My friend rack is a retriever--very black, very curly, perfect in shape,
but just a retriever; and he is really not my friend, only he thinks
he is, which comes to the same thing. So convinced is he that I am
his guide, protector, and true master, that if I were to give him a
downright scolding or even a thrashing he would think it was all right
and go on just the same. His way of going on is to make a companion of
me whether I want him or not. I do not want him, but his idea is that
I want him very much. I bitterly blame myself for having made the first
advances, although nothing came of it except that he growled. I met him
in a Cornish village in a house where I stayed. There was a nice kennel
there, painted green, with a bed of clean straw and an empty plate which
had contained his dinner, but on peeping in I saw no dog. Next day it
was the same, and the next, and the day after that; then I inquired
about it--Was there a dog in that house or not? Oh, yes, certainly there
was: Jack, but a very independent sort of dog. On most days he looked
in, ate his dinner and had a nap on his straw, but he was not what you
would call a home-keeping dog.
One day I found him in, and after we had looked for about a minute
at each other, I squatting before the kennel, he with chin on paws
pretending to be looking through me at something beyond, I addressed
a few kind words to him, which he received with the before-mentioned
growl. I pronounced him a surly brute and went away. It was growl
for growl. Nevertheless I was well pleased at having escaped the
consequences in speaking kindly to him. I am not a "doggy" person nor
even a canophilist. The purely parasitic or degenerate pet dog moves
me to compassion, but the natural vigorous outdoor dog I fear and avoid
because we are not in harmony; consequently I suffer and am a loser when
he forces his company on me. The outdoor world I live in is not the one
to which a man goes for a constitutional, with a dog to save him
from feeling lonely, or, if he has a gun, with a dog to help him kill
something. It is a world which has sound in it, distant cries and
penetrative calls, and low mysterious notes, as of insects and
corncrakes, and frogs chirping and of grasshopper warblers--sounds like
wind in the dry sedges. And there are also sweet and beautiful songs;
but it is very quiet world where creatures move about subtly, on wings,
on polished scales, on softly padded feet--rabbits, foxes, stoats,
weasels, and voles and birds and lizards and adders and slow-worms, also
beetles and dragon-flies. Many are at enmity with each other, but on
account of their quietude there is no disturbance, no outcry and rushing
into hiding. And having acquired this habit from them I am able to see
and be with them. The sitting bird, the frolicking rabbit, the basking
adder--they are as little disturbed at my presence as the butterfly
that drops down close to my feet to sun his wings on a leaf or frond and
makes me hold my breath at the sight of his divine colour, as if he had
just fluttered down from some brighter realm in the sky. Think of a dog
in this world, intoxicated with the odours of so many wild creatures,
dashing and splashing through bogs and bushes! It is ten times worse
than a bull in a china-shop. The bull can but smash a lot of objects
made of baked clay; the dog introduces a mad panic in a world of living
intelligent beings, a fairy realm of exquisite beauty. They scuttle away
and vanish into hiding as if a deadly wind had blown over the earth and
swept them out of existence. Only the birds remain--they can fly and
do not fear for their own lives, but are in a state of intense anxiety
about their eggs and young among the bushes which he is dashing through
or exploring.
I had good reason, then, to congratulate myself on Jack's surly
behaviour on our first meeting. Then, a few days later, a curious thing
happened. Jack was discovered one morning in his kennel, and when spoken
to came or rather dragged himself out, a most pitiable object. He was
horribly bruised and sore all over; his bones appeared to be all broken;
he was limp and could hardly get on his feet, and in that miserable
condition he continued for some three days.
At first we thought he had been in a big fight--he was inclined
that way, his master said--but we could discover no tooth marks or
lacerations, nothing but bruises. Perhaps, we said, he had fallen into
the hands of some cruel person in one of the distant moorland farms, who
had tied him up, then thrashed him with a big stick, and finally turned
him loose to die on the moor or crawl home if he could. His master
looked so black at this that we said no more about it. But Jack was
a wonderfully tough dog, all gristle I think, and after three days of
lying there like a dead dog he quickly recovered, though I'm quite sure
that if his injuries had been distributed among any half-dozen pampered
or pet dogs it would have killed them all. A morning came when the
kennel was empty: Jack was not dead--he was well again, and, as usual,
out.
Just then I was absent for a week or ten days then, back again, I went
out one fine morning for a long day's ramble along the coast. A mile or
so from home, happening to glance back I caught sight of a black dog's
face among the bushes thirty or forty yards away gazing earnestly at me.
It was Jack, of course, nothing but his head visible in an opening
among the bushes--a black head which looked as if carved in ebony, in
a wonderful setting of shining yellow furze blossoms. The beauty and
singularity of the sight made it impossible for me to be angry with
him, though there's nothing a man more resents than being shadowed, or
secretly followed and spied upon, even by a dog, so, without considering
what I was letting myself in for, I cried out "Jack" and instantly he
bounded out and came to my side, then flew on ahead, well pleased to
lead the way.
"I must suffer him this time," I said resignedly, and went on, he always
ahead acting as my scout and hunter--self-appointed, of course, but as
I had not ordered him back in trumpet tones and hurled a rock at him
to enforce the command, he took it that he was appointed by me. He
certainly made the most of his position; no one could say that he was
lacking in zeal. He scoured the country to the right and left and far in
advance of me, crashing through furze thickets and splashing across bogs
and streams, spreading terror where he went and leaving nothing for
me to look at. So it went on until after one o'clock when, tired and
hungry, I was glad to go down into a small fishing cove to get some
dinner in a cottage I knew. Jack threw himself down on the floor and
shared my meal, then made friends with the fisherman's wife and got a
second meal of saffron cake which, being a Cornish dog, he thoroughly
enjoyed.
The second half of the day was very much like the first, altogether a
blank day for me, although a very full one for Jack, who had filled a
vast number of wild creatures with terror, furiously hunted a hundred or
more, and succeeded in killing two or three.
Jack was impossible, and would never be allowed to follow me again. So
I sternly said and so thought, but when the time came and I found him
waiting for me his brown eyes bright with joyful anticipation, I could
not scowl at him and thunder out No! I could not help putting myself in
his place. For here he was, a dog of boundless energy who must exercise
his powers or be miserable, with nothing in the village for him except
to witness the not very exciting activities of others; and that, I
discovered, had been his life. He was mad to do something, and because
there was nothing for him to do his time was mostly spent in going about
the village to keep an eye on the movements of the people, especially of
those who did the work, always with the hope that his services might
be required in some way by some one. He was grateful for the smallest
crumbs, so to speak. House-work and work about the house--milking,
feeding the pigs and so on--did not interest him, nor would he attend
the labourers in the fields. Harvest time would make a difference; now
it was ploughing, sowing, and hoeing, with nothing for Jack. But he was
always down at the fishing cove to see the boats go out or come in and
join in the excitement when there was a good catch. It was still better
when the boat went with provisions to the lighthouse, or to relieve the
keeper, for then Jack would go too and if they would not have him he
would plunge into the waves and swim after it until the sails were
hoisted and it flew like a great gull from him and he was compelled to
swim back to land. If there was nothing else to do he would go to the
stone quarry and keep the quarrymen company, sharing their dinner
and hunting away the cows and donkeys that came too near. Then at
six o'clock he would turn up at the cricket-field, where a few young
enthusiasts would always attend to practise after working hours.
Living this way Jack was, of course, known to everybody--as well known
as the burly parson, the tall policeman, and the lazy girl who acted as
postman and strolled about the parish once a day delivering the letters.
When Jack trotted down the village street he received as many greetings
as any human inhabitant--"Hullo, Jack!" or "Morning, Jack," or "Where be
going, Jack?"
But all this variety, and all he could do to fit himself into and be
a part of the village life and fill up his time, did not satisfy him.
Happiness for Jack was out on the moor--its lonely wet thorny places,
pregnant with fascinating scents, not of flowers and odorous herbs,
but of alert, warm-blooded, and swift-footed creatures. And I was going
there--would I, could I, be so heartless as to refuse to take him?
You see that Jack, being a dog, could not go there alone. He was a
social being by instinct as well as training, dependent on others, or
on the one who was his head and master. His human master, or the man who
took him out and spoke to him in a tone of authority, represented the
head of the pack--the leading dog for the time being, albeit a dog that
walked on his hind legs and spoke a bow-wow dialect of his own.
I thought of all this and of many things besides. The dog, I remembered,
was taken by man out of his own world and thrust into one where he can
never adapt himself perfectly to the conditions, and it was consequently
nothing more than simple justice on my part to do what I could to
satisfy his desire even at some cost to myself. But while I was
revolving the matter in my mind, feeling rather unhappy about it, Jack
was quite happy, since he had nothing to revolve. For him it was all
settled and done with. Having taken him out once, I must go on taking
him out always. Our two lives, hitherto running apart--his in the
village, where he occupied himself with uncongenial affairs, mine on
the moor where, having but two legs to run on, I could catch no
rabbits--were now united in one current to our mutual advantage. His
habits were altered to suit the new life. He stayed in now so as not
to lose me when I went for a walk, and when returning, instead of going
back to his kennel, he followed me in and threw himself down, all wet,
on the rug before the fire. His master and mistress came in and stared
in astonishment. It was against the rules of the house! They ordered
him out and he looked at them without moving. Then they spoke again very
sharply indeed, and he growled a low buzzing growl without lifting his
chin from his paws, and they had to leave him! He had transferred
his allegiance to a new master and head of the pack. He was under my
protection and felt quite safe: if I had taken any part in that scene it
would have been to order those two persons who had once lorded it over
him out of the room!
I didn't really mind his throwing over his master and taking possession
of the rug in my sitting-room, but I certainly did very keenly resent
his behaviour towards the birds every morning at breakfast-time. It was
my chief pleasure to feed them during the bad weather, and it was often
a difficult task even before Jack came on the scene to mix himself in my
affairs. The Land's End is, I believe, the windiest place in the world,
and when I opened the window and threw the scraps out the wind would
catch and whirl them away like so many feathers over the garden wall,
and I could not see what became of them. It was necessary to go out
by the kitchen door at the back (the front door facing the sea being
impossible) and scatter the food on the lawn, and then go into watch the
result from behind the window. The blackbirds and thrushes would wait
for a lull to fly in over the wall, while the daws would hover overhead
and sometimes succeed in dropping down and seizing a crust, but often
enough when descending they would be caught and whirled away by the
blast. The poor magpies found their long tails very much against them in
the scramble, and it was even worse with the pied wagtail. He would go
straight for the bread and get whirled and tossed about the smooth lawn
like a toy bird made of feathers, his tail blown over his head. It was
bad enough, and then Jack, curious about these visits to the lawn, came
to investigate and finding the scraps, proceeded to eat them all up.
I tried to make him understand better by feeding him before I fed the
birds; then by scolding and even hitting him, but he would not see it;
he knew better than I did; he wasn't hungry and he didn't want bread,
but he would eat it all the same, every scrap of it, just to prevent
it from being wasted. Jack was doubtless both vexed and amused at my
simplicity in thinking that all this food which I put on the lawn would
remain there undevoured by those useless creatures the birds until it
was wanted.
Even this I forgave him, for I saw that he had not, that with his dog
mind he could not, understand me. I also remembered the words of a wise
old Cornish writer with regard to the mind of the lower animals: "But
their faculties of mind are no less proportioned to their state of
subjection than the shape and properties of their bodies. They have
knowledge peculiar to their several spheres and sufficient for the
under-part they have to act."
Let me be free from the delusion that it is possible to raise them above
this level, or in other words to add an inch to their mental stature.
I have nothing to forgive Jack after all. And so in spite of everything
Jack was suffered at home and accompanied me again and again in my walks
abroad; and there were more blank days, or if not altogether blank,
seeing that there was Jack himself to be observed and thought about,
they were not the kind of days I had counted on having. My only
consolation was that Jack failed to capture more than one out of every
hundred, or perhaps five hundred, of the creatures he hunted, and that I
was even able to save a few of these. But I could not help admiring
his tremendous energy and courage, especially in cliff-climbing when
we visited the headlands--those stupendous masses and lofty piles of
granite which rise like castles built by giants of old. He would almost
make me tremble for his life when, after climbing on to some projecting
rock, he would go to the extreme end and look down over it as if it
pleased him to watch the big waves break in foam on the black rocks a
couple of hundred feet below. But it was not the big green waves or any
sight in nature that drew him--he sniffed and sniffed and wriggled and
twisted his black nose, and raised and depressed his ears as he sniffed,
and was excited solely because the upward currents of air brought him
tidings of living creatures that lurked in the rocks below--badger and
fox and rabbit. One day when quitting one of these places, on looking
up I spied Jack standing on the summit of a precipice about seventy-five
feet high. Jack saw me and waved his tail, and then started to come
straight down to me! From the top a faint rabbit track was, visible
winding downwards to within twenty-four feet of the ground; the rest
was a sheer wall of rock. Down he dashed, faster and faster as he got
to where the track ended, and then losing his footing he fell swiftly to
the earth, but luckily dropped on a deep spongy turf and was not hurt.
After witnessing this reckless act I knew how he had come by those
frightful bruises on a former occasion. He had doubtless fallen a long
way down a cliff and had been almost crushed on the stones. But the
lesson was lost on Jack; he would have it that where rabbits and foxes
went he could go!
After all, the chief pleasure those blank bad days had for me was the
thought that Jack was as happy as he could well be. But it was not
enough to satisfy me, and by and by it came into my mind that I had
been long enough at that place. It was hard to leave Jack, who had put
himself so entirely in my hands, and trusted me so implicitly. But--the
weather was keeping very bad: was there ever known such a June as this
of 1907? So wet and windy and cold! Then, too, the bloom had gone from
the furze. It was, I remembered, to witness this chief loveliness that
I came. Looking on the wide moor and far-off boulder-strewn hills and
seeing how rusty the bushes were, I quoted--
The bloom has gone, and with the bloom go I,
and early in the morning, with all my belongings on my back, I stole
softly forth, glancing apprehensively in the direction of the kennel,
and out on to the windy road. It was painful to me to have to decamp in
this way; it made me think meanly of myself; but if Jack could read this
and could speak his mind I think he would acknowledge that my way of
bringing the connection to an end was best for both of us. I was not
the person, or dog on two legs, he had taken me for, one with a proper
desire to kill things: I only acted according to my poor lights.
Nothing, then, remains to be said except that one word which it was not
convenient to speak on the windy morning of my departure--Good-bye Jack.