Three Elephant Power and Other Stories Part 9

Mixed up with the stallions and bulls were dogs and donkeys. The dogs were led by attendants, apparently selected on the principle of the larger the dog the smaller the custodian; while the donkeys were the only creatures unmoved by their surroundings, for they slept peaceably through the procession, occasionally waking up to bray their sense of boredom.

In the centre of the ring a few lady-riders, stern-featured women for the most part, were being "judged" by a trembling official, who feared to look them in the face, but hurriedly and apologetically examined horses and saddles, whispered his award to the stewards, and fled at top speed to the official stand--his sanctuary from the fury of spurned beauty. The defeated ladies immediately began to "perform"--that is, to ask the universe at large whether anyone ever heard the like of that!

But the stewards strategically slipped away, and the injured innocents had no resource left but to ride haughtily round the ring, glaring defiance at the spectators.

All this time stewards and committee-men were wandering among the compet.i.tors, trying to find the animals for judgment. The clerk of the ring--a huge man on a small cob--galloped around, roaring like a bull: "This way for the fourteen stone 'acks! Come on, you twelve 'and ponies!" and by degrees various cla.s.ses got judged, and dispersed grumbling. Then the bulls filed out with their grievances still unsettled, the lady riders were persuaded to withdraw, and the clerk of the ring sent a sonorous bellow across the ground: "Where's the jumpin'

judges?"

From the official stand came a brisk, dark-faced, wiry little man. He had been a steeplechase rider and a trainer in his time. Long experience of that tricky animal, the horse, had made him reserved and slow to express an opinion. He mounted the table, and produced a note-book.

From the bar of the booth came a large, hairy, red-faced man, whose face showed fatuous self-complacency. He was a noted show-judge because he refused, on principle, to listen to others' opinions; or in those rare cases when he did, only to eject a scornful contradiction. The third judge was a local squatter, who was overwhelmed with a sense of his own importance.

They seated themselves on a raised platform in the centre of the ring, and held consultation. The small dark man produced his note-book.

"I always keep a scale of points," he said. "Give 'em so many points for each fence. Then give 'em so many for make, shape, and quality, and so many for the way they jump."

The fat man looked infinite contempt. "I never want any scale of points," he said. "One look at the 'orses is enough for me. A man that judges by points ain't a judge at all, I reckon. What do you think?" he went on, turning to the squatter. "Do you go by points?"

"Never," said the squatter, firmly; which, as he had never judged before in his life, was strictly true.

"Well, we'll each go our own way," said the little man. "I'll keep points. Send 'em in."

"Number One, Conductor!" roared the ring steward in a voice like thunder, and a long-legged grey horse came trotting into the ring and sidled about uneasily. His rider pointed him for the first jump, and went at it at a terrific pace. Nearing the fence the horse made a wild spring, and cleared it by feet, while the crowd yelled applause. At the second jump he raced right under the obstacle, propped dead, and rose in the air with a leap like a goat, while the crowd yelled their delight again, and said: "My oath! ain't he clever?" As he neared the third fence he shifted about uneasily, and finally took it at an angle, clearing a wholly unnecessary thirty feet. Again the hurricane of cheers broke out. "Don't he fly 'em," said one man, waving his hat. At the last fence he made his spring yards too soon; his forelegs got over all right, but his hind legs dropped on the rail with a sounding rap, and he left a little tuft of hair sticking on it.

"I like to see 'em feel their fences," said the fat man. "I had a bay 'orse once, and he felt every fence he ever jumped; shows their confidence."

"I think he'll feel that last one for a while," said the little dark man. "What's this now?"

"Number Two, Homeward Bound!" An old, solid chestnut horse came out and cantered up to each jump, clearing them coolly and methodically. The crowd was not struck by the performance, and the fat man said: "No pace!" but surrept.i.tiously made two strokes (to indicate Number Two) on the cuff of his shirt.

"Number Eleven, Spite!" This was a leggy, weedy chestnut, half-racehorse, half-nondescript, ridden by a terrified amateur, who went at the fence with a white, set face. The horse raced up to the fence, and stopped dead, amid the jeers of the crowd. The rider let daylight into him with his spurs, and rushed him at it again. This time he got over.

Round he went, clouting some fences with his front legs, others with his hind legs. The crowd jeered, but the fat man, from a sheer spirit of opposition, said: "That would be a good horse if he was rode better."

And the squatter remarked: "Yes, he belongs to a young feller just near me. I've seen him jump splendidly out in the bush, over brush fences."

The little dark man said nothing, but made a note in his book.

"Number Twelve, Gaslight!" "Now, you'll see a horse," said the fat man.

"I've judged this 'orse in twenty different shows, and gave him first prize every time!"

Gaslight turned out to be a fiddle-headed, heavy-shouldered brute, whose long experience of jumping in shows where they give points for pace--as if the affair was a steeplechase--had taught him to get the business over as quickly as he could. He went thundering round the ring, pulling double, and standing off his fences in a style that would infallibly bring him to grief if following hounds across roads or through broken timber.

"Now," said the fat man, "that's a 'unter, that is. What I say is, when you come to judge at a show, pick out the 'orse you'd soonest be on if Ned Kelly was after you, and there you have the best 'unter."

The little man did not reply, but made the usual scrawl in his book, while the squatter hastened to agree with the fat man. "I like to see a bit of pace myself," he ventured.

The fat man sat on him heavily. "You don't call that pace, do you?" he said. "He was going dead slow."

Various other compet.i.tors did their turn round the ring, some propping and bucking over the jumps, others rushing and tearing at their fences; not one jumped as a hunter should. Some got themselves into difficulties by changing feet or misjudging the distance, and were loudly applauded by the crowd for "cleverness" in getting themselves out of the difficulties they had themselves created.

A couple of rounds narrowed the compet.i.tors down to a few, and the task of deciding was entered on.

"I have kept a record," said the little man, "of how they jumped each fence, and I give them points for style of jumping, and for their make and shape and hunting qualities. The way I bring it out is that Homeward Bound is the best, with Gaslight second."

"Homeward Bound!" said the fat man. "Why, the pace he went wouldn't head a duck. He didn't go as fast as a Chinaman could trot with two baskets of stones. I want to have three of 'em in to have another look at 'em." Here he looked surrept.i.tiously at his cuff, saw a note "No. II.", mistook it for "Number Eleven", and said: "I want Number Eleven to go another round."

The leggy, weedy chestnut, with the terrified amateur up, came sidling and snorting out into the ring. The fat man looked at him with scorn.

"What is that fiddle-headed brute doing in the ring?" he said.

"Why," said the ring steward, "you said you wanted him."

"Well," said the fat man, "if I said I wanted him I do want him. Let him go the round."

The terrified amateur went at his fences with the rashness of despair, and narrowly escaped being clouted off on two occasions. This put the fat man in a quandary. He had kept no record, and all the horses were jumbled up in his head; but he had one fixed idea, to give the first prize to Gaslight; as to the second he was open to argument. From sheer contrariness he said that Number Eleven would be "all right if he were rode better," and the squatter agreed. The little man was overruled, and the prizes went--Gaslight, first; Spite, second; Homeward Bound, third.

The crowd hooted loudly as Spite's rider came round with the second ribbon, and small boys suggested to the fat judge in shrill tones that he ought to boil his head. The fat man stalked majestically into the stewards' stand, and on being asked how he came to give Spite the second prize, remarked oracularly: "I judge the 'orse, I don't judge the rider." This silenced criticism, and everyone adjourned to have a drink.

Over the flowing bowl the fat man said: "You see, I don't believe in this nonsense about points. I can judge 'em without that."

Twenty dissatisfied compet.i.tors vowed they would never bring another horse there in their lives. Gaslight's owner said: "Blimey, I knew it would be all right with old Billy judging. 'E knows this 'orse."

THE DOG

The dog is a member of society who likes to have his day's work, and who does it more conscientiously than most human beings. A dog always looks as if he ought to have a pipe in his mouth and a black bag for his lunch, and then he would go quite happily to office every day.

A dog without work is like a man without work, a nuisance to himself and everybody else. People who live about town, and keep a dog to give the children hydatids and to keep the neighbours awake at night, imagine that the animal is fulfilling his destiny. All town dogs, fancy dogs, show dogs, lap-dogs, and other dogs with no work to do, should be abolished; it is only in the country that a dog has any justification for his existence.

The old theory that animals have only instinct, not reason, to guide them, is knocked endways by the dog. A dog can reason as well as a human being on some subjects, and better on others, and the best reasoning dog of all is the sheep-dog. The sheep-dog is a professional artist with a pride in his business. Watch any drover's dogs bringing sheep into the yards. How thoroughly they feel their responsibility, and how very annoyed they get if a stray dog with no occupation wants them to stop and fool about! They snap at him and hurry off, as much as to say: "You go about your idleness. Don't you see this is my busy day?"

Sheep-dogs are followers of Thomas Carlyle. They hold that the only happiness for a dog in this life is to find his work and to do it. The idle, 'dilettante', non-working, aristocratic dog they have no use for.

The training of a sheep-dog for his profession begins at a very early age. The first thing is to take him out with his mother and let him see her working. He blunders lightheartedly, frisking along in front of the horse, and his owner tries to ride over him, and generally succeeds. It is amusing to see how that knocks all the gas out of a puppy, and with what a humble air he falls to the rear and glues himself to the horse's heels, scarcely daring to look to the right or to the left, for fear of committing some other breach of etiquette.

He has had his first lesson--to keep behind the horse until he is wanted. Then he watches the old s.l.u.t work, and is allowed to go with her round the sheep; and if he shows any disposition to get out of hand and frolic about, the old lady will bite him sharply to prevent his interfering with her work.

By degrees, slowly, like any other professional, he learns his business.

He learns to bring sheep after a horse simply at a wave of the hand; to force the mob up to a gate where they can be counted or drafted; to follow the scent of lost sheep, and to drive sheep through a town without any master, one dog going on ahead to block the sheep from turning off into by-streets while the other drives them on from the rear.

How do they learn all these things? Dogs for show work are taught painstakingly by men who are skilled in handling them; but, after all, they teach themselves more than the men teach them. It looks as if the acquired knowledge of generations were transmitted from dog to dog.

The puppy, descended from a race of sheep-dogs, starts with all his faculties directed towards the working of sheep; he is half-educated as soon as he is born. He can no more help working sheep than a born musician can help being musical, or a Hebrew can help gathering in shekels. It is bred in him. If he can't get sheep to work, he will work a fowl; often and often one can see a collie pup painstakingly and carefully driving a bewildered old hen into a stable, or a stock-yard, or any other enclosed s.p.a.ce on which he has fixed his mind. How does he learn to do that? He didn't learn it at all. The knowledge was born with him.

When the dog has been educated, or has educated himself, he enjoys his work; but very few dogs like work "in the yards". The sun is hot, the dust rises in clouds, and there is nothing to do but bark, bark, bark--which is all very well for learners and amateurs, but is beneath the dignity of the true professional sheep-dog. When they are hoa.r.s.e with barking and nearly choked with dust, the men lose their tempers and swear at them, and throw clods of earth at them, and sing out to them "Speak up, blast you!"

Then the dogs suddenly decide that they have done enough for the day.

Watching their opportunity, they silently steal over the fence, and hide in any cool place they can find. After a while the men notice that hardly any are left, and operations are suspended while a great hunt is made into outlying pieces of cover, where the dogs are sure to be found lying low and looking as guilty as so many thieves. A clutch at the scruff of the neck, a kick in the ribs, and they are hauled out of hiding-places; and accompany their masters to the yard frolicking about and pretending that they are quite delighted to be going back, and only hid in those bushes out of sheer thoughtlessness. He is a champion hypocrite, is the dog.