I
Dixon of Dockerneuk came down the last slope of the fell.
Behind him, the fresh-herded sheep still cried hysterically to one another. In front, he saw the smoke of his farm and the twisted ribbon of the hedged road.
Round his knees flitted a gray and silver thing with adoring eyes hidden by a silken fringe; a silent-footed attendant whose ears lifted at the faintest whisper of command, and who dropped to heel at a raised finger.
Reaching the gate, he paused and looked down at her, and the steady seriousness of his face relaxed a little. Rain, sitting at his feet, flopped a lovely tail and reached out an insinuating tongue, but Dixon’s hand stayed at his side. A dalesman does not waste unnecessary caresses upon his dog, any more than upon his other daily companions.
Yet Rain was the pride of his heart. He had bred her himself, trained her himself, as he trained all his dogs, and she knew every shade of his whistle as a child knows the inflections of its mother’s voice. The least wave of his hand was her code; two words could give her a complete law of shepherding. The sympathy between them was the most perfect that has ever been known to exist between man and beast—the link between a shepherd and his dog.
He unsnecked the gate, and she danced out, eager for home, waving a silver tail for him to follow, but he paused again, leaning against the stoup. A sound escaped him, so soft that at the bend of the road you would not have heard it, but Rain dropped as if shot, ears cocked, body rigid; and this time Dixon of Dockerneuk smiled ever so slightly.
To-morrow he was to run her at the dog-trials at Arevar, before half the County, and he knew that there was not a dog within a fifty-mile radius that could beat her when handled by himself. Already she was famous; already “Dixon’s Rain” was a familiar phrase in the mouths of shepherds; her judgment, her intelligence, her beauty, were known in every household where a sheep-dog was a matter of serious consideration. She would be eagerly looked for, to-morrow, and he who possessed anything that could beat her would indeed be a proud man by sunset.
With another scarcely-breathed whistle he released her, and turned to hasp the gate and give a final look up the soaring fell, skirted with bracken, crowned by sullen rocks. Rain sprang round—sprang to meet a devil’s galloper of satin panels and shining brass, hurled at a criminal speed along the narrow, curving road—sprang and disappeared. She was quite dead when Dixon and the chauffeur drew her out from between the heavy wheels.
A group of those children who always appear miraculously at every untoward occurrence, thrust frightened faces through a break in the hedge. They knew Dixon and they knew Rain, and if the sky had fallen upon the appalling catastrophe they would hardly have been surprised. They said “Goy!” at intervals, and held each other’s hands, knowing the meaning of the countryman’s set face.
Dixon said briefly—“She’s done!” through set teeth, and the chauffeur, rising reluctantly from his knees, dusted his smart livery, and nodded his head, biting his lip. It was not his place to criticise his master for taking other people’s risks as cheerfully as he took his own.
A dark young face looked over the side of the car, and eyed the dead dog with a perturbed expression. It was all a beastly bore, but of course he had taken the corner far too fast, and would have to pay for his pleasure. It was a decent-looking dog, too, worse luck! He liked dogs as well as anybody—jolly, wagging things that always met you with a smile. What a fool he had been to peg along at that pace! He might have been sure there would be a dog at the corner. There always was, when he was driving.
He fumbled in his pocket, wondering vaguely why nobody said anything except the children in the hedge, who still observed “Goy!” at intervals. Grange might have helped him out, but Grange was such a fool about animals; you wondered why he had ever taken to machines. Fortunately, the owner did not seem excited about the accident, thought the boy, seeing nothing unusual in the grim face which the northern children read so plainly.
He was a gentleman; and in justice it must be admitted that he offered his apology before he offered his gold; but perhaps his curiously-worded expressions of sorrow conveyed too little to the farmer, just as the gold conveyed too much. Grange made a movement to stop him when he saw the money; he had been bred in the dales. But again it was none of his business, and he shrugged his shoulders and stood aside, awaiting events.
They were not long in arriving. As the careless hand came out, Dixon’s brown fist flew up to meet it; the gold clove a glittering path into the ditch, and the stranger subsided into his seat, nursing a damaged wrist.
Then he laughed, and motioned the chauffeur to get in.
“As you please!” he said to the farmer; and—“Take the wheel!” to his servant; and, as they moved, stopped nursing his wrist to raise his hand to his cap. Dixon stood like a block.
Opposite the children, the motorist checked the car.
“There’s somethin’ in the ditch, yonder,” he observed, leaning forward, “that will set you up in bull’s-eyes for a month of Sundays!”—and not a child stirred. Behind him, he heard his own laugh echoed sardonically by Dixon—Dixon standing like a block beside his silver-haired darling.
“Grange, you fathead,” said his master thoughtfully, as the chauffeur swung his responsibilities out of sight, “why in the name of all that’s sportin’, didn’t you warn me?”
“Sir,” answered the chauffeur, “I have always understood that you preferred to learn by experience!”