"My dog," I said, "has eaten one of your chickens."
Chum nudged me in the ankle and grinned.
"TWO of your chickens," I corrected myself, looking at the fresh
evidence which he had just brought to light.
"You don't want me any more?" said Chum, as the financial
arrangements proceeded. "Then I'll just go and find somewhere for
these two." And he picked them up and trotted into the sun.
When I came out I was greeted effusively.
"This is a wonderful day," he panted, as he wriggled his body. "I
didn't know the country was like this. What do we do now?"
"We go home," I said, and we went.
That was Chum's last day of freedom. He keeps inside the front gate
now. But he is still a happy dog; there is plenty doing in the
garden. There are beds to walk over, there are blackbirds in the
apple tree to bark at. The world is still full of wonderful things.
"Why, only last Wednesday," he will tell you, "the fishmonger left
his basket in the drive. There was a haddock in it, if you'll
believe me, for master's breakfast, so of course I saved it for him.
I put it on the grass just in front of his study window, where he'd
be SURE to notice it. Bless you, there's always SOMETHING to do in
this house. One is never idle."
And even when there is nothing doing, he is still happy; waiting
cheerfully upon events until they arrange themselves for his
amusement. He will sit for twenty minutes opposite the garden bank,
watching for a bumble-bee to come out of its hole. "I saw him go
in," he says to himself, "so he's bound to come out. Extraordinarily
interesting world." But to his inferiors (such as the gardener) he
pretends that it is not pleasure but duty which keeps him. "Don't
talk to me, fool. Can't you see that I've got a job on here?"
Chum has found, however, that his particular mission in life is to
purge his master's garden of all birds. This keeps him busy. As soon
as he sees a blackbird on the lawn he is in full cry after it. When
he gets to the place and finds the blackbird gone, he pretends that
he was going there anyhow; he gallops round in circles, rolls over
once or twice, and then trots back again. "You didn't REALLY think I
was such a fool as to try to catch a BLACKBIRD?" he says to us. "No,
I was just taking a little run--splendid thing for the figure."
And it is just Chum's little runs over the beds which call aloud for
firmness--which, in fact, have inspired my birthday present to him.
But there is this difficulty to overcome first. When he came to live
with us an arrangement was entered into (so he says) by which one
bed was given to him as his own. In that bed he could wander at
will, burying bones and biscuits, hunting birds. This may have been
so, but it is a pity that nobody but Chum knows definitely which is
the bed.
"Chum, you bounder," I shout as he is about to wade through the
herbaceous border.
He takes no notice; he struggles through to the other side. But a
sudden thought strikes him, and he pushes his way back again.
"Did you call me?" he says.
"How DARE you walk over the flowers?"
He comes up meekly.
"I suppose I've done SOMETHING wrong," he says, "but I can't THINK
what."
I smack his head for him. He waits until he is quite sure I have
finished, and then jumps up with a bark, wipes his paws on my
trousers and trots into the herbaceous border again.
"Chum!" I cry.
He sits down in it and looks all round him in amazement.
"My own bed!" he murmurs. "Given to me!"
I don't know what it is in him which so catches hold of you. His way
of sitting, a reproachful statue, motionless outside the window of
whomever he wants to come out and play with him--until you can bear
it no longer, but must either go into the garden or draw down the
blinds for the day; his habit, when you ARE out, of sitting up on
his back legs and begging you with his front paws to come and DO
something--a trick entirely of his own invention, for no one would
think of teaching him anything; his funny nautical roll when he
walks, which is nearly a swagger, and gives him always the air of
having just come back from some rather dashing adventure; beyond all
this there is still something. And whatever it is, it is something
which every now and then compels you to bend down and catch hold of
his long silky ears, to look into his honest eyes and say--
"You silly old ass! You DEAR old SILLY old ass!"