Dogtown / Being Some Chapters from the Annals of the Waddles Family Set Down in the Language of Housepeople :: CHAPTER XI "OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY!"

CHAPTER XI "OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY!"

That Waddles did not go up stairs the moment he was called was nothing unusual, for though Anne’s door-mat was his regular bed he was at liberty to roam about the house at will.

He sat quite still for a few minutes, listening until the footsteps overhead ceased, his eyes glowing through the dark like bits of green phosphorescence, then settled himself again with a sigh, for his back legs were extra stiff. Happy, having forgotten and gone to sleep, was again struggling with bad dreams, so he had to arouse her.

“Now that I’ve managed for you to stay indoors, the least that you can do is to tell me about the hunting the kennel dogs took out of season,” he said, as soon as she was fairly awake. Poor Happy was heavy with sleep, but her obliging disposition conquered, though she nodded two or three times before she remembered where she left her story.“It was way back in the beginning of flea time, when Miss Letty had not been up at Hilltop very long, that she gave the kennel dogs such a holiday as some of them had never had in their whole lives, though Flo does say that it happened quite by accident.

“All through the hill farms, Miss Jule’s, Squire Burley’s, and Mr. Hugh’s, there are trees that bear those big long-stemmed red berries that the birds love; cherries, I think House People call them. When I lived up there I used to watch out under the trees to see the robins and catbirds come to eat them, and laugh at poor Antonio, who used to get a stiff neck pointing at the birds up in the branches, never getting anything but the pits they dropped on his long nose.

“Flo says that Miss Letty loves these cherries, and that after picking all the ripe ones she could reach from the ground and fences, one day she came riding along to gather them on horseback. The best trees were in Squire Burley’s paddock where his foxhound kennels are, and as he had often asked Miss Letty to come and help herself, she opened the gate with her whip handle, rode through and thought she closed it after her, but it didn’t quite latch. Harkaway, one of the squire’s hounds, told me this. The squire has five hounds but no one else in Dogtown, except Miss Jule and Mr. Hugh, keeps more than one each, and when they really go a-hunting in the fall the squire stands at his gate and fires his gun, then all the people know the signal and come bringing their dogs, and together they make as fine a pack as the Hilltop Kennels can show.

“Miss Letty rode slowly along under the trees, now and then pulling down a branch with her whip, but she didn’t stay very long before she went out again and turned into the brush lane that runs from the squire’s down behind Miss Jule’s kennel yard toward the rabbit wood.“Then Harkaway signalled to the other hounds with the silent signal for still hunting and no cry, and they slunk out of the high paddock gate after nosing it open a little wider. Keeping behind the fence they followed Miss Letty to the back gate of Miss Jule’s kennel yard where they lay low and waited. Now those high gates have a strange fastening; the latch falls between two iron paws that move and hold it, but sometimes though the gate stays shut one paw forgets to move, and a quick nose can shove the gate before the paw remembers. That is what happened when Miss Letty opened that back kennel gate; the outside paw was stiff and did not lay hold.

“Pulling a branch down with her whip.”“No sooner was she well inside and going to the swimming-pool to give her horse a drink, than Harkaway, lying outside in the long grass, gave Silver Tongue the silent signal. Then Silver Tongue, standing in his usual place, watching frogs by the pond sluiceway, gave his far-away cry that sounded as if it came from over by Mr. Hugh’s barn, and Miss Letty, hidden by low-hanging trees, did not notice that all the foxhounds understood it and sprang up, that the setters stood first at a point and then dashed toward the gate, one by one disappearing down the lane.

“Lucky for them that Mr. Wolf didn’t see, for he would have told Miss Jule and spoiled their sport, for of all the dogs within or out the kennel Mr. Wolf has the most ‘say so,’ and we almost know that he tells Miss Jule our secrets, and that they talk together. This much was told me; the rest I saw myself, for I was in the lane on rabbit business that morning.

“As it happened, it was our family, the Beagles, that gave warning, for the moment the first one, old Bramble, my grandmother, and my uncle Meadow Brook, got into that lane they fell on a fresh rabbit trail and gave tongue, and then the hounds answered with full cry, and throwing family pride away, ran with the little hounds, barking, yelping, following every trail, fresh and stale, and dashing here and there, where there was no scent at all.

“Miss Letty turned, saw what she had done, and galloped toward the house, from which Martin and Miss Jule came running, speechless with astonishment, for all the dogs in the grow-ups’ exercise yard had gone, and the puppies were wild with excitement and dashing at the wires.

“At first Miss Letty was almost crying, but in a few minutes Miss Jule began to laugh until she shook all over, and you know that is a great deal of shake. Then Miss Letty laughed, too, and Martin closed the back gate and opened one to the barnyard, and sat down by the pump and waited.

“Soon Mr. Hugh came riding by, looking, oh, so cross, that I was afraid and hid. He went to where Miss Jule was standing by the puppy yard fence talking to Flo, and asking her how she came there. Flo had been shut in by mistake that day, and as she couldn’t get out to go with the others she was amusing herself catching meadow-mice and she told me what they said. Flo is such a hard-working dog, and she points, flushes, and retrieves as well as any two others, and even when she is shut up she keeps in practice on mice, toads, and squirrels. I can always tell when it’s a meadow-mouse she is pointing, even when I watch her through the wires from far off, because she stands short and points down into the grass, but other times she spreads out more and points ahead. This day she quite forgot the mouse in listening to Mr. Hugh; for she said she never knew before that House People could growl.”

What Mr. Hugh said did not interest Waddles, who was eager for the hunting, so Happy did not tell it; but as twofoots may like to hear, it is recorded as it happened.

“Whose carelessness is this?” asked Mr. Hugh.“Mine,” said Miss Letty, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, before Miss Jule could answer. “I didn’t latch the gate, but the dogs will all be back in a few days, Miss Jule says. What makes you look so fierce? Surely, your dogs are all safe at home?”

“That’s exactly what they all are not,” said Mr. Hugh, gnawing the ends of his brown mustache, while his gray eyes flashed green and yellow sparks, and he beat an angry tattoo with his whip on his leather gaiter.

“But I’ve not been on your land stealing cherries, or opened your gates,” said Miss Letty, looking puzzled.

“That was not necessary. I was walking below in the lane with a string of young, unbroken dogs on leaders—four hounds, and half a dozen setter pups—when a whirlwind of dogs came by, some yelping, some in full cry, with their noses to the ground, some looking in the air, some tumbling over each other on a single trail, and others dashing about between half a dozen. In the hubbub my dogs escaped and followed the others—”

“Over the hills and far away!” sang Miss Letty, before Mr. Hugh could finish his sentence, her laughing face breaking into dimples,—“but pray, how could they get away if you had them in leash?”

“I let go—that is, the stringer slipped through my hand, and so, because Miss Heedless left that gate open, a fine lot of pups that I bred for exhibition and who have never before left the kennels, have gone goodness knows where, and, ten to one, I shall never see any of them again. I’m awfully annoyed,” and Mr. Hugh swung himself off his horse and fumbled with the bit to cool his heated temper.

It would have been better for him if he had stayed mounted, for Mr. Hugh on horseback had a commanding figure, while on the ground his legs seemed too short for his body, so that the sudden change was always something of a shock to the looker-on.

Miss Letty coloured a trifle and then said pleasantly, but in quite a firm voice, as if she had decided that she would not be treated like a child any longer: “I don’t wonder that you are annoyed at having been what Anne calls ‘rattled,’ and letting your dogs slip through your fingers, I sympathize with you. I should be if I were you; but I think you will see them again for they will probably kill all the ducks and geese and turkeys they meet. I’ve noticed it’s a way young dogs have on their first outings. Then of course the owners will bring back the dogs and the bills for damages together. Oh, no, your dogs will return.”

After that day Mr. Hugh was quite careful how he crossed swords with Miss Letty, and she no longer stood in awe of him, which means that they then began to understand each other without knowing it.

Happy got up and turned her other side to the fire, before she continued. She felt uneasy, and thought perhaps she had eaten too much sausage; but it was so good and she always felt hungry.

“The hunting, where did the dogs go?” prompted Waddles.

“He stood in his gateway holding his gun.”“They ran down the lane together until they reached the low woods by the brook, and after trampling the trails into a snarl, they divided, the beagles keeping in the rabbit land. The others climbing up the rocks and following the ledge that goes on and on until it is Pine Ridge, where the fox lairs are and the best coon-trees. For of course the old hounds remembered the real hunting days when any autumn day might find the Squire’s hounds chained to the fence in readiness while he stood in the gateway holding his gun waiting to fire the signal to tell the neighbours that a fox had been seen, when they would gather men and dogs to scramble afoot over rocks and briers. Of course as you are a house fourfoot, I suppose you never went fox-hunting; but I will tell you one thing, it is no work for beagles; our legs are too short, for the foxhounds lope like horses and we get nowhere.”

“I’ve been,” answered Waddles, putting on a worldly wise expression, such as Hamlet used to wear when he did tricks, and before he found himself, “I haven’t forgotten it. I was away two nights and a day and Missy thought me dead because it was at the time we had adventures and saw strange things and we had been to the far woods to see the Bad One die, only two days before.

“At first I followed the fox trail with the hounds. It’s a queer trail, and smells rank and raw, not ripe and delicious like a rabbit’s. Soon I fell back and stumbled, for they went over places I could only crawl through, and then I sprained a paw and drew into a corner where the moss was soft, to rest. When I waked up it was early morning, and I was stiff and hungry. I tried to surprise a rabbit for breakfast, but the wind was the wrong way and they scented me first. I was too lame to walk much at a time, and I had to rest often. Toward afternoon I caught a mole and tried to eat it, but ugh! it had such a horrid flavour that it sickened me, and the fur was loose and gave me a cough. Just before night I caught a red squirrel that was trying to rob a nest and got pecked in the eye and fell out of the tree. The squirrel was an old fighter, with iron legs, a leather body, and wooden insides, not a bit juicy, and only good to chew. Next morning I limped home in time to breakfast on kidney stew. I tell you what it is, the hunting is fine for sport and killing, but living by it is quite another thing, and running with foxhounds is not good for beagles.”

“Well, as I was saying,” continued Happy, “the old foxhounds kept on up to Pine Ridge, the little ones following very well, but the setter pups turned off at the Mill cross-roads and got into trouble.

“Besides the Squire’s dogs and Miss Jule’s, all the idlers in Dogtown had gathered and straggled after when they heard the foxhounds call, and there are mischief-makers among fourfoots as well as with House People.

“Beyond the Mill is a big turkey pasture, you know, the place we buy our turkeys from. Just as the setters were passing it a hairy yellow cur came up and said, ‘There’s fine hunting there and plenty of it—nice young birds.’ The moment those setters got under the bars their noses went down and their tails whirled around like buzz-saws, and they zigzagged across the pasture, charging on the first flock in a body. These were fine white turkeys. The hen who led them showed fight, but the yellow cur teased her off, and the setters, knowing nothing, bit and shook and scattered feathers, until of the fifteen young turkeys not one was left unhurt; then, wild with excitement and the taste of game, they dashed down the field to where some fine bronze birds were sunning themselves. Half a dozen fell before a great gobbler charged from the bushes and gave chase, while the cur picked out one of the killed and took it behind a stone fence, where he ate it at his leisure. Then men began to gather from the fields and two of the pups were caught and tied securely in the barn while the turkeys were collected.

“‘Some one will pay well for these,’ said the farmer, as he laid twenty-nine young turkeys in a row, ‘and the bill will read twenty-nine Thanksgiving turkeys at $2.00 each, for that’s what they were on the road to. Now we’ll round up the dogs’ owner,’ and he went toward the stable to harness a team.

“The other two setters, Patty and Rory, disappointed in having to leave before they had tasted meat, went toward the mill-pond for a drink. ‘Quack, quack,’ said a covey of plump white ducks, sailing from the open into a little bushy cove.

“Quick as a lightning-bug, the pups splashed after them, Rory O’Moore leading, for he was a special pet of Mr. Hugh’s, and had taken swimming lessons from Hamlet in the kennel pool, once crossing the river. The ducks dove, and scattered, but the pups seized a long neck each, and, determined not to go hungry this time, took their game to the shelter of the very door-steps of the mill to make a luncheon. Poor pups! they knew no better, but they do now, for the big miller caught them and dropped them into an empty feed bin, where it was nearly dark, and oh, so stuffy! Then the turkey farmer driving down the road pulled up, and after some talk the miller got in with him, and they drove off together, the turkeys and two ducks packed in the wagon box for witnesses.

Antonio and the Young Spaniels.“It was lonely that day up in the kennel yard, I can tell you. Flo said it made her feel like the leaf-fall time, when she had the distemper, and all the bird dogs had gone travelling in their crates but she; and she was glad to talk to a lame-winged crow that came to beg, for the only grown dog in the big lot was old Antonio, and with him the young spaniels Ruth, Dell, and Una, who plagued his wits out by chasing him round and round the pool, and daring him to swim.

“Meanwhile the beagles were all over the woods, and I—well, I went with them, just for old acquaintance sake, you know. There were plenty of young rabbits round about, but somehow we were confused, and let them slip; too many trails are worse than none, I find. But just before evening Clover-Dew, my litter brother, and Briar, my aunt, broke loose, going off together, and I following, for they ran well, and the trail lay straight.

“Up from the wood they went, across pastures and a truck farm, until they gave tongue that the scent was hot, and the quarry close in front, then I saw two big rabbits that were the poorest leapers of any I ever knew. Will you believe it, Waddles, they even sat up once or twice and looked back at us. We overtook them in a fence corner that had a garden on the other side. We three charged together, and there was a great tussle, for if those rabbits were stupid about running, they were fine kickers. Just as I had the biggest well by the leg, a man and a little girl came to the fence, and when she saw what we were doing, she began to hop up and down and scream, and cry, ‘Oh, papa, save my poor bunnies!’ Then I saw that she was Tommy’s friend, Pinkie Scott, and those fool rabbits were the foreign Hare things her father gave her for her birthday, and that she keeps in a great big bird-cage,—that is, when she remembers to shut the door, which isn’t often. Of course, we were polite and let go, and went a little way back in the field and sat down to rest. The rabbits? Oh, one wasn’t hurt, but the other was—well—damaged; they mended him, for I saw him last week when I was down there to call on Luck and Pluck with Tommy. Pinkie had forgotten again, and those rabbits had broken loose and eaten all the late lettuce, and her father was chasing them, and he said, ‘I wish those little hounds had finished you last summer.’ Then I didn’t feel quite so ashamed of biting that hind leg as I had before, and, Waddles, do you know, that everywhere I go to visit, private rabbits seem to be a nuisance, and a ‘better be dead’; so I’m sure they ought to be fair hunting, like the wild ones.”

“Humph!” said Waddles, “good running as usual, but poor catching. What did the foxhounds get, a mouthful of thistle-down?”

“Ah! but they had the best of it,” said Happy, her eyes sparkling; “they stayed out two whole days, and when they had tired out the stray dogs that followed and the young dogs that only wanted to play, they settled down to work. They knew their ground well for they’d just been on a spring run with the squire and Mr. Hugh to locate the dens for fall work. Late the next night, Flo says, the squire’s Harkaway and Meadow-Lark gave tongue so loudly that the squire and Mr. Hugh went out, and following the cry two miles found them just as they had killed an old gray fox, the biggest hen-roost robber of all the Pine Ridge pack, one they had tried to shoot and trap for years, as his scars quickly told them.

“Wasn’t the squire proud! He gave Miss Jule the brush, though it wasn’t good for much,—pelts are poor in summer,—and he made a meat feast for all the hounds, for after they had heard Meadow-Lark’s death bay they came limping back one by one. Next day when I went up to talk to Silver-Tongue he was standing as usual by the sluiceway of the swimming-pool catching frogs, but when I asked him to come over by the fence and lie down, and tell me about the great hunt, he said he’d rather stand up for he didn’t bend well. That is one of the hardest things about not running free, you don’t get your exercise every day when you want it, but when somebody else does, and then it comes all together in bunches, and between times you get rusty.”“What happened about Mr. Hugh’s pups, did he get them back, and the turkeys and ducks?” asked Waddles, who was beginning to grow sleepy.

“Bills happened and lots of talking, Hamlet told me about that and Mr. Wolf. The farmer and the miller wouldn’t give back the dogs until they got their money either, and Hamlet says if Mr. Hugh teases Miss Letty she only has to sing ‘Over the hills and far away!’ and he stops, but I don’t see what that has got to do with it, do you?”

“Hush!” signalled Waddles, knocking on the floor with his tail to attract Happy’s attention, “Missy is coming!”

Yes, Anne was coming downstairs, not barefoot this time, but dressed in a warm, red bath gown, her feet in moccasins, and looking in the dim light very like the Indian maidens she loved to call her kin. She had been planning what picture she would take first on the morrow, and she thought her camera might be safer in her room; at any rate if she put it on the chair beside her bed she would see it the moment she opened her eyes, for this camera was not merely a picture machine to her, but a magical live thing to help her keep the images of those she loved.She was just deciding that Waddles should have the honour of being the first to be photographed, as he would probably be ready sooner than her mother, when the burned-out log fell apart, and its parting glow showed her Happy, lying on the hearth-rug.

“You in here! This will never do; because, you see, when I bought you from Miss Jule, mother said that you might come here if I promised that I would never let you sleep inside the house, not even once; as, being a kennel dog so long, your manners are not quite those of a house fourfoot,—and I promised. Yes, I know it’s very nice in here; but your house is nice, too, for Baldy put in a new bed to-night, and you’ll be very comfy; and you know, my dear, you do snore horribly,—such loud, growling snores. Besides, Jack Waddles is out there alone waiting for you. Ah! do you mean to be spunky? Then I shall call father,—no, I forgot; he is busy in the study, and it’s a ‘mustn’t be’ to disturb him when he is there, you know,—only mother may do that. So don’t roll over on your back; you are far too heavy for me to carry.”

Anne gave a stamp and pointed to the door,—her way of telling the deaf little beagle that she meant business; and Happy got up slowly, and crept, rather than walked, out, and made directly for the nursery kennel, which she still occupied, without more ado. Jack was, of course, delighted to see her; but, strange to say, she did not return his caresses, but growled and snapped at him, and refused to let him go near the bedroom end of the house, which was separated from the front part and was full of straw. Instead of lying down at once, she rummaged about in the straw restlessly, throwing it out on the floor and refusing to lie down. After two rebuffs, Jack left the kennel, and stood looking disconsolately at Anne, who was quite puzzled, and finally allowed Jack Waddles to go back to the house with her, saying as they went: “This is quite a new arrangement, and to-morrow Jackie shall have a place of his own, if mamma is going to be cross. To-night, and maybe always, he shall be a house fourfoot, like his papa, if he will mind his ways and keep on his own rug.”

Next morning there was a still newer order of things that quite settled the matter of Jack’s quarters, and also gave Anne an unlimited chance for photography as well.

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