Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men

by Donald McCaig

  When I got her home, and set her at liberty among our own sheep, he took it highly amiss. I could scarcely prevail with him to let her go; and so dreadfully was he affronted that she should have been let go free after all his toil and trouble that he would not come near me all the way to the house, nor yet taste any supper when we got there. I believe he wanted me to take her home and kill her.

  He had one very laughable peculiarity, which often created no little disturbance about the house—it was an outrageous ear for music. He never heard music but he drew towards it; and he never drew towards it but he joined in it with all his vigour. Many a good psalm, song, and tune he spoiled; for when he set fairly to, at which he was not slack, the voices of others had no chance with his. It was customary with the worthy old farmer with whom I resided to perform family worship evening and morning; and before he began, it was always necessary to drive Sirrah to the fields and close the door. If this was at any time forgot or neglected, the moment that the psalm was raised he joined with all his zeal, and at such a rate, that he drowned the voices of the family before three lines could be sung. Nothing further could be done till Sirrah was expelled. But then! when he got to the peat-stack knoll outside the door, especially if he got a blow in going out, he did give his powers of voice full scope, without mitigation, and even at that distance he was often a hard match for us all.

  Some imagined that it was from a painful sensation that he did this. No such thing. Music was his delight; it always drew him towards it like a charm. I slept in the byre-loft—Sirrah in the hay nook in a corner below. When sore fatigued, I sometimes retired to my bed before the hour of family worship. In such cases, whenever the psalm was raised in the kitchen, which was but a short distance, Sirrah left his lair; and laying his ear close to the bottom of the door to hear more distinctly, he growled a low note in accompaniment, till the sound expired: and then rose, shook his ears, and returned to his hay-nook. Sacred music affected him most; but in either that or any slow tune, when the tones dwelt upon the key-note, they put him quite beside himself; his eyes had the gleam of madness in them; and he sometimes quitted singing, and literally fell to barking.

  The most painful part of Sirrah’s history yet remains; but in memory of himself, it must be set down. He grew old, and unable to do my work by himself. I had a son of his coming up that promised well, and was a greater favourite with me than ever the other was. The times were hard, and the keeping of them both was a tax upon my master which I did not like to impose, although he made no remonstrances. I was obliged to part with one of them; so I sold old Sirrah to a neighbouring shepherd for three guineas. Sirrah was accustomed to go with any of the family when I ordered him and run at their bidding the same as at my own; but then, when he came home at night, a word of approbation from me was recompense sufficient, and he was ready next day to go with whomsoever I commanded him. Of course, when I sold him to this lad, he went away when I ordered him, without any reluctance, and wrought for him all that day and the next as well as ever he did in his life. But when he found that he was abandoned by me, and doomed to be the slave of a stranger for whom he did not care, he would never again do another feasible turn. The lad said that he ran in among the sheep like a pup, and seemed intent on doing him all the mischief he could. The consequence was, the lad was obliged to part with him in a short time; but he had more honour than I had, for he took him to his father, and desired him to foster Sirrah, and be kind to him as long as he lived, for the sake of what he had been; and this injunction the old man faithfully performed.

  Sirrah came back to see me now and then for months after he went away, but afraid of the mortification of being driven from the farmhouse, he never came there; but knowing well the road that I took to the hill in the morning, he lay down near to that. When he saw me coming he did not venture near me, but walked round the hill keeping always about 200 yards off, and then returned to his new master again, satisfied for the time that there was no more shelter with his beloved old one for him. When I thought how easily one kind word would have attached him to me for life, and how grateful it would have been to my faithful old servant and friend, I could not help regretting my hard fortune that obliged us to separate. That unfeeling tax on the shepherd’s dog, his only bread-winner, has been the cause of much pain in this respect. The parting with old Sirrah, after all that he had done for me, had such an effect on my heart, that I have never been able to forget it to this day.

  II

  SIRRAH IN HEAVEN

  I interviewed the handsome, black, rough coated beast on the heights of Broad Law, above Meggat Water, in early September. Although I’d arranged with Sirrah to meet at daybreak, I had some slight difficulty finding heaven and by my arrival at the foot of Broad Law, the sun was well up and Sirrah away on his morning gather. Though I am accustomed to hard walking, Broad Law is a painfully steep slope; my jersey was tied at my waist and perspiration had created a collar round my neck long before I attained the old bucht (sheepfold) Sirrah had approved for our meeting. Despite the cruel grade, the slope was often interrupted by freshets, and when I took breath on the infrequent narrow terraces, my feet sank into peat moss and water bubbled over my shoes. The weather was uncertain, and bold clouds skated across the autumnal sky. My bulky tape recorder clapped against my hip and snagged in the thickets of bracken. Away to the east, Dollar Law was streaked with purple heather. A duet of oyster catchers swooped around me, curious at my presence on this vertical moor where only collie dogs and shepherds commonly ventured.

  The bucht was a rude enclosure of mortared stone with a chest-high gate on wooden hinges, these weathered gray as the stone itself. A bar of darker wood slid through the gate into a recess in the stone and thus secured the passageway.

  The bones at the forefront of my cranium strained and thumped from my vertical exertions, and my nose ran copiously. Gratefully, I sprawled on a great stone slab the bucht’s builders had found too unmanageable to incorporate into their structure. Very far below, mists attended the head of Meggat Water, and as they swirled this way and that, the sun glanced against them and brushed them spun gold. That dot in the sky, a hand’s span from the sun, might have been a harrier hawk, searching the bleak landscape for a vole or small hare. Nits on nearby Black Law I thought to be roe deer, though they might as easily have been sheep. The sun had graciously warmed the stone wall at my back.

  It became apparent that I had damaged my recorder during my climb, for when I executed a routine test, the machine and its instruments lay mute and motionless in my lap. I’d thought the batteries were fresh, but evidently had been mistaken. Thus, the reader interested in the details Sirrah related must rely on notes I made at the time and my recollections, transcribed subsequently.

  When Sirrah first swung into sight, he followed a narrow footpath that coursed the hill below the old bucht. This footpath would have been indistinguishable from just yards away, but Sirrah had traveled it so habitually that he spared it not a glance. Instead, his attention was riveted down the slope, where, shortly, a group of some three-score ewes came into sight, attended by another, younger dog who bore a strong resemblance, I fancied, to Sirrah himself.

  Although the younger dog had his sheep well in hand, marching them along in a fluid, steady manner, the elder dog’s countenance bore a critical cast, like a master unsatisfied with an apprentice’s work that is not quite up to the mark. The sheep were blackface yearlings in moderate fleece.

  Although Sirrah spied me the moment he hove into sight, except for that single glance, he reserved his gaze for the sheep until they were well away and around the next shoulder of the hill. He then alloted me a second, scarcely lengthier inspection and a grimace, insufficiently concealed, before he bent to a pool of spring water and lapped his fill.

  Sirrah was a burly, stately dog. His chest was exceptionally deep and served to lower his center of gravity between his stout forelegs. His tail, which hung stiffly between his buttocks, was encrusted with thistles and burrs and r
ather resembled a bailiff’s cudgel. If Sirrah was conscious of the disheveled aspect of his appearance, he gave no outward sign, but kept his yellow eyes affixed to me, cataloging (I could not help but think) my damp, pale countenance, my posture, which by its slackness revealed one who was unaccustomed to these heights and the rigors of an existence he had endured for so many unvarying seasons. Had I been erect, our encounter might well have proceeded differently, with a proper authority accruing to the man rather than to the dog, but on my elbow, like a Roman senator on his pleasure couch, my eyes were just on Sirrah’s level, and I understood too well that he, dog, was in his element here and that I was the interloper.

  “You will not pat my head?” After his initial, confident perusal, Sirrah’s request betrayed a milder aspect, and I hastened my assurances. He was reluctant to take me at my word: “You Americans are the worst. You cannot encounter a dog, going about its lawful business, without stooping to paw at it. If you fondle me, sir, I will not be responsible for the consequences.”

  Again I gave my word.

  He came nearer then, though not so near he couldn’t retire at the first sign of unwanted attentions. He flopped down among the stones, but evidently had thistles in his breast fur, for he twitched from one side to the other, trying to find comfort and at last drew back on his haunches, where he resumed his cool inspection. “You’ll make no shepherd in this country,” he said. “You have the legs for the job, but you are overfond, I see, of meat and strong drink.”

  I flushed. I said something about having sheep in America. I fiddled with my tape recorder. Its dials, switches, and chromium finish that, yesterday, had seemed so serious, had a different message for me: Today they were smug, obstinate, useless.

  “America will be flat, then? A soft kind of place?”

  “No. Not all flat.”

  Sirrah had fight scars on his dark, striped nose and some gray hairs as well. He had the demeanor of an experienced dog, one at the height of his powers. Without further ado, we began the interview.

  “My mother, Matilda,” Sirrah began boldly, “was a thief. She was the chief servant and sole confidante of Ossian MacDowell, whose depredations outraged the countryside from Broughton to Biggar town. While yet a lad, MacDowell had made twin discoveries, one on the heels of the other. He discovered in himself a detestation of honest work and a delight in gold sovereigns. Ossian found no contradiction in this, but set out to learn how he could obtain the latter without necessity of the former. I suppose if Matilda had been less keen, Ossian MacDowell might have failed in his ambition. My mother was a black-and-white bitch and, unlike me, had a wide white ruff for a collar. Any night with sufficient moon that MacDowell could see Matilda’s ruff as she scoured another man’s paddocks for sheep—that night suited Ossian MacDowell well enough. Ossian’s whispered “Hist!” was enough to set mother on her way, and Ossian would proceed straightaway to the paddock gate where, promptly, Mother would reappear with a score of young ewes, not even panting at their unexpected exertions. Mother, Ossian MacDowell bragged, selected only ‘Good uns,’ but this was, doubtless, exaggeration. Though Ossian might drive his captives all night, on turnpike and over moor, circumnavigating the sheriff’s men, even passing through flocks of honest sheep, Matilda never faltered. For a time she fetched him more gold than an honest stockman could have earned by dint of the severest labor, and she (and I, too) dined on fresh-killed meat and slept on clean straw in the box of Ossian’s pony cart. In the pubs, we would settle under Ossian’s bench while he entertained others no better than he. Ossian made up new verses to familiar tunes, oft times another would take up fiddle and bow and while the gay airs played, my mother would dance on her hinder legs—quite charming she was—and sometimes I’d sing.

  His drinking mates warned Ossian that his activities were suspected, farmers who’d lost sheep kept secret watch on him day and night, but as long as he and Matilda could slip away onto the Hill, no man could catch them.

  In the end, the butcher who bought from them betrayed them. Discovered with marked lambs in his yard, the butcher swore he’d been misled by that scoundrel Ossian MacDowell and ‘that devil bitch of his.’ ”

  Overcome by these recollections, Sirrah’s voice faltered. “For his crimes, Ossian was transported to Botany Bay, but the convict camp couldn’t hold him. Within a fortnight, he’d fled into the Australian hinterlands, where he resumed his sheep-stealing ways. Without Mother as accomplice, he fared poorly, was soon apprehended, and, on this occasion, hung. The Australian tune ‘Waltzing Matilda’ is, I understand, Ossian MacDowell’s tribute to my mother.”

  Sirrah described the Broughton farmer who’d promptly murdered Ossian’s bitch. She had, the farmer claimed, a thieving nature, and left alive, another thief would soon find the same employment for her Ossian MacDowell had. The farmer demanded the pup as partial recompense for his losses, and though Sirrah was a strong whelp, ready to start his life’s work, the farmer hurled him into a dank windowless byre and left him to the attentions of the fleas and lice that inhabited that dark place.

  “One afternoon,” he continued, “the stone at the entrance of my tomb was rolled aside, and I was tugged into blinding sunlight. Whereupon, the farmer’s son sold me to a cattle drover who hoped I would be useful, nipping the heels of cattle enroute to market. Thereafter, I marched behind muddy or dusty cattle from Peebles to Edinburgh, Galashiels to Lanark. Once his beasts were sold, and my master’s purse engorged, he’d eye me with a thrifty, penny-pinching eye. My work was done. Should he abandon me to run with the packs of the similarly discarded curs who thronged these towns? Could he save a farthing by knocking me on the head? Fortunately, drink always interrupted these subtle calculations and always, next morning, I would once more be following behind him, attached to his cart by a rope as thick as my forepaw.

  “When the drover was fu [drunk], it was his unvarying custom to lash me with this rope while inquiring in a bellow, ‘What do you think about this, then, ye brute? How do ye ken this?’ Whenever he returned to the cart, late, singing of Bonnie Dundee, I’d creep between the wheels and tremble.

  “We were returning from Lanark market one spring morning, when I first encountered James Hogg. My master had squandered his droving fee on drink and a portion of the cattle price as well. Since those cattle had not been his own, this morning found him palsied, foul, and trembling, in short, of a mood to make any bargain.

  “Oft times, Master Hogg has said he recognized my working abilities straightaway, the moment he looked at me, but I cannot swear to that. The guinea he bought me with was a full month’s wages, and I took the place of the woolen cloak he badly required. I think he bought me of Christ’s mercy.”

  The brute turned his head away then, that I mightn’t remark the moisture welling in his great yellow eyes. When he continued, his deep voice was softer than it had been. “When that man bent to eye me in my eyes, I was more frightened than I’d been on those dark wild nights when I thought the drover meant to have my life. Though he was innocent of harm, Master Hogg would create something in me that hadn’t been mine before. Looking into the eyes of James Hogg, that day, I felt the first painful stirrings of my soul.”

  Overcome by his recollections, he withdrew himself to a low outcropping, where he could peruse the harsh slopes of his eternal domain, and there he remained until he had recovered himself.

  When he resumed his narrative, he began to pace before me, like a country schoolmaster exhorting his pupils to achieve a fine comprehension of matters that he, in the deepest recesses of his own heart, finds quite as puzzling as do his charges. “Some years after I first came to this place, I was given to understand that the drover who’d so abused me was due to arrive in his turn. All arrivals here, lowly and holy, appear at the Great Gates where they are welcomed. Our Lord dearly loves bazaars and marketplaces, and the Great Gates, I am told, are not unlike Jerusalem Market, though greater in scale. Here enter men and women and infants, christened though yet unable to wa
lk (the angels gather these new souls to their bosoms, and I won’t say who is gladdest, the angels or the burdens they joyfully endure). There are hostlers to meet arriving horses: vaqueros, gauchos, Comanches; how they elbow each other when some splendid steed comes through the gate. There are dog men for the dogs. And for the rare cats and tamed wild animals and pet zebus and ostriches and sheep, there are angels to explain things. I do not envy those angels—guiding, patiently counseling, allaying fears, but angels are ferlies, inexhaustible. It is a rare Babylon of languages, and with my own ears, I have heard an angel greeting a Sisserou Parrot in his own chittering tongue.