“Well—I’ll tell you. I didn’t like the man’s face that wanted them; nothing else: I always like to see where my dogs go and the people they go to; and, after getting your letter, I determined to make the journey here, as soon as ever I could get the time. He’s a nice dog; a good dog—I’m sure of it.”
“You don’t think there is anything in the suggestion I made to account for his extreme nervousness, do you?”
“Well—I know now that there is. I only got to the bottom of it, though, this morning. These things aren’t arrived at in a minute, you know. One working-man very rarely splits upon another.”
Then followed the whole story. “It was cruel—cruel,” he jerked out at the end, finishing with, “I may as well tell you, I never liked the man. Latterly his work was anyhow—went from bad to worse, and I discharged him.”
There was silence. Two great big men were sitting looking at the dog lying between them. The dog’s eyebrows moved continually: his brilliant eyes travelled from one to the other; and presently he heaved a deep sigh, as much as to say, “It’s all quite true—quite true.”
If there had been hesitation about keeping Murphy before, there was an end to it now. Here was a dog—a young life—that had once, and not so long ago, been the delight of the kennel, the very embodiment of light-hearted fun and happiness; the most promising of all the younger lot, and one that had never been guilty of wrong. Send him back! Give him up! What might his fate be if he went elsewhere? Death? Look at him. Look at his large brilliant eyes. They betoken nervousness, of course—inherent nervousness, probably. A cruel injustice had been done by this dumb thing, and by one of Us. Give him up! Clearly everything most prized was at stake, and claimed the exact opposite.
Why should a different justice be the lot of a dog to that meted out to a man? Is the superiority all one way? Each man knows in his heart that it is not; that the dog is often the better of the two.
How the thoughts raced through the brain!
“Murphy?” It was his new master that called him now.
Perhaps the presence of the Over-Lord had given the young dog confidence: he, at least, had been linked with happy times. Murphy got up hesitatingly and came to his new master’s chair, with his ears drooping. He even suffered himself to be taken into this new master’s lap, though not without great nervousness.