Bowman’s Pink trotted nervously in the wake of uncertain footsteps. Life had become a devious and dangerous thing since her master had taken to looking upon the ale when it was yellow, and she followed his erratic curves uneasily if faithfully, since a well-bred dog must always be at its master’s heels.
Not that the splendid title fitted her at first glance, as she pattered unhappily along the sticky road. Her slender, pointed limbs were plastered with mud; her black coat with the white star on the chest was rough and matted, and had lost its gloss; the fine, keen little head was shaggy and unkempt. She was underfed; she was uncared-for; and, much worse, she was cowed. A word from her lord set her trembling; a movement flattened her to the earth. Yet, she stayed, as many women stay in like case—women whom all the Divorce Commissions in the world will never reach. And so Bowman and Pink came to the Trials.
They were late. Men whose hour-glass turns with ale usually are late. But Bowman’s name was not among the first on the card, and he had not been called as yet. He pulled himself together as he made his way past the flower-show and the shooting-gallery and the brass band, and Pink drew a little closer, humbly thankful to be free from the perils of the open road. On the left, rows of hard and unattractive benches supported the honourable weight of the flower of the County. On the right, the competitors watched and chatted and compared notes. In front, the long meadow, dotted with flags, sloped upward much as a stage slopes, so that the performance regularly enacted every ten minutes was plain to every eye; while near to the Society gathering, just where sunshades and chatter might alarm sheep and distract canine intelligence, was the little pen where the last act of the round was played, the only one in which the owner of the competing dog was allowed to give definite assistance. Society always derived huge enjoyment from this crucial moment. Seventeen-stone Jackson of Dubbs, prancing cautiously around his woolly adversaries, hat in hand, was certainly a sight to be treasured in the memory. The skill of his crawling, quivering lieutenant was apt to be overlooked in the humour of the situation.
Dixon of Dockerneuk sat by himself in a corner of the big field. He had come because he could not stay away, but now that he was here, the whole business was torture to him. There was scarcely a man on the field but was asking for Rain, and annoying him with well-meant sympathy. Even the ladies had heard of her, fish-hooked each other’s hats with their sunshades, and said—“Dear me! How perfectly shocking!” as if their respective cars had never so much as slain a hen. There was an immaculate youth, nursing a bandaged wrist amid a bevy of beauty, who went hot all over at the mention of the dead dog’s name.
But Dixon would not be pitied. He shook off sympathy as a man shakes off a troublesome bluebottle. He was billed to run another dog beside Rain, a young yellow collie that had the root of the matter in him, but at present preferred to regard life in general, and sheep-dog-trials in particular, as a huge joke. Dashing up to his three victims, he greeted them with affectionate exuberance, much as some over-familiar parsons fall upon the necks of the dignified poor. Fleeing before his bouncing guidance, they were through the first flags in a rush, merely because that happened to be their line and they could not avoid it, but they ignored the rest, and were down the field and almost upon the lap of Society before Dixon’s imperious whistle could swing the culprit in front of them.
Lark went back cheerfully enough. A little energy wasted more or less made no difference to him. Another rush brought the resentful trio through the stone gap and between the second flagged limits, but there the happy fluke ended. One sheep broke off from the rest, and for the remainder of his allotted space Lark played Catch with it over every square inch of the field. Dixon wrestled with him patiently enough, while Society laughed and clapped, and the roughs in the background scoffed and called for Rain; but Lark, like the Punch ’cellist, was there to enjoy himself, and came in when dismissed from the course with a lolling tongue and a grin that reached from ear to ear. Dixon walked back to his corner without a word, feeling no resentment against the yellow dog who had made such gorgeous fools of them both. He was only a puppy; he would steady in time; and since Rain was not there—was lying under a new-turfed mound at home—nothing else really mattered.
Bowman’s name was called at last by a member of the committee, and he disengaged himself from a group of second-rate acquaintances, and slouched forward. Pink was whining ever so softly to herself as she followed him out into the field, and every nerve in her body tingled with excitement. She had played this game before, and she was wild to get away and begin.
Society laughed again as Bowman’s Pink came into view; she looked so small, so hungry, so pathetically incompetent. “The Pink of Perfection!” observed a scarlet hat, nodding poppies, and was at once fish-hooked in revenge by a Reckitt’s Blue sunshade who had been about to make the same witty remark herself.
Bowman gave the welcome signal at last—the least lift of a knotted stick—and Pink was up the long field like a black streak to the far point where three plump, puzzled sheep had been suddenly dumped to await her. She was on them quicker than Lark, but there was no scattering this time. With one smart circling movement, she clumped them together and dropped, looking for further orders, a dingy speck on the vivid green.
Bowman had gained sufficient control of himself to appear before the footlights, but, once there, he went to pieces altogether. His fuddled brain could not command the situation; his bleared eye could scarcely mark his little black servant waiting his will; the hand that waved the stick was as reliable as a weather-cock in a shifting wind. He gave orders, it is true, but they were the wrong ones. Pink, straining ear and glance alike, could make nothing of him. He dropped her when a quick rush was imperative, forced her forward when to move an inch was to court disaster, rounded up at the wrong moment, scattered and separated when close upon the flags. The resulting confusion irritated him; the suppressed mirth of Society goaded him to fury. His stick began to wave wildly; he ceased to whistle, and took to shouting, and the tone of his shouting made the bright sunshades quiver. Pink quivered, too, shamed and insulted, for no really first-class man shouts at a first-class dog; he has no need. She obeyed him, because not to obey would have been as possible to her as to have made a live-mutton dinner off the three exasperated creatures whom she was being forced to torture so unnecessarily; but under the stress of puzzling, contradictory orders, she, too, was beginning to lose her head. The whole fiasco ended in a glorious exit of sheep and sheep-dog over one of the President’s newly-laid fences, while Society rocked with laughter, and Bowman, black in the face, was removed peremptorily by the committee.