Afoot in England: Chapter 25

Chapter 25

My Friend Jack

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 dscovered, 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.

THE END

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