I was too much interested in this story to let the subject drop. What had been Liddy's after-life? Very uneventful: there was, in fact, nothing in it, nor in him, except an intense love for all things, especially animals; and nothing happened to him until the end, for he has been dead now these nine or ten years. In his next place he was engaged, first, as carter's boy, and then under-carter, and all his love was lavished on the horses. They were more to him than sheep, and he could love them without pain, since they were not being prepared for the butcher with his abhorred knife. Liddy's love and knowledge of horses became known outside of his own little circle, and he was offered and joyfully accepted a place in the stables of a wealthy young gentleman farmer, who kept a large establishment and was a hunting man. From stable-boy he was eventually promoted to groom. Occasionally he would reappear in his native place. His home was but a few miles away, and when out exercising a horse he appeared to find it a pleasure to trot down the old street, where as a farmer's boy he used to make the village laugh at his antics. But he was very much changed from the poor boy, who was often hatless and barefooted, to the groom in his neat, well-fitting black suit, mounted on a showy horse.
In this place he continued about thirty years, and was married and had several children and was very happy, and then came a great disaster. His employer having met with heavy losses sold all his horses and got rid of his servants, and Liddy had to go. This great change, and above all his grief at the loss of his beloved horses, was more than he could endure. He became melancholy and spent his days in silent brooding, and by and by, to everybody's surprise, Liddy fell ill, for he was in the prime of life and had always been singularly healthy. Then to astonish people still more, he died. What ailed him—what killed him? every one asked of the doctor; and his answer was that he had no disease—that nothing ailed him except a broken heart; and that was what killed poor Liddy.
In conclusion I will relate a little incident which occurred several months later, when I was again on a visit to my old friend the shepherd. We were sitting together on a Sunday evening, when his old wife looked out and said, "Lor, here be Mrs. Taylor with her children coming in to see us." And Mrs. Taylor soon appeared, wheeling her baby in a perambulator, with two little girls following. She was a comely, round, rosy little woman, with black hair, black eyes, and a singularly sweet expression, and her three pretty little children were like her. She stayed half an hour in pleasant chat, then went her way down the road to her home. Who, I asked, was Mrs. Taylor?
Bawcombe said that in a way she was a native of their old village of Winterbourne Bishop: at least her father was. She had married a man who had taken a farm near them, and after having known her as a young girl they had been glad to have her again as a neighbour. "She's a daughter of that Liddy I told 'ee about some time ago," he said.
CHAPTER XX
SOME SHEEP-DOGS
Breaking a sheep-dog—The shepherd buys a pup—His training—He refuses to work—He chases a swallow and is put to death—The shepherd's remorse—Bob, the sheep-dog—How he was bitten by an adder—Period of the dog's receptivity—Tramp, the sheep-dog—Roaming lost about the country—A rage of hunger—Sheep-killing dogs—Dogs running wild—Anecdotes—A Russian sheep-dog—Caleb parts with Tramp
To Caleb the proper training of a dog was a matter of the very first importance. A man, he considered, must have not only a fair amount of intelligence, but also experience, and an even temper, and a little sympathy as well, to sum up the animal in hand—its special aptitudes, its limitations, its disposition, and that something in addition, which he called a "kink," and would probably have described as its idiosyncrasy if he had known the word. There was as much individual difference among dogs as there is in boys; but if the breed was right, and you went the right way about it, you could hardly fail to get a good servant. If a dog was not properly broken, if its trainer had not made the most of it, he was not a "good shepherd": he lacked the intelligence—"understanding" was his word—or else the knowledge or patience or persistence to do his part. It was, however, possible for the best shepherd to make mistakes, and one of the greatest to be made, which was not uncommon, was to embark on the long and laborious business of training an animal of mixed blood—a sheep-dog with a taint of terrier, retriever, or some other unsuitable breed in him. In discussing this subject with other shepherds I generally found that those who were in perfect agreement with Caleb on this point were men who were somewhat like him in character, and who regarded their work with the sheep as so important that it must be done thoroughly in every detail and in the best way. One of the best shepherds I know, who is sixty years old and has been on the same downland sheep-farm all his life, assures me that he has never had and never would have a dog which was trained by another. But the shepherd of the ordinary kind says that he doesn't care much about the animal's parentage, or that he doesn't trouble to inquire into its pedigree: he breaks the animal, and finds that he does pretty well, even when he has some strange blood in him; finally, that all dogs have faults and you must put up with them. Caleb would say of such a man that he was not a "good shepherd." One of his saddest memories was of a dog which he bought and broke without having made the necessary inquiries about its parentage.
It happened that a shepherd of the village, who had taken a place at a distant farm, was anxious to dispose of a litter of pups before leaving, and he asked Caleb to have one. Caleb refused. "My dog's old, I know," he said, "but I don't want a pup now and I won't have 'n."