Murphy Part 5

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 a.s.sert 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 cla.s.ses 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 c.o.c.ked and those human eyes of his, he took stock of everything pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sertion 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed '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 pa.s.sed on, and left un. Dogs--well, sheep, if you do please to understand, is sheep; but dogs is dogs, and G.o.d 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 gla.s.s--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 grat.i.tude 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed, 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 cla.s.s 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.