Part 2

Then again, when, on a sultry afternoon in this first summer of Murphy's life, some older members of the family betook themselves to such cool places on the eyot as the shadows cast by the wide eaves of the mill, it was ordered they were to be left in peace and not plagued by younger folk, however good-natured they might be. Nor were others to be followed when they stole away to the opening of the mill-race--where the water came out at speed, brown and foaming, from the dark shadows under the floors--to listen, maybe, half asleep, to the great wheel groaning its solemn music, as the dripping green paddles threw off a cool mist to refresh the jaded air.

However strange such a choice might seem to those of restless spirit, it was not more so than that of others who, careless of themselves, preferred a hole in the dust of the upper yard among the Buff Orpingtons, and the grilling heat of the midsummer sun. There must be differences of taste here as elsewhere. The spot chosen must be respected, not only because it was the home for the time, however short, but also because here was privacy, and it was not right that such should be at any time invaded, if rightly and obviously sought--at least, so was it judged by those who inhabited the island at this period.

That Murphy noticed all these things goes without saying. He kept them mostly to himself, after the manner of his kind; but he watched nevertheless closely, his black eyebrows moving continually just above his eyes, as he lay in the rough grass in the shade of the pollard willows, or beneath the whispering aspens.

At this time he had not long emerged from the limp stage, when hind-quarters would continually give way, and there was nothing to be done but rest on one haunch and try to look wise, being continually bothered by the flies. After a while he began to grow stronger and more comely, his ears darkened, and his eyes--put in, as they say, with a dirty thumb--grew larger, taking on that exceeding brightness that made passers-by look and look again. He was also allowed further afield when his turn came. There were walks along the river-banks, in company with half-a-dozen of the others; and before he was six months old he could run a good distance with a horse and trap, ere he would come to the step and look up with a laugh, saying, "Here, take me up; I'm blown!" The old horse in the shafts knew the ways of the dogs well, and would shorten his pace, and indeed pull up altogether, if a thoughtless one was likely to be injured. It was probably from this that Murphy suffered all his life from a mistaken notion that it was the duty of horses, as well as drivers of all kinds, to get out of his way, and not he necessarily out of theirs.

It was a happy life in a land of happiness and freedom, though discipline was stern, and all had to pass their period of training. Sooner or later each one was judged upon his merits, as well by his comrades as by the great, tall Over-Lord, to whom primarily they owed allegiance. And if such judgment was occasionally fallacious, as it frequently is, the world over, when based upon such points alone, it worked out fairly when the time arrived for an estimate to be made of the character that every one here was entitled to--when the first home had to be left behind, and the world faced in town or country, up or down the greater river of a common life.

For such a temperament as Murphy's, a life like this was happiness itself. He was sociable, and loved company intensely, though preferably the company of Man. Solitude he abhorred; games were his delight; for killing things, even were it a rat from one of the thousand holes he met with when walking by the river, he never cared, and indeed appeared never quite to understand. "Live and let live" was his motto, while playing always the game of "catch-who-catch-can."

There was no reason to bring pain into the field at all. Life to him was a condition full of smiles, or to be made so, though there was snarling round the corner, as well as folk of difficult temperament to remain puzzlers to the end. Those about, therefore, were to be reckoned friends, and to be met in such way as better dogs themselves lay down. Their society obviously had its rules, which, if occasionally broken, were yet to be known and recognised, just as they themselves, though dogs, were able to discern that the members of that other society, on to which they were apparently grafted, had theirs.

These last and they themselves were nothing less than partners--so it seemed to him--in a great game, to be played always in good heart and with the spirit of true sportsmanship. Both moved according to law, the only difference between the two being that Men held the power of the Veto--and exercised it too often, he would add in his perfect, well-bred manner, in a way that declared their ignorance. Men, he averred, would always insist on assuming that their laws were right at all times, and, furthermore, were always applicable to dogs, forgetting that, more often even than themselves, dogs were moved by laws imperious.

Had he been as the majority of dogs, he would, when such thoughts occupied his brain, have joined no doubt unhesitatingly in Puck's song--

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

But, then, this is where he differed from that majority. Man was his friend. Friendship meant loyalty, and loyalty should be unstained.

There was much in what he said. On many an occasion a dog will show that he knows better than a man, and can do things that transcend Man's boasted powers. We all know that--or should do so--for the moment may arrive when we find ourselves dependent on the judgment of a dog. To fail to recognise it then is to create difficulties and to blunder badly, causing the most tractable of our friends to look up with a puzzled expression in their eyes, and the more head-strong and outspoken to go ahead, with this sentence, flung back over the shoulder--"You fools, you; when will you understand!"

And the fun of it all is that Man with his self-assurance, and that limited vision of his of which he seems sometimes completely unaware, thinks that he is training the dog, whereas the dog is perfectly capable, as will be shown, of at least in some directions training him. Thus, where differences arise, Man jumps to his conclusions and claims his prerogative. It is a sorry business when an all-too-hasty punishment follows, as it often does, for Man--so Murphy used to say--would find himself very frequently to be wrong. But then Murphy, when he talked like this in the after days, showing how easily We might make mistakes, and explaining so much that was not wholly realised before, caused sundry folk to wonder whether in some previous life he had in his spare time studied Bentham. For dogs or men to make mistakes is not necessarily for them to do wrong. "To trace errors to their source is often to refute them."

He often quoted that; but on the only occasion on which he was asked about his previous studies he remained silent. He and his Master were sitting on the hillside, far away from the hum of men--as, in fact, they mostly were. His eyes were ranging over the valley to the skyline. "That's the way to look, my dear master," he appeared to be saying--"that's the way to look. Never run heel way. For you and me there is a future. Look ahead, and cast forward; never look behind!"

His remarks often, in this way, touched lightly on great questions.

To look ahead in the hey-day of youth is to look forward to unclouded happiness. And, no doubt, to Murphy and those of his own age, the fact that the summer waned and that autumn followed, when leaves fell mysteriously from the trees and there were sporting scents in the air, made little difference to their outlook. Happiness had no relation to the seasons: they were all good in their turn. Jolly times ranged from spring to winter. And, perhaps, winter after all was best.

It was on a winter day, in fact, that Murphy first made a mark in the mind of his Over-Lord, and it came about like this.

The day before had been typical of late January. The sun had not shone since daybreak. The sky to the north was lead colour, and the wind was blowing through snow. If it froze on the north side of the hedgerows, it thawed on the south--the coldest condition of all.

There were covered places for the dogs of the mill, with plenty of straw, and when one or two who had been out for a walk came in and said there would be snow before another morning dawned, those who heard the remark curled themselves tighter or drew closer to their more intimate friends. And as they slept and woke, and slept again, they saw the lights go out one by one, save those in the mill itself, for barges had come with loads of grain, and the mill was working all night. They could hear the steady "throb," "throb" of the great mill-wheel and the plash of the distant waters; but just before the new dawn these sounds gave way to a hum that played a muffled music in the trees. The men's footsteps never sounded at all, till they were close at hand; and then the mill slowly stopped as though tired, and silence reigned supreme in the cold. Dogs and men slept firmly for a little: Nature was at work putting a new face upon the world.

And after all that there followed the joyousness of a cloudless morning, as the stars faded out, and the pale sun lit up a world that was now pure white. Snow lay everywhere to the depth of three inches--not more--for it had spread itself evenly in the stillness, and covered the ground, and the roofs, and the barges that had come with the grain, making everything look strange, even to the waters that were licking the banks, and that somehow or other had turned the colour of green bottle-glass.

Then, by-and-by, came the Over-Lord, and called this name and that; and the last that he called was "Murphy."

Here were games indeed! Here was something new to play with; to be skipped and rolled and gambolled in to heart's content; to be even bitten at, and swallowed till forbidden. Why, this new material that the younger ones had never seen before called even the limpest to forget his limpness, as though new blood flowed in his veins and he were endowed with a new life!

They were soon out of the yard, and away down the lane. And then the Over-Lord turned into the fields and struck a right-of-way that led in direction of a hamlet two miles distant. Here many of the meadows were thirty acres and over in extent, flat as any floor, with great elm trees in their hedgerows. They were untenanted now by sheep or cattle, for these had been driven off the night before to higher ground, by men who kept an eye upon the weather. The virgin surface of the snow lay glittering gold and silver in the early morning sun, with here and there, as a contrast, the long shadows of the limbs of a great oak or elm, cast as though some one had traced its pattern for fun with a brushful of the purest cobalt.

There were only five dogs out that morning. Three were now fastened to a leash; one other was very old, and he and Murphy were allowed what latitude they liked. So presently it chanced that Murphy found himself some way from the rest, and suddenly called upon to show what he could do. As he went, he came upon a slight rise in the snow, as though something lay beneath. The more experienced would have known what that was, for their noses would have told them in a trice. When snow falls and a hare finds itself being gradually covered by the flakes, it does what it can to bury itself deeper; but always with this eye on life--that it assiduously keeps a hole open that it may breathe, and always to the leeward. Such is one of many evidences of clever instinct to be met with for ever in the fields.

Thus, before this young dog knew well what had happened, there sprang, as if by magic, from the snow a beauteous animal, strong of scent and fleet of foot, and heading straight away from him at top speed.

He heard a voice calling many names, and at the same time the crack of a whip. But his name was not among the rest; and he just had time to notice that the Over-Lord stood still, with the other dogs about him. Then he was off in pursuit, straight as a line for the river. There the hare made its first turn, Murphy being twenty yards in rear. He was running mute now, and both hare and dog were settling to their work--the one to escape if it could, the other to catch, if so it might be. They were through the far fence a moment later, and disappeared, only, however, quickly to return and take a line straight down this thirty-acre piece. It was a stretch of nearly a quarter of a mile, and ere they reached the further fence Murphy was gaining ground. The hare doubled at the boundary, and then doubled again, making the figure of a giant eight on the glittering golden surface of the snow.

Was the dog really gaining? It was a fine course. The hare was evidently a late leveret of the previous season; the dog was scarcely more than seven months old. How would it end? The Over-Lord stood and watched, determined that none should interfere. There should be fair play in a fair field, if he could only keep a grip upon these others that were whimpering and shivering and straining at the leash. He had passed the thong of his whip through the collar of the old dog, so all were really well within control.

Would the young dog last? That was the crucial question. The hare had had many a run before this to save her skin, and was hardened by the life of the breezy downs and the wide fields. But the dog had never previously been tried in such a way: his life had been more or less an artificial one, and he had never been called upon to lay himself out, or been put to such a strain as these almost maddening moments entailed. Catch this thing somehow he must. Were not his comrades looking on? Did not the very silence of the Over-Lord seem to demand of him his very best? There appeared, however, to be no getting level with this animal of surprising fleetness of foot, that seemed to glide over the ground with perfect ease, and that responded gamely to every effort that he made.