V
Excalibur was heavily overworked in his new rôle of chaperon during the next three or four weeks, and any dog less ready to oblige than himself might have felt a little aggrieved at the treatment to which he was subjected.
There was the case of the tennis lawn, for instance. He had always regarded this as his own particular sanctuary, dedicated to reflection and repose; but now the net was stretched across it and Eileen and the curate performed antics all over the court with rackets and small white balls which, though they did not hurt Excalibur, kept him awake. It did not occur to him to convey himself elsewhere, for his mind moved slowly; and the united blandishments of the players failed to bring the desirability of such a course home to him. He continued to lie in his favorite spot on the sunny side of the court, looking injured but forgiving, or slumbering perseveringly amid the storm that raged round him.
It was quite impossible to move Excalibur once he had decided to remain where he was; so Eileen and the curate agreed to regard him as a sort of artificial excrescence, like the buttress in a fives court. If the ball hit him, as it frequently did, the player waiting for it was at liberty either to play it or claim a let. This arrangement added a piquant and pleasing variety to what is too often—especially when indulged in by mediocre players—a very dull game.
Worse was to follow, however. One day Eileen and the curate conducted Excalibur to a neighboring mountain range—at least, so it appeared to Excalibur—and played another ball game. This time they employed long sticks with iron heads, and two balls, which, though they were much smaller than tennis balls, were incredibly hard and painful. Excalibur, though willing to help and anxious to please, could not supervise both the balls at once. As sure as he ran to retrieve one the other came after him and took him unfairly in the rear. Excalibur was the gentlest of creatures, but the most perfect gentleman has his dignity to consider.
After having been struck for the third time by one of these balls he whipped round, picked it up in his mouth and gave it a tiny pinch, just as a warning. At least, he thought it was a tiny pinch. The ball retaliated with unexpected ferocity. It twisted and turned. It emitted long, snaky spirals of some elastic substance, which clogged his teeth and tickled his throat and wound themselves round his tongue and nearly choked him. Panic-stricken, he ran to his mistress, who, with weeping and with laughter, removed the writhing horror from his jaws and comforted him with fair words.
After that Excalibur realized that it is wiser to walk behind golfers than in front of them. It was a boring business, though, and very exhausting, for he loathed exercise of every kind; and his only periods of repose were the occasions on which the expedition came to a halt on certain small, flat lawns, each of which contained a hole with a flag in it.
Here Excalibur would lie down, with the contented sigh of a tired child, and go to sleep. As he almost invariably lay down between the hole and the ball, the players agreed to regard him as a bunker. Eileen putted round him; but the curate—who had little regard for the humbler works of creation, Excalibur thought—used to take his mashie and attempt a lofting shot, an enterprise in which he almost invariably failed, to Excalibur's great inconvenience.
Country walks were more tolerable, for Eileen's supervision of his movements, which was usually marked by an officious severity, was sensibly relaxed on these days and Excalibur found himself at liberty to range abroad amid the heath and through the coppices, engaged in a pastime that he imagined was hunting.
One hot afternoon, wandering into a clearing, he encountered a hare. The hare, which was suffering from extreme panic, owing to a terrifying noise behind it,—the blast of the newest and most vulgar motor horn, to be precise,—was bolting right across the clearing. After the manner of hares where objects directly in front of them are concerned, the fugitive entirely failed to perceive Excalibur and, indeed, ran right underneath him on its way to cover. Excalibur was so unstrung by this adventure that he ran back to where he had left Eileen and the curate.