y people have no belief in the theory that talking to a dog does him
good, is to receive for answer, "Ah, but I knows as it does." Others go
further, and in reply to the question whether they think dogs--that is,
the best dogs--really understand what is said to them, never fail to
assert with emphasis, "Well, they does; I be sure as they does: 'tisn't a
mossel o' use to tell folks the like o' we different." Shepherds,
stockmen, farm labourers, old villagers who have had many experiences
though living in a narrow circle, and who look back over a long life,
constantly make use of such remarks. And probably dog-lovers of all
classes will re-echo the same.

It was certainly the method adopted in the further training and education
of Murphy. As already related, he had been taught to stop when his master
stopped, and to come in when he sat or lay down. Thus, though he was
generally allowed to range at will over the open lands and be sometimes
far distant, in the event of the one he spent his life with lying down to
rest for a while, very few minutes would elapse ere the dog would be
found making use of shoulder, back, or arm as comfortable things to rest
against. Tucked closely in in this way, his face was level with that
other's, as, with ears cocked and those human eyes of his, he took stock
of everything passing in the valley, or that moved on the edges of the
great woods clothing the hill-tops.

That was the time to get hold of him; to train him not to run a hare that
might come lolloping stupidly along, down wind, into the very jaws of
danger; to take no notice of a rabbit that offered insult by drumming
with his hind legs on the ground only a few yards off; to tell him
strange stories of what he might expect in the years to come when he grew
as old as his master, and had learnt to try to take many knocks, to face
many problems, to bear and suffer much that might come from strange
quarters--had learnt also how to live, and to reap his share of the
happiness that the mere fact of living rarely fails to give to all who
are not weak-kneed or chicken-hearted.

Of course experience, in some ways, tended to undermine confidence. Did
he not know all about that himself? Had he not at one time come to doubt
all things human? Had not happiness and trust and faith gone by the
board, because of the hardness and injustice meted out to him? But what
now? By some miraculous process there had come a change. Doubt had not
altogether va