"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.

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