"What kind of dog is he?" I inquired swiftly.

Eileen said no more. There are problems that even girls of twenty cannot solve.

A warm bath had revealed to us the fact that the puppy was of a dingy yellow hue. I suggested that we should call him Mustard. Our son John, on being consulted--against my advice--by his mother, addressed the animal as p.u.s.s.y. Stella continued to favor Tiny. Finally Eileen, who was at the romantic age, produced a copy of Tennyson and suggested Excalibur, alleging in support of her preposterous proposition that

It rose from out the bosom of the lake.

"The darling rose from out the bosom of the lake, too, just like the sword Excalibur," she said; "so I think it would make a lovely name for him."

"The little brute waded out of a muddy pond towing a brick," I replied.

"I see no parallel. He was not the product of the pond. Some one must have thrown him in, and he came out."

"That is just what some one must have done with the sword," retorted Eileen. "So we"ll call you Excalibur, won"t we, darling little Scally?"

She embraced the puppy warmly and the unsuspecting animal replied by frantically licking her face.

However, the name stuck, with variations. When the puppy was big enough he was presented with a collar, engraved with the name Excalibur, together with my name and address. Among ourselves we usually addressed him as Scally. The children in the village called him the Scalawag.

His time during his first year in our household was fully occupied in growing up. Stella declared that if one could have persuaded him to stand still for five minutes it would have been actually possible to see him grow. He grew at the rate of about an inch a week for the best part of a year. When he had finished he looked like nothing on earth. At one time we cherished a brief but illusory hope that he was going to turn into some sort of an imitation of a St. Bernard; but the symptoms rapidly pa.s.sed off, and his final and permanent aspect was that of a rather badly stuffed lion.

Like most overgrown creatures he was top-heavy and lethargic and very humble-minded. Still, there was a kind of respectful pertinacity about him. It requires some strength of character, for instance, to wade along the bottom of a pond to dry land, accompanied by a brick as big as yourself. It was quite impossible, too, short of locking him up, to prevent him from accompanying us when we took our walks abroad, if he had made up his mind to do so.

The first time this happened I was going to shoot with my neighbors, the Hoods. It was only a mile to the first covert and I set off after breakfast to walk. I was hardly out on the road when Excalibur was beside me, ambling uncertainly on his weedy legs and smiling up into my face with an air of imbecile affection.

"You have many qualities, old friend," I said, "but I don"t think you are a sporting dog. Go home!"

Excalibur sat down on the road with a dejected air. Then, having given me fifty yards start, he rose and crawled sheepishly after me. I stopped, called him up, pointed him with some difficulty in the required direction, gave him a resounding spank and bade him begone. He responded by collapsing like a camp bedstead, and I left him.

Two minutes later I looked round. Excalibur was ten yards behind me, propelling himself along on his stomach. This time I thrashed him severely. After he began to howl I let him go, and he lumbered away homeward, the picture of misery.

In due course I reached the crossroads where I had arranged to meet the rest of the party. They had not arrived, but Excalibur had. He had made a detour and headed me off. Not certain which route I would take after reaching the crossroads, he was sitting very sensibly under the signpost, awaiting my arrival. On seeing me he immediately came forward, wagging his tail, and placed himself at my feet in the position most convenient to me for inflicting chastis.e.m.e.nt.

I wonder how many of our human friends would be willing to pay such a price for the pleasure of our company.

As time went on Excalibur filled out into one of the most terrifying spectacles I have ever beheld. In one respect, though, he lived up to his knightly name. His manners were of the most courtly description and he had an affectionate greeting for all, beggars included. He was particularly fond of children. If he saw children in the distance he would canter up and offer to play with them. If the children had not met him before they would run shrieking to their nurses. If they had they would fall on Excalibur in a body and roll him over and pull him about.

On wet afternoons, in the nursery, my own family used to play at dentist with him, a.s.signing to Excalibur the role of patient. Gas was administered with a bicycle pump, and a shoehorn and b.u.t.tonhook were employed in place of the ordinary instruments of torture; but Excalibur did not mind. He lay on his back on the hearth rug, with the princ.i.p.al dentist sitting astride his ribs, as happy as a king.

He was particularly attracted by babies; and being able by reason of his stature to look right down into perambulators, he was accustomed whenever he met one of those vehicles to amble alongside and peer inquiringly into the face of its occupant. Most of the babies in the district got to know him in time, but until they did we had a good deal of correspondence to attend to on the subject.

Excalibur"s intellect may have been lofty, but his memory was treacherous. Our household will never forget the day on which he was given the shoulder of mutton.

One morning after breakfast Eileen, accompanied by Excalibur, intercepted the kitchen maid hastening in the direction of the potting shed, carrying the joint in question at arm"s length. The damsel explained that its premature maturity was due to the recent warm weather and that she was even now in search of the gardener"s boy, who would be commissioned to perform the duties of s.e.xton.

"It seems a waste, miss," observed the kitchen maid; "but cook says it can"t be ate nohow now."

Loud but respectful snuffings from Excalibur moved a direct negative to this statement. Eileen and the kitchen maid, who were both criminally weak where Excalibur was concerned, saw a way to gratify their economical instincts and their natural affection simultaneously. The next moment Excalibur was lurching contentedly down the gravel path with a presentation shoulder of mutton in his mouth.

Then Joy Day began. Excalibur took his prize into the middle of the tennis lawn. It was a very large shoulder of mutton, but Excalibur finished it in ten minutes. After that, distended to his utmost limits, he went to sleep in the sun, with the bone between his paws.

Occasionally he woke up and, raising his head, stared solemnly into s.p.a.ce, in the att.i.tude of a Trafalgar Square lion.

The bone now lay white and gleaming on the gra.s.s beside him. Then he fell asleep again. About four o"clock he roused himself and began to look for a suitable place of interment for the bone. By four-thirty the deed was done and he went to sleep once more. At five he woke up and pandemonium began. He could not remember where he had buried the bone!

He started systematically with the rose beds, but met with no success.

After that he tried two or three shrubberies without avail, and then embarked on a frantic but thorough excavation of the tennis lawn. We were taking tea on the lawn at the time, and our attention was first drawn to Excalibur"s bereavement by a temporary but unshakable conviction on his part that the bone was buried immediately underneath the tea table.

As the tennis lawn was fast beginning to resemble a golf course we locked Excalibur up in the washhouse, where his hyena-like howls rent the air for the rest of the evening, penetrating even to the dining-room. This was particularly unfortunate, because we were having a dinner party in honor of a neighbor who had recently come to the district, no less a personage, in fact, than the new lord-lieutenant of the county and his lady. Stella was naturally anxious that there should be no embarra.s.sments on such an occasion, and it distressed her to think that these people should imagine that we kept a private torture chamber on the premises.

However, dinner pa.s.sed off quite successfully and we adjourned to the drawing-room. It was a chilly September evening and Lady Wickham was accommodated with a seat by the fire in a large armchair, with a cushion at her back. When the gentlemen came in Eileen sang to us. Fortunately the drawing-room is out of range of the washhouse.

During Eileen"s first song I sat by Lady Wickham. Her expression was one of patrician calm and well-bred repose, but it seemed to me she was not looking quite comfortable. I was not feeling quite comfortable myself.

The atmosphere seemed a trifle oppressive: perhaps we had done wrong in having a fire after all. Lady Wickham appeared to notice it too. She sat very upright, fanning herself mechanically, and seemed disinclined to lean back in her chair.

After the song was finished I said:

"I am afraid you are not quite comfortable, Lady Wickham. Let me get you a larger cushion."

"Thank you," said Lady Wickham, "the cushion I have is delightfully comfortable; but I think there is something hard behind it."

Apologetically I plucked away the cushion. Lady Wickham was right; there was something behind it.

It was Excalibur"s bone!

IV

A WALK along the village street was always a great event for Excalibur. Still, it must have contained many humiliating moments for one of his sensitive disposition; for he was always pathetically anxious to make friends with other dogs, but was rarely successful. Little dogs merely bit his legs and big dogs cut him dead.

I think this was why he usually commenced his morning round by calling on a rabbit. The rabbit lived in a hutch in a yard at the end of a pa.s.sage between two cottages, the first turning on the right after you entered the village, and Excalibur always dived down this at the earliest opportunity. It was no use for Eileen, who usually took him out on these occasions, to endeavor to hold him back. Either Excalibur called on the rabbit by himself or Eileen went with him; there was no other alternative.

Arrived at the hutch, Excalibur wagged his tail and contemplated the rabbit with his usual air of vacuous benevolence. The rabbit made not the faintest response, but continued to munch green feed, twitching its nose in a superior manner. Finally, when it could endure Excalibur"s admiring inspection and hard breathing no longer, it turned its back and retired into its bedroom.

Excalibur"s next call was usually at the butcher"s shop, where he was presented with a specially selected and quite unsalable fragment of meat. He then crossed the road to the baker"s, where he purchased a halfpenny bun, for which his escort was expected to pay. After that he walked from shop to shop, wherever he was taken, with great docility and enjoyment; for he was a gregarious animal and had a friend behind or underneath almost every counter in the village. Men, women, babies, kittens, even ducks--they were all one to him.

At one time Eileen had endeavored to teach him a few simple accomplishments, such as begging for food, dying for his country, and carrying parcels. She was unsuccessful in all three instances. Excalibur on his hind legs stood about five feet six, and when he fell from that eminence, as he invariably did when he tried to beg, he usually broke something. He was hampered, too, by inability to distinguish one order from another. More than once he narrowly escaped with his life through mistaking an urgent appeal to come to heel out of the way of an approaching automobile for a command to die for his country in the middle of the road.

As for educating him to carry parcels, a single attempt was sufficient.

The parcel in question contained a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of articles from the grocer"s, including lard, soap, and safety matches. It was securely tied up, and the grocer kindly attached it by a short length of string to a wooden clothespin, in order to make it easier for Excalibur to carry. They set off home.

Excalibur was most apologetic about it afterward, besides being extremely unwell; but he had no idea, he explained to Eileen, that anything put into his mouth was not meant to be eaten. He then tendered the clothespin and some mangled brown paper, with an air of profound abas.e.m.e.nt. After that no further attempts at compulsory education were undertaken.

It was his daily walk with Eileen, however, which introduced Excalibur to life--life in its broadest and most romantic sense. As I was not privileged to be present at the opening incident of this episode, or at most of its subsequent developments, the direct conduct of this narrative here pa.s.ses out of my hands.

One sunny morning in July a young man in clerical attire sat breakfasting in his rooms at Mrs. Tice"s. Mrs. Tice"s establishment was situated on the village street and Mrs. Tice was in the habit of letting her ground floor to lodgers of impeccable respectability.