environment. As it was, he was brought up with a cottage for a home and learnt the mysteries of sheep, the tending and the care of them, what the stretching of limbs meant, no less than freedom and free air.
The life was a hard one, no doubt, in one sense. Sometimes there were short commons: there was much bad weather to be faced, when his master was clad in strange clothes and wore a sack like the hood of a monk over the top of his weather-worn cap, and he himself was glad to get to the shelter of the hut, where the stove was burning: there was the wet,when all alike were mud-smothered: there were the biting winds of March. But there came the glad spring and the long summer days; the one gave a flavour to the other and created a love for both, and deep down in the heart where that love burnt bright was the pride of his calling, the honour of tending sheep. Soft jobs were not for men—or manly dogs.
Of course Murphy could not be a sheep-dog; that is, unless Job Nutt had a mind to make him. Then, of course, he would have had a proper schoolmaster, and been brought up to things among which he had been born and bred, while lookers-on beheld a novel kind of sheep-dog. As it was, however, his master owned no sheep. Yet, seeing that his lot had not been that of some—to walk the streets for exercise, or to lie in the cramped garden of a villa in a town—itwas only right he should learn all that he could, and that his education should partake of the fields and the upland downs around his home.
As to whether it would have been possible to have trained him to the streets at all must now be left among the things unknown. The impression remains that, seeing he never grasped the desperate dangers of the modern road, his life, had he been so foolish as to forsake the country for the town, would probably have been limited to hours. For a better, freer life he was fortunately born, and he certainly never threw this chance away, but made the very most of it, and came to great happiness thereby.
Of course it took time; but a beginning was made in those halcyon, summer days, and the art of working by the hand gradually brought to some perfection. No little of this dog’s gladness in life wascentred eventually in this accomplishment, and he was never happier than when at practice. The education began by teaching him to lie down at the command—“Stop there,” and then in leaving him behind for gradually lengthening periods. So well did he know these words, that he would act on them instantly, and in this way once lost his walk by a slight misunderstanding. An explanation of the method was being given one day, when walking with a friend. The opening words were of course used. Some time after the dog was missed, and it was not until steps had been retraced for a considerable distance that he was found, lying where he had first heard the words and looking a little shy.
The next proceeding was to start him, and then to stop him, till by degrees he came to understand the movement of the hands or arms. In this way it was possibleto send him to great distances, or move him to right or left, much after the manner in which we who are soldiers move our men. When a hand was uplifted high, he would drop at once, so that nobody would think that there was a dog within a mile: he might be lying in rough grass where the ragwort was high, or the wheat, as they say, was proud, and be himself invisible. But he could see well enough with those bright eyes of his, and the moment the arm was waved he was off with a stride of two yards or more, circling round and making the valley ring to his glad bark. He always entered into the whole fun of the thing, and looked upon it as the finest game that had ever been invented.
“Ah, well,” remarked Job as he watched, and Scot gave tongue for very jealousy—“ah, well, I allus liked that dog.”
And so did every one.
With each little addition to the sum of knowledge he possessed, master and dog grew closer to one another. It is always a moot point whether our dogs consider they belong to the family with which they live, or whether they do not regard the matter the other way about, and judge that the family belongs to them. In Murphy’s case there is no shadow of doubt that, so far as his master was concerned, that master most certainly belonged to him. At first, the position had been different. There was reason for that. But even the reason had now apparently passed out of mind: injustice had doubtless been forgiven, and what was far more wonderful—or rather, would have been, had man been in the case and not a dog—had also, so far as could be seen, been totally forgotten.
So completely had confidence beenwon that anything was permitted, even to the playful brandishing of a stick. Sticks were things to play with. They had no relation to punishment at all. Besides, was not life a state to be enjoyed, and as happy as the day was long? And had he not taught his one great friend no end of facts of which he had hitherto been desperately ignorant?
It was all very well for Him to say that he had educated and trained this dog. The dog had all the while been training Him. It was all very well for Him to think in his heart that he had given this dog happiness in life. Happiness had in a measure also come back to Him. There had been, in more than one direction, a strange parallel between their cases, and as this had made itself felt, it had bound them both more closely together. They were now not only never apart, but they were of one mind in otherways as well—in joy of life as they found it under the sky; in the happiness of comradeship as they learnt to rely on it—indoors and out; in the deeper meaning of friendship, with the trust and undeviating truth that friendship claims; in the faith that the one had always in the other, through the good days and the hard.
Those who watched were often overheard to say, “The dog has taken charge of the man.” And so he had, to a certain degree. He had learnt his master’s habits exactly. He knew the time of day by the striking of the clock; and, morning after morning, at a particular hour, if this master, with his funny ways, delayed his going, he would get up from his familiar corner and come and stand and fix him with his eyes. Or, if this failed, would come, gently, closer, and lay his chin upon a knee, and make him laydown his work and come out for the regulation interval. In the longer marches of old days, there were halts in every hour. Come out! Come out! New strength and new ideas are to be gathered outside; you will grow stale in here, whether you choose to practise this art or that. Houses are well enough to sleep in and to give shelter; but it is the heavens that give strength, and it is God’s heaven that somehow, if only feebly, must get itself reflected in man’s work.
So, in another instant, these two would be out together; the one going as far as tether would allow; the other doing what was yet another of his joys in life, and that caused such fun and merriment to lookers-on—the hunting of birds. Of that he never tired on the longest or the hottest day. Blackbirds gave the finest sport of all, as they generally flew only three feet above the ground. He knewtheir note at once; but probably the laugh of the green woodpecker vexed him more than most, while he certainly regarded the mocking notes of cuckoos as insults to himself. Of birds of various kinds he caught many, young and old, but was never known to hurt a single one.
The most remarkable of his exploits in this direction was when he found himself at one time by the sea. It was a lonely coast, where great crimson cliffs rose sheer out of the sand, their ledges, here and there, covered with tamarisk, gorse, and shaven thorn—right to their very summit three hundred feet above, from whence the moors stretched far away inland. A heavy surf beat there at times, setting these cliffs echoing in such a way as to make speech difficult. On these wild days it was well that this dog had learnt to work so perfectly by hand, for he had no fear of the rollers, and thewonder was that he escaped from being drowned.
At the bottom of the whole fun of this new situation lay the fact that these cliffs were inhabited by innumerable gulls. To catch one of these was Murphy’s aim, and often was he washed out on to the sands in a smother of spindrift, in his mad eagerness to attain his end. The herring-gulls were the finest sport of all, with their constant melancholy cries—“pew-il,” “pee-ole,” or their hoarser note of warning, “kak-k-kak”; their bodies two feet in length; their spread of wing no less than four feet four. For months he chased them, till at last some must possibly have known him. It was perhaps on this account that one of them was not quick enough in getting under way on one occasion. Murphy flung himself into the air and got him; and not only got him, but brought him along,with the great wings beating the air about him, so that the dog was scarcely visible for the bird. It was the old story again, of the hare in his earlier days, for the gull was not harmed, and when liberated flew out to sea, with the cry “pew-il,” “pee-ole” flung back from the waves as he went.
“I never thought to live tu zee the like o’ that,” remarked a longshoreman passing at the time: but then he was a stranger to Murphy, and also to his ways.
What happiness was to be had in life; what sport and splendid fun—sport all day long; fun without end! Did not the morning begin with a game?—the dog lying down in one corner of the hall, fixing his master with his eye as he appeared, and then, after pausing a while as if to say, “Are you ready?” launching himself full tilt, till he was brought up in a final leap against his master’s chest,full five feet from the ground. Of course the whole hall was in a smother every time, with mats and rugs all out of place upon the slippery floor. And then the noise! The only thing was to leave the house and work off some of the steam out there.
No dog with a particle of nervousness or hesitation left would do such things as that. But he only did them with his master. When with others, report had it that he was a different dog, with no taste for hunting or for chasing birds—a dog, in fact, that invariably got into one room and lay there alone, unless he changed his place for the mat by the front door.
Of course He would come back. Folk always did. There could be no break in this friendship: it would last for ever. He had heard his master count the years: “Four”—that was his own age—he knew that much; and from four his masterwould count up to ten; then hesitate; then say “eleven”; then hesitate again, and remark, “twelve—perhaps: yes, little man; you’ll see me out—easy!”
And those who watched and looked on added this to what they had said before, “Whatwillhappen, if anything happens to that dog?”
It was a funny way of putting it, but the remark was always met, in reply, with, “Don’t let us meet trouble half-way, or make a circuit of the hills to look for it;
“‘Fortis cadere, cedere non potest.’”
XI
The roads were deep in snow. The fall had begun two hours before light; gently, and with large flakes—the presage of what was to come. Snow was still falling in the afternoon; but now the wind had sprung up, and each large flake was torn into a dozen as the wind played with them, driving them upwards like dust, then catching them and sending them horizontally and at speed over the ground, till they could find a resting-place in some drift that was forming on the north sides of fences, or peace beneath the brambles of some ditch.
An hour or more before dark the wind increased, and was blowing a whole gale. What fun to be out in that: come on!
It was not long before man and dogwere away. The roads would be safe on such a day as this; so, for once, the two trudged along till they overtook two waggons. How big they looked in the smother, each with its team of three—a pair in the shafts, and one more ahead as leader. Talking was difficult, or well-nigh impossible; but at least they could join the men, and shout a word or two at times.
On the weather side the great horses looked twice their size, plastered as they were with snow, their manes and the hair about their huge feet all matted with ice. But on the lee they looked different animals, for their coats were darkened, being drenched with sweat: it was with difficulty that they kept their feet, and their breath came heavily through their nostrils as they struggled on.
Not that they had a heavy load to draw. The waggons were empty. Theyhad come in with a full load in the morning, intending to bring coal back. “But how was ’em to do that, in weather the like of this; or on roads same as these here? Nay, nay,” shouted the rearmost carter, “we’s for getting home, empty or somehow, if so be as these here can keep their feets. The road below the snow is ice, I tell ye—just ice; and, what’s more, Fiddlehill lies just ahead for we.” The last words were punctuated with the crack of a whip like a pistol-shot: all talk was dropped after that for a while; the wind was growing fiercer.
Both waggons were painted yellow, picked out with scarlet; but the paint that had looked brilliant in the sun of the harvest days looked tawdry and dirty now against the snow, and every patch or scar of rough usage was easily discernible. Now and then the wind came with a savage gust, carrying stray straws out of oneof the waggons, though snow was collecting on the floor: on the other, the cords of a tarpaulin, indifferently secured, were smacking the yellow sides like a lash. Some of these sounds did not suit Murphy very well; but he had found out the best and safest place, and was making his way as well as he could, sheltered beneath the rearmost waggon and between the tall hind wheels, whose rims and spokes and hubs were hung and bespattered, like all else, with snow.
It was true that he looked like some other person’s dog, with a white face and whiskers. But his master was white, too, from head to foot; what recked it!
In another hour or less darkness would have shut down on the world, though such a term as darkness was only relative on a day when it could never have been said to have been light.
When the open was reached, the snow,broken into hard flakes, whipped face and ears like nettles. Murphy was the best off of the party, save when something had drawn him from beneath the waggon, and he was having a game with the snow on his own account. Great wreaths hung to the fences, or stood out in ledges where the banks were high. The sky, or rather the whole air, was lead colour, and all distance was blotted out. Flocks of crazy, distracted birds flew close by in great numbers, for the most part finches and larks, with here and there a fieldfare or two, their breasts and underwings buff colour. Then came a flight wholly made up of buntings, whose brilliant yellows looked deep orange against the leaden grey that shrouded all.
There was no end to the great host. They were all going one way: they made no sound but the swish of wings, and uttered no single note: they passed at speedas though in fear, yet all the while in obedience to the supremest law of all. To the southward there would be protection; life there would be preserved: here it was impossible—for birds. “Keep low; press on!” Victory shall be to the strongest: the weak shall fall in this pitiless wind, and the snow shall cover the dead, but in the end there shall be a better life for some. “Keep low; press on!”
There was something weird in such a sight as that: there was something weird also in the sound of the wind. It came sweeping over the fields, tearing with angry gusts at the snow-laden briars in the fences, and passing on with a moaning sound into the dark of the approaching night.
There was no sign of human beings anywhere. Familiar objects had all changed their character, though it was only by these that whereabouts could betold. The remains of a hay-rick by the roadside suddenly showed up out of the mirk, with white top like some great ghost, its blackened sides flecked here and there with snow. In the hot days of June two here had seen it built; and, later on, watched the trussers at work on it, when the price of hay had gone up, and farmers could make a few pounds. But that job, like most others, had had to be abandoned now.
Why, here was the great stoggle oak by the pool, on whose limbs in former times, tradition had it, many a highwayman had swung! The storm to it was nothing: it had weathered so many: the world was a fair place; but life was full of tests as well as trials. “Heads up! Bear yourselves like men,” its limbs seemed to roar in solemn, deep diapason. “Heads up!—there is a haven for all ahead!”
It was fifty yards further on before the voice of the oak was lost. But as man and dog worked further still, for very joy of the wind and the snow and love for the elements at their worst—the horses struggling, the waggoners calling to them loudly and urging them to put their best into it, with many a crack of the whip—there suddenly fell a lull, and for a moment there was peace. And just then, up from the valley, there came other sounds—the larch and the firs down there were sighing out a tune to themselves, being partly sheltered by the hill.
It was time to turn back. There was a lane in the direction of those last sounds: home could easily be reached that way, and, likely enough, with the set of the wind, the roadway itself would have been swept almost bare.
The waggons were lost to sight in amoment, though the woody rattle of the axles could still be heard: snow was falling heavily again: the cold was becoming intense: the wind was now dropping altogether. A dead bird or two were passed, lying in the snow, claws in air and already stiff: a felt and a yellowhammer were side by side at the bottom of the hill. It was like the dead in gay uniforms, lying scattered after an action. A little further on there was a blackbird, to Murphy’s very evident glee. He found it at once, and was for carrying it home; it was still warm. But this was no time for fooling. It was already dark and growing darker; the proper thing to do was to keep together and make for home. Travelling was none too easy, even for tall men, and really difficult for dogs in places.
At points where field gates opened on to the road, drifts had formed two feetin depth, right across the way, and it was necessary to pick up the dog and carry him, though to the latter’s thinking that was a silly thing to do. Time was, when his master had had to do that; but he had then been no better than a child in arms. Now he was a man, and had come to man’s estate, and, furthermore, had learnt what life was, with its hours full of health, and crammed with fresh adventures and experiences, as, of course, it should be. His muscles were hard and flexible as steel, his heart strong with life, his brain quick to learn whatsoever his master thought best that he should know. Health, strength, what happiness it all was! The neighbourhood of those waggons had been rather depressing, and the crack of those whips somewhat disconcerting; but he did not stop to reason why. It was enough that he and his master were together. The past might lookafter itself, and so might the future; this was the all-sufficient present.
A deep silence reigned in the valley; even the larch and the firs had given up their songs. There was the scrunch of the foot at each step, and now and then a rustle in the hedge, as a bramble became overweighted with snow and dislodged its load into the ditch, or last year’s leaves, still clinging to some oak, rustled and were still again. Otherwise the world was dead or asleep; it made little difference which.
A cottage was passed further on, and a chink of light from a candle within showed that the snowflakes were still falling fast. This way would be impassable by morning. At the turn of the lane voices were heard. They were some way off; but it was easy to recognise that they were those of two men talking. Presently the voices became more audible.It was too dark to see who the men were as they passed: at night, when snow is falling, those met are up and gone by almost before their approach is realised. There was just time for a “Good-night,” with a “Good-night to you, Sir,” in reply.
For an instant there was silence: then the men began talking again.
“Bless the Lord!—did you see who that was, Tom, and on such a night as this!” remarked one.
“Don’t know as I know’d un.”
“Not know un?”
“Why, bless the life on yer—that’s Him an’ his dog!”
“There, was it now? Him an’ his dog, for sure. Carrying un, wus he? Like un.”
“Ah—allus together, ain’t ’em?”
“For his part, he don’t seem to have much else.”
It would be well to get on, and not tostand there gaping into the darkness, listening to what you were never meant to hear. The truth of the old saying generally holds good; and sometimes words accidentally overheard in such ways are fixed in the mind for life. These last were like a stab.
“Don’t seem to have much else?” What did the fellow mean? How invariably lookers-on misjudged! What a mistake it was to pass judgment at all—on anything or anybody!
“... Much else ... much else...?”
The road was less deeply covered here. The dog was heavy: a few yards more and he was put down. As the journey was resumed, he took to playing in the darkness, and, in his winning and affectionate way, with the fingers of his master’s hand, as much as to say, “Thank you: we are together; the rest matters little.”
“Him and his dog ... much else ... much else...?” The words kept time with the footfall.
How dark it was!
And cold—the thermometer marked minus 1°.