to compassion, but the natural vigorous outdoor dog I fear and avoid
because we are not in harmony; consequently I suffer and am a loser when
he forces his company on me. The outdoor world I live in is not the one
to which a man goes for a constitutional, with a dog to save him
from feeling lonely, or, if he has a gun, with a dog to help him kill
something. It is a world which has sound in it, distant cries and
penetrative calls, and low mysterious notes, as of insects and
corncrakes, and frogs chirping and of grasshopper warblers--sounds like
wind in the dry sedges. And there are also sweet and beautiful songs;
but it is very quiet world where creatures move about subtly, on wings,
on polished scales, on softly padded feet--rabbits, foxes, stoats,
weasels, and voles and birds and lizards and adders and slow-worms, also
beetles and dragon-flies. Many are at enmity with each other, but on
account of their quietude there is no disturbance, no outcry and rushing
into hiding. And having acquired this habit from them I am able to see
and be with them. The sitting bird, the frolicking rabbit, the basking
adder--they are as little disturbed at my presence as the butterfly
that drops down close to my feet to sun his wings on a leaf or frond and
makes me hold my breath at the sight of his divine colour, as if he had
just fluttered down from some brighter realm in the sky. Think of a dog
in this world, intoxicated with the odours of so many wild creatures,
dashing and splashing through bogs and bushes! It is ten times worse
than a bull in a china-shop. The bull can but smash a lot of objects
made of baked clay; the dog introduces a mad panic in a world of living
intelligent beings, a fairy realm of exquisite beauty. They scuttle away
and vanish into hiding as if a deadly wind had blown over the earth and
swept them out of existence. Only the birds remain--they can fly and
do not fear for their own lives, but are in a state of intense anxiety
about their eggs and young among the bushes which he is dashing through
or exploring.

I had good reason, then, to congratulate myself on Jack's surly
behaviour on our first meeting. Then, a few days later, a curious thing
happened. Jack was discovered one morning in his kennel, and when spoken
to came or rather dragged himself out, a most pitiable object. He was
horribly bruised and sore all over; his bones appeared to be all broken;
he was limp and could hardly get on his feet, and in that m