“O Hoggy, dear, kind Hoggy! you are about the only one left to care about me now”.
“No, donʼt you say that, Master Crad; donʼt you say that, whatever you do. Whoever tell you that, tell a lie, sir. It was only last night Mrs. Toaster, and cook, and Mrs. OʼGaghan, the Irishwoman, was round the fire boiling, and they cried a deal more than they boiled, I do assure you they did, sir. And Mr. Stote, he come in with some rabbits, and he went on like mad. And the maids, so sorry every one of them, they canʼt be content with their mourning, sir; I do assure you they canʼt. Oh, donʼt ’ee do no harm to yourself, donʼt ’ee, Mr. Cradock, sir”.
“No, Hoggy”, said Cradock, taking his hands; “you need not fear that now of me. I have had very wicked thoughts, but God has helped me over them. Henceforth I am resolved to bear my trouble like a man. It is the part of a dog to run, when the hoot begins behind him. Now, take this little box, and this key, and give them yourself to Sir Cradock Nowell. It is the last favour I shall ask of you. I am going away, my dear old friend; donʼt keep me now, for I must go. Only give me your good wishes; and see that they mind poor Caldo: and, whatever they say of me behind my back, you wonʼt believe it, Job Hogstaff, will you”?
Job Hogstaff had never been harder put to it in all his seventy years. Then, as he stood at the open door to see the last of his favourite, he thought of the tall, dark womanʼs words so many years ago. “A bonnie pair ye have gat; but yeʼll ha’ no luck o’ them. Tak’ the word of threescore year, yeʼll never get no luck o’ ’em”.
Cradock turned aside from his path, to say good–bye to Caldo. It would only take just a minute, he thought, and of course he should never see him again. So he went to that snuggest and sweetest of kennels, and in front of it sat the king of dogs.
The varieties of canine are as manifold and distinct as those of human nature. But the dog, be he saturnine or facetious, sociable or contemplative, mercurial or melancholic, is quite sure to be one thing—true and loyal ever. Can we, who are less than the dogs of the Infinite, say as much of ourselves to Him? Now Caldo, as has been implied, if not expressed before, was a setter of large philosophy and rare reflective power. I mean, of course, theoretical more than practical philosophy; as any dog would soon have discovered who tried to snatch a bone from him. Moreover, he had some originality, and a turn for satire. He would sit sometimes by the hour, nodding his head impressively, and blinking first one eye and then the other, watching and considering the doings of his fellow–dogs. How fashionably they yawned and stretched, in a mode they had learned from a pointer, who was proud of his teeth and vertebræ; how they hooked up their tails for a couple of joints, and then let them fall at a right angle, having noticed that fashion in ladies’ bustles, when they came on a Sunday to talk to them; how they crawled on their stomachs to get a pat, as a provincial mayor does for knighthood; how they sniffed at each otherʼs door, with an eye to the rotten bones under the straw, as we all smell about for the wealthy; how their courtesy to one another flowed from their own convenience—these, and a thousand other dog–tricks, Caldo, dwelling apart, observed, but did not condemn, for he felt that they were his own. Now he hushed his bark of joy, and looked up wistfully at his master, for he knew by the expression of that face all things were not as they ought to be. Why had Wena snapped at him so, and avoided his society, though he had always been so good to her, and even thought of an alliance? Why did his master order him home that dull night in the covert, when he was sure he had done no harm? Above all, what meant that moving blackness he had seen through the trees only yesterday, when the other dogs (muffs as they were) expected a regular battue, and came out strong at their kennel doors, and barked for young Clayton to fetch them?
So he looked up now in his masterʼs face, and guessed that it meant a long farewell, perhaps a farewell for ever. He took a fond look into his eyes, and his own pupils told great volumes. Then he sat up, and begged for a minute or two, with a most beseeching glance, to share his masterʼs fortunes, though he might have to steal his livelihood, and never get any shooting. Seeing that this could never be, he planted his fore–paws on Cradockʼs breast (though he felt that it was a liberty) and nestled his nose right under his cheek, and wanted to keep him ever so long. Then he howled with a low, enduring despair, as the footfall he loved grew fainter.
Looking back sadly, now and then, at the tranquil home of his childhood, whose wings, and gables, and depths of stone were grand in the autumn sunset, Cradock Nowell went his way toward the simple Rectory: he would say good–bye there to Uncle John and the kind Aunt Doxy; Miss Rosedew the younger, of course, would avoid him, as she had done ever since. But suddenly he could not resist the strange desire to see once more that fatal, miserable spot, the bidental of his destiny. So he struck into a side–path leading to the deep and bosky covert.
The long shadows fell from the pale birch stems, the hollies looked black in the sloping light, and the brown leaves fluttered down here and there as the cold wind set the trees shivering. Only six days ago, only half an hour further into the dusk, he had slain his own twin–brother. He crawled up the hedge through the very same gap, for he could not leap it now; his back ached with weakness, his heart with despair, as he stayed himself by the same hazel–branch which had struck his gun at the muzzle. Then he shivered, as the trees did, and his hair, like the brown leaves, rustled, as he knelt and prayed that his brotherʼs spirit might appear there and forgive him. Hoping and fearing to find it there, he sidled down into the dark wood, and with his heart knocking hard against his ribs, forced himself to go forward.
All at once his heart stood still, and every nerve of his body went creeping—for he saw a tall, white figure kneeling where his brotherʼs blood was—kneeling, never moving, the hands together as in prayer, the face as wan as immortality, the black hair—if it were hair—falling straight as a pall drawn back from an alabaster coffin–head. The power of the entire form was not of earth, nor heaven; but as of the intermediate state, when we know not we are dead yet.