“That never should have been raised, in his case. What about De vivis?” There was indignation in the tone; perhaps justly.
IX
“What I does is this—what I does is, I gets ’em quite close to me, and then I talks to ’em.”
This is what Mrs. Pinnix invariably replied, when asked how it was that her children were of such good behaviour and gave so little trouble. And Mrs. Pinnix knew, for she had been the careful mother of thirteen, and had developed this happy, good-natured method of dealing with each in turn, boys and girls alike. No doubt she was a remarkable woman in many ways, for she won the last event on the card at the time of the Jubilee sports, being then the mother of ten—“Skipping: open to mothers only.” But the point here, in this remark of hers, is that a long experience with dogs shows the talking treatment to be as applicable to them as it was to Mrs. Pinnix’s children.
Nor will this be found to be the fanciful idea of the few, if inquiry be made. To live largely, for instance, among those whose labours lie far from cities, and who, of long habit, have come to note many things concerning which the less fortunate townsman knows nothing, is to learn many things oneself. To hazard the remark in such quarters, that a good many people have no belief in the theory that talking to a dog does him good, is to receive for answer, “Ah, but I knows as it does.” Others go further, and in reply to the question whether they think dogs—that is, the best dogs—really understand what is said to them, never fail to assert with emphasis, “Well, they does; I be sure as they does: ’tisn’t a mossel o’ use to tell folks the like o’ we different.” Shepherds, stockmen, farm labourers, old villagers who have had many experiences though living in a narrow circle, and who look back over a long life, constantly make use of such remarks. And probably dog-lovers of all classes will re-echo the same.
It was certainly the method adopted in the further training and education of Murphy. As already related, he had been taught to stop when his master stopped, and to come in when he sat or lay down. Thus, though he was generally allowed to range at will over the open lands and be sometimes far distant, in the event of the one he spent his life with lying down to rest for a while, very few minutes would elapse ere the dog would be found making use of shoulder, back, or arm as comfortable things to rest against. Tucked closely in in this way, his face was level with that other’s, as, with ears cocked and those human eyes of his, he took stock of everything passing in the valley, or that moved on the edges of the great woods clothing the hill-tops.
That was the time to get hold of him; to train him not to run a hare that might come lolloping stupidly along, down wind, into the very jaws of danger; to take no notice of a rabbit that offered insult by drumming with his hind legs on the ground only a few yards off; to tell him strange stories of what he might expect in the years to come when he grew as old as his master, and had learnt to try to take many knocks, to face many problems, to bear and suffer much that might come from strange quarters—had learnt also how to live, and to reap his share of the happiness that the mere fact of living rarely fails to give to all who are not weak-kneed or chicken-hearted.
Of course experience, in some ways, tended to undermine confidence. Did he not know all about that himself? Had he not at one time come to doubt all things human? Had not happiness and trust and faith gone by the board, because of the hardness and injustice meted out to him? But what now? By some miraculous process there had come a change. Doubt had not altogether vanished; confidence had not altogether returned; faith and trust in the giants that stalked over the world, and who seemed to rule it, were not as yet quite re-established: perhaps they never could, or would be. To some natures recovery in such directions is impossible. The fire has seared, the cicatrice remains—though to be hidden away, of course. To show feelings—above all, to show you are hurt—to sing out, in fact—is to exhibit a poor spirit, to fall short in proper doggedness. Suffer in silence, if you can—that must be the rule; just as this dog, with his keen, eager face, loves in silence—loves all the more deeply, perchance, because he loves in silence, and because that silence is so much more eloquent than words.