by Jack London
CHAPTER IV
Irish terriers, when they have gained maturity, are notable, not alonefor their courage, fidelity, and capacity for love, but for their cool-headedness and power of self-control and restraint. They are less easilyexcited off their balance; they can recognize and obey their master'svoice in the scuffle and rage of battle; and they never fly into nervoushysterics such as are common, say, with fox-terriers.
Michael possessed no trace of hysteria, though he was moretemperamentally excitable and explosive than his blood-brother Jerry,while his father and mother were a sedate old couple indeed compared withhim. Far more than mature Jerry, was mature Michael playful androwdyish. His ebullient spirits were always on tap to spill over on theslightest provocation, and, as he was afterwards to demonstrate, he couldweary a puppy with play. In short, Michael was a merry soul.
"Soul" is used advisedly. Whatever the human soul may be--informingspirit, identity, personality, consciousness--that intangible thingMichael certainly possessed. His soul, differing only in degree, partookof the same attributes as the human soul. He knew love, sorrow, joy,wrath, pride, self-consciousness, humour. Three cardinal attributes ofthe human soul are memory, will, and understanding; and memory, will, andunderstanding were Michael's.
Just like a human, with his five senses he contacted with the worldexterior to him. Just like a human, the results to him of these contactswere sensations. Just like a human, these sensations on occasionculminated in emotions. Still further, like a human, he could and didperceive, and such perceptions did flower in his brain as concepts,certainly not so wide and deep and recondite as those of humans, butconcepts nevertheless.
Perhaps, to let the human down a trifle from such disgraceful identity ofthe highest life-attributes, it would be well to admit that Michael'ssensations were not quite so poignant, say in the matter of aneedle-thrust through his foot as compared with a needle-thrust throughthe palm of a hand. Also, it is admitted, when consciousness suffusedhis brain with a thought, that the thought was dimmer, vaguer than asimilar thought in a human brain. Furthermore, it is admitted thatnever, never, in a million lifetimes, could Michael have demonstrated aproposition in Euclid or solved a quadratic equation. Yet he was capableof knowing beyond all peradventure of a doubt that three bones are morethan two bones, and that ten dogs compose a more redoubtable host than dotwo dogs.
One admission, however, will not be made, namely, that Michael could notlove as devotedly, as wholeheartedly, unselfishly, madly,self-sacrificingly as a human. He did so love--not because he wasMichael, but because he was a dog.
Michael had loved Captain Kellar more than he loved his own life. Nomore than Jerry for Skipper, would he have hesitated to risk his life forCaptain Kellar. And he was destined, as time went by and the convictionthat Captain Kellar had passed into the inevitable nothingness along withMeringe and the Solomons, to love just as absolutely this six-quartsteward with the understanding ways and the fascinating lip-caress.Kwaque, no; for Kwaque was black. Kwaque he merely accepted, as anappurtenance, as a part of the human landscape, as a chattel of DagDaughtry.
But he did not know this new god as Dag Daughtry. Kwaque called him"marster"; but Michael heard other white men so addressed by the blacks.Many blacks had he heard call Captain Kellar "marster." It was CaptainDuncan who called the steward "Steward." Michael came to hear him, andhis officers, and all the passengers, so call him; and thus, to Michael,his god's name was Steward, and for ever after he was to know him andthink of him as Steward.
There was the question of his own name. The next evening after he cameon board, Dag Daughtry talked it over with him. Michael sat on hishaunches, the length of his lower jaw resting on Daughtry's knee, thewhile his eyes dilated, contracted and glowed, his ears ever pricking andrepricking to listen, his stump tail thumping ecstatically on the floor.
"It's this way, son," the steward told him. "Your father and mother wereIrish. Now don't be denying it, you rascal--"
This, as Michael, encouraged by the unmistakable geniality and kindnessin the voice, wriggled his whole body and thumped double knocks ofdelight with his tail. Not that he understood a word of it, but that hedid understand the something behind the speech that informed the stringof sounds with all the mysterious likeableness that white gods possessed.
"Never be ashamed of your ancestry. An' remember, God loves theIrish--Kwaque! Go fetch 'm two bottle beer fella stop 'm alongicey-chestis!--Why, the very mug of you, my lad, sticks out Irish allover it." (Michael's tail beat a tattoo.) "Now don't be blarneyin' me.'Tis well I'm wise to your insidyous, snugglin', heart-stealin' ways.I'll have ye know my heart's impervious. 'Tis soaked too long this manya day in beer. I stole you to sell you, not to be lovin' you. Icould've loved you once; but that was before me and beer was introduced.I'd sell you for twenty quid right now, coin down, if the chance offered.An' I ain't goin' to love you, so you can put that in your pipe 'n' smokeit."
"But as I was about to say when so rudely interrupted by your 'fectionateways--"
Here he broke off to tilt to his mouth the opened bottle Kwaque handedhim. He sighed, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and proceeded.
"'Tis a strange thing, son, this silly matter of beer. Kwaque, theMethusalem-faced ape grinnin' there, belongs to me. But by my faith do Ibelong to beer, bottles 'n' bottles of it 'n' mountains of bottles of itenough to sink the ship. Dog, truly I envy you, settin' therecomfortable-like inside your body that's untainted of alcohol. I may ownyou, and the man that gives me twenty quid will own you, but never will amountain of bottles own you. You're a freer man than I am, Mister Dog,though I don't know your name. Which reminds me--"
He drained the bottle, tossed it to Kwaque, and made signs for him toopen the remaining one.
"The namin' of you, son, is not lightly to be considered. Irish, ofcourse, but what shall it be? Paddy? Well may you shake your head.There's no smack of distinction to it. Who'd mistake you for ahod-carrier? Ballymena might do, but it sounds much like a lady, my boy.Ay, boy you are. 'Tis an idea. Boy! Let's see. Banshee Boy? Rotten.Lad of Erin!"
He nodded approbation and reached for the second bottle. He drank andmeditated, and drank again.
"I've got you," he announced solemnly. "Killeny is a lovely name, andit's Killeny Boy for you. How's that strike your honourableness?--high-soundin', dignified as a earl or . . . or a retired brewer. Many's theone of that gentry I've helped to retire in my day."
He finished his bottle, caught Michael suddenly by both jowls, and,leaning forward, rubbed noses with him. As suddenly released, withthumping tail and dancing eyes, Michael gazed up into the god's face. Adefinite soul, or entity, or spirit-thing glimmered behind his dog'seyes, already fond with affection for this hair-grizzled god who talkedwith him he knew not what, but whose very talking carried delicious andunguessable messages to his heart.
"Hey! Kwaque, you!"
Kwaque, squatted on the floor, his hams on his heels, paused from therough-polishing of a shell comb designed and cut out by his master, andlooked up, eager to receive command and serve.
"Kwaque, you fella this time now savvee name stop along this fella dog.His name belong 'm him, Killeny Boy. You make 'm name stop 'm insidehead belong you. All the time you speak 'm this fella dog, you speak 'mKilleny Boy. Savvee? Suppose 'm you no savvee, I knock 'm block offbelong you. Killeny Boy, savvee! Killeny Boy. Killeny Boy."
As Kwaque removed his shoes and helped him undress, Daughtry regardedMichael with sleepy eyes.
"I've got you, laddy," he announced, as he stood up and swayed towardbed. "I've got your name, an' here's your number--I got that, too: _high-strung but reasonable_. It fits you like the paper on the wall.
"High-strung but reasonable, that's what you are, Killeny Boy,high-strung but reasonable," he continued to mumble as Kwaque helped toroll him into his bunk.
Kwaque returned to his polishing. His lips stammered and halted in themaking of noiseless whispers, a
s, with corrugated brows of puzzlement, headdressed the steward:
"Marster, what name stop 'm along that fella dog?"
"Killeny Boy, you kinky-head man-eater, Killeny Boy, Killeny Boy," DagDaughtry murmured drowsily. "Kwaque, you black blood-drinker, run n'fetch 'm one fella bottle stop 'm along icey-chestis."
"No stop 'm, marster," the black quavered, with eyes alert for somethingto be thrown at him. "Six fella bottle he finish altogether."
The steward's sole reply was a snore.
The black, with the twisted hand of leprosy and with a barely perceptibleinfiltration of the same disease thickening the skin of the foreheadbetween the eyes, bent over his polishing, and ever his lips moved,repeating over and over, "Killeny Boy."