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 shows the 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 must be 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 that

sheep 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

work _some_ that 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 from

the 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,

he stretched 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 large measure 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-worn hut 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, and went 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'd just 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 every one 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, and when 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. To bear 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 miles one 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 exhibited by 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

choose their 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 that Murphy 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 was

ill. 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 a sheep-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--it was 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 was centred

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 possible to 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 been won 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 other ways 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

lay down 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 knew their 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 the wonder 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 master would 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, "What _will_ happen, 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.'"