and now if this history be inclined to jump from one place to another in a somewhat inconsequent fashion, perhaps it will be forgiven, for with its hero wandering away by himself and the rest of the characters more or less congregated together, it takes some mental skipping to record their story.
yet peter was now not entirely lonely. he had picked up a chum, a pal, in the shape of a small and extremely mongrel puppy of a breed unknown, but it is to be supposed that wire-haired terrier predominated. and here is the manner of their first meeting.
when peter left the cottage in the early morning he walked first to the market-town, where he posted two letters—one to the lady anne garland and one to his publishers, telling them that at present he had no settled address, but that if [pg 236]he wished to correspond with them later he would let them know. the consequence of this being that when a certain blue letter, addressed to him, arrived at their office it remained there, while they waited with what patience they might for word or sign from peter. if he were a bit of a genius, and they were inclined to consider him so, his methods were also somewhat erratic.
leaving the town, he turned his steps northward, and for no particular reason beyond the fact that he liked the look of the road. but perhaps it was really a certain unseen guidance which led his steps in that direction and made him of benefit to a small bundle of life embodied in a miserable little roll of dirty white hair, a stump of a baby tail, two short ears, four lanky little legs, a wet black nose, and a pair of really beautiful brown eyes. often we see these beautiful eyes in an otherwise entirely ugly face. perhaps it is not surprising, for after all they are the windows of the soul, and even a little doggy soul may be beautiful. but to proceed.
peter walked along a dusty high-road till about noonday. it was an august day, as may be remembered, and breathless with the quiet heat of that month when it happens to be really hot. peter had not noticed the heat at first; external matters were at the moment outside his consideration. he had been tramping doggedly, mentally weary, the sun of the last few weeks blotted out, his horizon now veiled in grey clouds of dreariness.
and then at last his body began to protest. “if you will indulge in lovesick thoughts,” it cried, “if your soul intends to give itself up to heartache and mental torment, at all events don’t drag me into it. and it’s very sure that if you will treat me with a bit more consideration you will be befriending your soul likewise.” and peter, seeing the force of the argument, laughed.
it was against all philosophy except that of the monks of old time to punish your body because your soul was sick. body and soul were—at all events in his case, he argued—too closely allied. perhaps those old monks who had found a key to spiritual things—a key on which peter did not pretend to have laid a hand—might have had such a way of separating the two that the one did not suffer for the infirmities of the other. but peter was one of us ordinary mortals to whom prayer and such-like on an empty stomach—or an over-full one for that matter—would be a thing impossible. for his soul to be at ease his body must be comfortable, and most assuredly he was at the present moment increasing the discomfort of his soul by unduly fatiguing his body. it was an illogical proceeding, as he suddenly perceived.
a wood lay to the right of the road—a place of cool shadows and small dancing spots of gold, a silent place, still as the peace of some old cathedral.
peter turned into it. he walked a little way across the green moss, till the leafy barrier of branches shut the high-road from his sight, and then sat down, his back against the purple and silver flecked trunk of a beech-tree. he unstrapped his wallet and laid it on the ground beside him. then suddenly his ear caught a sound, a faint yelping cry of pain. it was as if some creature had for hours been imploring aid which did not come, as if it had sunk into a despairing silence, and then some tiny sound, some movement, had again awakened hope sufficient to make one last appeal.
peter jumped to his feet.
“now which way was it?” he queried. “from over there, if i’m not mistaken.” and he set off farther into the wood. “it’s an animal in a trap,” he said, “a beastly trap. curse the things!”
many a time in his wanderings peter had put a dumb creature out of its misery. and if you have ever heard a hare cry, and seen its soft eyes gazing at you till you’d vow it was an imprisoned human soul looking through its windows, you’d know the fury of rage against some of mankind that had possessed peter more than once, and which possessed him now. he peered right and left among the undergrowth, his eyes and ears alert, yet seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
he stopped and whistled softly.
“where are you, you poor little atom of life?” he cried.
and then, not a yard ahead of him, from a great bramble clump, came the tiniest, most pitiful cry, but with a little note of hope in it.
“oh!” cried peter, and the next instant he was on his knees, the steel jaws were pulled asunder, and a baby mongrel of a puppy was dragging itself feebly towards him, trying to lick his hand. “oh, you poor little beggar!” said peter, as he wrenched the trap from the ground and flung it into the middle of the bramble-bush. then he lifted the small bundle of rough, dirty white hair tenderly and carried it back to the beech-tree.
there he sat himself down and began to examine the wounded leg; it was terribly torn but mercifully not broken. peter washed the wound with some water from his flask, and bound the leg with some strips he tore from his handkerchief, the small creature ecstatically licking his hand the while.
“you know,” remonstrated peter, “a thing of your size should not be wandering about alone. it’s not correct. you might have known you’d get into difficulties.”
the puppy paused in its licking to look into his face with brown speaking eyes. they might have told peter a good deal—a sad little story of being hunted, hounded from place to place on account of his ugly little body, of a last frantic, terrified rush from a distant village, of presently trotting along a dusty road, of a turning into a wood which smelled pleasantly of rabbits and other things dear to a doggy nose, and of a final excruciating imprisonment, which had lasted through heaven knows how long of torment, till a big human being in the shape of peter had come to his rescue. all this those eyes might have said. at all events, peter read a bit of the story.
“i suppose, you poor atom,” he said whimsically, “that no one wanted you, so you set out to forage on your own account. well, we’re both in the same boat. shall we pull it together?”
it is not to be supposed that the puppy understood the precise words, but it unquestionably understood the tone, and it again fell to licking peter’s hand.
peter ferreted in his wallet. he found bread and meat, and together they shared a meal. water peter poured into his palm, and the small creature lapped greedily. finally it curled itself up beside him, and, despite a sore and wounded leg, dropped into a blissful and contented slumber. after a moment or so peter followed its example. he had not, it will be guessed, slept the previous night, and he had been tramping since daybreak. so now here were two wayfarers forgetting their woes in slumber, though the puppy, it may be safely averred, was confident that his woes were over.
the sun was slanting low through the wood when peter awakened. he opened his eyes and looked around without moving. the puppy—the laziness of it!—had not stirred. but, then, who knows how many hours of puppy sleepiness it had not to make up.
“ouf!” said peter, stretching himself hugely.
the puppy woke, started, cringed, felt the wound in its leg, and yelped.
peter picked it up with firm hands. “now look here,” he said solemnly, “we don’t want any more fear. you’ve got to forget that. do you understand? we’re going to be comrades, pals, you and i; and we’re both of us going to keep up brave hearts and cheer each other. you’ve got a wound in your leg, and i’ve got one in the region which i suppose is called the heart. you—you puppy thing! have the advantage over me, because with a bit of luck yours will mend in a few days. but anyhow, neither of us is going to whine. you’re going to bark cheerfully and wag your tail, and i’m going to write—presently, and grin as well as i know how. the world would be quite a decent place if people would let it be so, and we’re not going to add dulness to its poor old shoulders. it’s borne quite enough in its time. have you understood?”
a small red tongue trying to reach peter’s face testified to entire comprehension.
“very well, then. now come along, and as i presume you’d prefer not to walk on three legs i’ll carry you. you’re not much of a size, and only skin and bone at that.”
peter picked up his wallet and hitched his bundle to his back, which bundle was heavier than when we first met him. it now contained, further, a packet of manuscript, a writing-tablet, and—the foolishness of the vagabond!—a dress suit. the bundle adjusted to exactly that position which made its weight of the least concern, he tucked the small animal under his arm, with careful consideration for its wounded leg, and set off to the edge of the wood and once more down the dusty road. with some shrewdness, at the first two villages he passed, he hid the puppy under his coat with a whispered injunction to lie still, an injunction which was scrupulously observed. only by the tiniest quivering of the body and the quick beat of the heart against peter’s arm was the smallest sign of movement and life betrayed. villages, you perceive, were anathema to him, holding terror, pain, and everything that was most unholy and unpleasant.
they slept in a barn that night. before he slept peter took out and examined his manuscript by the light of a candle. then his face quivered.
“not to-night,” he said. “i can’t. i will to-morrow.”
he promised it like a child who cries “honest injun!” at the end of its speech.
“what would you do,” asked peter, addressing himself to the puppy, “if you felt uncommonly miserable and had made a promise to yourself and a puppy to be cheerful?”
the puppy looked at him, head on one side. then it yawned, a large wide yawn that began and ended in something remarkably like a grin. finally it crept to peter and curled down beside him in slumber.
“grin and bear it and sleep, i suppose,” said peter. “puppy, you’re a philosopher, and i think your name is democritus.”
