A Dog with a Bad Name

by Talbot Baines Reed

Neither of them retained a vivid recollection of that drive home. Jeffreys was vaguely conscious of them calling on the way for the doctor, and taking him along in the carriage. He also heard Scarfe say something to Mr Rimbolt in tones of commiseration, in which something was added about the inconsiderateness and untrustworthiness of Jeffreys. But for the rest he reclined back in his seat, scarcely conscious of anything but the rest and warmth.

At Wildtree, the now familiar scene of the whole household gathered panic-struck an the threshold drove him precipitately to his room. He knew what to expect if he stayed there.

Jeffreys dropped asleep with the dog’s howl ringing weirdly in his ears. In his dreams it seemed to change into that still more terrible howl which had stunned him long ago on the Bolsover meadow. It followed him as he carried young Forrester in his arms across that fatal ledge. It was pitch dark; and on the ledge Scarfe stood to drive him back. Then suddenly a new bright path seemed to open at his side, into which he stepped with his precious burden. And as he did so he saw, far off, Raby standing at the end of the way.

It was ten o’clock when he awoke; but the house was still asleep. Only a few servants were stirring; and even Walker had taken advantage of the occasion to “sleep in.”

Jeffreys was tough and hardy; and the night’s rest had done more for him than twenty doctors. He got up, shook himself, and behold his limbs were strong under him, and his head was clear and cool. He dressed himself quietly and descended to the kitchen, where he begged an early breakfast of the servants. Then he sallied forth with his stick towards Wild Pike.

The grand pile on this bright winter’s morning looked almost hypocritically serene and benignant. The sunlight bathed the stern cliff which yesterday had buffeted back the wind with a roar as fierce as itself; and in the quiet spring-like air the peaceful bleating of sheep was the only sound to be heard on the steep mountain-side.

But Jeffreys did not turn his steps upward. On the contrary, he kept to the lowest track in the valley, and took the path which led him nearest to the base of that terrible wall of rock. A hard scramble over the fallen stones brought him to a spot where, looking up, the top of the wall frowned down on him from a sheer height of five hundred feet, while half-way down, like a narrow scratch along the face of the cliff, he could just detect the ledge on which last night they had sat out the storm.

There, among the stones, shattered and cold, lay all that remained of the brave Julius. His fate must have overtaken him before he had gone twenty yards on his desperate errand, and almost before that final howl reached his master’s ears all must have been over.

Jeffreys, as he tenderly lifted his lost friend in his arms, thought bitterly and reproachfully of the dog’s strange conduct yesterday—his evident depression and forebodings of evil—the result, no doubt, of illness, but making that last act of self-devotion all the more heroic.

He made a grave there at the base of that grand cliff, and piled up a little cairn to mark the last resting-place of his friend. Then, truly a mourner, he returned slowly to Wildtree.