And Jock?
But I never saw my dog again. For a year or so he lived something of the old veld life, trekking and hunting. From time to time I heard of him from Ted and others. Stories seemed to gather easily about him as they do about certain people, and many knew Jock and were glad to bring news of him. The things they thought wonderful and admirable made pleasant news for them to tell and welcome news to me, and they were heard with contented pride, but without surprise.
One day I received word from Ted that he was off to Scotland for a few months and had left Jock with another old friend, Tom Barnett. For a few months it would not matter, but I had no idea of letting Jock end his days as a watch-dog at a trader’s store.
When Jock saw or scented the thieves and the mongrel dogs that used to sneak into Tom’s store and his house stealing everything they could get he fought to kill, and not as town dogs fight. He had learnt his work in a hard school, and he never stopped or slackened until the work was done. So his fame soon spread and it brought Tom more peace than he had enjoyed for many a day.
However, things did not always work out so simply at night. The dogs from the surrounding kraals prowled about scavenging and thieving and, what angered Tom most of all, killing his fowls. The yard at the back of the store was enclosed by a fence of reeds, and in the middle of the yard stood the fowl house with a clear space of bare ground all round it. On many occasions dogs had found their way through the reed fence and killed fowls perching about the yard, and several times they had burgled the fowl house itself. In spite of Jock’s presence and reputation, this night robbing still continued, for while he slept peacefully in front of the store, the robbers would do their work at the back. Poor old fellow. They were many and he was one. They prowled night and day and he had to sleep sometimes. They were watchful and he was deaf. So, he had no chance at all unless he saw or scented them.
There were two small windows looking out on to the yard, but no door in the back of the building. Thus, in order to get into the yard, it was necessary to go out of the front door and round the side of the house. On many occasions Tom, roused by the screaming of the fowls, had seized his gun and run round to get a shot at the thieves; but the time so lost was enough for the dog, and the noise made in opening the reed gate gave ample warning of his coming.
The result was that Tom generally had all his trouble for nothing. But it was not always so. Several times he roused Jock as he ran out, and invariably got some satisfaction out of what followed. Once Jock caught one of the thieves struggling to force a way through the fence and held on to the hind leg until Tom came up with the gun. On other occasions he had caught them in the yard, or had run them down in the bush and finished it off there without help or hindrance.
That was the kind of life to which Jock seemed to have settled down.
He was then in the very prime of life, and I still hoped to get him back to me some day to a home where he would end his days in peace. Yet it seemed impossible to picture him in a life of ease and idleness – a watch-dog living in a house, sleeping away his life on a mat; his only excitement keeping off strange men and stray dogs, or burrowing for rats and moles in a garden; with old age, deafness, and infirmities growing year by year to make his end miserable. I had often thought that it might have been better had he died fighting.
Well, Jock is dead. Jock, the innocent cause of Seedling’s downfall and death, lies buried under the same big fig tree. The graves stand side by side. He died, as he lived – true to his trust. This is how it happened, as it was faithfully told to me:
It was a bright moonlight night – think of the scores we had spent together, the mild glorious nights of the bushveld – and once more Tom was roused by a clatter of falling boxes and the wild screams of fowls in the yard. Only the night before the thieves had beaten him again, but this time he was determined to get even with them. Jumping out of bed he opened the little window looking out on to the fowl house, and, with his gun resting on the sill, waited for the thief. He waited long and patiently. By and by the screaming of the fowls subsided enough for him to hear the gurgling and scratching about in the fowl house, and he settled down to a still longer watch. Evidently the dog was enjoying his stolen meal in there.
‘Go on! Finish it!’ Tom muttered grimly; ‘I’ll have you this time if I wait till morning!’
So he stood at the window waiting and watching, until every sound had died away outside. He listened intently. There was not a stir. There was nothing to be seen in the moonlit yard, nothing to be heard, not even a breath of air to rustle the leaves in the big fig tree.
Then, in the same dead stillness the dim form of a dog appeared in the doorway, stepped softly out of the fowl house, and stood in the deep shadow of the little porch. Tom lifted the gun slowly and took careful aim. When the smoke cleared away, the figure of the dog lay still, stretched out on the ground where it had stood. Tom went back to bed, satisfied.
The morning sun slanting across the yard shone in Tom’s eyes as he pushed the reed gate open and made his way towards the fowl house. Under the porch where the sunlight touched it, something shone like burnished gold.
He was stretched on his side – it might have been in sleep. But on the snow-white chest there was one red spot.
And inside the fowl house lay the thieving dog – dead.
Jock had done his duty.
