IV

A WALK along the village street was always a great event for

Excalibur. Still, it must have contained many humiliating moments for

one of his sensitive disposition; for he was always pathetically anxious

to make friends with other dogs, but was rarely successful. Little dogs

merely bit his legs and big dogs cut him dead.

I think this was why he usually commenced his morning round by calling

on a rabbit. The rabbit lived in a hutch in a yard at the end of a

passage between two cottages, the first turning on the right after you

entered the village, and Excalibur always dived down this at the

earliest opportunity. It was no use for Eileen, who usually took him

out on these occasions, to endeavor to hold him back. Either Excalibur

called on the rabbit by himself or Eileen went with him; there was no

other alternative.

Arrived at the hutch, Excalibur wagged his tail and contemplated the

rabbit with his usual air of vacuous benevolence. The rabbit made not

the faintest response, but continued to munch green feed, twitching its

nose in a superior manner. Finally, when it could endure Excalibur's

admiring inspection and hard breathing no longer, it turned its back and

retired into its bedroom.

Excalibur's next call was usually at the butcher's shop, where he was

presented with a specially selected and quite unsalable fragment of

meat. He then crossed the road to the baker's, where he purchased a

halfpenny bun, for which his escort was expected to pay. After that he

walked from shop to shop, wherever he was taken, with great docility and

enjoyment; for he was a gregarious animal and had a friend behind or

underneath almost every counter in the village. Men, women, babies,

kittens, even ducks--they were all one to him.

At one time Eileen had endeavored to teach him a few simple

accomplishments, such as begging for food, dying for his country, and

carrying parcels. She was unsuccessful in all three instances. Excalibur

on his hind legs stood about five feet six, and when he fell from that

eminence, as he invariably did when he tried to beg, he usually broke

something. He was hampered, too, by inability to distinguish one order

from another. More than once he narrowly escaped with his life through

mistaking an urgent appeal to come to heel out of the way of an

approaching automobile for a command to die for his country in the

middle of the road.

As for educating him to carry parcels, a single attempt was sufficient.

The parcel in question contained a miscellaneous assortment of articles

from the grocer's, including lard, soap, and safety matches. It was

securely tied up, and the grocer kindly attached it by a short length of

string to a wooden clothespin, in order to make it easier for Excalibur

to carry. They set off home.

Excalibur was most apologetic about it afterward, besides being

extremely unwell; but he had no idea, he explained to Eileen, that

anything put into his mouth was not meant to be eaten. He then tendered

the clothespin and some mangled brown paper, with an air of profound

abasement. After that no further attempts at compulsory education were

undertaken.

It was his daily walk with Eileen, however, which introduced Excalibur

to life--life in its broadest and most romantic sense. As I was not

privileged to be present at the opening incident of this episode, or at

most of its subsequent developments, the direct conduct of this

narrative here passes out of my hands.

One sunny morning in July a young man in clerical attire sat

breakfasting in his rooms at Mrs. Tice's. Mrs. Tice's establishment was

situated on the village street and Mrs. Tice was in the habit of letting

her ground floor to lodgers of impeccable respectability.

It was half-past eleven, which is a late hour for the clergy to

breakfast; but this young man appeared to be suffering from no qualms of

conscience on the subject. He was making an excellent breakfast and

reading the Henley results with a mixture of rapture and longing.

He had just removed the "Sportsman" from the convenient buttress of the

teapot and substituted "Punch" when he became aware that day had turned

to night. Looking up he perceived that his open window, which was rather

small and of the casement variety, was completely blocked by a huge,

shapeless, and opaque mass. Next moment the mass resolved itself into an

animal of enormous size and surprising appearance, which fell heavily

into the room, and

Like a stream that, spouting from a cliff,

Fails in mid-air, but, gathering at the base,

Remakes itself,

rose to its feet and, advancing to the table, laid a heavy head on the

white cloth and lovingly passed its tongue--which resembled that of the

great anteater--round a cold chicken conveniently adjacent.

Five minutes later the window framed another picture--this time a girl

of twenty, white-clad and wearing a powder-blue felt hat, caught up on

one side by a silver buckle which twinkled in the hot morning sun. The

curate started to his feet. Excalibur, who was now lying on the

hearthrug dismembering the chicken, thumped his tail guiltily on the

floor, but made no attempt to rise.

"I am very sorry," said Eileen, "but I am afraid my dog is trespassing.

May I call him out?"

"Certainly!" said the curate. "But"--he racked his brains to devise some

means of delaying the departure of this radiant, fragrant vision--"he is

not the least in the way. I am very glad of his company; it was most

neighborly of him to call. After all, I suppose he is one of my

parishioners. And--and"--he blushed--"I hope you are, too."

Eileen gave him her most entrancing smile, and from that hour the curate

ceased to be his own master.

"I suppose you are Mr. Gilmore," said Eileen.

"Yes. I have been here only three weeks and I have not met every one

yet."

"I have been away for two months," Eileen mentioned.

"I thought you must have been," said the curate, rather subtly for him.

"I think my brother-in-law called on you a few days ago," continued

Eileen, on whom the curate's last remark had made a most favorable

impression. She mentioned my name.

"I was going to return the call this very afternoon," said the curate.

And he firmly believed that he was speaking the truth. "Won't you come

in? We have an excellent chaperon," indicating Excalibur. "I will come

and open the door."

"Well, he certainly won't come out unless I come and fetch him,"

admitted Eileen thoughtfully.

A moment later the curate was at the front door and led his visitor

across the little hall into the sitting-room. He had not been absent

more than thirty seconds, but during that time a plateful of sausages

had mysteriously disappeared; and, as they entered, Excalibur was

apologetically settling down on the hearthrug with a cottage loaf

between his paws.

Eileen uttered cries of dismay and apology, but the curate would have

none of them.

"My fault entirely!" he insisted. "I have no right to be breakfasting at

this hour; but this is my day off. You see I take early Service every

morning at seven; but on Wednesdays we cut it out--omit it and have

full Matins at ten. So I get up at half-past nine, take Service at ten,

and come back to my rooms at eleven and have breakfast. It is my weekly

treat."

"You deserve it," said Eileen feelingly. Her religious exercises were

limited to going to church on Sunday morning and coming out, if

possible, after the Litany. "And how do you like Much Moreham?"

"I did not like it at all when I came," said the curate, "but recently I

have begun to enjoy myself immensely." He did not say how recently.

"Were you in London before?"

"Yes--in the East End. It was pretty hard work, but a useful experience.

I feel rather lost here during my spare time. I get so little exercise.

In London I used to slip away for an occasional outing in a Leander

scratch eight, and that kept me fit. I am inclined," he added ruefully,

"to put on flesh."

"Leander? Are you a Blue?"

The curate nodded.

"You know about rowing, I see," he said appreciatively. "The worst of

rowing," he continued, "is that it takes up so much of a man's time that

he has no opportunity of practicing anything else--cricket, for

instance. All curates ought to be able to play cricket. I do my best;

but there isn't a single boy in the Sunday School who can't bowl me.

It's humiliating!"

"Do you play tennis at all?" asked Eileen.

"Yes, in a way."

"I am sure my sister will be pleased if you come and have a game with us

some afternoon."

The enraptured curate had already opened his mouth to accept this demure

invitation when Excalibur, rising from the hearthrug, stretched himself

luxuriously and wagged his tail, thereby removing three pipes, an

inkstand, a tobacco jar, and a half-completed sermon from the writing

table.

V

EXCALIBUR was heavily overworked in his new rôle of chaperon during

the next three or four weeks, and any dog less ready to oblige than

himself might have felt a little aggrieved at the treatment to which he

was subjected.

There was the case of the tennis lawn, for instance. He had always

regarded this as his own particular sanctuary, dedicated to reflection

and repose; but now the net was stretched across it and Eileen and the

curate performed antics all over the court with rackets and small white

balls which, though they did not hurt Excalibur, kept him awake. It did

not occur to him to convey himself elsewhere, for his mind moved

slowly; and the united blandishments of the players failed to bring the

desirability of such a course home to him. He continued to lie in his

favorite spot on the sunny side of the court, looking injured but

forgiving, or slumbering perseveringly amid the storm that raged round

him.

It was quite impossible to move Excalibur once he had decided to remain

where he was; so Eileen and the curate agreed to regard him as a sort of

artificial excrescence, like the buttress in a fives court. If the ball

hit him, as it frequently did, the player waiting for it was at liberty

either to play it or claim a let. This arrangement added a piquant and

pleasing variety to what is too often--especially when indulged in by

mediocre players--a very dull game.

Worse was to follow, however. One day Eileen and the curate conducted

Excalibur to a neighboring mountain range--at least, so it appeared to

Excalibur--and played another ball game. This time they employed long

sticks with iron heads, and two balls, which, though they were much

smaller than tennis balls, were incredibly hard and painful. Excalibur,

though willing to help and anxious to please, could not supervise both

the balls at once. As sure as he ran to retrieve one the other came

after him and took him unfairly in the rear. Excalibur was the gentlest

of creatures, but the most perfect gentleman has his dignity to

consider.

After having been struck for the third time by one of these balls he

whipped round, picked it up in his mouth and gave it a tiny pinch, just

as a warning. At least, he thought it was a tiny pinch. The ball

retaliated with unexpected ferocity. It twisted and turned. It emitted

long, snaky spirals of some elastic substance, which clogged his teeth

and tickled his throat and wound themselves round his tongue and nearly

choked him. Panic-stricken, he ran to his mistress, who, with weeping

and with laughter, removed the writhing horror from his jaws and

comforted him with fair words.

After that Excalibur realized that it is wiser to walk behind golfers

than in front of them. It was a boring business, though, and very

exhausting, for he loathed exercise of every kind; and his only periods

of repose were the occasions on which the expedition came to a halt on

certain small, flat lawns, each of which contained a hole with a flag in

it.

Here Excalibur would lie down, with the contented sigh of a tired child,

and go to sleep. As he almost invariably lay down between the hole and

the ball, the players agreed to regard him as a bunker. Eileen putted

round him; but the curate--who had little regard for the humbler works

of creation, Excalibur thought--used to take his mashie and attempt a

lofting shot, an enterprise in which he almost invariably failed, to

Excalibur's great inconvenience.

Country walks were more tolerable, for Eileen's supervision of his

movements, which was usually marked by an officious severity, was

sensibly relaxed on these days and Excalibur found himself at liberty to

range abroad amid the heath and through the coppices, engaged in a

pastime that he imagined was hunting.

One hot afternoon, wandering into a clearing, he encountered a hare. The

hare, which was suffering from extreme panic, owing to a terrifying

noise behind it,--the blast of the newest and most vulgar motor horn, to

be precise,--was bolting right across the clearing. After the manner of

hares where objects directly in front of them are concerned, the

fugitive entirely failed to perceive Excalibur and, indeed, ran right

underneath him on its way to cover. Excalibur was so unstrung by this

adventure that he ran back to where he had left Eileen and the curate.

They were sitting side by side on the grass and the curate was holding

Eileen's hand.

Excalibur advanced on them thankfully and indicated by an ingratiating

smile that a friendly remark or other recognition of his presence would

be gratefully received; but neither took the slightest notice of him.

They continued to gaze straight before them in a mournful and abstracted

fashion. They looked not so much at Excalibur as through him. First the

hare, then Eileen and the curate! Excalibur began to fear that he had

become invisible, or at least transparent. Greatly agitated he drifted

away into a neighboring plantation full of young pheasants. Here he

encountered a keeper, who was able to dissipate his gloomy suspicions

for him without any difficulty whatsoever. But Eileen and the curate sat

on.

"A hundred pounds a year!" repeated the curate. "A pass degree and no

influence! I can't preach and I have no money of my own. Dearest, I

ought never to have told you."

"Told me what?" inquired Eileen softly. She knew quite well; but she was

a woman, and a woman can never let well enough alone.

The curate, turning to Eileen, delivered himself of a statement of three

words. Eileen's reply was a softly whispered _Tu quoque!_

"It had to happen, dear," she added cheerfully, for she did not share

the curate's burden of responsibility in the matter. "If you had not

told me we should have been miserable separately. Now that you have told

me, we can be miserable together. And when two people who--who--" She

hesitated.

The curate supplied the relative sentence. Eileen nodded her head in

acknowledgment.

"Yes; who are--like you and me--are miserable together, they are happy!

See?"

"I see," said the curate gravely. "Yes, you are right there; but we

can't go on living on a diet of joint misery. We shall have to face the

future. What are we going to do about it?"

Then Eileen spoke up boldly for the first time.

"Gerald," she said, "we shall simply have to manage on a hundred a

year."

But the curate shook his head.

"Dearest, I should be an utter cad if I allowed you to do such a thing,"

he said. "A hundred a year is less than two pounds a week!"

"A lot of people live on less than two pounds a week," Eileen pointed

out longingly.

"Yes; I know. If we could rent a three-shilling cottage and I could go

about with a spotted handkerchief round my neck, and you could scrub the

doorsteps _coram populo_, we might be very comfortable; but the clergy

belong to the black-coated class, and people in the lower ranks of the

black-coated class are the poorest people in the whole wide world. They

have to spend money on luxuries--collars and charwomen, and so

on--which a workingman can spend entirely on necessities. It wouldn't

merely mean no pretty dresses and a lot of hard work for you, Eileen. It

would mean starvation! Believe me--I know! Some of my friends have tried

it--and I know!"

"What happened to them?" asked Eileen fearfully.

"They all had to come down in the end--some soon, some late, but all in

time--to taking parish relief."

"Parish relief?"

"Yes; not official, regulation, rate-aided charity, but the infinitely

more humiliating charity of their well-to-do neighbors--quiet checks,

second-hand dresses, and things like that. No, little girl; you and I

are too proud--too proud of the cloth--for that. We will never give a

handle to the people who are always waiting to have a fling at the

improvident clergy--not if it breaks our hearts, we won't!"

"You are quite right, dear," said Eileen quietly. "We must wait."