Further Adventures of Lad [76]
Lad reserved for the Mistress and the Master, alone; on their return from any absence.
Through the night it echoed, gaily, defiantly; again and again; ringing out above the obscene hiss and crackle and roar of the forest-fire. And at every repetition, it was nearer and nearer the dumfounded listeners at the knoll foot.
"It's--it's Laddie!" cried the Mistress, in wondering rapture. "Oh, it's LADDIE!"
The Master, hearing the glad racket, did a thoroughly asinine thing. Drawing in his breath and holding his coat in front of him, he prepared to make a dash through the wide smear of embers, to the hilltop; where, presumably, Lad was still tied. But, before he could take the first step, the Mistress stayed him.
"Look!" she cried, pointing to the hither side of the knoll; lividly bright in the ember-glow.
Down the steep was galloping at breakneck speed a great, tawny shape. Barking rapturously,--even as he had barked when first the whistle's blast had roused him from his lazy repose in the lakeside shallows,--Lad came whizzing toward the two humans who watched so incredulously his wild approach.
The Master, belatedly, saw that the collie could not avoid crashing into the spread of embers; and he opened his mouth to order Lad back. But there was not time.
For once, the wise dog took no heed of even the simplest caution. His lost and adored deities had called him and were awaiting him. That was all Lad knew or cared. They had come back for him. His horrible vigil and loneliness and his deadly peril were ended.
Too insanely happy to note where he was treading, he sprang into the very center of the belt of smoldering coals. His tiny white forefeet--drenched with icy water--did not remain among them long enough to feel pain. In two more bounds he had cleared the barrier and was dancing in crazy excitement around the Mistress and the Master; patting at them with his scorched feet; licking their eagerly caressing hands; "talking" in a dozen different keys of rapture, his whimpers and growls and gurgles running the entire gamut of long-pent-up emotions.
His coat and his feet had, for hours, been immersed in the cold water of the lake. And, he had fled through the embers at express-train speed. Scarce a blister marked the hazardous passage. But Lad would not have cared for all the blisters and burns on earth. His dear gods had come back to him,--even as he had known they would!
Once more,--and for the thousandth time--they had justified his divine Faith in them. Nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER IX. Old Dog; New Tricks
A mildewed maxim runs: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
Some proverbs live because they are too true to die. Others endure because they have a smug sound and because nobody has bothered to bury them. The one about old dogs and new tricks belongs in both categories. In a sense it is true. In another it is not.
To teach the average elderly dog to sit up and beg, or to roll over twice, or to do other of the asinine things with which humans stultify the natural good sense of their canine chums, is as hard as to teach a sixty-year-old grave-digger to become a musical composer.
But no dog with a full set of brains is ever past learning new things which are actually needful for him to learn. And, sad to say, many an old dog, on his own account, picks up odd new accomplishments--exploits which would never have occurred to him in his early prime. Nobody knows why. But it has happened, numberless times.
And so it was with Sunnybank Lad.
Laddie had passed his twelfth birthday; when, by some strange freak, he brought home one day a lace parasol. He had found it in the highroad, on his way back to the Place after a sedate ramble in the forest. Now, it was nothing new for the great collie to find missing articles belonging to the Mistress or to the Master. Every now and then he would lay at their feet a tobacco pouch or a handkerchief or a bunch of keys that had been dropped, carelessly, somewhere on the grounds; and which Lad recognized, by scent, as belonging to one of the
Through the night it echoed, gaily, defiantly; again and again; ringing out above the obscene hiss and crackle and roar of the forest-fire. And at every repetition, it was nearer and nearer the dumfounded listeners at the knoll foot.
"It's--it's Laddie!" cried the Mistress, in wondering rapture. "Oh, it's LADDIE!"
The Master, hearing the glad racket, did a thoroughly asinine thing. Drawing in his breath and holding his coat in front of him, he prepared to make a dash through the wide smear of embers, to the hilltop; where, presumably, Lad was still tied. But, before he could take the first step, the Mistress stayed him.
"Look!" she cried, pointing to the hither side of the knoll; lividly bright in the ember-glow.
Down the steep was galloping at breakneck speed a great, tawny shape. Barking rapturously,--even as he had barked when first the whistle's blast had roused him from his lazy repose in the lakeside shallows,--Lad came whizzing toward the two humans who watched so incredulously his wild approach.
The Master, belatedly, saw that the collie could not avoid crashing into the spread of embers; and he opened his mouth to order Lad back. But there was not time.
For once, the wise dog took no heed of even the simplest caution. His lost and adored deities had called him and were awaiting him. That was all Lad knew or cared. They had come back for him. His horrible vigil and loneliness and his deadly peril were ended.
Too insanely happy to note where he was treading, he sprang into the very center of the belt of smoldering coals. His tiny white forefeet--drenched with icy water--did not remain among them long enough to feel pain. In two more bounds he had cleared the barrier and was dancing in crazy excitement around the Mistress and the Master; patting at them with his scorched feet; licking their eagerly caressing hands; "talking" in a dozen different keys of rapture, his whimpers and growls and gurgles running the entire gamut of long-pent-up emotions.
His coat and his feet had, for hours, been immersed in the cold water of the lake. And, he had fled through the embers at express-train speed. Scarce a blister marked the hazardous passage. But Lad would not have cared for all the blisters and burns on earth. His dear gods had come back to him,--even as he had known they would!
Once more,--and for the thousandth time--they had justified his divine Faith in them. Nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER IX. Old Dog; New Tricks
A mildewed maxim runs: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
Some proverbs live because they are too true to die. Others endure because they have a smug sound and because nobody has bothered to bury them. The one about old dogs and new tricks belongs in both categories. In a sense it is true. In another it is not.
To teach the average elderly dog to sit up and beg, or to roll over twice, or to do other of the asinine things with which humans stultify the natural good sense of their canine chums, is as hard as to teach a sixty-year-old grave-digger to become a musical composer.
But no dog with a full set of brains is ever past learning new things which are actually needful for him to learn. And, sad to say, many an old dog, on his own account, picks up odd new accomplishments--exploits which would never have occurred to him in his early prime. Nobody knows why. But it has happened, numberless times.
And so it was with Sunnybank Lad.
Laddie had passed his twelfth birthday; when, by some strange freak, he brought home one day a lace parasol. He had found it in the highroad, on his way back to the Place after a sedate ramble in the forest. Now, it was nothing new for the great collie to find missing articles belonging to the Mistress or to the Master. Every now and then he would lay at their feet a tobacco pouch or a handkerchief or a bunch of keys that had been dropped, carelessly, somewhere on the grounds; and which Lad recognized, by scent, as belonging to one of the