"Odd," I suggested, "that a man should care to keep a dog like that."
Bettesworth shook his head.
"There's too many of 'em about, by half. And I en't partic'lar fond o' dogs, nowhen." He looked up, and a knowing look came into his grey eyes as he continued, "I was workin' one time for Malcolms up here, and they had a dog, and one day he stole a shoulder o' mutton, indoors. Sort of collie, he was. And he took this 'ere shoulder o' mutton and run upstairs into one o' the rooms, and he wouldn't come out for nobody. I was at work out in the garden, and the servant she come runnin' out to me, to ast me if I'd come an' get 'n out. 'I dunno s'much about that,' I says; ''ten't a job as I cares about.' I can tell ye, I wa'n't partic'lar about doin' of it. 'Oh,' she says, 'do come an' get 'n out. We be all afraid. And you can have a stick,' she says. 'No,' I says, 'I won't have no stick'—'cause, what good's a stick, ye know? He'd ha' come for me all the one for that. So I catches up a 'and-saw...."
"A hand-saw?"
"I did. I took this 'ere 'and-saw, and I went upstairs to 'n, and he come for me sure enough. But I give 'n two or three 'cross the nose with this saw, and he didn't like that. He went off downstairs quick sticks."
"H'm! I shouldn't have relished the job."
"No, sir; I didn't like it. I was afraid of 'n. I drove 'n out, but I was afraid of 'n all the one for that."
January 7, 1896.—A task reserved for this winter's leisure was the making of an arched way of larch-poles and wire to cover a short flight of steps in the garden. Two briars at the top of the steps, one on each side, had overgrown them, and these were now to be trained to the new framework, which was to slant down at the same slope as the steps.
Until we began the work, it seemed simple enough; but almost immediately we plunged into bewilderment, owing to the various slopes and slants to be considered. The steps go askew between two parts of a zigzag path, and our archway, therefore, needed to be several feet longer on one side than on the other. The consequence was that the horizontal ties at the top not only clashed with all the gradients of the garden, but converged towards one another, so that, seen from above, they were horrid to behold. And then the slanting side-rails! They agreed with nothing else in all the landscape save the steps below them. Of course, when the briars covered these discrepancies, all would be well; but just while Bettesworth and myself were at work upon this thing, the farther we progressed with it the more distracted it looked, as though we had gathered into one spot all the conflicting angles of this most uneven of gardens, and were tying them up into one hideous knot. The work became a nightmare, and for an hour or two we lost our good spirits, and found it all we could do to keep our temper.
However, we got the framework together somehow, after which the straining of wires over it, being, as we fondly imagined, an easier task, released our thoughts a little. Bettesworth paid out and held the wire while I fastened it.