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.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 153 of 157
Words from 79683 to 80191 of 82198