by it, find an
echo in me. But it is not only a delight to me to listen to the lark
singing at heaven's gate and to the vesper nightingale in the oak
copse--the singer of a golden throat and wondrous artistry; I also love
the smaller vocalists--the modest shufewing and the lesser whitethroat
and the yellowhammer with his simple chant. These are very dear to
me: their strains do not strike me as trivial; they have a lesser
distinction of their own and I would not miss them from the choir. The
literary man will smile at this and say that my paper is naught but an
idle exercise, but I fancy I shall sleep the better tonight for having
discharged this ancient debt which has been long on my conscience.

Chapter Twenty-Five: My Friend Jack

My friend rack is a retriever--very black, very curly, perfect in shape,
but just a retriever; and he is really not my friend, only he thinks
he is, which comes to the same thing. So convinced is he that I am
his guide, protector, and true master, that if I were to give him a
downright scolding or even a thrashing he would think it was all right
and go on just the same. His way of going on is to make a companion of
me whether I want him or not. I do not want him, but his idea is that
I want him very much. I bitterly blame myself for having made the first
advances, although nothing came of it except that he growled. I met him
in a Cornish village in a house where I stayed. There was a nice kennel
there, painted green, with a bed of clean straw and an empty plate which
had contained his dinner, but on peeping in I saw no dog. Next day it
was the same, and the next, and the day after that; then I inquired
about it--Was there a dog in that house or not? Oh, yes, certainly there
was: Jack, but a very independent sort of dog. On most days he looked
in, ate his dinner and had a nap on his straw, but he was not what you
would call a home-keeping dog.

One day I found him in, and after we had looked for about a minute
at each other, I squatting before the kennel, he with chin on paws
pretending to be looking through me at something beyond, I addressed
a few kind words to him, which he received with the before-mentioned
growl. I pronounced him a surly brute and went away. It was growl
for growl. Nevertheless I was well pleased at having escaped the
consequences in speaking kindly to him. I am not a "doggy" person nor
even a canophilist. The purely parasitic or degenerate pet dog moves
me