'Murphy': A Message to Dog Lovers

by Ernest Gambier-Parry

In another hour or less darkness would have shut down on the world, though such a term as darkness was only relative on a day when it could never have been said to have been light.

When the open was reached, the snow, broken into hard flakes, whipped face and ears like nettles. Murphy was the best off of the party, save when something had drawn him from beneath the waggon, and he was having a game with the snow on his own account. Great wreaths hung to the fences, or stood out in ledges where the banks were high. The sky, or rather the whole air, was lead colour, and all distance was blotted out. Flocks of crazy, distracted birds flew close by in great numbers, for the most part finches and larks, with here and there a fieldfare or two, their breasts and underwings buff colour. Then came a flight wholly made up of buntings, whose brilliant yellows looked deep orange against the leaden grey that shrouded all.

There was no end to the great host. They were all going one way: they made no sound but the swish of wings, and uttered no single note: they passed at speed as though in fear, yet all the while in obedience to the supremest law of all. To the southward there would be protection; life there would be preserved: here it was impossible—for birds. “Keep low; press on!” Victory shall be to the strongest: the weak shall fall in this pitiless wind, and the snow shall cover the dead, but in the end there shall be a better life for some. “Keep low; press on!”

There was something weird in such a sight as that: there was something weird also in the sound of the wind. It came sweeping over the fields, tearing with angry gusts at the snow-laden briars in the fences, and passing on with a moaning sound into the dark of the approaching night.

There was no sign of human beings anywhere. Familiar objects had all changed their character, though it was only by these that whereabouts could be told. The remains of a hay-rick by the roadside suddenly showed up out of the mirk, with white top like some great ghost, its blackened sides flecked here and there with snow. In the hot days of June two here had seen it built; and, later on, watched the trussers at work on it, when the price of hay had gone up, and farmers could make a few pounds. But that job, like most others, had had to be abandoned now.

Why, here was the great stoggle oak by the pool, on whose limbs in former times, tradition had it, many a highwayman had swung! The storm to it was nothing: it had weathered so many: the world was a fair place; but life was full of tests as well as trials. “Heads up! Bear yourselves like men,” its limbs seemed to roar in solemn, deep diapason. “Heads up!—there is a haven for all ahead!”

It was fifty yards further on before the voice of the oak was lost. But as man and dog worked further still, for very joy of the wind and the snow and love for the elements at their worst—the horses struggling, the waggoners calling to them loudly and urging them to put their best into it, with many a crack of the whip—there suddenly fell a lull, and for a moment there was peace. And just then, up from the valley, there came other sounds—the larch and the firs down there were sighing out a tune to themselves, being partly sheltered by the hill.

It was time to turn back. There was a lane in the direction of those last sounds: home could easily be reached that way, and, likely enough, with the set of the wind, the roadway itself would have been swept almost bare.

The waggons were lost to sight in a moment, though the woody rattle of the axles could still be heard: snow was falling heavily again: the cold was becoming intense: the wind was now dropping altogether. A dead bird or two were passed, lying in the snow, claws in air and already stiff: a felt and a yellowhammer were side by side at the bottom of the hill. It was like the dead in gay uniforms, lying scattered after an action. A little further on there was a blackbird, to Murphy’s very evident glee. He found it at once, and was for carrying it home; it was still warm. But this was no time for fooling. It was already dark and growing darker; the proper thing to do was to keep together and make for home. Travelling was none too easy, even for tall men, and really difficult for dogs in places.

At points where field gates opened on to the road, drifts had formed two feet in depth, right across the way, and it was necessary to pick up the dog and carry him, though to the latter’s thinking that was a silly thing to do. Time was, when his master had had to do that; but he had then been no better than a child in arms. Now he was a man, and had come to man’s estate, and, furthermore, had learnt what life was, with its hours full of health, and crammed with fresh adventures and experiences, as, of course, it should be. His muscles were hard and flexible as steel, his heart strong with life, his brain quick to learn whatsoever his master thought best that he should know. Health, strength, what happiness it all was! The neighbourhood of those waggons had been rather depressing, and the crack of those whips somewhat disconcerting; but he did not stop to reason why. It was enough that he and his master were together. The past might look after itself, and so might the future; this was the all-sufficient present.