he owe them any
grudge, grudges being forbidden usually by dog law and only entertained
by the poorest characters of all. Thus he never became familiar, even
with those he met daily: his memory was phenomenal, and by passing by on
the other side he showed that his associations in this direction were
unhappy.

It fell to this dog's lot to live a very quiet life and to be thrown with
few--either dogs or men. His days were regulated by his master's doings,
and these again were regulated, of necessity, by method. The weeks came,
and ran their course, and did not vary very greatly one from the other.
There was the daily round of work--almost incessant work, life being
supportable that way and in no other. There was the break, half-way
through the morning, of a run of a quarter of an hour, wet or shine.
There was the walk across country in the afternoon, also totally
irrespective of the weather. There was the turn at night under similar
conditions. That was the dog's day in winter-time; perhaps also the
man's. In spring and summer both lived under the sky, and regarded a
house only as a place to sleep in. Habit is second nature. Interests were
many, and in some directions ran parallel--sporting instincts,
especially, being quite ineradicable. Life for both was thus exceeding
happy; and life grew always happier with friendship: that is as it should
be.

With those he met Murphy was genial, if shy. He grew to love the members
of his little home circle; though three of the quartet ever averred that,
in reality, he only loved one wholly and altogether, and clung to him in
a way that others noticed--folk on the land always referring to them, the
country over, as "Him and his dog."

Were they not always together? The shepherds on the downs recognised them
at great distances, for shepherds see far. The shepherds' dogs knew them
equally well, and they see furthest. The ploughmen in the hollows caught
sight of them against the skyline in the waning winter day, when the team
grew weary as they themselves--which last fact, too, made these best of
men shout with full lungs, "Please, will you tell us the time!" The man
with the hand-drill sowing the spring seeds; the poorer folk, men and
women with their buckets, stone-picking in the chill, autumnal weather;
the stockmen as they drove the cattle home, or called them from the lush
fields with the crack of a whip--spring-time and harvest, all the seasons
through; in wind and rain, in the