Larruppin’ Lyndesay, perturbed by the events of the morning, roared
down Hillgate at a pace that sent peaceful marketers flying to the
pavement. Dixon of Dockerneuk, coming up leisurely, watched him and
smiled--for there was a dog.
The grip of the brakes swung the car close upon Jordan’s plate-glass,
and several people thought they were killed, but the dog was spared;
and Dixon smiled grimly a second time, both at Larry’s face and at a
certain recollection. When the car pulled up beside him, he could see
that the young man’s hands were shaking.
The chauffeur, exchanging a friendly wink of much understanding, sprang
out and gave him his place beside his master. Dixon mounted after a
brief greeting.
“You’ll be goin’ out, I suppose?” Larrupper said, moving on. “You’d
better let me take you. I’m needin’ your moral support badly, Dock,
old man. And I got a devil of a fright at that corner--you saw it,
I expect? The dog had a silver brush to it. It reminded me----” He
glanced sideways at his companion--“Sorry, old chap!”
“Lord, Dock!” he went on, presently, “if you knew what a time I’ve
had, these last three years, keepin’ out of the way of things with a
tail at one end and a bark at the other! I dream of them at nights.
There’s times I think I’ll have to quit motorin’, an’ take to a
tricycle. I’ve been punished, Dock, if it’s any comfort to you to know
it.”
“Well, well,” Dixon answered thoughtfully and with admirable serenity,
seeing that they were full speed on the track of a carrier’s cart which
was occupying the whole of the road--“if it’s learned you to think on
a bit before turning a corner, it happen wasn’t all wasted. You’re one
that takes a deal of learning that way, Mr. Lionel!”
Larry chuckled, and then sighed. He did not like to think of that
incident of three years ago. He had been fresh home from Eton, a hasty
snatch at college and a wild rush round the world, and he had known
nothing of Dixon in those days, or of all the things of the North that
Dixon so adequately represented; but in one sharp lesson he had learned
much, and at a price.
Dixon, too, went back in mind. It was not his way to dwell overmuch
on the past; he took things as they came, ordinarily--one day with
another--but he had had other memories stirred, that morning, and he
was looking back in spite of himself. As the car whizzed down the white
road, the two men saw the same scenes re-enacted before them.
* * * * *
I
Dixon of Dockerneuk came down the last slope of the fell.
Behind him, the fresh-herded sheep still cried hysterically to one
another. In front, he saw the smoke of his farm and the twisted ribbon
of the hedged road.
Round his knees flitted a gray and silver thing with adoring eyes
hidden by a silken fringe; a silent-footed attendant whose ears lifted
at the faintest whisper of command, and who dropped to heel at a raised
finger.
Reaching the gate, he paused and looked down at her, and the steady
seriousness of his face relaxed a little. Rain, sitting at his feet,
flopped a lovely tail and reached out an insinuating tongue, but
Dixon’s hand stayed at his side. A dalesman does not waste unnecessary
caresses upon his dog, any more than upon his other daily companions.
Yet Rain was the pride of his heart. He had bred her himself, trained
her himself, as he trained all his dogs, and she knew every shade of
his whistle as a child knows the inflections of its mother’s voice.
The least wave of his hand was her code; two words could give her a
complete law of shepherding. The sympathy between them was the most
perfect that has ever been known to exist between man and beast--the
link between a shepherd and his dog.
He unsnecked the gate, and she danced out, eager for home, waving a
silver tail for him to follow, but he paused again, leaning against the
stoup. A sound escaped him, so soft that at the bend of the road you
would not have heard it, but Rain dropped as if shot, ears cocked, body
rigid; and this time Dixon of Dockerneuk smiled ever so slightly.
To-morrow he was to run her at the dog-trials at Arevar, before half
the County, and he knew that there was not a dog within a fifty-mile
radius that could beat her when handled by himself. Already she was
famous; already “Dixon’s Rain” was a familiar phrase in the mouths
of shepherds; her judgment, her intelligence, her beauty, were
known in every household where a sheep-dog was a matter of serious
consideration. She would be eagerly looked for, to-morrow, and he who
possessed anything that could beat her would indeed be a proud man by
sunset.
With another scarcely-breathed whistle he released her, and turned
to hasp the gate and give a final look up the soaring fell, skirted
with bracken, crowned by sullen rocks. Rain sprang round--sprang to
meet a devil’s galloper of satin panels and shining brass, hurled at a
criminal speed along the narrow, curving road--sprang and disappeared.
She was quite dead when Dixon and the chauffeur drew her out from
between the heavy wheels.
A group of those children who always appear miraculously at every
untoward occurrence, thrust frightened faces through a break in the
hedge. They knew Dixon and they knew Rain, and if the sky had fallen
upon the appalling catastrophe they would hardly have been surprised.
They said “Goy!” at intervals, and held each other’s hands, knowing the
meaning of the countryman’s set face.
Dixon said briefly--“She’s done!” through set teeth, and the chauffeur,
rising reluctantly from his knees, dusted his smart livery, and nodded
his head, biting his lip. It was not his place to criticise his master
for taking other people’s risks as cheerfully as he took his own.
A dark young face looked over the side of the car, and eyed the dead
dog with a perturbed expression. It was all a beastly bore, but of
course he had taken the corner far too fast, and would have to pay for
his pleasure. It was a decent-looking dog, too, worse luck! He liked
dogs as well as anybody--jolly, wagging things that always met you with
a smile. What a fool he had been to peg along at that pace! He might
have been sure there would be a dog at the corner. There always was,
when _he_ was driving.
He fumbled in his pocket, wondering vaguely why nobody said anything
except the children in the hedge, who still observed “Goy!” at
intervals. Grange might have helped him out, but Grange was such a
fool about animals; you wondered why he had ever taken to machines.
Fortunately, the owner did not seem excited about the accident, thought
the boy, seeing nothing unusual in the grim face which the northern
children read so plainly.
He was a gentleman; and in justice it must be admitted that he
offered his apology before he offered his gold; but perhaps his
curiously-worded expressions of sorrow conveyed too little to the
farmer, just as the gold conveyed too much. Grange made a movement to
stop him when he saw the money; he had been bred in the dales. But
again it was none of his business, and he shrugged his shoulders and
stood aside, awaiting events.
They were not long in arriving. As the careless hand came out, Dixon’s
brown fist flew up to meet it; the gold clove a glittering path into
the ditch, and the stranger subsided into his seat, nursing a damaged
wrist.
Then he laughed, and motioned the chauffeur to get in.
“As you please!” he said to the farmer; and--“Take the wheel!” to his
servant; and, as they moved, stopped nursing his wrist to raise his
hand to his cap. Dixon stood like a block.
Opposite the children, the motorist checked the car.
“There’s somethin’ in the ditch, yonder,” he observed, leaning forward,
“that will set you up in bull’s-eyes for a month of Sundays!”--and not
a child stirred. Behind him, he heard his own laugh echoed sardonically
by Dixon--Dixon standing like a block beside his silver-haired darling.
“Grange, you fathead,” said his master thoughtfully, as the chauffeur
swung his responsibilities out of sight, “why in the name of all that’s
sportin’, didn’t you warn me?”
“Sir,” answered the chauffeur, “I have always understood that you
preferred to learn by experience!”
II
Bowman’s Pink trotted nervously in the wake of uncertain footsteps.
Life had become a devious and dangerous thing since her master had
taken to looking upon the ale when it was yellow, and she followed
his erratic curves uneasily if faithfully, since a well-bred dog must
always be at its master’s heels.
Not that the splendid title fitted her at first glance, as she pattered
unhappily along the sticky road. Her slender, pointed limbs were
plastered with mud; her black coat with the white star on the chest was
rough and matted, and had lost its gloss; the fine, keen little head
was shaggy and unkempt. She was underfed; she was uncared-for; and,
much worse, she was cowed. A word from her lord set her trembling; a
movement flattened her to the earth. Yet, she stayed, as many women
stay in like case--women whom all the Divorce Commissions in the world
will never reach. And so Bowman and Pink came to the Trials.
They were late. Men whose hour-glass turns with ale usually are late.
But Bowman’s name was not among the first on the card, and he had not
been called as yet. He pulled himself together as he made his way
past the flower-show and the shooting-gallery and the brass band,
and Pink drew a little closer, humbly thankful to be free from the
perils of the open road. On the left, rows of hard and unattractive
benches supported the honourable weight of the flower of the County.
On the right, the competitors watched and chatted and compared notes.
In front, the long meadow, dotted with flags, sloped upward much as
a stage slopes, so that the performance regularly enacted every ten
minutes was plain to every eye; while near to the Society gathering,
just where sunshades and chatter might alarm sheep and distract
canine intelligence, was the little pen where the last act of the
round was played, the only one in which the owner of the competing
dog was allowed to give definite assistance. Society always derived
huge enjoyment from this crucial moment. Seventeen-stone Jackson of
Dubbs, prancing cautiously around his woolly adversaries, hat in hand,
was certainly a sight to be treasured in the memory. The skill of his
crawling, quivering lieutenant was apt to be overlooked in the humour
of the situation.
Dixon of Dockerneuk sat by himself in a corner of the big field. He
had come because he could not stay away, but now that he was here,
the whole business was torture to him. There was scarcely a man on
the field but was asking for Rain, and annoying him with well-meant
sympathy. Even the ladies had heard of her, fish-hooked each other’s
hats with their sunshades, and said--“Dear me! How perfectly shocking!”
as if their respective cars had never so much as slain a hen. There was
an immaculate youth, nursing a bandaged wrist amid a bevy of beauty,
who went hot all over at the mention of the dead dog’s name.
But Dixon would not be pitied. He shook off sympathy as a man shakes
off a troublesome bluebottle. He was billed to run another dog beside
Rain, a young yellow collie that had the root of the matter in him, but
at present preferred to regard life in general, and sheep-dog-trials in
particular, as a huge joke. Dashing up to his three victims, he greeted
them with affectionate exuberance, much as some over-familiar parsons
fall upon the necks of the dignified poor. Fleeing before his bouncing
guidance, they were through the first flags in a rush, merely because
that happened to be their line and they could not avoid it, but they
ignored the rest, and were down the field and almost upon the lap of
Society before Dixon’s imperious whistle could swing the culprit in
front of them.
Lark went back cheerfully enough. A little energy wasted more or less
made no difference to him. Another rush brought the resentful trio
through the stone gap and between the second flagged limits, but there
the happy fluke ended. One sheep broke off from the rest, and for the
remainder of his allotted space Lark played Catch with it over every
square inch of the field. Dixon wrestled with him patiently enough,
while Society laughed and clapped, and the roughs in the background
scoffed and called for Rain; but Lark, like the Punch ’cellist, was
there to enjoy himself, and came in when dismissed from the course
with a lolling tongue and a grin that reached from ear to ear. Dixon
walked back to his corner without a word, feeling no resentment
against the yellow dog who had made such gorgeous fools of them both.
He was only a puppy; he would steady in time; and since Rain was not
there--was lying under a new-turfed mound at home--nothing else really
mattered.
Bowman’s name was called at last by a member of the committee, and
he disengaged himself from a group of second-rate acquaintances, and
slouched forward. Pink was whining ever so softly to herself as she
followed him out into the field, and every nerve in her body tingled
with excitement. She had played this game before, and she was wild to
get away and begin.
Society laughed again as Bowman’s Pink came into view; she looked
so small, so hungry, so pathetically incompetent. “The Pink of
Perfection!” observed a scarlet hat, nodding poppies, and was at once
fish-hooked in revenge by a Reckitt’s Blue sunshade who had been about
to make the same witty remark herself.
Bowman gave the welcome signal at last--the least lift of a knotted
stick--and Pink was up the long field like a black streak to the
far point where three plump, puzzled sheep had been suddenly dumped
to await her. She was on them quicker than Lark, but there was no
scattering this time. With one smart circling movement, she clumped
them together and dropped, looking for further orders, a dingy speck
on the vivid green.
Bowman had gained sufficient control of himself to appear before the
footlights, but, once there, he went to pieces altogether. His fuddled
brain could not command the situation; his bleared eye could scarcely
mark his little black servant waiting his will; the hand that waved
the stick was as reliable as a weather-cock in a shifting wind. He
gave orders, it is true, but they were the wrong ones. Pink, straining
ear and glance alike, could make nothing of him. He dropped her when
a quick rush was imperative, forced her forward when to move an inch
was to court disaster, rounded up at the wrong moment, scattered and
separated when close upon the flags. The resulting confusion irritated
him; the suppressed mirth of Society goaded him to fury. His stick
began to wave wildly; he ceased to whistle, and took to shouting,
and the tone of his shouting made the bright sunshades quiver. Pink
quivered, too, shamed and insulted, for no really first-class man
shouts at a first-class dog; he has no need. She obeyed him, because
not to obey would have been as possible to her as to have made a
live-mutton dinner off the three exasperated creatures whom she was
being forced to torture so unnecessarily; but under the stress of
puzzling, contradictory orders, she, too, was beginning to lose her
head. The whole fiasco ended in a glorious exit of sheep and sheep-dog
over one of the President’s newly-laid fences, while Society rocked
with laughter, and Bowman, black in the face, was removed peremptorily
by the committee.
Pink came back, terrified, puzzled, shamed, but faithful--faithful
even beneath the rain of knotted blows, hobnailed kicks and purple
objurgations. She cried a little as she pressed her slim little
body against the turf and screwed up her frightened eyes, and Dixon
from his corner heard her. He stood up suddenly, and thrust himself
contemptuously between executioner and victim.
“Hold on a bit, lad,” he said grimly, “and answer a civil question
before you get through with your leatherin’. D’you mind yon clashy
winter’s night as you nabbed Geordie Garnett’s best pup from his
shippon?”
Bowman accomplished the almost incredible feat of turning blacker in
the face than ever.
“That’s a--something--lie!” he stormed thickly.
Dixon stooped and turned up one of Pink’s soft ears, showing the letter
“G” within, faint but still discernible.
“I know that breed as a man knows his own barns,” he said slowly.
“Geordie an’ I have always been thick as inkle-weavers, you’ll think
on, and I’m not like to forget what he had to say, yon night. I’ll just
step up and have a crack with him. He’ll be rarely set up to have lit
on his lost pup at last.”
Bowman was understood to remark that not for all the Dixons gone before
to a certain unmentionable locality should Geordie Garnett lay a finger
on what was not, and never had been, his. Dixon eyed him steadily. The
fight was healing the hurt places in his soul.
“Look you here,” he said firmly. “I’ll make you a fair offer, and you
can take it or leave it, just as suits you! You’ve shamed the poor
brute before the whole countryside. She was game for the work, right
enough, but you were fair maiselt. Now, I’ll do this for you. Let me
take her round just once, just to show Lyndesay and all the lot of
them what she can do when she’s given half a chance, and when Geordie
Garnett gets her back, I’ll never let wit where I clapped eyes on her.
Is it a deal?”
Bowman laughed murderously.
“A deal?” said he. “Ay, a deal, right enough! Take her, my fine
lad--take her!”
Dixon bent to obey, but his fingers had barely touched Pink’s head
before he stepped back with an exclamation, for her teeth had met in
his wrist. She eyed him sorrowfully, even while the growl rattled in
her throat. A well-bred dog could do no less for her master, however
unworthy.
Bowman rolled about in drunken glee, urging his opponent to further
effort, and Dixon’s temper snapped like dry kindling. He took Bowman
behind a quiet hedge, and thrashed him into acquiescence. When he
reappeared, Pink trotted meekly in his shadow. Together, they sought
out the President, who listened a little impatiently to the demand that
the dog might be run again.
“What’s the good?” he asked, watching his head shepherd making a
glorious mull of things at the pen. “Having been the round once, she is
no longer eligible for the prize.”
Dixon growled contempt.
“’Tisn’t the prize,” he said. “It’s the _dog_. She was run by a man
who wasn’t fit to run her, a drunken fool who simply threw her away.
She comes of the best stock in the county, and she can do better than
that, I’ll lay my best heifer. She doesn’t know me, but I think I can
work her. She’s been shamed before the whole county. Give her another
chance.”
Arevar’s eldest son stood up and joined in the conversation. Dixon’s
eyes met his without the slightest change of expression. The eldest son
had a bandaged wrist.
“Let her run, Father,” he said. “It’s not harmin’ any one, and
everybody should have a second chance in this world, shouldn’t they,
Mr.--er--Dixon, I think? Let her run.”
Lyndesay shrugged his shoulders, and with difficulty restrained
himself from rushing down to assist the head shepherd, who had at last
succeeded in penning the whole of two of the sheep and half of the
third.
“Very well!” he said. “Just as you like. She’ll do no good, anyway.
She’s had all the intelligence beaten out of her, poor little brute!”
His son smiled gallantly into Dixon’s grim face.
“Everybody should have a second chance,” he said again. “Everybody--rich
or poor, knave or fool, starvin’ sheep-dogs or--motorin’ roadhogs. Let
her run!”
There was a space on the yellow programme hallowed by the name of Rain,
but when Dixon came out in his order, it was not the silver-haired
beauty but the cowed little tramp that trotted at his side. Pink had
spent a thrilling hour gleaning new impressions. These included a
tentative grooming with an old stable-brush, a few dry biscuits, a few
rough caresses, a few kindly words. The sympathy and the biscuits had
put fresh heart into her; the grooming had eased her self-respect. She
came out gladly enough to the work she loved, though her faithful heart
still yearned after the drunken, hobnailed brute slumbering behind the
hedge.
Dixon dropped his hand to the dog’s head, and she cowered to the very
ground. He repeated the experiment until she stood up confidently under
his touch, and the two looked into each other’s eyes. Then he jerked
his own head sharply, and she was gone like the wind up the edge of the
slope, to be checked by a sweet, clear whistle before she was upon the
fresh prey, who raised innocent eyes, unafraid of the harmless black
and white patch so near. Presently there was another whistle, a languid
wave of a thin ashplant, and the quartette was ambling unconcernedly
towards the first of the flags.
Dixon, for all his outward calm, was conscious of a slight nervousness.
He had pledged his word, so to speak, upon the dog’s worth, and would
have staked his last coin, if need be; but every man handles a dog just
a shade differently, and any sudden lack of sympathy between himself
and his new protégée might bring fresh derision upon both. The dog was
cowed, too, half-starved, home-sick for her old tyrant; but he knew the
stock she came from, and the training that becomes inherited instinct
after so many generations, and he counted strongly upon these. Taking
a grip of himself, he concentrated all his attention upon the waif in
Rain’s place, as if she had indeed been Rain herself, charged with all
his hopes. And presently his confidence in the power of race changed to
exultant wonder, for here was a trained intelligence answering to his
will as even Rain had seldom answered. Such tact, such patience, such
judgment, such skilled, gentle handling, he had never seen. There was
no shouting, now, no furious waving, no volleying of oaths to scorch
sensitive Society ears. The clear whistles hardly clove the air before
they were obeyed; the sharp, clipped signal that means “Drop!”--the
long, clear call, lifting at the end, that says “Come on!”--the shower
of quick notes that telegraph “Round up!” Here were the first-class
man and the first-class dog working like a single instrument. The
President, his eyes glued to the little tramp, forgot that the head
shepherd had never succeeded in penning the second half of the third
sheep.
They had passed three of the tests--the top flags, the stone gap and
the oak tree--and were making for the fourth when the first hitch
occurred. Dixon, forgetting in his concentration that it was not
Rain he was working, after all, employed a special call that he used
on the fell to warn his dog of a precipice. It had a curious swerve
in the middle, and meant--“Keep together!” and Rain would have had
the sheep in a tight bunch right between the flags, but Pink was not
fell-trained, and she dropped, puzzled for the first time. Dixon,
cursing himself, gave her the signal she knew, but in that fatal pause
one curly monster had separated itself from the rest, and taken a
bee-line for home. Pink was in front of it in a flash, only to lose the
other two, and there followed a pretty piece of handling which agitated
the parasols into a perfect frenzy of fish-hooking, but at which Dixon
frowned, for the precious minutes were flying.
The sheep were through the final flags at last, however, but their
faith in their gentle conductor had been ruined by that sudden
separation and breathless chase. They were in the mood to be alarmed
by the smallest slip when they approached the narrow door of the
uninviting fold. It was then that Dixon made his bold stroke.
Every other farmer on the field had helped to pen his sheep; it was a
recognised fact that even the best of dogs could hardly accomplish the
finish unaided, particularly when each of the sheep was as nervous as
a cat, and would break on the slightest encouragement. But Dixon had
faith in his dog, and he was playing for her reputation. He let her
pen them alone.
Slowly, inch by inch, Pink crawled in rear of her charge. Slowly, inch
by inch, the frightened heads turned to the pen. Something about it
must have suggested safety to the first sheep, for it moved forward,
and the second followed. The third, however, lost interest during the
pause, and edged to the right, but Pink edged in the same direction.
Tossing its head, it swung to the left, but Pink was there, also. This
seemed to annoy it, for it skipped round in its own length, and faced
the enemy defiantly, but Pink’s innocent muzzle was on the ground,
her vivid eyes almost shut. The third sheep looked a little ashamed
of itself, swung round again and lined up. The first was practically
inside.
Dixon of Dockerneuk stood like stone, and Society forgot even to
rustle. Pink crept nearer, nearer, and dropped for the last time;
and as she did so, the first sheep, apparently disgusted with the
accommodation, swerved like a shying horse in the face of its
following, forcing the second sheep into the startled mouth of the
third. Even then, Dixon did not stir; but there was no need, for Pink
flung herself forward as the Winged Hats flung themselves at the Great
Wall, and in another moment three disconsolate noses poked through
barren bars, whilst a panting black and white streak stretched across
the threshold of their prison.
Dixon whistled ever so softly, but she heard him and came to him
gladly. He put out his hand, and she leaped to catch it joyously with
her teeth. Through the cheering crowd he sought his way to his corner,
but a yesterday’s enemy checked him. Larruppin’ Lyndesay faced him
diffidently but courageously.
“You’ve given one dog a second chance,” he said. “Can’t you see your
way to doin’ it for another?”
Dixon honoured him with a long look.
“There’s the Ring o’ Bells,” he said at last, “just across the road.”
They went off together.