Читать книгу Lassie Come-Home - Eric Knight - Страница 7

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When Joe Carraclough came out of school and walked through the gate, he could not believe his eyes. He stood for a moment, and then his voice rang shrill. “Lassie! Lassie!”

He ran to his dog, and in his moment of wild joy he knelt beside her, plunging his fingers deep into her rich coat. He buried his face in her mane and patted her sides.

He stood again and almost danced with excitement. There was strange contrast between the boy and the dog. The boy was lifted above himself with gladness, but the dog sat calmly, only by the wave of her white-tipped tail saying she was glad to see him.

It was as if she said:

“What’s there to be excited about? I’m supposed to be here, and here I am. What’s so wonderful in all that?”

“Come, Lassie,” the boy said.

He turned and ran down the street. For a second he did not reason out the cause of her being there. When the wonder of it struck him, he pushed it away.

Why question how this wonderful thing had happened? It was enough that it had happened.

But his mind would not stay at rest. He quieted it again.

Had Father bought the dog back again? Perhaps that was it!

He raced on down High Street, and now Lassie seemed to catch his enthusiasm. She ran beside him, leaping high in the air, barking that sharp cry of happiness that dogs often can achieve. She stretched her mouth wide, as collies so frequently do in their glad moments and in a way that makes collie owners swear that their dogs laugh when pleased.

It was not until he was passing the Labor Exchange that Joe slowed down. Then he heard the voice of one of the men calling:

“Eigh, lad. Wheer’d tha find thy dog again?”

The tones were spoken in the broadest Yorkshire accent, and it was in the same accent that Joe answered. For, while in school all the children spoke “pure” English, it was considered polite to answer adults in the same accents that they used.

“She were bi’ t’ schooil gate,” Joe shouted.

But after that he knew the truth. His father had not bought the dog back again, or else all the men would have known it. In a small village like Greenall Bridge everyone knew the business of everyone else. And certainly, in that particular village, they would have known about any such important matter as the resale of Lassie.

Lassie had escaped! That was it!

And so young Joe Carraclough ran gladly no more. He walked slowly, wonderingly, as he turned up the hillside street to his home. By his door he turned and spoke to the dog sadly.

“Stay at heel, Lassie,” he said.

With his brow furrowed in thought, he stood outside the door. He made his face appear blank of expression. He opened the door and walked in.

“Mother,” he said. “I’ve got a surprise.”

He held out his hand toward her, as if this gesture would help him get what he most desired.

“Lassie’s come home,” he said.

He saw his mother staring at him. His father looked up from his place by the fire. Then, as he came into the cottage, he saw their eyes turn to the dog that followed obediently at his heel. They stared but they did not speak.

As if the collie understood this silence, she paused a moment. Then she walked, going head down as a dog will when it feels that it has done something—it does not know what—that is wrong. She went to the hearth rug and wagged her tail as if in signal that no matter what sins had been committed, she was willing to make up again.

But there seemed to be no forgiveness, for the man turned his eyes from her suddenly and stared into the fire. That way the man shut his dog from his sight.

The dog slowly coiled herself and sank to the rug, so that her body touched the man’s foot. He drew it away. The dog lay her head across her paw and then, like the man, stared into the depths of the fire, as if in that golden fancy-land there would be an answer to all their troubles.

It was the woman who moved first. She put her hands on her hips and sighed a long, audible sigh—one that was eloquent of exasperation. Joe looked at her and then, to try to soften their stoniness, he began speaking, his voice bright with hope.

“I was coming out of school, and there she was. Right where she always is. Right at the gate waiting for me. And you never saw anyone as glad to see you. She wagged her tail at me. She was that glad to see me.”

Joe spoke on, the words racing from him. It was as if as long as he could keep on talking, neither his mother nor father could say the dread words that he expected to hear. With his flood of speech, he would hold back the sentence.

“I could see she was that homesick for us—for all of us. So I thought I’d bring her right along, and we could just ...”

“No!”

It was his mother, interrupting loudly. It was the first word that either of the parents had spoken. For a second Joe stood still, and then the words flooded from him again, making a fight for what he wanted and what he dared not hope he could have.

“But she’s come home, Mother. We could hide her. They wouldn’t know. We could say we hadn’t seen her and then they’d ...”

“No!”

His mother’s voice repeated the word sternly.

She turned away angrily and continued to set the table. Again she found relief, as the village women did, in scolding. Her voice ran on, with the words coming cold and sharp, to cover up her own feelings.

“Dogs, dogs, dogs!” she cried. “I’m fair sick o’ hearin’ about them. I won’t have it. She’s sold and gone and done with, and the sooner she’s out of my sight the better I’ll be pleased. Now get her out of here. And hurry up, or first thing you know we’ll have that Hynes comin’ ’round here. That Mr. Know-It-All Hynes!”

Her voice sharpened with the last words, for she pronounced them in imitation of Hynes’s way of speaking. The Duke of Rudling’s kennelman was from London, and his clipped Southern British accent always seemed to irritate the local people, whose speech was broad-vowelled and slow.

“Now, that’s my say,” Joe’s mother went on. “So you might just as well put it in your pipe and smoke it. She’s sold, so take her right back to them that’s bought her.”

Feeling there was no help coming from his mother, Joe turned to his father sitting before the fire. But his father sat as if he had not heard a word spoken. Joe’s underlip crept out stubbornly, as he sought for some new means of argument. But it was Lassie who argued for herself. Now that the cottage was silent she seemed to think all trouble was passed. Slowly she rose and, going to the man, began nudging his hand with her slim muzzle, as a dog so often will when it wants attention and comfort from its master. But the man drew his hand away from the dog’s reach and went on staring into the fire.

Joe watched that. He turned a soft argument on his father.

“Eigh, Father,” he said, sadly. “Ye might at least bid her welcome. It isn’t her fault, and she’s that glad to be home. Just pat her.”

Joe’s father gave no sign that he had heard his son’s words.

“Ye know, happen they don’t care for her right up at the kennels,” Joe went on, as if speaking to the open air of the cottage. “D’ye think they understand how to feed her properly?

“Now, for instance, look at her coat. It does look a bit poorly, doesn’t it? Father, don’t ye think just a bit o’ linseed strained through her drinking water would bring it up a little? That’s what I’d do for a dog that could stand a bit brighter coat, wouldn’t ye, Father?”

Still looking in the fire, Joe’s father began nodding slowly. But if he did not seem aware of his son’s attack, Mrs. Carraclough understood it. She sniffed.

“Aye,” she stormed at her son, “tha wouldn’t be a Carraclough—nor a Yorkshireman—if tha didn’t know more about tykes than breaking eggs with a stick.”

Her voice droned on in the cottage.

“My goodness, sometimes it seems to me that the men i’ this village think more o’ their tykes than they do o’ their flesh and blood. That they do. Here’s hard times, and do they get work? No. They go on the dole, and I swear some of ’em will be quite content to let their own children go hungry as long as the dog gets fed.”

Joe’s father shifted his feet uneasily, but the boy interrupted quickly.

“But truly, Mother, she does look thin. I’ll bet you anything they’re not feeding her right.”

“Well,” she answered pertly, “at that I wouldn’t put it past Mister Know-It-All Hynes to steal best part of the dog meat for himself. For I never saw a skinnier-looking, meaner-faced man in all my life.”

During this flow of words her eyes had turned to the dog. And suddenly her tone changed.

“By gum,” she said. “She does look a bit poorly. Poor thing, I’d better fix her a little summat. She can do with it, or I don’t know dogs.”

Then Mrs. Carraclough seemed to realize that her sympathies were directly opposed to the words she had been speaking five minutes before. As if to defend herself and excuse herself, she lifted her voice:

“But the minute she’s fed, back she goes,” she scolded. “And when she’s gone, never another tyke will I have in my house. All ye do is bring ’em up and work over ’em—and they’re as much trouble as raisin’ a child. And after all your work’s done, what do you get for it?”

Thus, chattering angrily, Mrs. Carraclough warmed a pan of food. She set it before the dog, and she and her son stood watching Lassie eat happily. But the man never once turned his eyes toward the dog that had been his.

When Lassie had finished eating, Mrs. Carraclough picked up the plate. Joe went to the mantlepiece and took down a folded piece of cloth and a brush. He sat on the hearth rug and began prettying the dog’s coat.

At first, the man kept his eyes on the fire. Then, despite his efforts, he began to turn quick glances toward the boy and the dog beside him. At last, as if he could stand it no longer, he turned and held out his hand.

“That’s no way to do it, lad,” he said, with his rough voice full of warmth. “If ye’re off to do a job, ye might as well learn to do it right. Sitha—like this!”

He took the brush and cloth from his son and, kneeling on the rug, began working expertly on the dog’s coat, rubbing the rich, deep coat with the cloth, cradling the aristocratic muzzle carefully in one hand, while with the other he worked over the snow white of the collie’s ruff and artistically fluffed out the “leggings” and the “apron” and the “petticoats.”

So for a spell, there was quiet happiness in the cottage. The man lost all other thoughts as he gave his mind over to the work. Joe sat on the rug beside him, watching each turn of the brush and remembering it, for he knew, as in fact every man in the village knew—that there was not a man for miles around who could fix up a collie either for workday or for show bench as Sam Carraclough, his father, could. And his greatest dream and ambition was to be, some day, as fine a dog-man as his father was.

It was Mrs. Carraclough who seemed to remember first what they had all driven from their minds, that Lassie no longer belonged to them.

“Now please,” she cried, in exasperation. “Will you get that tyke out of here?”

Joe’s father turned in sudden anger. His voice was thick with the Yorkshire accent that deepened the speech of all the men of the village.

“Ye wouldn’t have me takking her back lewking like a mucky Monday wash, would’ta?”

“Look, Sam, please,” the woman began. “If ye don’t hurry her back ...”

She paused, and they all listened. There was the sound of footsteps coming up the garden path.

“There,” she cried, in exasperation. “It’s that Hynes!”

She ran toward the door, but before she reached it, it opened, and Hynes came in. The small, thin figure in its checked coat, riding breeches, and cloth leggings halted for a moment. Then Hynes’s eyes turned to the dog before the hearth.

“Ow, Hi thought so,” he cried. “Hi just thought as ’ow Hi’d find ’er ’ere.”

Joe’s father rose slowly.

“I were just cleaning her up a bit,” he said ponderously, “and then I were off to bring her back.”

“Hi’ll bet ye were,” Hynes mocked. “Ye were going to bring ’er back—Hi’ll bet ye were. But it just so ’appens that Hi’ll take ’er back myself—since Hi ’appened to drop in.”

Taking a leash from his pocket, he walked quickly to the collie and slipped the noose over her head. At the tug she rose obediently and, with her tail down, followed the man to the door. There Hynes halted.

“Ye see,” he said, in parting. “Hi wasn’t born yesterday, and Hi ’appen to know a trick or two myself. You Yorkshiremen! Hi know all about yer and yer come-home dogs. Training ’em to break loose and run right back ’ome when they’re sold, so then ye can sell ’em to someone else. Well, it won’t work with me, it won’t. Because Hi know a trick or two myself, Hi do ...”

He halted suddenly, for Joe’s father, his face deep red with anger, had started toward the door.

“Er—Good evening,” Hynes said quickly.

Then the door closed, and Hynes and the collie were gone. For a long time there was silence in the cottage, and then Mrs. Carraclough’s voice rose.

“I won’t have it, I won’t,” she cried. “Walkin’ into my house and home without so much as by your leave, and keeping his hat on as if he thinks he’s the very Duke himself. And all on account of a dog. Well, she’s gone, and if you ask me, I say good riddance. Now happen we can have a little peace. I hope I never see her again, I do.”

As she scolded, her tongue running on, Joe and his father sat before the fire. Now both of them stared into it, unmoving and patient, each burying his own thoughts inside himself as the North-country people do when they are deeply troubled.

Lassie paused, then walked head down.